[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 33 (Thursday, March 1, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1179-S1189]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MOVING AHEAD FOR PROGRESS IN THE 21ST CENTURY ACT--Continued
Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is my understanding the business before
the Senate now is the surface transportation reauthorization bill; is
that right?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. REID. Does that need to be reported?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It has already been reported.
Amendment No. 1730 Withdrawn
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I withdraw amendment No. 1730.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right. The amendment is
withdrawn.
Amendment No. 1761
(Purpose: To make a perfecting amendment)
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a first-degree amendment at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment
numbered 1761.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Amendment No. 1762 to Amendment No. 1761
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the
desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment
numbered 1762 to amendment No. 1761.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
Amendment No. 1762
At the end, add the following:
SEC. __. EFFECTIVE DATE.
This Act shall become effective 7 days after enactment.
Motion to Recommit with Amendment No. 1763
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a motion to recommit the bill with
instructions, which is at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] moves to recommit the
bill, S. 1813, to the Committee on Environment and Public
Works with instructions to report back forthwith with an
amendment.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
AMENDMENT No. 1763
At the end, add the following new section:
SEC. __.
This Act shall become effective 6 days after enactment.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Amendment No. 1764
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, and that
amendment is to the instructions that we have already set forth.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment
numbered 1764 to the instructions (amendment No. 1763) of the
motion to recommit.
The amendment is as follows:
In the amendment, strike ``6 days'' and insert ``5 days''.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, on that amendment I ask for the yeas and
nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Amendment No. 1765 to Amendment No. 1764
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the
desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment
numbered 1765 to amendment No. 1764.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
In the amendment, strike ``5 days'' and insert ``4 days''.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, let me take a moment where we are in this
important surface transportation reauthorization bill. No one disputes
the fact that this is a job creator. Millions of jobs, plural. Today
with the Senate's vote to dispose of the Blunt amendment, the Senate
completed an important step to advance this bill. The Republican
leaders on the Republican side made clear that they would not allow the
Senate to move forward on this piece of legislation until they got a
vote on contraception. We waited and waited. It is done. Now we can
move on to attempting to process other amendments to this important
piece of legislation.
Not everything ground to a halt while the Senate was working toward
processing the Blunt amendment. The bill's able managers have been
working to clear amendments offered by a number of Senators. As I have
said before, the managers of this bill--multiple in nature--are
seasoned and know what is going on legislatively. They worked together,
Senators Boxer and Inhofe especially, because there is more of what
they have in this bill than what other committees have. But we have the
Banking Committee, the Finance Committee, the Commerce Committee, and
they have all worked together in coming up with a number of cleared
amendments. All of these Senators have worked closely together. They
worked so closely even before the work over the past week, and on
February 9, 85 Senators voted on cloture to proceed to the bill. And as
I have indicated, over the last several weeks they have continued to
work together and clear numerous amendments that Senators have filed.
I offered a revised amendment a few minutes ago. This amendment
includes the very same consensus that comes from the product of these
three committees regarding my earlier amendment. It includes matters
reported unanimously by the Banking Committee, strong bipartisan vote
with the Finance Committee, matters negotiated between the chairman and
ranking member of the Commerce Committee.
What is new in the amendment I just offered is that it now also
includes 37 additional amendments cleared by the managers of this bill
and, where appropriate, cleared by other committees, specifically the
Commerce Committee and the Banking Committee. Thirty-seven amendments.
So that is now part of my substitute that is now before the Senate.
I would be very satisfied if the Senate adopted this amendment, and
provided that it serve as additional text for purpose of further
amendment. The two managers will work to clear additional amendments.
We need a path forward on this bill, and we don't have it now. We
continue to work on an agreement to have votes on a number of
nongermane amendments which the Republican caucus says they want. And
our side, if they want amendments, we could have some nongermane
amendments also. I would rather we disposed of the nongermane
amendments, and I am thinking seriously of coming to the floor today
and asking consent that we move forward on this bill with no irrelevant
or nongermane amendments.
It is vital that we complete work on this surface transportation
reauthorization bill. I am determined that the Senate will do so and do
so as quickly as possible. Doing so will take cooperation from
different Senators, so we
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need to keep our eye on the road. We need to get this legislation
passed. Saving or creating up to 2.8 million jobs is the destination of
this path that we are seeking. Let's work together to get there as soon
as possible.
St. Croix River Valley Bridge
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I come to the floor today on another topic; that is,
to thank and congratulate the House of Representatives, which earlier
handed a great victory to the people of Wisconsin and Minnesota by
passing legislation that will finally allow construction to begin on a
stronger, safer bridge in the St. Croix River Valley. After 30 years of
debate and delay, we have finally gotten it done, and I am proud to say
it was done with broad support in both Chambers.
The legislation I introduced in the Senate to allow this bridge to be
built passed unanimously in January, and our Senate bill has passed the
House today with the overwhelming backing of 339 Members, making the
final vote count 339 to 80. This was truly a team effort, and it is an
inspiring example of what we can accomplish when we are willing to put
politics aside and come together to do what is right for the people we
represent.
