[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 132 (Thursday, September 17, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9541-S9545]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                  APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010--Continued


                           Amendment No. 2394

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are now 2 minutes of debate prior to a 
vote in relation to amendment No. 2394 offered by the Senator from 
Nebraska, Mr. Johanns.
  The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, this morning I presented the argument 
on this amendment to the Senate. The question was raised: We don't 
think there is money that comes out of this budget relative to this 
organization, ACORN. I went back to the office and did some research. 
This is a bill that controls hundreds of grant programs. After studying 
that, it appears I was right. ACORN gets money out of this 
appropriations.
  Moments ago my staff brought me information that would suggest that

[[Page S9542]]

ACORN has, in fact, received funding. The EPA is a part of this bill. 
If Members go to this bill at page 182, they will see the EPA is there. 
We went to the EPA Web site. Here is what the Web site says, 
referencing a grant program, that it is a collaboration of nonprofit 
organizations led by Ellis Hamilton.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, these videotapes that are the excuse for 
this amendment understandably have offended most who have heard about 
them, including me. I detest the stupidity and crassness that they 
depict. If people have acted improperly, they should be fired, and if 
they have acted illegally, they should be prosecuted. Period. The Obama 
administration has been equally critical.
  ACORN is not the reason for my vote. There is not even an ACORN 
office in my entire State. Nor, for that matter, is there any reason to 
believe that this group ever has or ever would have any interest or 
expertise in applying for competitive grants under the programs funded 
in this Interior appropriations bill.
  Everyone--except perhaps many of the casual observers who are the 
target audience of the orchestrated anti-ACORN frenzy--knows that 
score-at-any-price partisanship is being mixed in an unseemly way with 
public policy.
  For more than a year--since long before these videotapes were made--
it has been well known that a partisan project has been launched to 
demonize ACORN. ACORN in several ways has made easy work of that.
  To me, this knee-jerk injection of politics into the competitive 
grant process is the real issue here. Congress should not compound the 
wrongful and stupid actions depicted on these videos by deciding to set 
political standards for competitive Federal grants. Federal agencies 
use a nonpartisan review process to award grants to the most 
competitive applicants. Just as I would be against banning other 
specific organizations on the right or on the left from applying for 
competitive grants, I believe it is harmful, even though popular, to 
approve an amendment such as this.
  It is unseemly to allow use of a partisan playbook to run roughshod 
over long-established competitive grant procedure. The admittedly few 
votes that were cast against this amendment, against the tide of 
popular opinion, have at least made it more likely that in calmer 
moments months or years from now, there may at least be some thought 
invested before Congress again acts to inject raw political 
partisanship from the left or from the right--into the competitive 
grant mechanisms of Federal agencies.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, as chairman of the committee, I urge 
a ``no'' vote on this amendment. We voted on this yesterday. The vote 
was compelling, 87 to 7. To the best of our knowledge--and the staff 
has scrubbed the bill--there is no money for ACORN in the Interior 
appropriations bill. To do this is to set a precedent to do this on 
every single appropriations bill. This morning I said to the 
distinguished Senator from the great State of Nebraska: We will take 
this amendment. He refused. I guess all of this is really to show 
people. It is unnecessary. It delays. This is an important bill. We 
would like to get it passed. Please vote no.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. JOHANNS. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I wish to inform all Members, this will be 
the last vote today. Tomorrow is a Jewish holiday. We will not be in 
session tomorrow. We will be in session Monday for Senators to offer 
amendments on the Interior appropriations bill. There will be no votes 
on Monday. There will be a vote or two prior to the caucus on Tuesday. 
Members with a pent-up desire to offer amendments, the floor will be 
theirs all day Monday. We will come in as early as they want to start 
offering amendments. We need to move forward on these appropriations 
bills. I appreciate everyone's cooperation getting this Transportation 
bill done. This is the fifth one we have completed. We have seven more 
to go.
  Mr. JOHANNS. I ask for the yeas and nays on amendment No. 2394.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be.
  The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu) 
and the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 85, nays 11, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 289 Leg.]

                                YEAS--85

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bennett
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brown
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Ensign
     Feingold
     Franken
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lautenberg
     LeMieux
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--11

     Akaka
     Bingaman
     Burris
     Casey
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Harkin
     Leahy
     Sanders
     Whitehouse

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Enzi
     Landrieu
     Murray
  The amendment (No. 2394) was agreed to.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, I submit pursuant to Senate rules a 
report, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.


