[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 17, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6687-S6706]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, twice in the last 2 weeks I have asked a 
unanimous consent to proceed to consider Calendar No. 97. I would like 
to do that again at this time. We have advised the Republican side of 
the aisle I will be doing that, so I will proceed with that at this 
point.

[[Page S6688]]

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
executive session to consider Calendar No. 97, the nomination of Hilary 
Chandler Tompkins to be the Solicitor of the Department of the 
Interior, that the nomination be confirmed, that the motion to 
reconsider be laid on the table, that no further motions be in order, 
that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the 
Record, that upon confirmation the President be immediately notified of 
the Senate's action, and that the Senate then resume legislative 
session.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I do object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is 
recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I object on behalf of the minority because they have 
not yet had time to clear this on our side, but certainly we will work 
with you going forward to be able to expedite this nomination.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me comment briefly. I regret 
objection has been raised again. This nomination was reported out of 
our Energy and Natural Resources Committee on April 30. Of course, we 
are now at June 17. There was no testimony at our committee hearing or 
no suggestion made by anybody that Ms. Tompkins was not qualified for 
this position. Clearly, she is qualified and well qualified for this 
position. She has served in important positions in our State government 
in New Mexico. She is, by education and experience, eminently qualified 
to be the Solicitor.
  I also point out to my colleagues, she is the first Native American 
to be nominated by the President to be the Solicitor for the Department 
of the Interior, and she is the second woman in the history of this 
country to be nominated to be the Solicitor of the Department of the 
Interior.
  This is an extremely important position. Secretary Salazar is trying 
very hard to put together a team of people who can help him to do the 
job of Secretary of Interior, and he needs a person in this Solicitor's 
office he can depend upon. He has chosen her to be that person.
  To my mind, it is unacceptable for us to continue denying him the 
choice he has made, and the choice President Obama has made, for the 
Solicitor's office. It is very unfair to Ms. Tompkins to be denying her 
this position. Frankly, I have great difficulty understanding why she 
was singled out.
  There have been a great many nominees who have come before the Senate 
in the last couple of months in connection with the Department of the 
Interior responsibilities. Why we would be singling her out and holding 
her up while others have been approved I have great difficulty 
understanding.
  My colleagues say they need additional time. Frankly, I cannot 
understand what the additional time relates to. I know of no questions 
that need to be looked at. I know of no objections that have been 
raised to her nomination.
  I hope that if there is anything, any additional investigation or 
question that continues to exist on the Republican side, they would 
resolve that here in the next day or two so we can complete this 
nomination and get on with other business. But this is a very unfair 
situation with regard to this nominee. In my view, there is no 
justification for it. I know the Presiding Officer, Senator Udall, and 
I will continue to pursue this repeatedly over the coming days until 
this matter is resolved and she can be confirmed. I believe that once 
permission is given for her nomination to be voted on, she will be 
overwhelmingly confirmed. That is as it should be. But due to the 
arcane rules that we operate under in the Senate, the Republican 
Members have chosen to hold up this nomination very unfairly, in my 
view, and I think we will have to revisit it again in the next few 
days.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Health Care Reform

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I have been talking about, over the last 
several days, health care reform which is urgently needed. No one is 
satisfied with the status quo. We have all heard unfortunate stories 
about Americans who cope with health insurance. All Americans deserve 
access to high-quality health care. In a country as innovative and 
prosperous as ours, we can achieve that goal. Republicans believe we 
can do so by putting patients first. We believe Americans should be 
trusted with their own money to make wise decisions about the health 
care plan that best fits their family's needs. We do not believe 
forcing everyone into a one-size-fits-all, Washington-run system, as 
the President wants, is the solution to our health care problems. 
Indeed, we believe a Washington takeover would create a whole new set 
of problems, the likes of which are experienced every day in countries 
such as Canada and Great Britain.
  President Obama often says if you are insured and you like your 
current health care, you can keep it. But as I pointed out several 
times, the President's plan would, in fact, force millions of Americans 
into the government system by providing incentives for their employers 
to eliminate their coverage. Government-run health care systems in 
Canada and Great Britain have, over and over, failed the very patients 
they were created to serve. Access to doctors, tests, treatments, and 
medications is limited. Patients wait through painful months and years 
to get the treatment they need. The longer they wait, the more their 
conditions worsen. Medications are sometimes unavailable or the 
government may refuse to pay for them, despite the guarantee of 
universal coverage to all. Innovation and new medical technologies are 
not encouraged because they would lead to higher costs. Patients deal 
with bureaucratic hassles as they try to navigate their way through an 
overly complicated maze of rules. Americans want health care reform, 
but they don't want to experience the rationing and the ordeals that a 
government system would create.
  As opposition to this public option idea or Washington takeover 
grows, some Democrats have been trying to disguise this takeover with a 
new name. They have come up with the idea of calling it a health 
insurance co-op. This started with a very good idea from the Senator 
from North Dakota but has evolved into simply another name for a 
government-run insurance company. As we all know, a co-op in its purest 
form is a business controlled by its own members. Co-ops form when 
communities unite to solve a common problem or exchange goods and 
services. In Arizona, we have more than 100 co-ops all across the 
State. Some communities use them to get fresh food, electricity, 
hardware, heating fuel or create credit unions. A bloated, Washington-
run health care bureaucracy forced upon the public is not a co-op.
  As former Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt has 
written in a soon-to-be-published Fox News article he shared with me:

       A co-op that would be federally controlled, federally 
     funded, and federally staffed sounds like the public option 
     meets the new General Motors.

  In the era of the GM takeover, Washington controls the purse strings, 
pays the bills, dictates the rules. The same would be true of a 
Washington health care co-op.
  As Leavitt put it in this article:

       Washington healthcare would result in Americans being ``co-
     opted,'' rather than being given a ``co-op.''

  Americans are also concerned about the cost of the bills being 
proposed on the Democratic side. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget 
Office's preliminary estimate shows that the bill in the HELP Committee 
or the draft bill created by the senior Senators from Massachusetts and 
Connecticut--the piece of legislation I am talking about--would cost a 
trillion dollars over the course of 10 years but only would reduce the 
number of uninsured by 16 million. So a trillion dollars to bring 16 
million people into insurance status. For those who would be newly 
covered, the cost would be $65,185 per person for 10 years of coverage. 
That is

[[Page S6689]]

only a preliminary estimate for part of the plan. Of course, the 
preliminary estimate does not tell the whole story. What would it cost 
to cover the remaining 31 million who are thought not to have insurance 
or the millions who would be displaced from current private coverage 
with their employer into the public plan? Remember, I indicated that 
private employers would have no incentive to keep those people on their 
own rolls when it would be much cheaper to have them go to the 
government option.
  The bill also provides subsidies for families whose incomes reach 500 
percent of the poverty line which gets you close to $100,000.
  The first question one has to ask in these circumstances is, How do 
we pay for all of this, and who will pay. We are all familiar with the 
huge expenditures of this government since the beginning of the year on 
the so-called stimulus package, the so-called omnibus bill, the budget 
that has been provided, and now the supplemental that we will probably 
be taking up tomorrow, all of which adds trillions of dollars in more 
debt, more debt than all the other Presidents and Congresses of the 
United States put together. In fact, double that, and that is how much 
debt is created in just one budget of President Obama.
  We add on top of all of that a trillion, 2 trillion, who knows how 
much to try to find coverage for about 45 million people. We have not 
had the answers to the questions yet of how we would pay for it and who 
would pay, but we have seen proposals that range from taxes on beer and 
soda to juice, salty foods, eliminating charitable tax deductions. We 
even heard about a value-added tax that would tax everyone regardless 
of income. Would there be anything left that the Federal Government 
does not tax at the end of this?
  The HELP Committee would also establish a new prevention and public 
health investment fund. We don't know all the details, but what we have 
heard is that, it would direct billions of dollars to the government to 
do healthy things. Like what? Like building sidewalks and establishing 
new government-subsidized farmers markets. The idea is to encourage 
healthier lifestyles. I suppose that creating sidewalks so people can 
jog on sidewalks creates healthy lifestyles. I was at a farmers market 
this weekend. I didn't notice any Federal subsidies. I am sure the 
vegetables there are good for everybody, and it would be nice to have 
more farmers markets. But should the government be spending a lot of 
money on things such as that in the guise of trying to provide 
healthier Americans so we have less costly insurance? Encouraging 
healthier life styles is fine, but I don't think this is the kind of 
reform the American people have in mind. It is also indicative of a 
very wasteful and inefficient system, whenever it is run by the Federal 
Government in Washington.
  We all believe that families who can afford insurance should be 
helped. There are ways to do that. The poorest Americans are already 
eligible for Medicaid, and we should see to it that Medicaid and 
Medicare are strong and that everyone who is eligible signs up for 
them. One of the reasons there are so many uninsured is that many of 
the people who are eligible for private insurance or Medicaid have not 
signed up. We could get them signed up for that.
  That leads to another question about Washington-run health care. Will 
increased demands for government health care diminish the quality of 
care that is now received by America's seniors in Medicare? That is an 
important question for seniors to contemplate. They want Congress to 
find ways to ensure Medicare is solvent. They don't want us to divert 
the program's resources into a massive new entitlement for everyone. 
Yet we all know, as the President himself has said, that Medicare is 
not solvent. It is not sustainable. Now we are going to add additional 
burdens and expect that there would not be any negative impacts on 
America's seniors. I find that hard to believe.
  I haven't read anything in the Congressional Budget Office's 
preliminary report that makes me more optimistic about this. The 
preliminary numbers should make us even more weary of adding a new 
government program.
  Finally, we are told we must hurry up and pass the health care reform 
President Obama wants for the sake of the economy. The President 
pitched this same argument to Congress as he rushed us to pass the 
stimulus, which was packed with debt and waste, the details of which 
are now coming to light thanks to a new report by Senator Coburn. The 
reality is, the bulk of the money we passed for the stimulus should 
simply not be spent. That will not be efficiently spending taxpayer 
dollars. I argued at the time that rushing to borrow money to pass such 
an expensive and complex bill was irresponsible and a disservice to 
taxpayers. Administration economists insisted that if Congress hurried 
to pass the stimulus, unemployment would peak at 8 percent. Four months 
later, unemployment has now reached 9.4 percent, and here we are again 
being pressured to hurry up and spend another trillion taxpayer 
dollars.

  Republicans will not be rushed into passing the Democrats' health 
care bill. We are going to ask the tough questions. I think our 
constituents deserve answers to those questions. Based upon the track 
record so far, I wouldn't say the experts who have told us don't worry 
about the cost, everything will be fine, have not guessed right, as the 
Vice President said last Sunday. I don't think our constituents want us 
to hurry it. They want us to do it right. We want real reform, not more 
deficits, government waste, and unsustainable programs.
  As we reform health care, we need an approach that makes sure the 
patients come first and that no government bureaucrat stands in the way 
of the doctors prescribing treatments and medications their patients 
need. The success of America is largely due to the individual freedom 
we all enjoy. Individual freedom triumphs when the doctor-patient 
relationship remains free of government intervention. We must continue 
our great tradition as we pursue the health care reforms we all want.
  Let me comment on a piece of legislation Senator McConnell and I 
introduced. I would love to have everyone cosponsor this legislation. I 
am hoping we can get it adopted soon before we take up health care 
reform because it will inform us as to how we should deal with health 
care reform on what could be the most important issue Americans find 
involved with this. Americans want their fellow citizens to be insured. 
They wanted costs to be kept in check so they can afford insurance. 
They want both those things. But they don't want their care, the care 
they believe in and they like, interfered with in order to achieve 
these other two goals.
  One of the things they are most fearful of is that their care will be 
rationed. When we talk about saving money in Medicare in order to pay 
for insuring more Americans, seniors rightly question whether some of 
the care they have been getting is going to be denied them or that they 
will be delayed in getting that care.
  One of the ways that could be accomplished is by using something the 
Congress has already passed called comparative effectiveness research. 
That stimulus bill I talked of earlier appropriated $1.1 billion to 
conduct comparative effectiveness research. It wasn't necessary because 
it is done in the private sector all the time. Hospitals, medical 
schools, associations, groups of people who want to find out which 
treatment is best for the most people conduct this kind of research all 
the time. Is drug X or drug Y better to treat people when they have a 
certain condition? They run tests to see how the different medications 
perform. They then give those results to physicians who use that 
information in prescribing to their patients. It is a way we have found 
that we can provide better quality care for more people. Sometimes, by 
the way, we can save money as well.
  The point is not to try to figure out how to cut costs so we can deny 
certain care to people and, therefore, not have the cost of providing 
it. Unfortunately, that is one of the purposes to which this research 
could be put. It has been acknowledged by people both within the 
administration and without. The acting head of the National Institutes 
of Health, for example, talked about using this research for allocation 
of treatments.

  Allocation of treatments is another way of saying rationing. You 
decide

[[Page S6690]]