I thank my colleagues in the House for their hard work and dedication
in moving this legislation forward: Representatives Ron Kind, Sean
Duffy, Michele Bachmann, Chip Cravaack, and Tammy Baldwin. I also thank
Secretary Ray LaHood and his staff at the Department of Transportation,
as well as Governors Mark Dayton and Scott Walker for their leadership
at the State level.
In both Minnesota and Wisconsin, there is overwhelming consensus
about the critical need for a new bridge in the St. Croix River Valley.
There are sometimes disputes on what that bridge should look like, but
there tends to be consensus that we simply can't have a lift bridge
built in the 1930s, with 18,000 cars going over it. The current lift
bridge was built in 1931. Chunks of rusting steel and concrete fall off
and into the river below. Traffic backs up behind it, especially in the
summer months, sometimes for a mile. Cars are lined up by houses, cars
are lined up by businesses, and it is not a desirable situation for
anyone in the town of Stillwater.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation has listed the bridge as
being ``structurally deficient'' and ``fracture critical,'' meaning if
one component of the bridge fails, the entire structure fails. Simply
put, the bridge cannot meet the needs of the region either in terms of
public safety or in supporting traffic caused by a growing population.
As the bridge has aged, we have seen significant increases in
congestion. This is an especially big problem in the summer months when
the bridge lifts frequently to allow watercraft to pass, causing
traffic to back up on both sides of the bridge, increasing gridlock and
air pollution, hindering economic activity, and threatening public
safety, particularly when emergency vehicles are unable to pass
through.
Here are the numbers: The current structure was designed to support
11,200 vehicles a day. It cannot handle the average of 18,400 cars that
cross it every day, let alone anticipated increases in usage. But with
this new bridge, 48,000 vehicles will be able to cross safely and
efficiently every day. This is important from a public safety
perspective, but it also means new channels for economic growth.
Without a new bridge, anticipated usage would reach 23,500 by 2030.
With a new bridge, anticipated usage will meet 43,000 vehicles per day.
Those 20,000 additional vehicles will mean more opportunity for local
industry and more customers for local businesses made possible by an
infrastructure capable of supporting new growth and development.
When we look at the numbers, it is easy to see why my Senate
legislation was able to pass not only the Senate without any
opposition, but it is easy to see why the House passed the bill by such
a wide bipartisan margin. We are less than an inch away from the finish
line. Now we need the President of the United States to sign the bill.
I spoke with Secretary LaHood this morning. I don't anticipate there
will be an issue. He was very positive about the bridge. But we need a
prompt signature. The people of Minnesota and Wisconsin have already
waited 30 years. They cannot afford to wait any longer. We cannot
afford to delay. It is time to finally get this bridge done.
I, once again, thank all of my colleagues who worked hard to advance
this bill. Michele Bachmann in the House led the effort on the
Minnesota side, and I led the effort in the Senate. I thank the other
Senators who were so good to support this bill, including Senator
Franken, Senator Kohl, and Senator Johnson.
I look forward to standing with all of my colleagues when the
President signs this bill into law. I look forward to standing with my
colleagues again on that proud day in the near future when we finally
break ground on a stronger, safer bridge for the St. Croix River
Valley.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Progress for Deamonte Driver
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I come to the Senate floor to mark
the fifth anniversary of Deamonte Driver's death. Deamonte was a 12-
year-old who lived in Prince George's County, MD, only a few short
miles from here. He died 5 years ago at the Children's National Medical
Center in Washington, DC, from a brain infection caused by an untreated
tooth abscess.
The Driver family, like many families across the country, lacked
dental insurance. At one point his family had Medicaid coverage, but
they lost it because they had moved into a temporary shelter and their
paperwork fell through the cracks. When advocates for the family tried
to help, it took more than 20 calls just to find a dentist who would
treat him.
Deamonte began to complain about headaches on January 11. Then, an
evaluation at Children's Hospital led beyond basic dental care to
emergency brain surgery. He later experienced seizures, and a second
operation was required. Even though he received additional treatment
and therapy, and he appeared to be recovering, medical intervention
came too late. By the end of his treatment, the total cost to our
health care system exceeded $\1/4\ million--more than 3,000 times the
$80 it would have cost for a tooth extraction.
Deamonte Driver passed away on Sunday, February 25, 2007. Deamonte's
death was a national tragedy. It was a tragedy because it could have
been prevented if he had received timely and proper basic dental care.
It was a tragedy because it happened right here in the United States,
in one of the most affluent States in the Nation. It happened in a
State with one of the best dental schools in the Nation--the University
of Maryland's. It happened in Prince George's County, whose border is
less than 6 miles from where we are standing in the U.S. Capitol.
I have spoken on the Senate floor about Deamonte Driver several times
since that tragedy, and in the intervening years, in both my home State
of Maryland and nationally, we have made progress. When Deamonte's case
was brought to light, I believe it served as a wake-up call for our
Nation. It brought home what former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop
once said: ``There is no health without oral health.''