         Disclosure of Congressionally Directed Spending Items

       I certify that the information required by rule XLIV of the 
     Standing Rules of the Senate related to congressionally 
     directed spending items has been identified in the committee 
     report which accompanies H.R. 2996 and that the required 
     information has been available on a publicly accessible 
     congressional website at least 48 hours before a vote on the 
     pending bill.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, before the Senator begins, I wonder 
if I might simply say that the floor is open for any amendments to the 
bill. So if Members are in their offices and would like to come down 
and present an amendment, following Senator Brown would be a good time.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I thank the senior Senator from 
California for her indulgence and her good work on this legislation and 
for her leadership generally.


                           Health Care Reform

  Madam President, I come to the floor almost every day to share 
letters from constituents in Ohio that tell a story about how they have 
worked within the health care system. Some of these stories will break 
your heart. Some of these stories are all too common in my State and 
around the country. Whether it is in Lima or Toledo or Ravenna or Saint 
Clairsville, people who oftentimes thought they had good insurance, who 
had paid their premium month after month, year after year, had gotten 
very sick, spent a lot of money on biologic drugs and on hospital stays 
and then their insurance

[[Page S9543]]

was canceled so their insurance was not there when they needed it, even 
though they paid month after month after month.
  Let me take 5 minutes to share three or four of these letters from 
people around Ohio.
  The first one comes from Robert and Shirley from Clinton County. 
Clinton County is Wilmington, OH, just 60, 75 miles or so northeast of 
Cincinnati. Robert writes:

       I recently retired after working 38 years in the same 
     company, where we paid for our medical coverage under the 
     company plans.
       After retirement they grouped me and my wife in a retired 
     group and our price plan went up tremendously.
       My wife and I are both 57 years of age and until recently 
     we were both really healthy.
       Recently I was diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes, and my wife 
     was diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes and [then] developed other 
     medical conditions.

  As so often occurs, diabetes, unfortunately, leads to other medical 
conditions.
  Robert writes:

       I would like to share some numbers with you:
       My retirement income is: $1,680.00 per month.
       My medical insurance is: $1,253.00 per month.
       My [drug plan] is: $251.00 per month.
       My dental is: $45.00 per month.

  That means he is paying $1,549 a month for drugs, dental care, and 
medical insurance. His retirement income is $1,680 a month.
  He then writes:

       I must say that my wife and I are very disappointed in the 
     way that some Democrats are going to the backing of the 
     ``Party Of NO,'' without taking into consideration the 
     Democratic Party has always been for the working man and 
     woman.

  What Robert writes is that too often people in this situation--they 
retire and, in his case, he had worked for a company for 38 years. They 
had been relatively healthy. Then they got sick. They have paid into 
insurance all these years. It sounds like insurance companies have 
found them pretty profitable over the years because they have not been 
sick. All of a sudden, when they get sick--they are retired--their 
insurance costs have gone up so dramatically.
  That is not what insurance is supposed to do.
  What our legislation will do is give people, particularly those at 
those ages between 57 and 65--because we are leaving Medicare alone. We 
are going to actually make Medicare better because we are going to 
close that doughnut hole so people with expensive drugs can get more 
assistance from the government from the Medicare plan. So we make 
Medicare better.
  But in this 8 years, for Robert and Shirley, between retirement and 
Medicare, somebody has to help them a little more. They have paid their 
dues. They have paid into insurance. He has worked 38 years at the same 
company.
  Our legislation will allow them to go into the exchange, the 
insurance exchange. They will then be able to choose among an Ohio 
company such as Medical Mutual or Aetna or CIGNA or the public option. 
They will have a choice and they then make their decision based on what 
plan works for them. If their income is only $1,500 a month, $1,600 a 
month, as Robert's and Shirley's income is, then they will get some 
assistance for paying for that insurance so they can have much better 
insurance.
  Valorie, from Geauga County, says:

       I have always been concerned about the availability for 
     affordable health care for those less fortunate than my 
     husband and myself. But never has this necessity been driven 
     home than this past February when we both lost our jobs due 
     to the economy. Once my severance package runs out, I will 
     not be able to pick up health insurance for my husband and 
     myself. We are both close to 60. We will probably have a 
     difficult time finding jobs. I am grateful the President 
     enabled us to have COBRA benefits we could afford, but they 
     will soon expire. What will we do after that?