which treatments to allocate and which ones not to. This is the way it 
is done in Great Britain and Canada. They do not have enough money to 
pay for all the health care that physicians prescribe, so they simply 
delay some of the care until it is not needed anymore or the person 
dies or they deny it. For example, one of the policies was not to 
prescribe a drug--well, the doctor prescribes the drug, but not to fill 
the prescription for an eye condition until the patient was blind in 
one eye. Then you could get the drug.
  Americans do not want that. They do not want to have to suffer in 
that way when the medicines are available to treat them. What the 
government agency in Great Britain has said is: Look, we don't have 
enough money to give you all of the care your doctor says you need. We 
are going to have to make tough choices. We understand that will not 
please everyone. But there is no other way to use the limited dollars 
we have to provide this free care to everybody within the country.
  What we are saying is, we do not want America to get to that point 
where you have to ration the health care. In Great Britain they have a 
term called ``QALY.'' It stands for Quality Adjusted Life Years: QALY. 
What they have literally done is to say that a person's life is worth 
between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds--I gather that is probably about 
$35,000 or $40,000--and that in a year of your life, I think it comes 
out to about $125 a day. If the health care the doctor has prescribed 
costs more than that, then in most cases you do not get it, even though 
the doctor says you need it, and he is willing to prescribe it and help 
you with the procedure or treatment or taking the drug.
  I would hate to get to that point in the United States where we have 
an agency that says how much we think your life is worth every day--
$125--and says: Well, if the prescription of the doctor costs more than 
that, you are out of luck, we are not going to pay for it.
  Incidentally, the national health care system in Great Britain has an 
acronym for that agency; it is NICE. It is the National Institute for 
Health and Clinical Excellence, N-I-C-E: NICE--not so nice when you do 
not get the care your doctor says you need.
  What Senator McConnell and I have said is that the government cannot 
use this research, this comparative effectiveness research, for the 
purpose of denying your care. Obviously, it can be used for the purpose 
for which it was originally intended; namely, to figure out which 
treatments and prescriptions are best. But it cannot be used to deny 
treatment or service.
  We obviously make an exception for the FDA, the Federal Food and Drug 
Administration, which can say a certain drug is dangerous to your 
health. Obviously, that would be exempted from this prohibition. But 
otherwise we say you cannot ration health care with comparative 
effectiveness research.
  The bill pending before the HELP Committee actually creates an agency 
to use this research for that purpose. So there is a blatant attempt in 
the HELP Committee to use this research to ration care. Our legislation 
would stop that. We think we ought to pass it now to instruct the HELP 
Committee that we do not want that to happen.
  In the Finance Committee, it is more indirect. A private entity would 
conduct the research. But there is nothing to prevent the Federal 
Government from using the results of the research to delay or deny your 
care, to ration care.
  So for the bills that are being written in both committees, our 
legislation would provide direction that--whatever other reform we 
have--Americans are not going to have to worry about somebody getting 
in between their doctor and themselves, when the doctor says: I think 
you need this particular treatment, if their insurance provides for 
that. If not, there are other ways you can get the treatment; if it is 
a government program such as Medicare, you would be able to get the 
treatment. The government is not going to inject itself between you and 
your physician and say: You can't have that because it is too 
expensive.
  That is all our legislation does. I would hope my colleagues would be 
willing to support that legislation to give direction to the two 
committees to ensure that they do not, in their zeal to cut costs, 
write legislation that would have the effect of rationing health care.
  There are a lot of other concerns we have in putting this legislation 
together: concerns about a government-run insurance company to compete 
with the private insurance companies; a requirement that all employers 
provide health care, which, of course, would substantially add to their 
costs and might result in their hiring fewer people or paying the 
people who they do hire less money.
  There are a lot of different concerns we have. But, in my mind, the 
most serious one is this concern about rationing. Everybody wishes to 
lower costs. But the one way we cannot lower costs is by having the 
U.S. Government tell you that you cannot get medical care your doctor 
says you need.
  Let me conclude with this point: If you will think back, think back 
100 years ago to the year 1908. How much health care could you buy at 
the turn of the last century, say the year 1900, 1908? The answer is, 
not very much. Think back about 40 years before that, when President 
Lincoln was assassinated and the kind of treatment he got. It almost 
seems barbaric in our modern way of looking at things that there was 
not anything available to save his life.
  Now think of the incredible inventions and breakthroughs in medical 
science in the last 100 years, in the last 50 years, in the last 10 
years. Things have been invented. New medications, new pharmaceutical 
drugs, medical devices, new kinds of surgery, ways of treating all 
kinds of conditions have evolved so rapidly that we are extraordinarily 
fortunate to be able to buy all of this health care.
  So when people say we are spending too much on health care, I am not 
sure that is totally correct. To the extent there are more efficiencies 
in the system that can be brought to bear, of course we want to do 
things to incent those incentives. That is what some of the Republican 
proposals would do. But what we do not want to do is to put a 
government bureaucrat in between you and this incredible new medicine 
that is being invented every day.
  We should be glad we can spend more on health care if it is much 
better health care. As one of the experts in this area said: In 1980, 
if you had a heart attack, after 5 years, your chances of survival are 
about 60 percent. If you have that same heart attack today, your chance 
of survival is about 90 percent--so from 60 percent to 90 percent 
survival in a few years, based upon new medical breakthroughs. It costs 
a little more money. The question is, would you rather have 1980s 
health care at 1980s prices, or health care that is available today at 
today's prices? I submit almost all of us, when we are thinking about a 
loved one in our family, would say: I want the very best there is, the 
very best we can get.
  That is why Republicans say we want insurance to be affordable for 
everyone so that at least, if nothing else, for that catastrophic event 
in your life--such as a heart attack, for example--you will have all of 
the latest health care that America has available, and it will be paid 
for so you will have high-quality care.
  In some of these other countries, they say: We are sorry. We can't 
afford that. We can't afford to spend money on all these new 
breakthroughs. We are basically stuck with what we could afford back in 
1980, for example. And good luck. We know that is not going to help you 
all that much with your illness, but that is all we can afford to pay.
  That is what we are trying to avoid. We are trying to take a very 
small step first and say that, at a minimum, nothing in this 
legislation would allow the government to use comparative effectiveness 
research to ration our care. I do not think that is too much to ask. I 
would ask all of my colleagues to join Senator McConnell and me in 
sponsoring that legislation and seeing to it we can get it passed for 
the benefit of our families and our constituents.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page S6691]]

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I see Senator Bennett from Utah. How would 
the Senator like to do this I have about 5 minutes.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I wish to speak for 10 minutes in morning 
business following Senator Graham, and I ask unanimous consent to 
proceed on that basis. I will be speaking as in morning business, as I 
assume the Senator will be.
  Mr. GRAHAM. That is correct.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                         Detainee Abuse Photos

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I come to the floor to acknowledge an 
agreement I have reached with the majority leader and the 
administration regarding the issue of detainee abuse photos. I think, 
as my colleagues are well aware, there are some photos of alleged 
detainee abuse that have existed for several years; more of the same, 
nothing new. The President has decided to oppose their release.
  The ACLU filed a lawsuit asking for these photos to be released. 
General Petraeus and General Odierno are the two combat commanders, and 
I ask unanimous consent that their statements be printed in the Record 
following my remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the lawsuit said if these photos are 
released, our enemies will use them against our troops. These photos 
will incite additional violence against men and women serving overseas 
and Americans who are in theater. There is nothing new to be learned, 
according to the President. I agree with that. These are more of the 
same. The people involved at Abu Ghraib and other detainee abuse 
allegations have been dealt with. The effect of releasing these photos 
would be empowering our enemies. Every photo would become a bullet or 
an IED. I wish to applaud the President for saying he opposes their 
release.
  The status of the lawsuit is that there is a stay on the second 
circuit order that would allow the photos to be released until the 
Supreme Court hears the petition of certiorari filed by the Supreme 
Court.
  I have been promised two things that were important to me to remove 
my holds and to let the supplemental go without objection. No. 1, there 
would be a freestanding vote on the Lieberman-Graham amendment, the 
legislative solution to this lawsuit. The Senate has previously allowed 
this legislation to become a part of the supplemental war funding bill. 
It would prevent the disclosure of these photos for a 3-year period. If 
the Secretary of Defense said they were harmful to our national 
security interests, it could be renewed for 3 years. Senator Reid has 
indicated to me that before July 8 we will have a chance to vote on 
that provision as a freestanding bill, which I think will get the 
Senate back on record in a timely fashion before the next court 
hearing.
  Secondly, I wanted to be assured by the administration that if the 
Congress fails to do its part to protect these photos from being 
released, the President would sign an Executive order which would 
change their classification to be classified national security 
documents that would be outcome determinative of the lawsuit. Rahm 
Emanuel has indicated to me that the President is committed to not ever 
letting these photos see the light of day, but they agree with me that 
the best way to do it is for Congress to act.
  So in light of that, I am going to remove my hold on the bills I have 
a hold on, and I will support the supplemental. Because I think it is 
very important for our soldiers, airmen, sailors, marines--anybody 
deployed--civilian contractors and their families to know there is a 
game plan. We are going to support General Petraeus and General Odierno 
and all our combat commanders to make sure these photos never see the 
light of day. I think we have a game plan that will work. It starts 
with a vote in the Senate. I am urging the House to take this up as a 
freestanding bill. There were 267 House Members who voted to keep our 
language included in the supplemental. It was taken out. I am very 
disappointed that it was taken out, but we now have a chance to start 
over and get this right sooner rather than later.
  With that understanding, that we are going to get a freestanding vote 
on the Lieberman-Graham amendment and that the administration will do 
whatever is required to make sure these photos never see the light of 
day if Congress fails to act, I am going to lift my hold on all the 
legislation and support the supplemental. I look forward to taking this 
matter up as soon as possible.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

           America's Top Generals Warn against Photo Release


   declaration of general david h. petraeus, commander of the united 
                         states central command

     Endangering the Lives of U.S. Servicemen and Servicewomen
       ``The release of images depicting U.S. servicemen 
     mistreating detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, or that could 
     be construed as depicting mistreatment, would likely deal a 
     particularly hard blow to USCENTCOM and U.S. interagency 
     counterinsurgency efforts in these three key nations, as well 
     as further endanger the lives of U.S. Soldiers, Marines, 
     Airmen, Sailors, civilians and contractors presently serving 
     there.'' (Declaration of General David H. Petraeus, para. 2, 
     Motion to Recall Mandate, 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, 
     Docket No. 06-3140-cv)
     Threaten Troops in Afghanistan
       ``Newly released photos depicting, or that could be 
     construed as depicting, abuse of detainees in U.S. military 
     custody in Iraq and Afghanistan would place U.S. servicemen 
     in Afghanistan at heightened risk and corrosively affect U.S. 
     relations with President Karazai's government, as well as 
     further erode control of the Afghanistan government in 
     general.'' (Declaration of General David H. Petraeus, para. 
     12, Motion to Recall Mandate, 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, 
     Docket No. 06-3140-cv)
       ``An influx of foreign fighters from outside Afghanistan 
     and new recruits from within Afghan could materialize, as the 
     new photos serve as potent recruiting material to attract new 
     members to join the insurgency. . . . Attacks against newly-
     arriving U.S. Marines and soon-to-arrive U.S. Army units in 
     the south, and transitioning U.S. Army units in the east, 
     could increase, thus further endangering the life and 
     physical safety of military personnel in these regions.'' 
     (Declaration of General David H. Petraeus, para. 12, Motion 
     to Recall Mandate, 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, Docket No. 
     06-3140-cv)
       ``In addition to fueling civil unrest, causing increased 
     targeting of U.S. and Coalition forces, and providing an 
     additional recruiting tool to insurgents and violent 
     extremist groups, the destabilizing effect on our partner 
     nations cannot be underestimated.'' (Declaration of General 
     David H. Petraeus, para. 12, Motion to Recall Mandate, 2nd 
     Circuit Court of Appeals, Docket No. 06-3140-cv)
     Turn Back Progress in Iraq and Incite Violence
       ``Newly released photos depicting abuse, or that could be 
     construed as depicting abuse, of Iraqis in U.S. military 
     custody would inflame emotions across Iraq and trigger the 
     same motivations that prompted many young men to respond to 
     calls for jihad following the Abu Ghraib photo release. After 
     the Abu Ghraib photos were publicized in 2004, there was a 
     significant response to the call for jihad, with new 
     extremists committing themselves to violence against U.S. 
     forces. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and Sunni insurgents groups 
     in Iraq will likely use any release of detainee abuse 
     images for propaganda purposes, and possibly as an 
     opportunity to widen the call for jihad against U.S. 
     forces, which could result in a near-term increase in 
     recruiting and attacks.'' (Declaration of General David H. 
     Petraeus, para. 7, Motion to Recall Mandate, 2nd Circuit 
     Court of Appeals, Docket No. 06-3140-cv)
     Help Destabilize Pakistan
       ``Newly released photos depicting abuse of detainees in 
     U.S. military custody in Afghanistan and Iraq would 
     negatively affect the on-going efforts by Pakistan to counter 
     its internal extremist threat.'' (Declaration of General 
     David H. Petraeus, para. 8, Motion to Recall Mandate, 2nd 
     Circuit Court of Appeals, Docket No. 06-3140-cv)


declaration of general raymond t. odierno, commander of multi-national 
                          force--iraq (MNF-I)

     Release of Photos will Result in Harm to U.S. Soldiers
       ``The 2004 publication of detainee photos resulted in a 
     number of posting on internet websites. Perhaps the most 
     gruesome of internet reactions to the photo publication was a 
     video posted in May 2004 showing the decapitation murder of 
     U.S. contractor Nicholas Berg. A man believed to be Zarqawi 
     specifically made the linkage between the abuses at Abu 
     Ghraib and Berg's murder saying, And how does a free Muslim 
     sleep comfortably watching Islam being slaughtered and [its] 
     dignity being drained. The shameful photos are evil 
     humiliation for Muslim men and women in the Abu Ghraib 
     prison. . . . We tell you that the dignity of the Muslims at 
     the Abu Ghraib prison is worth the sacrifice of blood and 
     souls. We will send you coffin

[[Page S6692]]

     after coffin and box after box slaughtered this way.'' 
     (Declaration of General Raymond T. Odierno, para. 8, 9, 
     Motion to Recall Mandate, 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, 
     Docket No. 06-3140-cv)
       ``I strongly believe the release of these photos will 
     endanger the lives of U.S. Soldiers, Airmen, Marines, Sailors 
     and civilians as well as the lives of our Iraqi partners. 
     Certain operating units are at particular risk of harm from 
     release of the photos. One example is our training teams 
     throughout Iraq. These are small elements of between 15 and 
     30 individuals who live on Iraqi-controlled installations and 
     thus do not have the same protections afforded to many of our 
     service members. In addition, as they assist our Iraqi 
     partners, members of such teams are regularly engaged in 
     small-unit patrols, making them more vulnerable to insurgent 
     attacks or other violence directed at U.S. forces. 
     Accordingly, there is good reason to conclude that the 
     soldiers in those teams and in similarly situated units would 
     face a particularly serious risk to their lives and physical 
     safety.'' (Declaration of General Raymond T. Odierno, 4, 
     Motion to Recall Mandate, 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, 
     Docket No. 06-3140-cv)
       ``MNF-1 will likely experience an increase in security 
     incidents particularly aimed at U.S. personnel and facilities 
     following the release of the photos. Incidents of spontaneous 
     violence against U.S. forces, possibly including attacks from 
     outraged Iraqi police or army members are likely. Such 
     increased attacks will put U.S. forces, civilians, and Iraqi 
     partners at risk of being killed, injured, or kidnapped. The 
     photos will likely be used as a justification for adversaries 
     conducting retribution attacks against the U.S. for bringing 
     shame on Iraq.'' Declaration of General Raymond T. Odierno, 
     para. 11, Motion to Recall Mandate, 2nd Circuit Court of 
     Appeals, Docket No. 06-3140-cv)
     Release of 2004 Photos Resulted in Successful Attacks Against 
         U.S. Forces
       ``The public dissemination of detainee abuse photos in 2004 
     likely contributed to a spike in violence in Iraq during the 
     third quarter of 2004 as foreign fighters and domestic 
     insurgents were drawn to Iraq to train and fight. Attacks on 
     C[oalition] F[orces] increased from around 700 in March 2004 
     to 1800 in May (after the photographs were broadcast and 
     published) and 2800 in August 2004. Attacks on C[oalition] 
     F[orces] did not subside to March 2004 levels until June 
     2008. These increased attacks resulted in the death of 
     Coalition Forces, Iraqi forces, and civilians.'' (Declaration 
     of General Raymond T. Odierno, Motion to Recall Mandate, 
     para. 7, 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, Docket No. 06-3140-cv)
     Increase Recruitment for Extremist Organizations and Incite 
         Attacks
  ``I believe these images will be used to inflame outrage against the 
U.S. and be used by terrorist organizations to recruit new members. The 
release of the photos will likely incite Muslim idealists to join the 
cause to seek retribution for the dishonor they may perceive to have 
been brought against all Muslims by the U.S. inside Iraq, the publicity 
over the images could incite additional attacks on U.S. personnel by 
members of the Iraq Security Forces.'' (Declaration of General Raymond 
T. Odierno, Motion to Recall Mandate, para. 16, 2nd Circuit Court of 
Appeals, Docket No. 06-3140-cv)

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah.