Medical researchers have discovered the nexus between tooth plaque
and heart disease, that chewing stimulates brain cell growth, and that
gum disease can signal diabetes, liver ailments, and hormone
imbalances. They have identified the vital connection between oral
health research and advanced treatments such as gene therapy, which can
help patients with chronic renal failure. They know investing in basic
dental care can save money down the road in costly medical
interventions for other diseases.
But for all the research findings, without insurance coverage and
adequate access to providers, we know millions of children and adults
will have oral health care needs that remain unmet. That is why the
progress we have made over the past 5 years is so important to
America's health. So I have come to the floor today to talk about what
we have achieved and how we can move forward as a nation to ensure
better access to oral health care.
The Maryland delegation is proud that Maryland has emerged as a
national leader in this area, launching a $1.2 million oral health
literacy campaign, raising Medicaid reimbursement rates for dentists,
and providing some
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allied health professionals and hygienists the opportunity to practice
outside of clinics. Today, the Deamonte Driver Dental Project Van,
which was dedicated in front of the U.S. Capitol in May 2010 provides
services in underserved neighborhoods in Prince George's County, thanks
to the efforts launched by members of the Robert T. Freeman Dental
Society. This society, an arm of the National Dental Association, is
named for Dr. Robert Tanner Freeman, who in 1869 became the first Black
graduate of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
Congressman Elijah Cummings and I were joined that day by Mrs. Alyce
Driver and her sons; the project's cofounders Drs. Hazel Harper and
Belinda Carver-Taylor; and the National Dental Association President,
Dr. Walter Owens.
In 2009, 2 years after Deamonte's death, Congress took up the
reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program. In a
frustrating attempt to locate a dentist for her child, Deamonte
Driver's mother and her advocates had to contact numerous offices
before locating one who would treat him.
For a variety of reasons, it is difficult for Medicaid and CHIP
enrollees to find dental care, and working parents whose children
qualify for those programs are likely to be employed at jobs where they
can't spend 2 hours a day on the phone to find a provider. So part of
the CHIP reauthorization now requires HHS to include on its Insure Kids
Now Web site a list of participating dentists and benefit information
for all 50 States and the District of Columbia.
Also, in 2009, Congress passed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America
Act. That law created the Healthy Futures Corps, which provides grants
to the States and nonprofit organizations so they can fund national
service in low-income communities. It will allow us to put into action
tools that can help us close the gap in health status--prevention and
health promotion. For too long we have acknowledged health disparities,
studied them, and written reports about them. With the help of the
senior Senator from Maryland, my colleague, Senator Barbara Mikulski,
we added language to that law specifying oral health as an area of
focus.
Now the Healthy Futures Corps can help recruit young people to work
in the dental profession, where they can serve in areas that we have
shortages of providers in urban and rural areas. It will fund the work
of individuals who can help parents find available oral health services
for themselves and their children. It will make a difference in the
lives of the Healthy Futures Corps members who will work in underserved
communities and in the lives and health of those who get improved
access to care.
Then, in 2010, we passed the Affordable Care Act which guarantees
pediatric oral health care as part of each State's essential benefit
health care package. The law also establishes an oral health care
prevention education program at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention targeted toward key populations, including children and
pregnant women, and it created demonstration programs to encourage
innovation in oral health delivery. It also significantly expanded
workforce training programs for oral health professionals.
Moving forward, the States have a critical role to play in ensuring
that the Affordable Care Act benefit is designed to incentivize
prevention, recognize that some children have greater risks of dental
disease than others, and deliver care based on their level of risk.
Among the most cost-effective ways to improve children's health care
are investments in prevention. Dental sealants--clear plastic coatings
applied to the chewing surfaces of molars--have been proven to prevent
60 percent of tooth decay at one-third the cost of filling a cavity. So
we must make sure prevention is a key part of every State's benefit
package.
Further, in 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
launched its oral health initiative, establishing a coordinated
multiagency effort to improve access to care across the Nation.
Yet for all the progress we have made, we know more must be done. In
2009, the last year for which we have complete data that is available,
more than 16 million American children went without dental care. That
is not acceptable.
Our Nation has made significant progress in improving children's
dental care in the 5 years since the death of Deamonte Driver, but
there is still much work to be done.
Case in point: Last summer, 24-year-old Kyle Willis of Ohio died from
an untreated tooth infection that spread to his brain. In fact, the
health of millions of Americans is jeopardized because they cannot get
treatment for tooth decay.
The access problem has become so severe that many people are forced
to seek treatment for tooth pain in the Nation's emergency rooms,
increasing the overall cost of health care and receiving uncoordinated
care in the least cost-efficient setting. In fact, more people seek
treatment in emergency rooms for tooth pain than they do for asthma.
The Pew Children's Dental Campaign produces report cards that grade
the States on eight policies that are evidence-based solutions to the
problem of tooth decay.
Maryland received an A grade in both reports for meeting or exceeding
these benchmarks, which include dental sealant programs, community
water fluoridation, Medicaid reimbursement and enrollment, and
collection of data on children's dental health.
This is even more striking because in the late 1990s, Maryland had
one of the worst records in the Nation regarding oral health care for
its underserved population. But in 2011, the Pew Center on the States
ranked Maryland as the top State in the country for oral health.