  COBRA gives you, after you lose your job, an opportunity to continue 
your health insurance for a year and a half. You pay the part of the 
health insurance you were paying when you were employed but, 
unfortunately, you have to pay the employer's side of the health 
insurance also, even though your income has dropped to close to 
nothing. President Obama, in the stimulus package we passed back in 
February, included assistance for people in COBRA where the government, 
I believe for a year, paid 60 percent of those COBRA costs, allowing 
people to keep their health care. But once COBRA expires, as Valorie 
says, they have problems.

       I am worried and I pray that neither of us becomes ill 
     because we cannot now afford our medical visits. I know there 
     are others in the same predicament. It is my hope Congress 
     can work on some reasonable solutions for all who need 
     affordable health insurance.

  Valorie is not much different from Robert and Shirley in that she is 
close to retirement but not yet Medicare age; not for another half 
decade or so for Valorie, and she doesn't have much income now. She has 
lost her job. Her husband lost his job. She could benefit greatly from 
going into either the public option--but it is her choice--or Aetna or 
CIGNA or Medical Mutual or any of the other private insurance plans, 
and she would look at which one works for her best. She would get some 
assistance in paying her premiums, but she would be paying less because 
those plans would have less cost than certainly she could get in the 
private market which always charges more money.
  The third letter is from Kimberlee from Perrysburg, OH, a Toledo 
suburb. Perrysburg has more solar energy jobs than any other city in 
the country. I just add that for a little commercial for Perrysburg and 
my State. Kimberlee says:

       I am a 52-year-old woman and stroke survivor. I am still in 
     the recovery process, but my left side is still paralyzed. I 
     can no longer attend physical therapy because my insurance 
     stopped. I can't afford private medical insurance. I am on 
     Medicaid, but Medicaid doesn't cover all of my needed 
     physical therapy. I now have to do my therapy at home just as 
     I was starting to make real improvement with my physical 
     therapy. In a short time without therapy a person will lose 
     everything they tried so hard to gain. Wouldn't it be better 
     to continue the therapy until recovery is made. In the long 
     run, wouldn't it be less costly to the public?

  Kimberlee is right. Most of us in this body are lucky enough to be 
pretty healthy. We have good insurance. We aren't in jobs that age us 
quickly like my father-in-law who worked in a utility company plant for 
years and wore his body out in so many ways. It is hard for us to 
empathize with somebody like Kimberlee. She is 52 years old, a stroke 
survivor, needs physical therapy and can't afford to get it. What kind 
of health care system is this? For somebody who has worked hard, is 52, 
has had a stroke, wants to do what she needs to do in physical 
therapy--and that is no fun. Anybody who has had it knows it is not a 
vacation; it is hard work. She wants to do that. She can't get the 
treatment. Likely she will get sicker. If we can't pass this health 
insurance reform--we will pass it, but if we can't, it means her life 
will be more and more difficult and probably more expensive ultimately 
for the health care system because she will end up more likely back in 
the hospital with more physical problems than she had earlier.
  The last letter I wish to share, and then turn the floor back to the 
senior Senator from California, is from Alice from Franklin County in 
central Ohio. It is the county where the State capitol is located in 
Columbus. She writes:

       When I was between jobs, I purchased individual coverage 
     for my family. It was difficult to navigate and confusing, 
     but COBRA is much too expensive for the average person, 
     including me. I am a woman in my 30s. One insurance company 
     discouraged me from getting a maternity rider for the policy. 
     Without this rider I would not be covered if I became 
     pregnant. I managed to avoid getting pregnant during this 
     period, but consider if I had. How many people must be in 
     this situation? What about for my brother-in-law and his 
     wife? Both are schoolteachers. They decided it was better for 
     her to stay home with their daughter and newborn, but they 
     couldn't afford to put his wife on a health plan. Right after 
     the baby was born, my sister-in-law had a seizure and was 
     diagnosed with a brain tumor. They got most of it. She seems 
     fine, but I can't imagine what that is going to cost. They 
     have two babies and a house they bought a couple of years 
     ago. Now they will probably have hundreds of thousands of 
     dollars in medical bills. The current system is bankrupting 
     families. I don't know why the opposition can't see how this 
     is dragging people down.