                           Governmental Power

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, when the Founding Fathers wrote the 
Constitution and gave us our government, they did so out of a deep 
distrust of the power of government coming out of their experience with 
King George, and they created a government that limits the use of 
power, deliberately setting up a system of checks and balances, a 
doctrine of separation of powers and so on, with which we are all 
familiar.
  Out of that, Americans have become used to the idea that there are 
limits on governmental power, and one of the concerns I hear when I 
visit with my constituents in Utah is that they are afraid there are 
now no limits on governmental power, or at least there is certainly not 
enough limits on governmental power. I am asked: Where does it stop? 
The government can take over insurance companies. The government can 
take over financial institutions. The government can take over an 
automobile company. The government can dictate who gets to be chief 
executive and how much he or she will be paid. Aren't there supposed to 
be limits on governmental power?
  Today, we have a proposal brought forward by the administration with 
respect to how the regulatory pattern for our financial institutions 
should be changed. As I look at that proposal, I ask the same questions 
my constituents are asking: Shouldn't there be some limits on 
governmental power? Isn't this going a bit far? Indeed, I think it is a 
legitimate question, and I wanted to address it for a moment.
  First, let's understand a fundamental truth about the economy. That 
is that all wealth comes from taking risks. Farmers take risks when 
they plant seeds, not knowing what the weather is going to do. 
Businessmen and women take risks when they open businesses, not knowing 
what the market is going to do. New wealth comes out when we have a 
bumper crop. New wealth comes out when a business started in a garage 
turns into Hewlett Packard, but in every instance you take risks.
  The second element that has to be added to risk-taking is the access 
to accumulated wealth. Sometimes it comes by a wealth you have 
accumulated yourself. Sometimes it comes from loans from your brother-
in-law. Sometimes it comes from running up your credit card. Sometimes 
it comes from venture capitalists. In many instances, it comes from 
banks. But you take a risk, and you have to have access to some kind of 
accumulated capital or you cannot create new wealth.

  All right. Why do people take risks? Because they expect there will 
be a reward in the form of a return on the capital they have taken. 
Whether it comes from a bank loan that they can pay back or from 
investor capital that will then receive dividends, there will be a 
reward. The risk/reward relationship is at the base of the growth and 
power of the American economy.
  In the present crisis, we have had people saying: Yes, but there are 
some entities that are simply too big to fail, we must not allow them 
to fail, and particularly in the financial services industry. So that 
is why we have this proposal today from the Obama administration. They 
want to deal with systemic risk, as they call it, or those tier 1 
entities which they describe as what I have just said: They are too big 
to fail and we are not going to allow them to fail, and this is the 
regulatory regime we will set up.
  If there are companies or entities that are too big to fail, this 
regime is too big to function. It is so focused on preventing failure 
that it is stacked in such a way that it will penalize the risk taker 
and prevent the risk taker from taking a risk and therefore not reap 
any kind of a reward.
  There is a heavy emphasis on consumer protection. I am all for that. 
I think we should have all of the kinds of regulations that say you 
need labels on things that might not be safe. That protects the 
consumer. You need nutritional information on things that might make 
you too fat, which protects the consumer. But let's not protect the 
consumer to the point where they cannot buy anything or, in this case, 
protect the system from any possible failure to the point that there is 
no risk and therefore ultimately no reward. By giving the Federal 
Reserve the kinds of powers this proposal does, we are moving down that 
road, and once again we are raising the question: Are there no limits 
on the amount of power that government can have and accumulate?
  I am convinced that if this massive, new expansion of power in the 
hands of the government goes forward unimpeded, we will see the 
shutting off of sources of credit and therefore the contraction of the 
economy and ultimately the need for more bailouts, more expenditures of 
Federal funds to try to keep entities alive. They can stay alive if 
they can attract capital from the private markets, but that is risky. 
So if we say: No, we are not going to allow the risks, we shut off the 
incentive of the private market to invest in some of these entities or 
to loan money to some of these entities. And then we say: But the 
entity is so important to our economy that we cannot allow it to fail. 
So we turn to the taxpayer and say: Let's put more taxpayer money into 
the entity because it is too big to fail.
  That is what I see down the road for this proposal. I may be wrong. 
But I point out that we in the Congress have, by law, created a 
commission to study what caused the present mess we are in and report 
back to the Congress. We wrote into that law a specific date--December 
15, 2010--to make sure the commission had enough time to examine all of 
the possibilities, to delve deeply enough into the issue to fully 
understand it, and then report back to us with their findings. Now we 
are being told: Forget the commission. Forget the analysis of what 
happened. We

[[Page S6693]]

think we know. Let's put this regulatory regime in place--one that is 
too big to function--now. Let's do it quickly. Let's have it done by 
the August recess. All right, we can't get it done by the August 
recess. We are going to have health care done by the August recess, so 
we will do it before Halloween, or whatever artificial date some may 
choose to put on it.
  The reality is, the issue is huge, the issue needs to be examined 
carefully, and we need to do it within the parameters of the basic 
suspicion the Founding Fathers had about the government. We should do 
it with an understanding that there are limits to government power and 
that government power has the capacity to damage the economy every bit 
as much as it has the power to help it move forward.
  Mr. President, I say let's not move with the speed and haste we are 
hearing about this proposal. Let's subject it to the most careful 
examination we possibly can throughout the processes of Congress, and 
let's make sure that when we do make regulatory changes with respect to 
the financial institutions, we do them in a way that will not fail and 
that can properly function.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                 Energy

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to visit about two issues, the 
first of which is a bill we passed out of the Senate Energy Committee 
earlier this morning. I wish to give some context to what we have done. 
It will perhaps not get as much notice as it should. Yet, it will be 
headed to the floor of the Senate to deal with energy policy, and it 
affects everybody virtually all of the time.
  All of us get up in the morning and in most cases, flick a switch and 
turn something on. We plug something in or turn a key for an engine or 
a lightbulb or a toaster or an electric razor. In every way, energy 
affects our lives in a very profound manner, and what we did has a 
significant impact on our daily lives.
  First, I will describe part of the challenge.
  Every single day we stick little straws in the earth and suck out 
oil. Every single day, there are about 84 million barrels of oil taken 
out of the earth. It is a big old planet with a lot of people living on 
this planet, and of the 84 million barrels of oil we take out every day 
from the earth, one-fourth of it is destined to be used in the United 
States. We use one-fourth of the oil every day. Why? We have a standard 
of living in a big old country that is far above most other places in 
the world, and we want to drive vehicles. We use oil in a very 
substantial way. We have an enormous appetite for oil.
  So here is the deal. One-fourth of all oil produced comes here 
because we need it and nearly 70 percent of the oil we use comes from 
outside of our country. Much of the oil produced comes from very 
troubled parts of the world, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela, and 
other countries. So 70 percent of the oil we need comes from outside of 
our country and nearly 70 percent of the oil we use is used for our 
transportation system. So you see the dilemma here is that we are 
unbelievably dependent and vulnerable on something over which we have 
very little control. By that I mean that if, God forbid, tonight 
terrorists interrupted the supply of oil coming to this country from 
other countries, this economy of ours would be flat on its back. We are 
unbelievably dependent on oil from other countries, and we have to 
begin reducing our dependence. How do we do that?
  By the way, as dependent as we are, we need to visit the events of 
last year once again and remember what happened: Speculators took 
control of the oil market and drove the price of oil to $147 a barrel 
in day trading. The price of gasoline went up to $4 to $4.50 a gallon. 
There was no excuse or justification for it. There was nothing in 
supply and demand that justified the price of oil and therefore the 
price of gasoline going up like a Roman candle and then in July last 
year starting to come right back down. The speculators, who made all 
the money on the way up, made the same money on the way down. The 
consumers who drove cars and pulled up to fill up with unbelievably 
expensive gasoline were the victims. Still nobody has done the 
investigation to ask the questions who did this and how did it happen. 
How is it that when the supply of oil is up and demand is down even 
while price rose?
  I was prepared to offer an amendment this morning to the Energy 
Committee. I didn't have the votes to offer it, so I simply described 
it. I will offer it on the floor when the bill gets here. It requires 
the investigation and gives the Energy Information Administration the 
requirement to investigate and authority to subpoena information to to 
find out what happened. We need to do that to make sure it doesn't 
happen again. The price of oil is on the rise now, and it has gone from 
$38 to $70 a barrel even as supply is up and demand is down. Describe 
that to me, in terms of a market, how that works. It doesn't make any 
sense.
  That is a little background of where we find ourselves. We are 
unbelievably dependent upon oil, much of which comes from troubled 
parts of the world, over which we have little control. We need to be 
less dependent on oil. How do we do that? We wrote an energy bill in 
the Senate Energy Committee that does a lot of everything. I believe in 
doing a lot of everything. I believe we ought to produce more oil and 
natural gas here onshore and in the Outer Continental Shelf. We should 
conserve more because we are prodigious wasters of energy. We should 
make all the things we use more efficient. Efficiency is an 
unbelievable component of what we can do to save energy. Further, we 
should maximize the capability of producing renewable energy.
  The fact is, energy from the Sun shines on this Earth every day far 
in excess of the energy we need. If we are just smart enough and 
capable enough of doing all the research and science that allows us to 
use all that energy, then we can make progress.
  The wind blows every day. At least where I come from, it blows every 
day. The Energy Department calls my State the Saudi Arabia of wind. So 
we take the energy from the wind and produce electricity. The fact is, 
once we put the turbine up, we can gather electricity from that wind 
for 30 years at very low cost.
  I believe we ought to do everything, and that is what we have tried 
to do in this legislation. Key to that is not just collecting energy 
from the wind and turning it into electricity; it is also about being 
able to move it where it is needed.
  I come from a sparsely populated State. My State is 10 times the size 
of the State of Massachusetts in terms of landmass and has only 640,000 
people living in it. We don't need the additional energy produced from 
wind farms. We don't need that additional energy in my State. But we 
need it in the larger load centers in this country. In order to get it 
there, what we need to do is build an interstate highway of 
transmission capability which is capable of producing renewable energy 
where it is produced and then move it to where it is used. This is not 
rocket science.
  We did this with highways in the 1950s. President Eisenhower and the 
Congress said: Let's build an interstate highway system, and they moved 
forward. In parts of rural areas, one might say: How can you justify 
building four lanes between towns where very few people live? Because 
we are connecting New York with Seattle, that is why. That is what the 
interstate was about--connecting America.
  The same is true with respect to the need for transmission. What we 
have put in this legislation addresses the issues that have so far 
prevented us from building the transmission capability we need in this 
country. What are the key issues? Planning, siting, and pricing. If you 
cannot plan for, site or price them, then nobody is going to build 
them. All of those issues are critical to building an interstate 
transmission system.
  In the last 9 years, we have built almost 11,000 miles of natural gas 
pipeline in this country. During the same period, we have only been 
able to build 668 miles of high voltage transmission lines interstate. 
Isn't that unbelievable? Why can't we do it? Because we

[[Page S6694]]

have all these bifurcated jurisdictions that can stop it, saying: Not 
here; not across my State lines.
  We have passed legislation this morning that carries out some 
important things. This includes my amendment to open the eastern Gulf 
of Mexico for additional oil and gas production. That makes sense to 
me. I have a chart that shows what I did with this amendment.
  I know one of my colleagues was on the floor having an apoplectic 
seizure about this suggestion of opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico for 
oil and gas exploration. He suggested that it was going to impede and 
cause all kinds of difficulties with the routes over which we have 
sophisticated, important military training.
  I have been working with a group of retired military and business 
leaders on an energy plan. They are members of the Energy Security 
Leadership Council. In April, Senator Voinovich and I introduced the 
plan which we called the National Energy Security Act. Let me describe 
a little about the membership of that group. By the way, that group 
understood that the western and central Gulf are open for production. 
They believe that the eastern gulf should be open as well because there 
are substantial reserves of oil and natural gas in this eastern area. 
It can be done in a way that does not compromise our military 
readiness.
  Among the membership of this group is former GEN P.X. Kelley; GEN 
John Abizaid; ADM Dennis Blair; ADM Vern Clark; GEN Michael Ryan; and 
GEN Charles Wald; and others. These are some of the highest military 
officials who have served this country, all of whom have retired, but 
all of whom also believe this area should be open for development.
  Would they suggest that if this somehow would impede a military 
training area? Of course not. We have military training areas in the 
central and western gulf, and there is no issue there. There is no 
conflict.
  This legislation is landmark in many ways. I was one of four Senators 
who opened this little area. Four of us--Senator Domenici, Senator 
Bingaman, Senator Talent and myself--offered legislation to open lease 
181 in the gulf. That was about 3 years ago. That was opened, but it 
changed substantially before it was opened. This is another attempt to 
open that area, which should be open in the eastern gulf.
  I understand there are people upset with it. They say: You can't open 
it for drilling. Let me show what my proposition is in terms of doing 
it responsibly: The states control the first 3 miles. After that, there 
would be no visible infrastructure allowed in the line of sight so you 
cannot see anything. Beyond, 25 miles there would not be restrictions. 
The fact is, I think what we ought to do this in a way in order to be 
sensitive to the coastal States. I am not interested in putting oil 
wells right off their beaches. That is not the point. My point is, if 
we are going to have an energy bill that solves America's energy 
problem by making us less dependent on foreign energy and especially 
foreign oil, then we ought to do something of everything to make that 
happen.
  Does it include drilling and additional production? The answer is 
yes. Does it include substantial conservation? Absolutely. Efficiency? 
Yes. Maximizing renewables? Certainly. What else? We need to move 
toward a future in which we will have an electric drive system of 
transportation, by and large, and we will also then, in the longer 
term, transition to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
  All of that is accomplished if we can make us less dependent on oil 
from outside our country by producing more here and conserving more 
here and then producing substantial amounts of additional energy from 
renewable energy such as wind and solar. We can produce electricity to 
put on a grid, a modern interstate highway grid, to move what we 
produce to where we produce it to where the loads are and where the 
load center is needed.
  This is not some mysterious illness for which we do not know the 
cure. This is an energy policy that we know will work if we just will 
decide to do a lot of everything that represents our own self-interest: 
produce more, increase energy efficiency, and maximize renewables.
  I have not mentioned one final point, and that is this: Our most 
abundant resource is coal. Yesterday I was reading, once again, a 
prognosis that we cannot use coal in the future. Of course, we can use 
coal, but we have to decarbonize it and use it much more efficiently. 
There are a lot of inventive scientific folks out there who are doing 
cutting edge research that will allow us to continue to use our most 
abundant resource--coal.
  I talked about opening up fields of oil and gas production. I am 
making substantial investments through the appropriations subcommittee 
that I chair with respect to decarbonizing coal.
  I am convinced we can build near zero emission coal-fired electric 
generation plants. I am convinced of that.
  I know one of America's most prominent scientists who is working 
right now on something that is fascinating. He is working on developing 
synthetic microbes to consume coal from which would then produce 
methane gas. Wouldn't that be interesting? If you create a synthetic 
microbe to simply consume the coal and after consumption, the microbe 
turns coal into methane gas.
  For example, there is another scientist in California who testified 
at a hearing I chaired recently about capturing carbon from a coal 
plant by capturing the flue gas and using the CO2 by turning 
it into a value-added product that for making concrete which has value 
in the marketplace. This would help bring down the cost of 
decarbonizing coal.
  I don't know. We have solved a lot of difficult problems in our past. 
We can surely solve these problems in our future if we are just smart 
and do a lot of things that work well for our country.
  Mr. President, I compliment my colleagues--Senator Bingaman, Senator 
Murkowski, and other Democratic and Republican colleagues on this 
committee. We have worked on this energy bill for some months. It has 
taken us a while to get to this point. But today, at long last, we 
passed this legislation by a bipartisan vote of 15-8. We will have it 
on the Senate floor at some point. We will have further debate about 
points of it. It is exactly what we ought to be discussing: How do we 
make America more secure? How do we make America less dependent on 
foreign oil and things over which we have no control or very little 
control? We must develop an energy program at home that makes a lot of 
sense, that does a lot of everything, and does it very well. I am happy 
say that we have made a positive step in that direction this morning in 
the Energy Committee.