However, the access issues remain. As Mrs. Driver's efforts to find
care for her son showed, low-income families have great difficulty
obtaining care due to a shortage of dentists willing to treat Medicaid
patients.
Nationally, the National Health Service Corps addresses the
nationwide shortage of primary care oral health providers in dental
health professional shortage areas by offering incentives in the form
of scholarships and loan repayments to primary care dentists and
registered dental hygienists to practice in underserved communities.
I will continue to work to increase funding for grants to States and
expand training opportunities for dentists. We do not have enough
professionals who are trained and available to treat children and
adults with dental problems, and it is our responsibility to fix that.
We must improve reimbursement to dental providers in offices and
clinics so no one who needs dental treatment will be turned away.
I conclude my remarks with congratulatory wishes to Mrs. Alyce
Driver. For as painful as Deamonte's passing was for all of us, nothing
can compare to the loss of one's own child. Yet Mrs. Driver has worked
hard and she has been awarded a dental tech degree. She is now out
there helping others with dental care. She will be going back to school
next month to receive training in radiology. Yes, in Maryland and
throughout the Nation, there are signs of hope for the future of oral
health care.
February is National Children's Dental Health Month, and I wish to
express my appreciation to the many nonprofit organizations,
universities, and providers who are also working across the Nation to
make sure we will never forget Deamonte Driver and never forget our
responsibility to improving oral health care for America's children.
With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for
up to 10 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Gas Prices
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about
something that is on the minds of people in my home State of Wyoming
and people across the country, the high cost of
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gasoline. When I filled up on Sunday evening in Wyoming and on Monday
morning on the way to the airport I noticed that the price of gasoline
in Wyoming was 10 cents higher per gallon than it was Sunday night when
I filled the tank. I am heading back this weekend, later today, to
Wyoming, and we will see what the cost of a gallon of gasoline will be.
I know absolutely that the price of diesel fuel is much higher, almost
by a dollar a gallon, than the price of regular unleaded gasoline.
I think it is something that is happening all across the country
because even in this morning's New York Times, Thursday, March 1, 2012,
on the front page, a headline reads ``Tensions Raise Specter of Gas At
$5 a Gallon.'' That is on the front page of the New York Times. It
says, ``Gasoline for $5 a gallon? The possibility is hardly far-
fetched.''
It goes on to say:
With no clear end to tensions with Iran and Syria and
rising demand from countries like China, gas prices are
already at record highs for the winter months--averaging
$4.32 in California and $3.73 a gallon nationally on
Wednesday, according to the AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. As
summer approaches, demand for gasoline rises, typically
pushing prices up.
Again, ``no clear end to tensions in Iran and Syria and rising demand
from countries like China. . . .''
It is interesting because, obviously, China is the country that told
the Prime Minister from Canada recently: We will buy all that extra oil
you have that apparently the President of the United States isn't
interested in, as he continues to block the Keystone XL Pipeline.
That is what the American public is facing today, rising prices and
an administration that continues to block access to an important source
of safe, secure energy, as opposed to sending so much money overseas.
Here we are with high gasoline prices, which is continuing to cause
additional hardship for American families and American businesses. When
families pay more at the pump, it impacts the quality of their lives.
Families are dealing with mortgages, goods and services, and their kids
as they continue to see the money going to fill the tank. This also
hurts economic growth and our ability to create jobs.
When companies pay more for gasoline, they have less money to expand
their businesses and create new jobs. Wyoming families and businesses
know this all too well because in Wyoming we drive longer distances
than most Americans. The President also knows this impacts the economy.
That is why he continues to give speeches on energy.
It is clear the President is defensive on this issue, and it is
understandable because the average price of gasoline, regular unleaded,
the day he became President--today it is 103 percent higher, over
double what it was the day President Obama took office just 3 years
ago. Again, the price of gasoline is 103 percent higher than the day
the President took office.
There are a lot of factors at play. What this does show is that the
President's policies are at best ineffectual; at worst they are
contributing to the higher gas prices. People on both sides of the
aisle know this and are hearing it at home. This week, actually, one
Senate Democrat wrote to the Obama administration and pointed this out.
Specifically, he pointed out that these are ``the highest prices we
have ever seen for this time of year.''
Unfortunately, that Senate Democrat's solution is to request that
Saudi Arabia produce more oil. I will repeat that. His solution is to
have the Secretary of State ask Saudi Arabia to produce more oil.
Of course, the President is also considering other proposals as well.
Like asking Saudi Arabia to produce more oil, the President's ideas
would put national security at risk. There I am referring to the
President's threat to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This will be
the second time that President Obama has tapped the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve. Prior to the President's decision to do that last June, it had
only been tapped twice for emergencies since 1975. So between 1975 and
2011, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had only been tapped twice for
emergencies--in 1991 upon the outbreak of the Persian Gulf war and then
again more recently following Hurricane Katrina.
In both of these instances we are talking about actual supply
disruption. However, when President Obama tapped the Reserve last year,
there was no substantial prospect of a supply disruption. The decision
was based on politics, as would be the decision this time. That is why
Jay Leno, earlier this week during his nightly television show, called
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve President Obama's strategic
``reelection'' reserve.