  That is kind of the whole point. These are people who are working, 
doing things right. Both were schoolteachers. They decided that she 
would stay home with the two young children. They bought a house. They 
are going to be faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical 
bills. How many people in this country--we

[[Page S9544]]

know this--how many people in this country end up, because of health 
care costs, because they had insurance that wasn't quite really 
insurance, because the insurance got canceled when they got sick or had 
a really expensive treatment--how many people like that end up in 
bankruptcy because they don't have enough insurance or they have the 
wrong kind of insurance and they got unlucky and got sick. It doesn't 
make sense for us, in a country where people do things right--they are 
working hard, they are playing by the rules, they are paying their 
taxes, contributing to society, and they are public schoolteachers, and 
then somehow their insurance doesn't work well enough for them and they 
go into bankruptcy. What purpose does that serve for any of us in this 
great country?
  These health care bankruptcies will drop dramatically in number, will 
almost be eliminated with this health care bill. People occasionally 
may fall through the cracks, but once we pass our health insurance 
reform, we are not going to read in the paper anymore that people have 
had to file for bankruptcy because they got sick and their insurance 
didn't work. That is reason enough to vote for this legislation.
  I ask my colleagues to work together in as bipartisan a way as 
possible to pass this legislation. The Health, Education, Labor and 
Pensions Committee, on the bill we wrote this July, accepted 161 
Republican amendments. There is a lot of bipartisanship to a lot of 
this bill. The big question is the very great philosophical 
differences. Most Democrats support a public option. We think people 
should have more choice, make insurance companies more honest. 
Republicans philosophically don't support the public option. They think 
it is too much government. But most Republicans also didn't support the 
creation of Medicare. I think in the end, a lot of Republicans will 
join us because they want to be on the right side of history. They want 
to be part of something that is going to make a big, positive 
difference in the lives of tens of millions of Americans.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, it is my understanding that the 
distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee wishes to speak 
as in morning business and I certainly have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.


                            Missile Defense

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to thank the Senator from 
California. Her courtesy is legendary in this body and I thank her for 
that.
  I am taken aback and flabbergasted by the Obama administration's 
decision announced today to cancel the European missile defense site. I 
ask, what does that mean? What will be the consequences of that 
decision? I wish to share a few remarks about it and note that this 
shift is contrary to the sense-of-the-Senate language that we included 
in the Defense bill passed a few weeks ago by this Senate. It is a very 
significant decision. I want to give it more thought. I don't want to 
overstate the problem. However, I wish to be on record today as saying 
this is a surprising decision, one that I have been involved in the 
discussion of for quite a number of years, and I feel as if it is a big 
error.
  What happens? We asked our allies in Central Europe, Poland, and the 
Czech Republic to stand with us and to agree to place a radar in the 
Czech Republic and to place our defensive missile interceptors in 
Poland. The heads of those governments agreed to that. There was a lot 
of opposition here in the United States to the proposal. Likewise, 
there was opposition expressed in Poland and the Czech Republic from 
the traditional European left, many of them Marxists or hard-line 
leftists who have opposed the West's and the world's defense program 
for many years. However, that opposition was overruled and these 
nations were proud to be and to stand with the United States of 
America. It did not bother them that their big neighbor, Russia, 
objected. They are a sovereign nation of which they are quite proud. 
They were proud to make a decision and reach an agreement with the 
United States of America that could defend this country from limited 
missile attack from a rogue nation such as Iran. If Iran were to launch 
a missile attack that could reach the United States, its path would 
take it over Europe, and European nations were not immune to the threat 
of such an attack on their soil.
  So they felt they were participating both in the defense of Europe 
and in the defense of the United States, and it was a good government 
public interest decision that they were pleased to participate in and 
stood up with us. We made a commitment to Poland and the Czech 
Republic, of course, when we asked them to do this and go through this 
process to build a system.
  For years, we have been moving forward with that plan in mind in the 
Senate. This year, we had quite a bit of discussion about it in the 
Senate and we reached an agreement that I think pretty much stated 
flatly what our position. There were some who objected, and this is how 
we modified the language to finally state:

       It is the sense of the Senate that (1) the United States 
     Government should continue developing and planning for the 
     proposed deployment of elements of a Ground-based Midcourse 
     Defense system, including a midcourse radar in the Czech 
     Republic and Ground-based interceptors in Poland, consistent 
     with the Duncan Hunter National Defense Act of 2009.