                            Financial Reform

  Mr. President, I wish to talk about one other issue today, and that 
issue is something that has been announced by the President this 
afternoon. It deals with the President's plan for financial regulation. 
I know my colleague from Utah just described it from his perspective. I 
have great respect for him. Let me describe from my perspective why it 
is necessary for us to have a financial regulation package that 
requires some reform in those areas as well.
  I don't think there is anything we can do in the Congress or that 
President Obama can do that is more important for the future of this 
country and lifting this economy and trying to put it back on track in 
a way that expands opportunity and creates jobs than to try to instill 
some confidence in the American people.
  As I have said a dozen times on the floor of the Senate, this is all 
about confidence. We have all kinds of sophisticated things we work on 
and tax policy and M-1 B and all these other issues. None of it matters 
as much as confidence. When the American people are confident about the 
future, they do the things that expand the economy. They buy a suit of 
clothes, they take a trip, buy a car, buy a house. They do the things 
that represent their feeling that the future is going to be better. 
They feel secure in their job and in their lives, so they do things 
that expand the economy.
  If they are worried about their job, if they are wondering whether 
the economy will allow them and their family to continue to pay all 
their bills, when they are not confident about the future, they do 
exactly the opposite. They contract the economy. They defer those 
purchases. They make different judgments. We are not going to buy the 
suit of clothes, not take that trip, won't buy the car or the house. 
They

[[Page S6695]]

contract the economy. That is why everything rests on confidence by the 
American people going forward.
  Just answer the question: How on Earth can people be confident about 
this economy unless we fix that which caused this wreck, that which 
steered this economy into the ditch and is now causing 550,000, 600,000 
people every month to have to come home and tell their loved one: I 
have lost my job. No, not because I was doing bad work; I was told they 
are cutting back at the office or the plant.
  This economy has in recent years been an economy with an unbelievable 
bubble of speculation about a lot of things, and at the same time there 
was unbelievable negligence in oversight by those the public has hired 
in Federal agencies to do the oversight of what was going on. We wake 
up one morning and we discover there are hundreds of trillions of 
dollars of exotic financial products called CDOs and credit default 
swaps and all kinds of strange names that are very complicated with 
unbelievable embedded risk. We don't know who has them, we don't know 
how much risk is out there. All of a sudden things start collapsing, 
the economy goes into a ditch, and we are in huge trouble.
  How did it all happen? Was someone not watching?
  Yes, that is the point; someone was not watching for a long period of 
time.
  The President has talked about the need for financial reform, and 
today he has described at least an initial portion of what he would 
like to do. I think many of us share his feelings about the need for 
effective regulation. That is not rocket science given what we have 
been through.
  Let me say this. Effective regulation is something that I think, from 
my personal observation, is probably not going to come from the Federal 
Reserve Board. Let me talk just about where the location of this 
regulation is or should be.
  The Federal Reserve Board, in my judgment, essentially became a 
spectator for a long period of time under then Fed Chairman Alan 
Greenspan who believed that self-regulation was by far the best. Let 
everybody do what they will and they will do in their self-interest 
what they believe is right and self-regulation will be just fine.
  It turns out it was an unbelievably bad decision. But the problem is, 
to set up the Federal Reserve Board as the systemic risk regulator is 
to set up a systemic risk regulator that is unaccountable. The Federal 
Reserve Board is unaccountable. It is not accountable to the Congress, 
not accountable to the President.
  So in addition to establishing an unaccountable entity, it is also an 
entity that operates in great secrecy. I give the President great marks 
for suggesting we have to have more effective regulatory capability. I 
am sure we will have discussions about exactly where should that 
regulation exist, who should be responsible, how do you get it right. I 
do hope we can have a discussion about whether the systemic risk 
regulator should or could be an entity that is not accountable and one 
that operates in substantial secrecy. My feeling is there is a much 
better way to do that, No. 1. No. 2, while there are a lot of details I 
will not describe today, I still am interested in this question of 
whether we will confront--and I don't know that from the President's 
description today whether we will--the issue of too big to fail.

  It seems to me this issue of too big to fail is no-fault capitalism. 
That is, if we don't address this question of too big to fail--which 
has caused us enormous angst, in recent months especially--we will 
ultimately have to confront the issue once again down the road when it 
is very expensive again to do so.
  I do think there is a requirement here for us to support the 
President in deciding that there needs to be regulation that gives 
people confidence that someone is minding the store. When I said that 
all of this rests on a foundation of confidence, I mean if we do not 
restore the regulatory functions in a manner that the American people 
see as just and fair, and most especially effective, I don't think we 
will restore the kind of confidence that is necessary to begin building 
and expanding this economy once again.
  Again, I give the President substantial credit today for saying this 
is an important issue. Let us get about the business of doing it. He 
has offered us a description that now gives us a chance to discuss how 
we begin to put the pieces back together of what is the most 
significant financial wreck since the Great Depression. This was not 
some natural disaster, such as some huge hurricane or some big storm 
that came running through. This disaster was manmade, and we need to 
make sure we put in place the things that will prevent it from ever 
happening again.
  There will be, I am sure, much more discussion about this in the 
coming days. Again I thank the President for beginning this discussion 
because it is essential, as we begin to try to build opportunity in 
this economy once again, to restore the confidence of the American 
people by saying we are going to have effective regulatory capabilities 
to make certain we don't have this unbelievable bubble of speculation 
that helped cause the collapse of our economy.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Brownback pertaining to the introduction of S. 
1282 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Modern Day Slavery

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I take this time to share with my 
colleagues a problem--a worldwide problem--that we thought was left 
behind in the 20th Century--slavery. I am talking about modern slavery, 
the human trafficking that takes place around the world.
  Yesterday, as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on Security and 
Cooperation in Europe, the Helsinki Commission, I was privileged to 
join Secretary of State Clinton at the State Department for the 
official release of the Ninth Annual Trafficking in Persons Report. 
This is a vital diplomatic tool. It is put out every year by the United 
States. We have been doing this now for almost 10 years. It lists every 
country and the current status of trafficking in their country. Some 
countries are origin countries, others allow trafficking through their 
countries, and other countries are receiving countries.
  This report is an objective yardstick so that we know exactly what is 
happening in each one of these countries. It is a valuable tool for us 
to put an end to the trafficking in human beings used for slavery or 
sex or for other illegal type purposes.
  It was interesting that the Secretary of State, Secretary Clinton, 
also released the Attorney General's Report to Congress: An Assessment 
of U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons. This is 
the first time we have had this report. This report talks about what is 
happening in our own country, in the United States. Because we think it 
is important, if we are going to lead internationally, that we lead by 
example of what we do in our own country in order to stop trafficking 
in human beings.
  The Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking 
utilizes our vast network of embassies and consulates throughout the 
world to compile the most comprehensive report of its kind. It is an 
objective yardstick we should be using more and more to press every 
country in the world to do more to stop modern slavery. The United 
States has shown great leadership on this issue, and I commend 
Secretary Clinton for the incredible leadership she has demonstrated, 
making it a priority topic for the United States nationally and 
internationally.
  When Secretary Clinton was Senator Clinton, she served on the 
Helsinki Commission and was one of our leaders in forming a policy 
within the United States-Helsinki Commission to raise the issue of 
trafficking in persons. As a result of the work of the U.S. commission 
and the leadership of our country, we were able to get the Organization 
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, to make this a 
priority; To adopt policies within OSCE so every

[[Page S6696]]

member state, all 56, would adopt a strategy to first understand what 
is happening in their own country, to take an assessment as to where 
they are in trafficking; then to develop a strategy to improve their 
record, adopt the best practices as we know, what has worked and what 
has not worked; and then to make progress to root out trafficking in 
their own country. Again, whether they happen to be an origin country 
or whether they happen to be the host country or whether they just 
happen to be a transit country in which persons are trafficked through 
their country, they need to adopt a strategy that will help rid us of 
this modern-day slavery.

  I am very proud of the role the United States has played, our 
government has played, and the Helsinki Commission has played. I wish 
to call this matter to the attention of our colleagues. I found the 
ongoing work of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking and the 
Trafficking in Persons Report extremely useful in engaging the 55 
participating states of the OSCE. We use this document frequently when 
we meet with our colleagues or when they travel to the United States to 
meet with us, to say: What are you doing about this? This tells us you 
could do a better job in law enforcement. You need to recognize that 
those who are trafficked are victims. They are not criminals, they are 
victims, and you need to have a way to take care of their needs.
  The report continues to function as a working document, frequently 
cited and invoked to promote adherence to numerous human rights 
commitments and the principles of the Helsinki Act.
  Some of the most striking parts of this year's report--besides the 
staggering estimates by the International Labor Organization that there 
are at least 12.3 million adults and children in forced labor, bonded 
labor, and commercial sexual servitude at any given time--are the 
wrenching victims' stories themselves.
  We know trafficking is connected to organized crime. We know that. 
This is not just isolated trafficking of people, it is also part of an 
organized effort, criminal efforts that we need to root out. But we 
sometimes forget that the women, children, and men who are trafficked 
are victims and we must treat them as victims, with respect and 
dignity. That is a success story. We have made progress. Tougher law 
are being adopted.
  Take Xiao Ping of China. Now 20 years old, her testimony in the State 
Department report says that:

        She spent most of her life in her small village in Sichuan 
     Province. She was thrilled when her new boyfriend offered to 
     take her on a weekend trip to his hometown. But her boyfriend 
     and his friends instead took her to a desert village in the 
     Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and sold her to a farmer to 
     be his wife. The farmer imprisoned Xiao Ping, beat her, and 
     raped her for 32 months. . . . Xiao Ping's family borrowed a 
     substantial sum to pay for her rescue, but the farmer's 
     family forced her to leave behind her 6-month-old baby. To 
     cancel the debts, Xiao Ping married the man who provided the 
     loan. But her husband regarded her as `stained goods,' and 
     the marriage did not last.

  Tragic scenarios like this will continue unless all countries--
whether a point of origin for the sex trade, a transit point for slaves 
whose criminal traffickers are undetected by law enforcement, or a 
destination for a forced child laborer, work together to increase 
prosecution of these crimes. In concert with the immense awareness 
raising efforts of the Trafficking in Persons Report, the exchange of 
U.S. policies and countertrafficking mechanisms throughout the OSCE 
region has resulted in a steady increase in the number of countries 
with enacted antitrafficking legislation. That is a success story. We 
have made progress. Tougher laws are being adopted.

  Probably even more important, we are developing attitudes in 
countries that this cannot continue, it is not something you can just 
overlook. I must tell you, these reports that were issued, now for 
almost 10 years, have played a critical role. The United States should 
be proud of what we have been able to do to call world attention to 
this issue.
  According to the State Department's report, a young woman from 
Azerbaijan, Dilara, had a sister who:

       .  .  . had been tricked into an unregistered marriage to a 
     trafficker who later abandoned her when she got pregnant. 
     When Dilara confronted her sister's traffickers, she herself 
     became a victim. She ended up in Turkey, where she and other 
     abducted girls were tortured and forced to engage in 
     prostitution. Dilara escaped with the help of Turkish police, 
     who promptly arrested the nine men who trafficked Dilara and 
     her sister.

  They were some of the lucky ones. Dilara and her sister found help 
from a local NGO, including job training, and now she works and lives 
her life as a free woman in Baku.
  From some of these tragedies we have seen heroic actions taking 
place, some encouragement that we are making progress.
  Prostitution is not the only form of involuntary servitude outlined 
in this latest report. It contains true stories like: a family in India 
that were bonded laborers at a rice mill for three generations until 
freed with the help of NGOs; young boys in the Democratic Republic of 
Congo abducted from their school by a militia group and tortured until 
they submitted to serving as soldiers; and an 8-year-old girl from 
Guinea given away as an unpaid domestic servant after her mother and 
brother died.
  These are real people. These are real stories.
  The U.S. is not immune from the problems of modern day slavery. The 
2009 Trafficking in Persons Report highlights a young girl brought to 
California from Egypt by a wealthy couple who forced her to work up to 
20 hours a day for just $45 a month. And earlier in June, more than a 
dozen Filipinos were rescued from hotels in Douglas and Casper, WY, 
where they were working with minimal pay and forced to live in 
horrendous conditions. Their ``employment agency'' purposefully allowed 
their work visas to expire so they would be trapped into servitude as 
illegal aliens. A Federal grand jury brought forward a 45-count 
indictment on racketeering, forced labor trafficking, immigration 
violations, identity theft, extortion, money laundering, and other 
related violations in Wyoming and 13 other States.
  These are criminal elements. Fortunately we are starting to see 
prosecutions of people involved in these activities.
  We want to end this modern day slavery--as human beings we need to 
end this slavery--in the United States and around the world. 
Involuntary domestic servitude, sex trafficking and forced labor should 
not be acceptable in any 21st century civilization.
  The OSCE has a unique role in generating instruments that empower 
governments to end human trafficking. Each year, the OSCE Special 
Representative and Coordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human 
Beings also prepares a report that outlines the trends and developments 
of counter- trafficking efforts in the OSCE region. This report has 
been instrumental in promoting the establishment of national 
rapporteurs, consistent data collection practices, and standardized law 
enforcement policies to ensure more robust cooperation to end modern 
slavery. It is used around the world so people can see how to better 
prepare their own country to identify trafficking and help its 
prosecution.
  The OSCE efforts closely complement the Trafficking in Persons Report 
and demonstrate a close partnership with the efforts of the Office to 
Monitor and Combat Trafficking. I truly hope this close partnership 
continues to flourish.
  We were instrumental in getting OSCE to have the capacity to do this, 
and Congress was instrumental in getting the State Department to make 
these annual reports. Now we have the documents. Now we have the 
evidence. We know progress can be made. We have seen progress made. But 
until we rid our civilization of modern-day slavery, we have not 
accomplished our goal.
  Let's take these reports, use these reports so we can bring this to 
an end and help those who have been victimized through traffickers.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burris). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

[[Page S6697]]

                          Judicial Nominations

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the nomination of a new Justice to the 
Supreme Court of the United States brings to our minds a core question, 
both for the Senate and the American people, and that is: What is the 
proper role of a Federal judge in our Republic?
  Answering this question is not simply an academic task, it is 
fundamental to what we will be doing here. How the American people and 
their representatives and their Senators, the ones who have been 
delegated that responsibility, answer that question impacts not only 
the future of our judiciary but I think the future of our legal system 
and the American experience.
  In traveling the world as part of the Armed Services Committee, I am 
more convinced than ever before that the glory of our American 
experience, our liberty, and our prosperity is based on the fact that 
we have a legal system you can count on. When you go to places such as 
Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistan or the West Bank or Bosnia and you see 
people--and they cannot get a legal system working. It does not work, 
and people are not protected, in their persons, from attack, and their 
property is not protected, contracts often are not enforced properly. 
That just demoralizes the country. It makes it very difficult for them 
to progress.
  I am so proud of the American legal system. It is something we 
inherited, we built upon. It is the bulwark for our liberty and our 
prosperity.
  So we ask this question: What do judges do? Do they faithfully 
interpret our Constitution and laws as written or do they have the 
power to reinterpret those documents through the lens of their personal 
views, backgrounds, and opinions?
  Is the Judiciary to be a modest one, applying the policies others 
have enacted, or can it, the Judiciary, create new policies that a 
judge may desire or think are good?
  When the correct answer to a legal case is difficult to ascertain, is 
a judge then empowered to remove his or her blindfold, that Lady of 
Justice with the blindfold on holding the scales? Can they remove the 
blindfold and allow their personal feeling or other outside factors to 
sway the ultimate decision in the case?
  I am going to be talking about that and addressing those questions in 
the weeks to come. But I do think we need to first begin at the source. 
We must return to the words and ideas of those who founded our Nation, 
whose foresight resulted in the greatest Republic this world has ever 
known and the greatest legal system anywhere in the world.
  It is clear from reviewing these words and ideas and ideals, 
particularly as expressed in the Constitution itself, that our Founders 
desired and created a court system that was independent, impartial, 
restrained, and that, through a faithful rendering of the Constitution, 
serves as a check against the intrusion of government on the rights of 
humankind.
  The Founders established a government that was modest in scope and 
limited in its authority. In order to limit the expansion of Federal 
Government power, they bounded the government by a written 
Constitution. Its powers were only those expressly granted to the 
government. As Chief Justice John Marshall famously wrote:

       This government is acknowledged by all to be one of 
     enumerated powers.