A number of my colleagues and I think there are other ways to address
high gasoline prices. We understand the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is
for emergencies, not political disasters.
It is interesting because just earlier today, the House minority
leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve--
not because of an emergency or a crisis or supply disruption, but she
says ``to combat rising gas prices.''
There is only so much oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The
amount that was taken last year was never put back in to fill the tank.
The amount taken out last year was sold. If we use that money to fill
the tank, it is not enough--almost $1 billion more this year to fill
the tank than what they got for selling what they took out last year.
So we have a tank at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that is not
full, still waiting to be filled from what was taken from it last year.
Now, here we are a year later, and the President, as well as Nancy
Pelosi, is considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve again,
drawing it down again, making us that much more vulnerable in case of a
true emergency.
The President actually has some options that make a lot of sense to a
lot of Americans. An option, of course, is to increase American energy
production. The President can begin to follow through on his words in
Miami a week or so ago, when he said, ``I'll do whatever I can to
develop every source of American energy.''
The President can provide more access to Federal lands and waters.
This week we learned the oil and gas production on Federal public lands
and public waters is down. In 2011 there was a 14-percent decrease in
oil production on public lands and water from 2010--less energy
produced in Federal lands and waters. There was an 11-percent decrease
in gas production from 2010.
In Miami, the President said he has ``directed my administration to
look at every single area where we can make an impact and help
consumers in the months ahead, [including] permitting. . . .''
Again, the President needs to follow through on his words. He can
begin by increasing the number of permits issued for development in the
Gulf of Mexico. I understand that the administration has issued only 21
permits so far this year. In 2010 the administration issued 32 permits
by this time.
The President can also increase access to other offshore areas. He
can provide access to offshore areas in the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans, not just the Gulf of Mexico. In November he proposed an
offshore leasing plan that excluded the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific
Ocean. What kind of offshore leasing plan is that? The President
excluded areas off the coast of Virginia, even though both Senators and
the Governor of Virginia supported such energy exploration. The
President said no.
The President can also increase access to onshore areas. The
President can open areas in Alaska, and he can support proposals to
open ANWR. Both Senators from Alaska--one Republican and one Democrat--
and the Governor strongly support opening ANWR for exploration. The
President should too. The President should also take steps to
facilitate onshore exploration in the West. Specifically, he should
scrap new regulations requiring what is called ``master leasing and
development plans.''
These regulations were put into place over 2 years ago by the
Secretary of the Interior. It is unclear why the Secretary issued such
regulations. They add more redtape and cause more bureaucratic delay
and slow down American energy production.
Of course, there are other regulations that drive up the cost of
American energy--specifically, the EPA's forthcoming tier III
regulations which will affect America's refineries. A recent study says
this rule could increase the
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cost of manufacturing gasoline, which will add to what Americans are
paying at the pump and will add to the pain at the pump. They could
also raise operating costs for refineries by anywhere from $5 billion
to $13 billion a year. They could force as many as seven U.S.
refineries to shut down and could lead to a 7- to 14-percent reduction
in gasoline supplies for American refineries. These policies, by this
administration, are completely unacceptable. The President should, at
the very least, delay the issuance of this current rule.
In addition to providing more access to Federal lands and Federal
waters and eliminating burdensome regulations, the President should
follow through on his words--his words--and address what he called
delivery bottlenecks. Specifically, he should address the bottlenecks
the Keystone XL Pipeline would relieve. I am referring to 100,000
barrels of oil a day that the pipeline would be able to ship from
Montana and North Dakota.
That is right; we are talking about homegrown American energy. Of
course, the President ought to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline coming
in from Canada. It is North American oil from Canada but specific and
significant amounts of oil--100,000 barrels a day--from Montana and
North Dakota. Right now, there isn't sufficient pipeline capacity out
of North Dakota and Montana. They are shipping the oil on trucks and
trains, and that is much more expensive than shipping it by pipeline.
Approving the Keystone XL Pipeline is an easy decision and the
President should make this decision immediately.
It was interesting today to see in Politico--one of the local papers
on Capitol Hill--an article quoting Bill Clinton as saying, ``We should
embrace'' the Keystone XL. The first sentence of the article says:
Bill Clinton says it is time to build the Keystone XL
Pipeline.
Perhaps President Obama ought to listen to President Clinton.
Finally, the President says there are no silver bullets. That doesn't
mean the President should sit on the sidelines. It doesn't mean his
only options are asking Saudi Arabia to boost production or opening the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The President needs to promote American
energy production. He can eliminate costly regulations and he can
approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. Those are the steps the President
needs to take, and he needs to do that in the very near future because
I believe we are going to continue to see headlines such as the one in
today's New York Times: ``Tensions Raise Specter of Gas at $5 a
Gallon.''
With that, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Death of Marie Colvin in Syria
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, Marie Colvin died last week,
Wednesday, in Syria. As I speak, her body is still in Homs because the
Assad regime refuses to honor the centuries-old tradition of human
decency that even in war you are allowed to recover your dead.