  Paragraph 2 says:

       In conjunction with the continued development of the 
     planned Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, the United 
     States should work with its North Atlantic Treaty 
     Organization allies to explore a range of options and 
     architectures to provide missile defenses for Europe and the 
     United States against current and future Iranian ballistic 
     missile capabilities.
       Any alternative system that the United States Government 
     considers deploying in Europe to provide for the defense of 
     Europe and a redundant defense of the United States against 
     future long-range Iranian missile threats should be at least 
     as capable and cost-effective as the proposed European 
     deployment of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system; and 
     any missile defense capabilities deployed in Europe should, 
     to the extent practical, be interoperable with United States 
     and North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

  Indeed, NATO endorsed this program.
  For a while, some of our Members said, Well, I am not too sure about 
this. What does NATO say? NATO did endorse it. This action of backing 
down from our European-site Missile Defense system sends an overt 
signal to our allies that we don't fulfill our commitments, and it is 
bound to make our allies in Central Europe particularly nervous. This 
decision sends a message from the administration that we reward bad 
behavior.
  The defense of this decision to abandon this program is that we are 
not doing this to curry favor with Russia, but that clearly is a State 
Department goal in this process because the Russians have objected to 
the deployment of this system--although it had virtually no capability 
with 10 interceptors in Poland to in any way defend against the massive 
arsenal that the old Soviet Union developed and that Russia now 
maintains.
  So it does appear to be an attempt to placate Russia at the expense 
of our great allies, the Czech Republic and Poland. And we are walking 
away from a bipartisan commitment to national missile defense on a 
European site, as I noted, included in the National Defense 
Authorization Act for 2010. We accepted the sense-of-the-Senate 
language unanimously because both parties agreed to this. Senator 
Lieberman and I were the primary sponsors, along with Senator Begich 
and others on the Democratic side, and a strong contingent of 
Republicans.
  Let me say this about the whole system. I am worried--and I hope my 
colleagues will take this point under consideration. We have spent 
approximately $20 billion developing something many people believed 
would never work; that is, the ability to intercept in space an 
incoming ICBM missile and hit it bullet to bullet. We don't even deploy 
or utilize explosives. The kinetic energy is so great that it destroys 
the target when it hits. Our military experts have said that if North 
Korea were to be able to successfully launch a missile, they believe 
they could knock it down. We are improving our system as we have a 
number of them deployed, and we plan to deploy more. Yet this year's 
budget was a stunning retrenchment in our missile defense system. Let 
me summarize the things that occurred.

[[Page S9545]]