  Enumerated means the government has the power it was given and only 
those powers it was given. If you will recall the Constitution starts 
out:

       We the people of the United States of America, in order to 
     establish a more perfect Union . . .

  So the people established it, and they granted certain powers to the 
branches of government. But those powers were not unlimited, they were 
indeed limited. They were enumerated and set forth.
  But our Founders knew these limitations, history being what it is, 
standing alone were not enough. So they created three distinct branches 
of the government, creating a system of checks and balances to prevent 
any one branch from consolidating too much power. The Constitution 
gives each branch its own responsibility.
  Article I of the Constitution declares:

       All legislative powers, herein granted shall be vested in a 
     Congress of the United States.

  Article II two declares:

       The executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
     United States.

  And Article III declares:

       The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in 
     one Supreme Court.

  And such other Courts as the Congress creates.
  These words are unambiguous. The Judiciary possesses no power to make 
law or even enforce law. In Federalist No. 47, one of our Founding 
Fathers, James Madison, cites the Constitution of Massachusetts which 
states:

       The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and 
     executive powers, or either of them, to the end that it may 
     be a government of laws and not of men.

  So Madison, in arguing for the Constitution, trying to convince the 
Americans to vote for it, quoted the Massachusetts Constitution--this 
provision in it, with approval stating that is essentially what we have 
in our Federal Government.
  Madison was a remarkable man.
  He went on to describe the separation of powers as the ``essential 
precaution in favor of liberty.'' Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 
78--written to encourage Americans to support the Constitution--quotes 
the French philosopher, Montesquieu, who said:

       There is no liberty if the power of judging not be 
     separated from the legislative and executive powers.

  The judicial branch, then, is limited to the interpretation and 
application of law--law that exists, not law they create. At no point 
may its judges substitute their political or personal views for that of 
elected representatives or to the people themselves--the people's will 
having been permanently expressed in the Constitution that created the 
judiciary.
  To gain a deeper understanding of this role, it is instructive to 
look further in Hamilton's Federalist No. 78, widely regarded as one of 
the definitive documents on the American court system. In it Hamilton 
explains that ``the interpretation of the law is the proper and 
peculiar province of the courts. The constitution . . . must be 
regarded by the judges as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to 
them to ascertain its meaning.''
  Judges do not grant rights or remove them. They defend the rights 
that the Constitution enumerates. So it is thus no surprise that 
Hamilton says a judge must have an ``inflexible and uniform adherence 
to the rights of the Constitution.''
  In order to ensure that judges would consistently display such 
adherence to the Constitution in the face of outside pressures, our 
Framers took steps to ensure that the judiciary was independent from 
the other branches and insulated from political interference. As was 
often the case, the Framers were guided by the wisdom of their own 
experience. They had a lot of common sense in the way they dealt with 
things.
  In England, colonial judges were not protected from the whims of the 
King. Included in the Declaration of Independence's litany of 
grievances is the assertion, when Jefferson was setting forth the 
complaints against the King, he asserted that the King had ``made 
Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices . . 
.''
  That was a complaint. That was one of the things we objected to in 
the way the King was handling the people in the Colonies. That was part 
of the Declaration. When the Constitution was drafted, that matter was 
fixed.
  In order to shield the courts from the threat of political pressure 
or retribution, article III effectively grants judges a lifetime 
appointment, the only Federal office in America that has a lifetime 
appointment. We have to answer to the public. So does the President. It 
also specifically prohibits Congress from diminishing judicial pay or 
removing judges during times of good behavior. So Congress can't remove 
a judge or even cut their pay. Hamilton referred to this arrangement as 
``one of the most valuable of modern improvements in the practice of 
government.'' He went on to say that he saw it as the best step 
available to ``secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration 
of the laws.''
  So Madison hoped the courts, set apart from the shifting tides of 
public opinion, would be better suited to act as ``faithful guardians 
of the constitution'' to stand against ``dangerous innovations in 
government.'' In other

[[Page S6698]]

words, courts are removed from the political process not so they are 
free to reinterpret the Constitution and set policy, but so they are 
free from the pressures of those who would encourage them to do just 
that.
  The Framers also understood that the courts, as an unelected branch 
of government with a narrow mandate, would also necessarily be the 
weakest branch. Hamilton wrote that whoever looks at the ``different 
departments of power must perceive that, in a government in which they 
are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its 
functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights 
of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or 
injure them. . . .It may truly be said to have neither force nor will, 
but merely judgment. . . .''
  So in light of this narrow mandate that judges have been given, 
judges have understood from time to time that they ought not to be 
drawn into the political thicket; that they ought to decline to answer 
questions that they felt were more appropriately to be addressed by the 
political branches of government. Typically, this distant approach has 
been invoked when the Constitution has delegated decision-making on a 
particular issue to a particular branch, when the court finds a lack of 
``judicially discoverable and manageable standards'' to guide its 
decision-making, or when the court feels it best not to insert itself 
in a conflict between branches. That is what is happening. They are 
showing restraint and discipline. This is an example of judicial 
restraint because it respects the powers of the other branches and the 
role of elected representatives rather than the appointed judges in 
establishing policy.
  This is not an academic exercise or an abstract hypothetical. 
Judicial activism has enormous consequences for every American because 
if judges who are given a lifetime appointment and guaranteed salaries 
are given the power to set policy, then that is an anti-democratic 
outcome because we have created someone outside the political process 
and allowed them to set policy for the country and they cease to be 
accountable to the American people.
  The men and women of the Supreme Court hold extraordinary power over 
our lives. It takes only five Justices to determine what the words of 
the Constitution mean. You may think it is nine; it is really just 
five. If five of the nine agree that the Constitution means this or 
that, it is as good--hold your hats--as if three-fourths of the States 
passed a constitutional amendment along with the supermajority votes of 
the Congress. So this is a powerful thing a Supreme Court Justice 
possesses, the ability to interpret words of the Constitution.
  When Justices break from the ideal of modest and restrained 
practices, as described by Hamilton, they begin creating rights and 
destroying rights based on their personal views, which they were never 
empowered to do. The temptation to reinterpret the Constitution leads 
judges, sometimes, to succumb to the siren call of using that 
opportunity they might possess to enact something they would like to 
see occur.
  Maybe somebody will write in a law review that they were bold and 
courageous and did something great. We have seen some of these actions 
occur. Under the power to regulate business and commerce the government 
is given, our Supreme Court recently ruled that carbon dioxide, which 
is a naturally occurring substance in our environment--when plants 
decay, they emit carbon dioxide; when they live, they draw in from the 
air carbon dioxide; it is plant food--they ruled that it was a 
pollutant. As a result, regardless of how you see that matter, I think 
when the statute was passed they gave EPA regulation to control 
pollution in the 1970s long before global warming was ever a 
consideration; that Congress had no contemplation that it would be used 
to limit carbon dioxide some years later. But that is what the Court 
ruled.
  I only say that because that was a huge economic decision of 
monumental proportions. It called on an agency of the U.S. Government 
to regulate every business in America that uses fossil fuels. It is a 
far-reaching decision. Right or wrong, I just point out what five 
members of the Court can do with a ruling, and that was five members. 
Four members dissented on that case.
  At least two members of the Supreme Court concluded that the death 
penalty is unconstitutional because they believe that it is cruel and 
unusual as prohibited by the eighth amendment to the Constitution. They 
dissented on every single death penalty case and sought to get others 
to agree with them. Some thought others might agree with them. But as 
time went by, they have now left the bench and no other Judges have 
adhered to that philosophy. But I would say that it is an absolutely 
untenable position because the Constitution itself makes at least eight 
references to the death penalty. It is implicit in the Constitution 
itself. It says the government can't take life without due process. So 
that contemplates that there was a death penalty, and you could take 
life with due process.
  The Constitution also refers to capital crimes and makes other 
references to the death penalty. Every single Colony, every single 
State at the founding of our government had a death penalty. It is an 
abuse of power for two Judges to assert that the eighth amendment, 
which prohibited drawing and quartering and other inhumane-type 
activities, actually should be construed to prohibit the death penalty. 
That is judicial activism. They didn't like the death penalty. They 
read through the Constitution, found these words, and tried to make it 
say what it does not.
  So the question is not whether these policies are good or bad, 
whether you like the death penalty or not. That is a matter of opinion. 
And how one believes that global warming should be confronted is not 
the question. The question is whether a court comprised of nine 
unelected Judges should set policy on huge matters before the country 
that we are debating in the political arena.
  Should that not be the President and the Congress who are accountable 
to the voters to openly debate these issues and vote yes or no and 
stand before the people and be accountable to them for the actions they 
took? I think the Constitution clearly dictates the latter is the 
appropriate way.
  A number of groups and activists believe the Court is sort of their 
place and that social goals and agendas they believe in that are not 
likely to be won at the ballot box, they have an opportunity to get a 
judge to declare it so. We have the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals en 
banc ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance to the Constitution is 
unconstitutional because it has the words under God in it. Actually, 
that has never been reversed. It has been vacated in a sense because 
the Supreme Court rejected it on, I think, standing grounds. But at any 
rate, those are the things that are out there. It is not in the 
Constitution. This is a bad course for America.
  If the judiciary heads further down that path, then I think we do 
have dangers because we are actually weakening the Constitution. How 
can we uphold the rule of law if those who weigh the scales have the 
power to tip them one way or the other based on empathy, their feelings 
or their personal views? How can we curb the excess of Federal power if 
we allow our courts to step so far beyond the limits of their 
legitimate authority? How can the least among us depend on the law to 
deliver justice, to protect them, to steadfastly protect their 
liberties, if rulings are no longer objective and if a single judge has 
the power to place his or her empathy above the law and the evidence?
  So with these fundamental questions in mind, I hope the comments I 
make in the weeks to come will be of some value as we talk about the 
future of the judiciary, what the role of a judge ought to be on our 
highest court, and to uphold our sacred charter of inalienable rights.
  So let me repeat, I love the American legal system. I am so much an 
admirer of the Federal legal system I practiced in for 15 years before 
fabulous judges. They were accused sometimes of thinking they were 
anointed rather than appointed. But I found most of the time--the 
prosecutor that you are--they did follow the law and they tried to be 
fair. I think the independence we give them is a factor in their 
fairness and something I will defend. But there is a responsibility 
that comes with the independence judges get. And that responsibility is 
that when they get that bench

[[Page S6699]]

and they assume that power, they not abuse it, they use integrity, they 
are objective, and they show restraint.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


                       Nomination Sonia Sotomayor

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the statement of 
my colleague, Senator Sessions, from Alabama, who is the ranking 
Republican in the Senate Judiciary Committee, who is charged with a 
special responsibility at this moment in history. Because with the 
retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter and the vacancy that 
has been created, the Senate Judiciary Committee has the responsibility 
to work with the President to fill that vacancy.
  I am honored to be a member of that committee and to be facing the 
third vacancy since I have been elected to the Senate. It is rare in 
one's public political life to have a chance to have a voice or a 
partial role in the selection of one Supreme Court Justice. But to have 
a chance to be involved in the selection of three, for a lawyer, is 
quite an amazing responsibility.
  Senator Sessions and I are friends, and we see the world somewhat 
differently. But I would say to him that I would quarrel with the 
notion that our laws are so clear that a judge, given a set of facts, 
could only draw one conclusion. What we find often is the opposite. 
Well-trained attorneys who become judges can look at the same law and 
the same facts and reach different conclusions. That is why, when it 
comes to appellate courts, it is not unusual to have a split decision. 
Different judges see the facts in a different context.
  So to argue that we want judges who will always reach the same 
conclusion from the same laws and facts defies human experience. It is 
not going to happen. People see things differently. People read words 
differently. People view facts differently. Occasionally judges, faced 
with cases they may never have envisioned, see a need for change in our 
country.
  There are times when I might agree with that change and times when I 
might disagree. In 1954, right across the street, in the Supreme Court, 
a decision was reached in Brown v. Board of Education. Fifty-five years 
ago, they took a look at the schools of America, the public schools of 
America, that were segregated, Black and White, and said: No, you 
cannot have separate and equal schools. That brought about a dramatic 
change in America: the integration of America's public education.
  The critics said that Supreme Court had gone too far, they had no 
right to reach that conclusion. Well, I disagree with those critics. 
But some of them said they should have been strict constructionists, 
they should have left schools as they were; it was not their right to 
change the public school system of America. I think they did the right 
thing for this Nation.
  Having said that, there are times when a Supreme Court has reached a 
decision which I disagree with. Most recently, this current Court--
which is dominated by more conservative members, those who fall into 
the so-called strict construction school--had a case that came before 
them involving a woman. She was a woman who worked at a tire 
manufacturing plant in Alabama, if I am not mistaken. She spent a 
lifetime working there. Her name was Lilly Ledbetter. Lilly rose 
through the management ranks and was very happy with the assignment she 
was given at this plant.
  She worked side by side, shoulder to shoulder, with many male 
employees. It was not until Lilly announced her retirement that one of 
the employees came to her and said: Lilly, for many years now, you have 
been paid less than the man you were working next to, even though you 
had the same job title and the same job assignment. This company was 
paying less to women doing the same job as men. She thought that was 
unfair--after a lifetime of work--that she would not receive equal pay 
for equal work.
  So she filed a lawsuit under a Federal law asking that she be 
compensated for this discrimination against her--the reduction in pay 
she had faced and the retirement reduction which she faced as a result 
of it. It was a well-known law she filed her case under, giving each 
American the right to allege discrimination in the workplace, and she 
set out to prove it.
  Her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, across the street--the highest court in the land. This 
conservative, strict construction Court departed from all the earlier 
cases. The earlier cases had said something that was, I think, 
reasonable on its face. They looked at the statute, the law the case 
was brought under, and said Lilly Ledbetter had a specific period of 
time after she discovered the discrimination to file a lawsuit. I 
believe the period was 6 months. I may be mistaken, but I think that is 
a fact--that she had 6 months after she discovered she was 
discriminated against to file a lawsuit. And Lilly Ledbetter said: That 
is exactly what I did. When I learned I was discriminated against, I 
filed within that statutory requirement.
  But the Supreme Court, across the street--the strict constructionists 
that they are--reached a different conclusion. Their conclusion was 
that the law did not mean that. The law meant she had to file the 
lawsuit within 6 months after the first act of discrimination. In other 
words, the first time she was paid less than the man working next to 
her, she had a clock starting to run, and she had 6 months to file the 
lawsuit.
  Well, those of us who have worked outside government--and even those 
working in government, for that matter, to some extent, but those 
working in the private sector know it is a rare company that publishes 
the paychecks of every employee. You may be working next to someone for 
years and never know exactly what they are being paid.
  That was the case with Lilly Ledbetter. She did not know the man 
standing next to her, doing the same job, was being paid more. She did 
not discover that until many years later.
  So the Supreme Court said: Mrs. Ledbetter, unfortunately, you did not 
file your case in time. We are throwing it out of court. And they did. 
Strict constructionists, conservatives that they were, they departed 
from the previous court's decisions, which had given her and people 
like her the right to recover and limited that right to recover.
  Well, in the name of Lilly Ledbetter, we changed the law to make it 
abundantly clear, so that neither this Supreme Court nor any Supreme 
Court in the future will have any doubt that it is 6 months after the 
discovery of discrimination, not after the first act of discrimination.
  It was one of the first bills, if not the first bill, President 
Barack Obama signed. I happened to be there at the signing, and 
standing next to him, receiving the pen for that signature, was Lilly 
Ledbetter. She may not have won in the Supreme Court, she may not have 
come back with the compensation she was entitled to, but she at least 
had the satisfaction to know this Congress and this President would not 
allow the injustice created by that Supreme Court decision to continue.
  So the Senator from Alabama came here and said: We do not need judges 
with empathy. That word has been stretched in many different 
directions. But if empathy means we do not need judges who understand 
the reality of the workplace, if empathy means we would say to Lilly 
Ledbetter: Sorry, you missed it, girl, you had 6 months to file that 
lawsuit from the first act of discrimination, the first paycheck--you 
missed it, and you are out of luck--if empathy would say that is not a 
fair or just result, I want judges with empathy. I want them to know 
the real world. I want them to know the practical impact of the 
decisions they make. I want them to follow the law. I want them to be 
fair in its administration. But I do not want them to sit high and 
mighty in their black robes so far above the real world that they could 
not see justice if it bit them. I think that is what empathy brings--
someone who is at least in touch with this real world.
  For the last several--2 weeks, I guess--the nominee of President 
Barack Obama for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has been meeting 
with the Members of the Senate. She had an unfortunate mishap and broke 
her ankle at La Guardia Airport, so I allowed her to use my conference 
room upstairs on the third floor, and there was a steady parade of 
Senators coming in to meet her.
  I asked her this morning. She said: I have seen 61 Senators, and I 
have 6

[[Page S6700]]

more today. She may break a record for actually meeting face to face 
with more Senators than most Supreme Court nominees. But regardless, 
she is doing her level best to introduce herself and to answer any 
questions Senators have. I think--and I told the President when I saw 
him at an event today--he has made an extraordinary choice.