An American official in a position to know about the circumstances of
her death has used with me the word ``murder,'' and this is not an
official who uses such words loosely. News reports have suggested Marie
was targeted using her cell phone signals. Why was she killed? Marie
once said: ``Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos,
destruction, and death, and trying to bear witness.''
She was killed because she was doing what she was passionate about
and what her gift was; that is, to bear witness.
Marie was in Syria to bear witness to the massacre of the innocent in
the city of Homs by the Assad regime. Her last report to the BBC was of
a baby killed by shrapnel, dying in its mother's arms. That baby had no
voice and that mother had no voice, but Marie was there. She was there
making sure the dead did not die unheralded and the killers did not
escape unwatched. She was there so they wouldn't get away with it. She
was there to bear witness.
The dictionary tells us that to bear witness means ``to see, to be
present at, or know at firsthand.'' It means to ``testify.'' It means
``to show by your existence that something is true.''
This was Marie. Over and over she put herself in harm's way as she
followed her calling to bear witness to the atrocities of our world.
In Sri Lanka's brutal conflict, she was hit by the explosion of a
rocket-propelled grenade, and in addition to other injuries, she lost
sight in one eye. She was shot at that day after calling out, ``I'm a
journalist.''
In the Balkans and Chechnya, at Libya and around the world, she went
to bear witness to suffering and corruption. I think she spent more
time on the ground in Libya than any other Western correspondent.
Marie was proud of this work, saying:
We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of
war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.
Sometimes she managed to do more than just expose atrocities. In East
Timor, she went to bear witness to the massacres. When the U.N.
threatened to pull out of a base, leaving local employees and those
sheltering there to the mercies of the massacre, Marie announced, ``I'm
staying with them.''
That created a new predicament for the U.N. leadership, and faced
with Marie's courage, they decided to stay. Massacre averted.
Marie was special. Her friends all knew it. Her colleagues knew it.
The people who were trapped in the wars and conflicts she covered and
who saw her there, sharing their risks and their suffering, and who
knew someone would bear witness knew it. The Bible talks of bearing
witness. It tells that John the Baptist ``came as a witness, to bear
witness about the Light, that all might believe through him.''
There is a parallel. Marie went as a witness. She went to bear
witness in the places cloaked in darkness, that we all might perceive
through her. With her death, it is our turn to bear witness. Marie
Colvin had a calling, and it is our turn to bear witness to the courage
and the passion of that calling. It is our time to bear witness to the
grace and humor and brains and skill with which Marie Colvin pursued
that calling. It is worth noting Marie did this all with style. I don't
think Marie would want the record to fail to reflect that she had
style.
There has been an outpouring since the news of Marie's death spread
around the world. From heads of state, famous writers, press
celebrities, from old friends and colleagues, and from those whose
praise she valued the most, the small band of brothers and sisters who
practiced the dangerous craft of conflict journalism, there has been a
torrent of grief and praise. I have culled from this torrent a
collection of remembrances, reflections, tributes, and obituaries about
Marie that I now ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Yale Daily News, Feb. 23, 2012]
From the Archives: Colvin '78 Relects on Yale Career
(By Marie Colvin)
The piece below, titled ``Running out of time,'' was
written by Marie Colvin '78 for the special issue of the News
handed out at Commencement 1978. Colvin, a seasoned war
correspondent, was killed by a mortar strike on Wednesday
while covering the escalating violence in the city of Homs.
The most memorable event of my Yale career occurred in the
dining hall. At Silliman lunch last week, I was eating and
commiserating with a group of fellow seniors, slaphappy at
the thought of all the work to be done in the last week of
term. Everyone had a how-to story, the kind that only
circulates at finals time, like the one about the student who
handed in a bluebook with ``IV'' written on the cover,
inscribed with one sentence on the first page: ``and that's
the way it was in seventeenth century England,'' and received
a final grade of ``B'' from some T.A.; talk about surefire
dean's excuses and where to catch a quick 24-hour bug, always
good for a night at DUH.
At a pause in the conversation, during which I flashed on
the twelve pages per day I'd have to write for the next week,
a friend next to me sighed and said profoundly, ``There's
just not enough time.'' It came out of the blue, but it was
the most relevant non-sequitur ever uttered.
It sums up my Yale career. I've spent the last weeks of
every semester holed up in the Sillibrary, coffeepot by my
side, moving from one stack of books and clutter of papers to
the next like a guest at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. The last
week of my senior year I was there again, drinking coffee by
the pot,
[[Page S1184]]
sleeping two hours nightly, marshaling enough credits to
graduate.
That's why I wasn't a varsity athlete, or an editor of the
Oldest College Daily, why every room I've ever lived in has
been almost furnished. It's why my papers come back marked
``good potential, inadequately realized.'' And it's why I
can't tell you what it feels like to be finished with Yale,
whether it's euphoric or just anti-climatic, because I'm not,
and by the time I am everyone will have left and I won't even
be able to ask anyone.