  Even though this language contemplated moving forward in Europe, this 
is what we did regarding the United States. For quite a number of 
years, we planned to deploy 44 interceptor missiles--most in Alaska and 
a number in California. We talked about what to do about the Iranian 
threat, to provide redundant coverage for those missiles coming over 
from the east. We agreed that we would seek the agreement of Poland and 
the Czech Republic to base assets there. Fifty-four interceptors were 
to be deployed, 10 at the European site and 44 on the West Coast of the 
United States. What happened in this year's budget was that the 44 to 
be deployed in Alaska and California have been cut to 30.
  The next technological advance to our missile defense system, the 
MEV--multikill vehicle--would be the warhead which could take out 
multiple incoming missiles with one missile. We think that was very 
capable technology that would be developed. That was zeroed out.
  We had an additional system of a smaller but very high-speed 
interceptor, called a kinetic energy interceptor, KEI, that has been on 
the drawing board for a number of years and is showing a great deal of 
promise. That was zeroed out after years of funding.
  We had plans and were working on the airborne laser, ABL, an amazing 
technology that our Defense Department believes will work--and we will 
test it this year. The airborne laser can knock down missiles, 
particularly in their ascent phase from an airplane. That missile 
system, after this year, will be zeroed out.
  The 10 missiles we intended to base in Central Europe have been 
eliminated, it appears. At least that has been the President's 
recommendation and decision that we heard about today.
  So I would say this: We believe, looking carefully at the numbers and 
putting in some extra loose change, for $1 billion, we could fully 
deploy the full system--with the full compliment of 44 missiles in the 
United States and 10 in Europe. We have spent over $20 billion to get 
to this point. So it is unthinkable to me that we would eliminate any 
future advancements in the system. I think, from a cost point of view, 
it is an unwise decision.
  I am concluding that money is not the problem. I can only conclude 
that the Obama administration has decided that they agree with the 
naysayers who opposed President Reagan when he said this could ever be 
a successful system. They opposed it, and it looks like a political 
decision to me. Some sort of judgment decision to cancel this is 
involved here more than a dollars-and-cents issue because in the scheme 
of a $500 billion-plus defense budget, $1 billion over several years to 
complete the system as planned is not the kind of budget-breaking 
number that should cause us to change our policy.
  Senator Lieberman and I had offered this sense of the Senate 
amendment, and it passed the Senate just a few weeks ago. I believe it 
is the right policy. I think the administration is trying to do some, 
perhaps, good things. They think maybe they are attempting to placate 
or somehow reach out to Russia and gain some strategic advantage from 
that--although the Secretary of Defense, I understand, today said it 
didn't have anything to do with the Russian foreign policy, and I am 
not sure the administration acknowledges that either. ``The Czech 
premier, Jan Fischer, said Thursday''--this is in an Associated Press 
article--``that President Barack Obama told him Washington had decided 
to scrap the plan that had deeply angered Russia.'' It seems to me that 
is a part of it.
  Let's go to the core of this Russian objection. As I have said on the 
floor, Russia knows this system poses no threat to their massive 
arsenal. They know that. Their objection to this system has been, in my 
view, a political objection, a foreign policy bluster and gambit to try 
to create a problem with the United States and extract something from 
us. They consistently oppose it.
  Let's note the Reuters news article today by Michael Stott, which is 
an analysis of this. The headline of the article is ``Demise of U.S. 
shield may embolden Russia hawks.'' In other words, this weakness, this 
retreat, this backing down may well encourage them to believe that if 
they are more confrontational on other matters, they may gain more than 
by being nice to this administration.
  The lead paragraph said:

       Washington hopes that by backing away from an anti-missile 
     system in east Europe, it will get Russian cooperation on 
     everything from nuclear weapons cuts to efforts to curb 
     Iranian and North Korean nuclear ambitions.
       But will Moscow keep its side of the bargain?

  That is a good question.
  Mr. Stott goes on in his perceptive article to say:

       With the shield now on the back burner, both sides believe 
     a deal cutting long-range nuclear arsenals can be inked this 
     year and Russia has already agreed to allow U.S. military 
     cargos to transit across its territory en route to 
     Afghanistan.

  That is something we have been asking them for some time, and they 
have dangled it out there. Apparently, a valuable but not critical 
ability to transport cargo may have been gained from this.
  The author says:

       Russian diplomacy is largely a zero-sum game and relies on 
     projecting hard power to forced gains, as in last year's war 
     with Georgia over the rebel regions of Abkhazia and South 
     Osettia or the gas dispute with Ukraine at the start of the 
     year.
       Western concepts of ``win-win'' deals and Obama's drive for 
     21st century global partnerships are not part of its 
     vocabulary.

  The Western idea that if you cut a deal, both sides will benefit--
that is not the way the Russians think.
  Continuing:

       Diplomats here say Moscow hardliners could read the shield 
     backdown as a sign of Washington's weakness. Far from doing 
     the bidding of the United States, they may instead press for 
     further gain to shore up Russian power in the former Soviet 
     bloc.

  That is the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, the Baltics, 
Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Hungary.
  The author goes on to say:

       Ukraine, Georgia, and other Kremlin foes in the ex-Soviet 
     Union may be the first to feel the consequences.
       Poland and the Czech Republic are also nervous. In Warsaw, 
     the timing of the U.S. move is particularly delicate as it 
     coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of 
     eastern Poland.
       Analysts are particularly concerned about Ukraine, which 
     faces a presidential election next January. Most of Russia's 
     vast gas exports flow through its territory and the country 
     reluctantly hosts a large Russian naval base.

  I don't know what the geopolitical goals are here. I think it is a 
mistake not to deploy this system we committed to deploying. I believe 
we are not going to be able to rely on the good faith of the Russians, 
and I think they may misread what we have done. Instead of leading to 
further accommodation, it may lead to emboldening them to go forward 
with further demands against the United States.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.

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