  Sonia Sotomayor was first selected to serve on the Federal court--the 
district court--by President George Herbert Walker Bush. She was then 
promoted by President Bill Clinton to a higher level court--the circuit 
court--and now is being nominated for Supreme Court service. She has 
more experience on the Federal bench than any nominee in 100 years, so 
she is going to be no neophyte if she is fortunate enough to serve on 
the Court.
  She is a woman with an extraordinary life story, having grown up in 
the Bronx in public housing. Her father died when she was 9 years old. 
Her mother raised her and her younger bother, who ended up becoming a 
doctor, incidentally.
  She was encouraged to apply to Princeton, which was a world she knew 
nothing about as a young Latino growing up in the Bronx, but she 
applied and was accepted. At the end of the 4-year period, she 
graduated second in her class at Princeton. I do not believe Princeton 
University is an easy assignment. I think it is a challenging 
assignment. Clearly, she was up to it.
  She went on to graduate from Yale Law School. She was involved in 
prosecution. She was involved in working in private law practice. She 
has an amazing background in law, and I think she would be an 
extraordinary member of the Supreme Court.
  So Senator Sessions came earlier and talked about his philosophy and 
certainly expressed it very capably. I did not have any prepared 
remarks on the subject. Although I disagree with him, I respect him 
very much, and I hope at the end of the day we can do the Senate proud 
and serve our Nation by giving her a fair and timely hearing.
  Let's not use a double standard on this nominee. As chairman of the 
Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy has suggested a timely 
hearing on her nomination. It is a hearing within the same schedule of 
those who went before her, such as Chief Justice Roberts or Justice 
Alito. So if she is given the same standard of fairness, that hearing 
will go forward. I certainly hope it does and think she will do well.


                                Tourism

  Mr. President, this bill we are considering on the floor at this time 
could not come at a better time. On October 2, the International 
Olympic Committee is going to select a site for the 2016 Olympic games.
  I am proud to say that Chicago is one of the final global 
candidates--one of the final four in the world. Winning that bid would 
bring 6 million tourists from all over the world into the United States 
and generate as much as $7 billion in tourist revenue.
  This bill, by encouraging international tourism--the one before us--
will welcome international visitors to our country, and it will 
demonstrate to the world that the United States is open for visitors. 
That can only help improve the chances that the 2016 Olympic games 
actually come to the Windy City.
  Tourism and travel generate approximately $1.3 trillion in economic 
activity in the United States every year, including 8.3 million travel-
related jobs.
  Overseas visits to the United States, unfortunately, are still being 
hampered by the specter and memory of 9/11. That has cost the United 
States an estimated $182 billion in lost spending by tourists in our 
country and $27 billion in lost tax receipts in the last 8 years. The 
current economic downturn is expected to cost another 250,000 travel-
related jobs just this year alone.
  So this bill addresses some of the problems underlying this downturn 
in overseas visitors.
  Through a public-private, nonprofit Corporation for Travel Promotion, 
the United States will coordinate its efforts to encourage 
international tourism.
  The new Office of Travel Promotion within the Department of Commerce 
will work to streamline entry procedures, making travel to the United 
States more welcoming and efficient.
  The bill does all this while reducing budget deficits by $425 
million. In other words, this is one of the few bills we will consider 
that actually is going to make money. Bringing more tourists to the 
United States, generating more tax revenue, is going to be to our 
economic benefit and the benefit of our government.
  By setting up stronger entities to promote internationally the 
benefits of visiting America, this bill certainly advances Chicago's 
chances to be awarded the 2016 Olympic games.
  But the bill also offers an opportunity to showcase internationally 
all the other reasons to visit America, and they are many.
  Even in my home State of Illinois, a lot of foreign travelers come to 
walk the streets that Abraham Lincoln walked in Springfield, IL. 
Looking for Lincoln highlights sites all across our State, with a 
series of stories about the President's life in 42 different counties 
of Illinois where his journeys took him.
  The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, IL, was a pet 
project of mine I thought of about 18 years ago and today is a 
reality. This Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum draws 
almost half a million tourists a year to Springfield, many of them 
families with children who leave with a better understanding and a very 
enjoyable visit after seeing Lincoln's life portrayed in very positive 
terms.

  Saline County, IL, down in southern Illinois, draws visitors to its 
Garden of the Gods--the gateway to the Shawnee National Forest, one of 
the prettier areas in our State.
  Quincy, IL, features historic architecture and fun along the mighty 
Mississippi River.
  We have our unusual tourist attractions in Illinois as well. Near my 
old hometown of East St. Louis, you can visit Collinsville and see the 
world's largest catsup bottle or the two-story outhouse in Gays, IL, or 
the home of Superman, including a 15-foot Superman statue in 
Metropolis, IL, and a 6-foot Popeye statue in Chester, IL. A lot of 
photographs have been taken in front of the statue.
  Every State has these historic, amazing places to visit and those 
curiosities that bring people from all over the United States and all 
over the world.
  Illinois offers the international visitor a truly American 
experience. In fact, Illinois tourism adds $2.1 billion to State and 
local tax coffers and supports more than 300,000 jobs annually. In 
2008, there were about 1.4 million international visitors to my State. 
These travelers spent $2 billion in all sectors of the economy, from 
transportation, to lodging, to food service, to entertainment. These 
international visitors generated an additional $521 million in wages 
and salaries for Illinois residents.
  I encourage my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill. I am sorry 
it was delayed today. There was no reason for that. We sat here idly 
today making wonderful speeches when we should have been passing this 
bill. I hope we get to it soon, and I hope, with passing it, we will 
help this economy get back on its feet.
  Mr. President, I see the Senator from Ohio is in the Chamber. I have 
one last short statement I have to make.


                  Consumer Financial Protection Agency

  Mr. President, today I went to the White House to hear President 
Obama announce a significant, sweeping change in the regulation of 
financial services. It is the most important change since the Great 
Depression. At the heart of President Obama's proposal is the creation 
of an independent new agency. It is called the Consumer Financial 
Protection Agency. It is going to put the interests of American 
families and consumers above the interests of a lot of businesses and 
banks.
  I introduced a bill last year, and then again this year, that would 
create that same agency. It is an honor for me that the President would 
pick up on this idea and make it a major part of what he is doing. But 
before I take too much credit for it, the idea really originated with 
Elizabeth Warner. She is a professor at Harvard Law School who is one 
of the more creative, innovative people who advise us here on Capitol 
Hill. She realizes, as most of us do, that most consumers and customers 
and businesses are at the mercy of a lot of regulations and a lot of 
fine print that is almost impossible to follow, so

[[Page S6701]]

she suggested the creation of this agency, and the President followed 
through today.
  It is simple: an agency staffed by people who wake up in the morning 
thinking about how to make consumer financial transactions safer in 
America and more understandable. It will mean we are going to protect 
consumers from making mistakes and making decisions that could be very 
damaging to them economically.
  Today, there are no fewer than 10 Federal agencies with the 
responsibility for consumer protections from predatory or deceptive 
financial products to a variety of other areas, but none of them--not 
one of them--has oversight as its primary objective. That is going to 
change with President Obama's bill. This agency will encourage 
innovation that benefits consumers rather than innovation that benefits 
those who are going to make a profit off of those same consumers. There 
is a large coalition of consumer advocacy groups supporting this 
concept. I look forward to working with Chairman Dodd and the Banking 
Committee to see that this agency becomes a reality. It won't be an 
easy task, but it is a perfect followup to our Credit Card Reform Act.
  We need to be more sensitive to consumers in America struggling in 
this economy to make sure they have protection. One illustration tells 
it all.
  There was a prepayment penalty that was folded into a lot of these 
subprime mortgages. If you have been to a real estate closing on your 
home, you know they stack up papers on a table in front of you and they 
turn the corners and they say: Keep signing, and eventually you will 
get out of here.
  You may slow them down and say: What am I signing?
  They will say: It is standard. It is boilerplate. It is a government 
requirement. Keep signing.
  Sign and sign and sign, 20, 30, 40 times, and then you get the check, 
hand it back to the bank, and you go home with the keys in hand. That 
has happened to me a few times with my wife. I am a lawyer. Did I read 
every page? No.
  Well, it turned out that the mortgages that were sold for a long 
period of time in America had a prepayment penalty. So if you got into 
a bad mortgage and decided, man, that interest rate is too high; I 
can't keep making payments, so I am going to the bank next door where I 
can get a lower interest rate, they would say: Sorry to tell you this, 
but to pay off your old mortgage, there is a penalty that is pretty 
steep. And you say: Well, I didn't know that. Well, you missed it. You 
missed it in that stack of papers. That prepayment penalty sentenced 
thousands of American homeowners to be stuck with subprime mortgages 
that were unfair and eventually led to foreclosure. Why wasn't there 
someone to warn that customer, that person borrowing for their home? 
This agency can do that. This agency can make that sort of thing clear 
to customers and consumers across America so that they have a fighting 
chance. They can avoid bad decisions that can be disastrous for their 
personal finances.
  As Congress embarks on financial regulatory reform, our improved 
regulatory system must focus not just on safety and soundness of the 
providers of financial products but also on the safety of the consumers 
of financial products. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency will do 
just that.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I see my colleague from Ohio is here. I 
am wondering if we are in an alternating situation. I wish to speak for 
about 5 minutes. Would that be all right?
  Mr. BROWN. That is fine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.


                         Supreme Court Rulings

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, my colleague from Illinois, Senator 
Durbin, is such a fine lawyer and an excellent Senator. I would 
respectfully talk about some of the ideas he suggested.
  One, he raised the question about the case of Brown v. Board of 
Education where the Court held that separate was not equal, and that 
somehow this is a justification for a judge setting policy. He thought 
it wasn't good policy. I would see it differently. I would say Brown v. 
Board of Education was the Supreme Court saying that the Constitution 
of the United States guarantees every American equal protection of the 
laws. They found that in segregated schools, some people were told they 
must go to this school solely because of their race, some people must 
go to this school solely because of their race, and that, in fact, it 
wasn't equal. So there are several constitutional issues plainly there, 
and I don't think that was an activist policymaking decision. I think 
the Supreme Court correctly concluded that these separate schools in 
which a person was mandated to go to one or the other based on their 
race violated the equal protection clause of the United States, and, in 
effect, they also found it wasn't equal, which they were correct in 
doing.
  With regard to the Lilly Ledbetter case, Senator Durbin and my 
Democratic colleagues during the last campaign and during the last 
several years have talked about this case a lot. I would just say that 
everybody knows it is a universal rule that whenever a wrong is 
inflicted upon an individual, they have a certain time within which to 
file their claim. It is called the statute of limitations. If you don't 
file it within the time allowed by law, then you are barred from filing 
that lawsuit. It happens all over America in cases throughout the 
country.

  The U.S. Supreme Court heard the evidence, and it was argued in the 
U.S. Supreme Court. This one lady, Lilly Ledbetter, took her case all 
the way to the Supreme Court. They heard it, and they concluded that 
she was aware of the unfair wage practices that she alleged long before 
the statute of limitations--long before--and that by the time she filed 
her complaint, it was way too late. In fact, one of the key witnesses 
had already died. So it was years after. So they concluded that.
  The Congress, fulfilling its proper role, was unhappy about it and 
has passed a law that I think unwisely muddles the statute of 
limitations on these kinds of cases dramatically, but it would give her 
a chance to be successful or another person in that circumstance to be 
successful.
  So this wasn't a conservative activist decision; it was a fact-based 
analysis by the Supreme Court by which they concluded that she waited 
too long to bring the lawsuit, and it was barred. Congress, thinking 
that was not good, passed a law that changed the statute of limitations 
so more people would be able to prevail. It is not wrong for the Court 
to strike down bad laws.
  We just had a little to-do with Attorney General Holder today in the 
Judiciary Committee in which the Office of Legal Counsel of the 
Department of Justice had written an opinion that he kept down and has 
still kept it hidden that declared that the legislation we passed to 
give the District of Columbia--not a State but a district--a U.S. 
Congressman was unconstitutional. He didn't want that out since he and 
the President supported giving a Congressman to the District of 
Columbia. But I think that case is going up to the Supreme Court, and I 
would expect it will come back like a rubber ball off that wall because 
I don't think that was constitutional. And I don't believe that is 
activism or an abuse of power; it is simply a plain reading of the 
Constitution.
  If the Congress passes laws in violation of the Constitution, they 
should be struck down. There is nothing wrong with that if the Court is 
doing it in an objective, fair way, not allowing their personal, 
emotional, political, cultural, or other biases to enter into the 
matter.
  So I think we are going to have a great discussion about the Supreme 
Court and our Federal courts. I look forward to it.
  I really appreciate Senator Durbin. He is a superb lawyer. If I were 
in trouble, I would like to have him defending me.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.


                           Health Care Reform

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, across the street today, in the so-called 
Senate Caucus Room--a room which, next to this Chamber, is perhaps the 
most famous room in the Senate; a room where the McCarthy hearings, the 
MacArthur hearings, the Watergate hearings, and the hearings for the 
Supreme Court nominees during the confirmation process have been held. 
It is the room where Senator John F. Kennedy

[[Page S6702]]

announced his campaign for the Presidency in 1960. It is the room where 
Senator Robert F. Kennedy, whose desk at which I sit, announced his 
candidacy for President in March of 1968. It is the room where today we 
are beginning to mark up the health care legislation that is the most 
important thing I have worked on in my, I guess, 17 years in 
Washington. It is probably the most important bill, with the exception 
of war and peace issues, this Congress has worked on in a long time.
  This Congress has been trying for many years, as have been 
Presidents, to pass legislation to reform our health care system.
  In 1945, Harry Truman spoke before a joint session of Congress down 
the hall in the House of Representatives and said:

       Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of 
     opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not 
     now have protection or security against the economic effects 
     of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them 
     attain that opportunity and that protection.