It takes everybody but the football team four years to
realize that there is no way to do the work expected of you,
that teachers and deans don't really expect you to do it all
and that the real test of intelligence is to do the minimum
amount of work for the maximum reward. The football team
somehow learns freshman year what it takes everyone else
three years (it took me four). The most important things to
look for when choosing a course are not relevancy to future
career, interesting subject, or something you should know.
Number of papers and pages per paper, number of exams, and
Course Critique grade point spread are all you need to look
for. And if the football team shows up for the first lecture,
you've chosen correctly.
The finer points of course selection involve arranging
enough of a workload so that when you do go out to Rudy's,
Mory's, or the Elizabethan Club for tea you can feel a twinge
of guilt. And so that you can participate in end-of-semester-
conversations.
The worst thing about graduating is that I can't remember
what I did all semester. I thought I was working, but that
seems impossible. I've started promoting the theory that Yale
is centered in a time warp. Time doesn't just seem to pass
twice as fast, it does. We have only one week to the
universal two.
I haven't accepted the fact that I am not going to do
everything I kept putting off. I am not graduating Phi Beta
Kappa, I don't have 48 credits and 47 A's, I will never read
the bookcase of course books diligently bought in the Co-op,
lined up neatly with their binders unwrinkled. I will not
paint the fourth wall in my bedroom. I will probably never
even find out the name of that curly-haired boy in my English
seminar I've been flirting with all year.
It's hard to say even what I've learned here. I don't think
I've finished adjusting yet. I have nothing striking to say
about anything and it seems like I should. I've changed from
a regular science major to a science major who only takes
English courses (there was no time to change majors), learned
about weenies, jocks, and turned-up collars, learned how to
run, not fast but far enough to enjoy the sweat, learned how
to do footnotes. Unlearned a lot too--like weenies and jocks
don't exist and that turned-up collar means zilch. And I've
learned how ridiculous it is to try to convince people that
you are serious about something, that you have a direction.
Best of all, I missed all the deadlines--LSAT, GRE,
scholarships, grants, and fellowships--not enough time--so I
guess I'll wake up Tuesday morning and start thinking about
it. Or else just buy a plane ticket.
The one realization I have come to after four years is that
I can still make all the mistakes I want and it doesn't
matter. I remind myself of this often, whenever I feel the
``let's get serious mood'' coming on, or I lunch with law-
business-medical school prospectives, or read an article
about shopping bag ladies in the New York subway system. Not
that there's anything at all wrong with going to law-
business-medical school, but enough people stick up for it,
and that's not the point anyway.
The point is that it doesn't matter if you mess up, choose
the wrong road, flop in Vegas. What's important is to throw
yourself in head first, to ``go for the gusto.'' And if you
blow it, you blow it. What we have to worry about now is
success. Once you're successful, it becomes embarrassing to
make mistakes, and more difficult to grab onto the nearest
straw and hold on. You can always be a star, so what's the
rush?
____
Marie Colvin--The Natural
(By Allison Silver)
I have been reading all day about Marie Colvin, the
terrific London Sunday Times foreign correspondent who was
killed Wednesday in Syria. David Remnick wrote a lovely piece
about her. It captures her coolness and professionalism.
Marie was a remarkable writer--and person. Talented and
persistent: An unbeatable combo.
I knew her back at Yale, and she often cited me as the
person who started her writing. And I think I was. Her
mother, Rosemarie Colvin, described Wednesday how her
daughter had decided to be a journalist back when she was
writing for The Yale Daily News.
I was an editor on the Yalie Daily when Marie was in a
seminar with me. She was funny and savvy and amazing looking.
Tall and slim, with a baby face surrounded by masses of black
corkscrew curls. Her best friend was equally tall--and they
stood out on campus.
She hung out with all the campus ``writers''--who took
prestigious writing classes but wouldn't deign to take part
in the hurly-burly of daily campus journalism. They were
serious writers--and serious partiers. I knew most of them--
but her least of all. She was not quite regarded as a
``writer,'' like they were.
In that class, I realized Marie had a clear, clean talent
for writing. So I kept on her to write for me at the News.
She started doing longer reported feature pieces--and
thrived.
I could see she was jazzed by the process of reporting. She
had started off insisting that she was not the writer of the
group. And I kept saying to her you can do this. So do it!
And she did. She was a natural.
With all that persistence, of course she pursued it and
went on to serious international reporting. I remember, back
in the 90s I think, she was one of the elite Middle East
reporters who attained an interview with Qadhafi--a feat she
pulled off again recently.
Meanwhile, I'm still a desk jockey. As my career took me to
Los Angeles, New York and DC, she was reporting from hot
spots around the globe. I rarely saw her, which is something
I will always regret. But whenever I ran into her, we talked
about Yale and our varied paths from there.
She lived the life she wanted to. And that is to be
admired.
____
Tribute to Marie Colvin
(By Gerald Weaver)
Marie Colvin sat across the table from me in the kitchen of
her Thames-side home in the Hammersmith neighborhood of
London on October 18, 2011, as she looked me in the eye and
gave me a completely unexpected answer to a question I had
long planned to asked her. ``So, Marie, do you have some kind
of a death wish or something?'' I had asked, waiting and
watching her intently. I had expected that she maybe she
would react a bit too defensively or that she might have
otherwise partially admitted to the premise of the question.