  That was 1945. That was President Harry Truman.
  A dozen years before, President Roosevelt made a momentous decision. 
President Roosevelt decided, in large part because of his fear of the 
power of the American Medical Association, to not include health care 
in the Social Security legislation, in the bill to create Social 
Security, because President Roosevelt actually believed Social Security 
meant a pension and health care.
  But he thought the power of the doctors' lobby would keep him from 
being successful, so he moved forward in the creation of Social 
Security. Who knows if that was the right decision then, but it 
certainly brought us a program that has mattered in the lives of our 
parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Harry Truman was not 
able to accomplish Medicare or any other significant health care reform 
in his 7 years or so as President.
  Fast forward to July 1965. President Johnson passed legislation 
creating Medicare. But leading up to that legislation, again, it was 
the American Medical Association--the most conservative members, 
because I know a lot of doctors who wanted to see us move forward, 
including my father, who was a general practitioner for almost 50 
years. He died at 89 in 2000. Some in the AMA, in 1965, regarding the 
creation of Medicare, called it socialized medicine, and said it was 
too expensive and it would lead to runaway, rampant socialism--the same 
arguments they used in the 1930s, and the same arguments some are now 
using about the public plan option in this health care legislation 
today.
  People obviously know that Medicare, since 1965--coming up on 44 
years--has worked for the American public. Here is the best 
illustration of why Medicare works. There have been many studies over 
the years comparing the outcomes in the United States--health 
outcomes--to the outcomes in other countries in the world. We rank, in 
terms of infant mortality, maternal mortality, diabetes, child obesity, 

and immunization rates--amazingly enough, even though we spend twice as 
much as everybody, we rank almost at the bottom among the rich 
countries in the world on all of those things. There is one statistic 
where we rank near the top, and that is life expectancy at 65. So these 
pages sitting in front of me, five decades from now when they turn 65--
we are going to change the system before then, but people who are 65 in 
this country have a longer, healthier life in front of them than almost 
all other countries in the world. That is because we have Medicare, and 
Medicare works, pure and simple.
  Today, some 65 years after Harry Truman made the speech to the joint 
session I mentioned, we are still waiting for a health care system that 
delivers on the promise of affordability and quality health coverage 
for all.
  We are waiting for reforms that lower costs for businesses and 
families buckling under the weight of ever climbing premiums.
  We are waiting for reforms that foster competition in the insurance 
market and give Americans better choices, including a public health 
insurance option.
  We are still waiting for reforms that bring accountability to the 
system, ensuring that our patients in this country get the highest 
quality care in the world.
  We are waiting, in other words, for reforms that fix what is broken 
and keep what is working. That wait is nearly over. Today is a historic 
time. That wait, since 1932 when FDR decided not to include it in the 
Social Security law, to 1945 when President Truman spoke to a joint 
session, to 1965 when President Johnson was able to push through 
Congress with a heavily Democratic House and Senate, as the 
overwhelming number of Republicans opposed it, the creation of 
Medicare, to today, we are finally at the historic moment. The wait is 
nearly over when we are going to have real health insurance reform. It 
is not a moment too soon for many Ohioans, who are one illness away 
from financial catastrophe.
  For example, take Ann from Dayton, a community in southwest Ohio. She 
wrote to me last year. In the past 5\1/2\ years, she has paid almost 
$130,000 in health care bills. How can this be? Was she uninsured? No. 
When her illness struck, she was a partner in a law firm and had good 
insurance. But once she became too sick to work, she lost her coverage 
and was forced to fend for herself.
  She and her family of four went on COBRA for as long as they could, 
and then they paid $27,000 a year for insurance on the individual 
market, where medical underwriting runs rampant. That is where the 
administrative costs run 30, 35, even 40 percent.
  She recently traded that plan--the $27,000 a year plan, at $2,500 a 
month, almost--for a bare-bones policy that costs only $15,000 a year, 
but doesn't cover prescription drugs and has a $5,000 deductible. 
Before she gets $1 of care paid for by insurance companies, she is 
paying $15,000 for premiums and a $5,000 deductible. So she already has 
paid $20,000 before the insurance company comes in and helps her. She 
writes, ``This is not what insurance is supposed to be about.''
  The bill before us today will take a number of steps to ensure that 
Americans do not meet the same fate as Ann and her family.
  For one, it provides for better regulation of the health insurance 
industry. This insurance industry, in some ways, is one step ahead of 
the sheriff. It is an industry that always tries to figure out how to 
beat the system and how to insure you because you are healthy; they can 
make money on you, but they may exclude you because you are not so 
healthy and they might lose money.
  No longer will we allow insurance companies to play that game. We 
will ban preexisting condition exclusions and prevent insurance 
companies from denying coverage based on medical history. We will 
eliminate annual and lifetime benefit caps. No longer will insurance 
companies be able to selectively cover only those who pose little or no 
risk of needing health care, leaving everybody else in a lurch. Health 
insurers are not supposed to avoid health care costs; they are supposed 
to cover them.
  Second, this reform will extend the reach of our health care system 
to protect those with no health insurance today.
  Let me tell you about Jaclyn. She used to work at a child care 
center, but her employer didn't offer health care benefits, which is 
not surprising. When she discovered a lump in her left breast, she had 
nowhere to turn. She tried the State Medicaid Program, but despite 
having an income in 2006 of only $4,500, she did not qualify. She had 
no dependents at that point. Her daughter was grown. She started 
chemotherapy last year, but doesn't know how she will pay her bills.
  This bill would expand Medicaid and offer premium subsidies to those 
who need help. This bill would increase competition in the health 
insurance market by establishing a federally backed health coverage 
option for those who want it.
  There is nothing like good old-fashioned competition to reduce 
premiums, improve customer service, and keep the health insurance on 
its toes.
  Not surprisingly, the health insurance lobby has launched a massive 
campaign to prevent inclusion of a public health insurance option with 
which they would have to compete.
  I guess competition is a good thing, unless they are the ones who 
have to compete. If you have a public option, insurance companies--the 
President says repeatedly that the whole point of

[[Page S6703]]

an option is that the public plan will compete with a private plan, 
which will keep the private plans more honest. We have done that with 
student loans. Fifteen years ago, the only game in town for students, 
by and large, if they wanted to borrow money for college, was to go to 
a local bank, or another service, which were all private and 
unregulated. President Clinton, in the mid-1990s, decided maybe we 
should have a direct government program so students could borrow 
directly from the Federal Government. Do you know what happened? The 
banks brought their interest rates down. The banks started to provide 
better service. The banks behaved better. That is analogous to what we 
will see with the public plan.
  The conservatives in this body, who are major recipients of insurance 
company money for their campaigns, whose philosophies are always that 
business can do it better, the people who have aligned their political 
careers with the insurance industry all oppose the public option, the 
public plan. Why? It is simple. It is because insurance companies will 
have to cut down their administrative costs, maybe even pay lower 
salaries to their top executives. Maybe they will have to change their 
marketing practices, be less wasteful, and maybe they will behave a 
little better. In that case, the public option was competing with 
private banks, and everybody got better. A public health insurance 
option competing with the private insurance companies will make 
everybody get better. That is the whole point.

  With private insurance competition, when it is just the insurance 
companies competing with each other, funny things tend to happen. We 
see huge salaries and, second, a huge bureaucracy in the insurance 
companies and, third, we see all kinds of marketing campaigns, and we 
see huge overhead and administrative costs--sometimes up to 35, 40 
percent.
  We also see that the term ``private insurance competition'' is often 
simply an oxymoron. In Ohio, the two largest insurance companies 
account for 58 percent of the market. I am not a lawyer, so I didn't 
take the antitrust course. I didn't go to law school. When you have two 
companies that have 58 percent of the market, that is not competition. 
In some Ohio cities--as I assume it is in the Presiding Officer's State 
of Illinois--the two largest insurance companies account for 89 percent 
of the market. That is not exactly healthy competition. If we bring in 
a public option and compete with these two companies, their rates would 
come down and salaries for top executives would come down. There would 
be no more multimillion-dollar salaries, and administrative costs would 
be cut. They would be leaner and meaner, a better insurance company as 
a result.
  Finally, this bill gives providers new tools to improve the way 
health care is delivered in this country, with improvements that help 
Americans with chronic conditions manage those conditions, that can 
dramatically reduce medical errors and overcome unjustifiable 
disparities in health care outcomes.
  These reforms draw insight and inspiration from the work already 
being done by dedicated individuals within our health care system--
individuals such as Dr. Derek Raghavan, who heads the Taussig Cancer 
Center at the Cleveland Clinic. He has devoted himself to reducing 
health disparities. In Cleveland, he has been instrumental in combating 
significant differences in cancer death rates between African Americans 
and Caucasian Americans.
  Dr. Peter Pronovost from Johns Hopkins has a simple checklist for 
preventing hospital infections, which saved 1,500 lives and $100 
million over an 18-month period in the Detroit area hospitals in 
Michigan.
  In Mansfield, my hometown, the community health workers--just high 
school graduates, and some with only GED, high school equivalency 
studies, young women in their early twenties mostly, making only $11 or 
$12 an hour--working with local health care authorities and doctors and 
nurses, reduced the prevalence of low birth weight babies from 22 
percent to 8 percent over 3 years. These young women are only 5 or 6 
years older than the pages in front of me. They don't have the 
opportunities that most of the pages have. These are young women who 
don't have parents who went to college, who probably weren't planning 
on going to college, and are only making $11 or $12 an hour--young 
women who grow up in some of the poorest parts of Mansfield. They have 
already saved lives because they have made a difference in helping 
pregnant women get the nutrition they should have, to learn about 
taking care of babies, learn about pregnancy, and they can come in to 
see an OB/GYN doctor. They have already had an impact on many lives. I 
bet that in 5 or 10 years some of these young women who didn't have 
much of a future because of their upbringing will become doctors and 
nurses because they have had this experience of making a difference.
  Those are some of what is going on in this country. If we do it 
right, we can take this program in Mansfield and replicate it and see 
it all over the Nation.
  This bill will also address serious workforce shortages that exist 
across the spectrum--from nurses, to pediatric specialists, to dental 
care providers, to primary care physicians.
  We have a lot of work to do. I am optimistic that we can pass good 
health care reform in this country. We know that the first rule of 
thumb is to make sure that if people are happy with the insurance plan 
they are in, they can keep it. Second, we have to do a better job of 
reining in the costs to many people in the health care system--
employers and individual businesses--the employers, individuals, and 
government. Third, we need to make sure that everybody in this country 
has access to health care.
  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. GREGG. 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. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              The Economy

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are, as a nation, facing an incredibly 
severe fiscal situation, not only in the short term but in the long 
term. The debt of this country is piling up at astronomical rates. We 
will, this year, have a deficit that comes close to $2 trillion--$2 
trillion--or 28 percent of our gross national product. We are talking 
about a deficit next year of well over $1 trillion. Under the budget 
sent to us by the President and approved by this Congress--not with my 
support or many Republicans--I don't think any Republicans supported 
it--the deficit will run at $1 trillion a year for as far as the eye 
can see.
  The debt of this country will double in 5 years. It will triple in 10 
years. Deficits are running at 4 to 5 percent of GDP--not only 
immediately after we get past this recessionary period--for, again, the 
next 10 years. And the debt-to-GDP ratio, which is a test of how viable 
a nation is, will jump to 80 percent.
  Those are numbers which are not sustainable. Everybody admits they 
are not sustainable. In fact, they are numbers that are so 
devastatingly large and so unmanageable for our Nation that were we 
trying to get into the Europe Union, we wouldn't be allowed in. That is 
how irresponsible our deficit and our debt is. They are numbers which 
will lead us as a nation to lose the value of our dollar--the value of 
our currency--and our ability to finance our debt. In fact, we are 
already seeing signs to that effect. The leadership of the Chinese 
financial systems have made a number of statements which basically have 
said they would not necessarily forever rely on American Treasury notes 
and purchase our notes. And they are financing us right now.
  The country of Great Britain, which is considered to be the second 
most stable country in the world, has received a notice from Standard & 
Poor's that its debt will not necessarily be downgraded, but it is 
being taken to negative status.
  A leading economist and reviewer of the bond issues of the United 
States, as recently as today, has announced that

[[Page S6704]]

our triple A rating--triple-A-plus rating, which is the best in the 
world--is at risk because of this massive explosion in debt.
  To quote Senator Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee--a 
person I greatly admire on issues of fiscal policy--the debt is the 
threat, and it is. It is a threat to our Nation, it is a threat to our 
young people because they will inherit this massive obligation to pay 
for costs which are being expended today.
  There are a lot of reasons why the debt is going up radically. 
Primarily, though, it is spending. It is quite simply spending. The 
spending of the Federal Government will jump from the traditional level 
of about 20 percent of GDP, which it has been at now for 40 years, to 
25 to 26 percent of GDP under President Obama's proposal.
  In the short run, obviously, revenues are a factor because we are in 
a recessionary period. But in the long run, what is driving the 
deficit, what is driving this massive increase of debt, which will be 
unsustainable, is spending.
  Well, the Congress has a chance, in the next couple days, to do a 
small but significant part in the way of a public statement and in the 
way of a statement of policy that we are concerned about the debt. We 
have a chance to do something. This administration has a chance to do 
something. As of today, five banks have repaid large amounts of their 
TARP funds. It is estimated we are going to get about $65 billion of 
TARP payments back.
  In other words, the way the TARP worked during the crisis, which 
almost led to a fiscal meltdown--the government stepped forward and 
purchased preferred stock from a variety of major banks in this 
country. That preferred stock paid dividends to the taxpayers. It was 
an asset, and it was a good decision. It stabilized the financial 
industry. The TARP funds kept us from going over the precipice, kept us 
from an economic meltdown of catastrophic proportions, and saved Main 
Street. People on Main Street probably don't appreciate it that much, 
but essentially that decision saved folks' homes, their ability to 
borrow, to go to school, their ability to borrow to start their 
business, to meet their payroll, and basically operate as a typical 
economy.
  The idea always was that the TARP money would come back to the 
Federal Treasury, the $700 billion worth of TARP money that was 
authorized would come back after the financial situation stabilized. 
Well, now we are starting to see it come back in the first tranche--$65 
billion plus about $4.5 billion of interest. That is pretty good. We 
made $4.5 billion in interest--in less than 4 months, by the way. The 
taxpayers did pretty well on this.
  So what are we going to do with that money? Well, I suggest--and the 
law actually states--what should be done with that money. We should pay 
down the debt. That is a good way to use this money. The other option 
is the Treasury can simply hold on to it in anticipation of, 
potentially, another crisis. But that is not necessary. The Treasury 
still has a line of credit under TARP which reaches $50 billion to $75 
billion, depending on how you account for it.
  We know the risks out in the marketplace right now are nowhere near 
that number, and they are certainly not systemic. Therefore, these TARP 
dollars are not needed. They are not needed right now or in the 
foreseeable future for the purposes of maintaining financial stability 
and avoiding a systemic meltdown. So it is totally appropriate that all 
that money be used to pay down the debt, or at least a significant 
portion.
  It would be an extraordinarily positive statement by this 
administration if they said to the markets and to the American people: 
The responsible thing to do is to take this money and pay down the 
debt. I think the market would react positively immediately. They would 
say we are serious. I think the American people would react positively 
immediately too. It would be a huge win for this President--the policy 
worked. This President and the prior President, President Bush and 
President Obama, had the courage to step up in the face of fairly 
significant headwinds and make the decision to use the TARP money in 
this way. Now it has worked, they should use it to pay down the debt 
and get the double win of having been able to say what we did was good 
policy, it was not popular policy but it was good policy, it worked to 
stabilize the financial institutions, and what we are doing now to pay 
down the debt is also good policy and it is what the law calls for in 
the end.

  That is the first thing that could happen right now, and it should 
happen. This money that was paid in today to the Treasury should be 
used immediately to pay down the debt, and that should be announced by 
the Treasury--or if I were President, I would announce it myself; it is 
pretty good news. So that is a step in the right direction. Granted, on 
a $2 trillion deficit, it is not massive, but it is a statement, and a 
statement is important at this time. And you know, $68 billion is a lot 
of money anyway, so it would be a good decision.
  The second thing we should do, and we can do, is not allow the war 
supplemental--which is an important piece of legislation needed to fund 
our troops--to be used as a passenger train for unfunded baggage which 
will pass debt on to our children on extraneous issues. That is what it 
is being used for.
  Last week, the President held a press conference at the White House 
surrounded by the Democratic leadership of the Congress, and he said we 
are going to return to pay-go, we are going to require that new 
programs be paid for. I applaud that as an attitude and approach. It 
has not been followed around here, but I applaud the fact that he 
stated that and he had standing behind him the Democratic leadership of 
this Congress when he said that.
  Ironically, on the same day, I believe, the House of Representatives 
passed a bill which increased spending by $1 billion which had nothing 
to do with the war, which was not paid for. Therefore, it did not meet 
pay-go but instead created a debt our children will have to pay. They 
stuck that legislation in the war fighting bill so it could not be 
amended and paid for or amended and improved. It is called the Cash for 
Clunkers, and it is a clunker of a bill because it passes on to our 
children a $1 billion price. It is $1 billion of new debt.
  Why would we do that? Cash for Clunkers may be a program that is 
good. Maybe it is a reasonable idea to pay for old cars to get them off 
the road, to put new cars on the road, hopefully to increase mileage of 
the auto fleet and also to stimulate the economy. That may be a good 
idea, but it is not a good idea to not pay for that. We have already 
spent $740 billion on the stimulus package, unpaid for. We have spent 
$83 billion on the automobile buyouts, on the automobile bailout--
unpaid for. Now to put this extra $1 billion on top of all that just 
adds insult to injury to the next generation and our children's 
children who will have to pay the price for this. Why should our 
children and our grandchildren have to pay the bill for us paying 
$3,500 to somebody to buy their car today? How fiscally irresponsible 
is that? It is especially fiscally irresponsible when you realize it is 
done in the context and on the same day, I believe, as the President 
announcing that we are going to go back to pay-go principles around 
here where we actually pay for new programs we put on the books. But in 
order to avoid that, in order to avoid what they had just signed onto, 
the congressional Democratic leadership down at the White House, 
standing behind the President and cheering when he said we are going 
back to pay-go, stuck this language in the war supplemental.
  That is an insult to our troops. In order to fund our troops, they 
have to take along with them $1 billion of new debt, passed on to their 
children. Many of these extraordinary people who are fighting for us 
have children. Is it right that in order to get them the adequate 
resources they need to fight this war, we should send their children a 
bill for $1 billion so we get a public policy that we can go back to 
our automobile dealers with and say: Hurray, we got you this $1 billion 
of spending. Of course not. That is not right, it is not fair, it is 
not appropriate.
  Okay, Cash for Clunkers may make sense if it is paid for. The way it 
was structured, it cannot be paid for. You cannot amend this bill in 
its present form, and therefore, if it passes with the Cash for 
Clunkers in it, a $1 billion price tag in it, we basically pass that 
debt on to our children.

[[Page S6705]]

  I will at the appropriate time offer an amendment which will 
essentially be a pay-go amendment. It will be a point of order that 
says essentially--it will not be under pay-go because if I did that it 
might bring the whole bill down and I have no interest in bringing the 
whole bill down--it will be a targeted point of order which will 
essentially be a pay-go point of order. Anybody voting against this 
point of order will be voting against pay-go, which will say this 
language, which is unpaid for, this $1 billion, should not stay in this 
bill in this form. Does that mean this bill goes down? No. You will 
hear a lot of moaning going around saying this will destroy the bill. 
No, it will not. This bill can be sent back to the House and passed 
without the Cash for Clunkers language in it, unpaid for, or it could 
be sent back to the House and they can put back in the Cash for 
Clunkers language, paid for. It can all happen within about a 6-hour 
day, 6-hour legislative day, maybe even less. Maybe even a half hour, 
knowing the rapidity of the Rules Committee in the House.
  It seems this will be one of the first tests of whether we as a 
Congress mean what we say. Do we mean that when we say we are not going 
to create a new program that we are not going to pay for, we actually 
will stand behind those words? This should be an easy one for us 
because this plan can be paid for rather easily by moving money around 
in the original stimulus package. It is fairly obvious this plan should 
not be in the war supplemental to begin with, but if it is going to be 
in the war supplemental, it should not be in the form that passes 
massive debt on to our children. It is a chance to make a $1 billion 
statement that we are going to start getting serious about the debt 
around here.
  I hope I will be joined in this point of order by my colleagues who 
are interested in the integrity of the pay-go process and in not 
passing on to our kids a $1 billion bill they do not deserve.
  I make a point of order that a quorum is not present and yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Cash For Clunkers

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I come to the floor to respond to my 
friend, the distinguished ranking member on the Budget Committee, who 
just spoke a moment ago about the supplemental and one provision, a 
very small provision, in this very large bill. I hope that when there 
is an effort to waive all the budget points of order, colleagues will 
support doing that while remembering thousands of small businesspeople 
across this country who are asking that we support them at this time of 
real crisis as it relates to automobile sales, not just in the United 
States but all across the world.
  We have a global crisis right now. We know in our credit markets it 
has resulted in people not being able to come in and buy an automobile. 
It is compounded by the huge losses in jobs that we have seen where 
people cannot afford to come in and buy a new automobile.
  My colleague spoke about small but symbolic measures. I would hope 
that our colleagues, who I know care deeply about dealers--we have 
heard this from Republican and Democratic colleagues; we have had bills 
held up on the floor to work on efforts that I was proud to join in 
helping our auto dealers.
  I would certainly hope that colleagues would not decide for symbolism 
to focus on what is less than 1 percent of this supplemental--less than 
1 percent of the supplemental--focused on helping America's auto 
dealers at this critical time. In terms of this supplemental, it is a 
very small amount of money. It has received a lot of focus from a lot 
of concerns, which I appreciate, on how things are written or how 
colleagues would do things differently. I appreciate that.
  But the reality is we are in a crisis, not just in my State but all 
across the country and, frankly, around the world when we look at what 
has been happening to small businesses and communities across America. 
I know what this feels like. My father and grandfather had the 
Oldsmobile dealership in the small town where I grew up in northern 
Michigan. When I grew up, the first job I had was washing cars on the 
car lot. I know what has happened to small businesses across America 
right now that have played by the rules and, through no fault of their 
own, find themselves in a very difficult circumstance.
  We have a small provision that has been given a lot of different 
names. One version of it has been called cash for clunkers. It is based 
on a bill on which I was proud to join with House Members that is 
called Drive America Forward. But it would incentivize people to go 
into these small dealerships across America and give them an 
opportunity, an incentive, or support to be able to buy a new car.
  Why is this important? Well, we have seen from January to May of this 
year, compared to January to May of last year, across-the-board 
reductions in auto sales: 41.8 percent for GM; 39 percent for Toyota; 
36.8 for Ford; Chrysler, 46.3 percent; Honda, 34.4 percent. It is 
pretty rough if you are an auto dealer and you see your sales going 
down month after month--30 percent, 40 percent--to be able to make the 
payroll every week for your employees. It is pretty tough to do that.
  Around the world, we have seen efforts to help automakers, to help 
auto dealers, to help communities, to help middle-class consumers and 
those who want to be able to purchase a vehicle to be able to do that.
  Our dealers, on average, employ 53 people each, over 116,000 people 
directly. That is the entire combined workforce of GM and Chrysler 
together. We are talking about a large number of people who have come 
in a number of ways to ask us to help them. This is one opportunity. 
This is it. This is what is in front of us.
  We know how hard it is to move legislation through the House and the 
Senate. We are the last place, the last vote standing between helping 
the dealers of America and turning our backs on them. This is the last 
vote. This is the one vote as to whether we are going to be able to 
step forward and be able to help them.
  Every other industrialized country, small and large, understands what 
has been happening, and they are fighting for their middle class. They 
are fighting for their jobs. They are looking for every class they can 
to help.
  The question is, Will we? Germany began a program similar to the one 
that we are talking about that is funded through this bill in January. 
By the end of the first month, sales were up 21 percent, 21 percent. 
That is money in the pockets of small businesses and large dealerships. 
Across Germany it was so successful they extended it and had sales 
continue to go up as a result. When our auto sales were going down 41 
percent, Germany's--during the same period--went up 21 percent because 
they said: You know what. We have to stop the bottom from falling out 
of this. It is too important for our economy. We want to do something 
about it. And they did. Now similar programs exist in a number of 
countries: China, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Great Britain, Spain, France, 
Italy, Australia, Portugal, Romania, and Slovakia--Slovakia. If 
Slovakia can help their auto industry and their car dealers, I think 
the United States of America ought to be able to step up and help.
  This is a small effort, a few months, to give a boost, a stimulus, to 
a group of small businesses, an industry that has been talked about on 
the floor many times and that we need to care about. This particular 
program is not only supported by Ford and domestic auto companies, but 
it is also, of course, supported by the National Auto Dealers very 
strongly, the United Auto Workers, the National Association of 
Manufacturers, the Steel Workers, the Automotive Recyclers Association, 
the Specialty Equipment Market Association, the Motor and Equipment 
Manufacturers Association, the AFL-CIO, the Business Roundtable, and 
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

[[Page S6706]]

  All have come together to ask us to do something and to support this 
effort. We are now at a point where we have to decide if we want to 
help. It is not just about the automakers. You know, we know that 
help--and a lot of it--is going to GM and Chrysler, and those of us who 
represent them appreciate that very much. But this is much broader than 
that. This is all kinds of dealers, all kinds of automakers. Not only 
those who work in the plants, whom I care about deeply, but it is 
people who work in offices, the engineers, the designers. This is an 
economic tsunami that has hit every part of the economy when we look at 
this entire industry: the clerks, the office managers, the sales 
people, the mechanics, the car washers, up and down.
  The global credit crunch has had a devastating effect on everyone in 
our economy who relies on the sale of automobiles: Printers, 
advertisers, local newspapers, television stations, radio stations. 
They are all asking us to act.
  This is a reasonable, focused, short-term effort to help those who 
have been having an extremely difficult time just holding their heads 
above water. We know this effort can make a difference.
  I thank our House colleagues who have done a tremendous amount of 
work on this matter. I want to thank Congressmen Markey and Waxman and 
Stupak and Dingell and Boucher and others who were involved in putting 
this together and putting it into the energy and climate change 
legislation reported out of the Energy Committee in the House of 
Representatives.
  I thank every one of the 298 Members of the House on a bipartisan 
basis. Over two-thirds of the House of Representatives voted for this 
legislation, and it was put into the supplemental in an emergency 
document, an emergency piece of legislation. It was put in there 
because of what has happened with the bottom falling out of the economy 
for dealers, dealers that have found themselves in very difficult 
circumstances because of bankruptcies, and dealers that are trying to 
move forward and trying to be able to survive during this economy.
  I know there are colleagues who would like to see this have more 
energy efficiency provisions. I believe in the context of what we do 
going forward in the energy bill and climate change we can work 
together to fashion something that has a focus, an input, from everyone 
who cares deeply about these issues.
  At this time and place, this legislation is a balance between those 
of us who are concerned about an immediate stimulus while meeting the 
needs and concerns about increased fuel efficiency. We are making 
amazing strides on fuel efficiency. The President of the United States, 
not long ago, announced increased fuel efficiency standards. No one in 
the industry objected. I did not hear objections. I certainly did not 
object. This is not about whether we need to increase fuel efficiency. 
We do and we are. We will continue to do that.
  This bill, while being a short-term stimulus, also helps in that 
regard because it will give a voucher of either $3,500 or $4,500 toward 
the purchase of a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

  When you look at your own home situation, anyone who is going to want 
to be a part of this is going to make sure their car, that automobile, 
is worth $3,500 or less or $4,500 or less. Someone is not going to turn 
in a $15,000 used vehicle to get a $4,500 voucher.
  So, by definition, we are talking about older cars. Some people have 
said ``clunkers,'' and people have kind of thrown that around, and 
``what does all of this mean''?
  But we are not talking about a $50,000 vehicle with a resale value of 
$20,000 or $15,000. We are talking about older vehicles that are worth 
$4,500 or less.
  The legislation requires, as has been done in other countries, when 
you turn it in, that the engine is scrapped, the parts of it that we do 
not want to continue to use--because of the lack of fuel efficiency--
are scrapped. We can recycle some of the other parts, but the basic 
transmission system is scrapped.
  So we are talking about older vehicles worth $4,500 or less, the 
polluting pieces of the automobile are scrapped, and then we are 
talking about the ability to purchase a vehicle that is more fuel 
efficient. In the case of automobiles, you need a minimum fuel economy 
of 22 miles per gallon or more, you get a $3,500 voucher for a 4-mile-
per-gallon improvement, and a $4,500 voucher if the new vehicle you 
purchase is 10 miles per gallon or more fuel efficient.
  So there is a benefit from a fuel efficiency standpoint. There is 
benefit. I appreciate that for some it is not enough. I do appreciate 
that. There are those who would like to see something different, and 
certainly we will have opportunities to continue to work together in 
that regard.
  But I go back to my original premise. At this time, in our economy, 
at this time with what has been happening on unemployment, what has 
been happening to businesses, large and small, because they cannot get 
capital, because of the ripple effect in the auto industry, of what is 
happening to suppliers, to dealers, to anyone involved in this 
industry--and 1 out of every 10 persons in America is in some way 
related to the auto industry--at this time we need to be prudent and 
balance what we are doing in a way that makes sure that all parts of 
the auto industry, domestic and foreign, can participate and that we 
are doing this as quickly as possible. It will not help as a stimulus 
if this is done 6 months or a year from now.

  I don't know how much longer the car dealers in Clare, MI, where I 
grew up, can hold on, if they are losing 40 percent a month in sales. I 
don't know how much longer they can hold on. I don't know what happens 
to the Chrysler dealer and the GM dealer trying to turn over inventory 
now as they wind down. I don't know what happens. But I do know we will 
see more dealerships close. We will see more people lose their jobs. We 
are going to see more mainstays of local communities finding they 
cannot make it.
  This is the moment. We won't get another chance. We will not get 
another chance. This is the moment to help. We have other opportunities 
to work together on other policies. I say to my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle, for all of the dealers who have been calling and 
asking for help, this is the moment. This is the vote. There won't be a 
second vote. So when you go home, think about what you want to say to 
the small business people, the auto dealers, office managers, 
mechanics, people who are involved in that business in your community, 
when you had a chance to help. I hope we will take it. I hope we will 
take it as the House did. I hope we will see overwhelming bipartisan 
support, as we saw in the House of Representatives for this particular 
policy.
  I strongly urge colleagues to vote to override the budget points of 
order. All of them will be asked to be overridden. I encourage 
colleagues to do that. I hope we will show that we get it. Do we get 
what is going on in communities across America? This vote will say 
whether we get what is happening and have a sense of urgency about 
stepping up to help.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________