But I realized immediately that it had been the
quintessential stupid question. The gist of her answer was
that these were normal people who were being attacked,
bombed, uprooted and murdered in the stories she was
uncovering and reporting. The normal people who would read
her reports should have a normal reaction to them, she said.
And by that, she meant they should be appalled and horrified.
So for Marie it was merely normal to pick up and go find the
most terrible story that no other reporter would cover and
then report it as a matter of fact. The danger simply did not
occur to her. She neither feared nor courted it. As I
listened to her, I heard the word ``human'' for the word
``normal.''
She also had no interest in romanticizing or aggrandizing
what it was that she did in her work. She used to laugh it
off when I would call her ``the distaff Ernest Hemingway of
Great Britain.'' I was in London those four months ago at her
urging, because I had just written the first three chapters
of a novel that I had only started and only because she had
urged me to write it, and which I have only recently
completed with her encouragement and through her help. She
then started talking to me about us contacting literary
agents in London that she knew and it occurred to me ask her
when she was going to write her own book about her very
interesting, exciting and inspiring life. I knew that the
possibility of such a book would be why agents would have
wanted to court her. She only laughed and suggested that
maybe I should write her book. She was only interested in
reporting, not in making herself the story. She was in her
life and in her death utterly heroic, but she would have been
the last person to think that or to want to even talk about
it.
Marie also had that same good natured disinterest when it
came to politics, or to her more difficult role as a woman in
her profession, or to moving about in a part of the world
that was not particularly easy for a woman. For the almost
forty years that I knew her, she only ever addressed politics
obliquely. I always assumed she was a liberal. But it was
more than that and it was much different. She was, through
her work and her life, a liberalizing force within the world.
She hoped to speak to a better part within us all that she
felt simply must empathize with the least fortunate, the
terrorized, the forgotten and the innocents who are under
attack. And when she called me on her satellite phone one
night this past December, it was only in passing that she
mentioned how she had been chased through Tahrir Square on
the same night that many women had been assaulted there. And
even then she only spoke of her gratitude to the Egyptians
who had saved her and not of the special dangers to her as a
woman.
She used to always apologize for often being out of touch,
for answering with one phone call three or four weeks of
daily emails, for disappearing for weeks or months on end. I
have no doubt that for many of us who were even her closest
friends that her columns in the Sunday Times were perhaps the
most reliable way for us to hear her voice and know what was
on her mind. It was almost as if she was expressing her worry
that her relationships were like her politics or what she
might say about her work or what it meant to her to be a
woman war correspondent. They came after her need to tell the
story. My best insight into this came the day after I had
asked my stupid question, on October 19, 2011, the day it was
reported that Muammar Gadaffi had been killed.
I watched her at her home in that morning as she
accomplished what would have taken anyone else several days.
She juggled several phones, gave an interview to National
Public Radio, made calls in English and French to
[[Page S1185]]
make arrangements for two separate clandestine border
crossings, made flight arrangements, coordinated with other
reporters, communicated with her office, dug up leads,
tracked down reports. And that was all the while she was
packing and gathering up several different phones and
communications uplinks, taking deliveries at the front door,
and pulling out her helmet, her flak jacket and all her other
protective gear, which was all marked, ``Marie Colvin, O +,''
for her blood type. She laughed about that too, and all the
time she was apologizing for cutting our visit short. She was
generous to a fault and she showed her idiosyncratic
disinterest when it came to compliments. And when I pitched
in and helped her prepare to leave in what limited ways I
could, she was surprised by it and slightly embarrassed.
But what I noticed that morning has stuck with me now that
she is gone. There can be no doubt of the magnitude of the
loss that is encompassed by her death, personally to her
family and friends, professionally in the realm of
journalism, and even to the world in what has been lost in
the reporting of stories that are the most harrowing and
dangerous to reporters and perhaps the most important for the
rest of us to know. When I read what has been written and
what I write about her passing, and even when I read what has
been reported about what Marie herself had said about the
importance of reporting these stories, I realize that all of
it is true but that all of it is necessarily a reduction of
what she actually was. That morning she was incredibly alive
with a passion to get to the story and to tell it. And she
was filled with what can only be called joy. In all the moods
and stages of her life in which I had witnessed her, at that
moment of going to cover the story she was the most of who
she really was, and she was at one with it.
She was a tirelessly brave and compassionate female war
correspondent, true. But to me she really was what few people
ever get the opportunity to be and what almost none of us
have the will to be. She was a free artist of herself and of
her life. Her commanding if almost sole interest was in being
our eyes and ears in places where most people would be afraid
to look or to go. I think the joy I saw in her was that she
knew how rare such a life can be, and that she was fortunate
to be living it. That is the small personal consolation that
I draw from her death. It would be tremendous if something
positive would come out of it in terms of expediting the
end of the massacre in Syria, but I believe that is
something even she would not have expected and would have
been something for which she had only hoped. The possible
larger consolation would be to the way in which her death
might speak, in the same way that her life and her
reporting had, to that part of us that should care for the
world's innocent and obscure victims. And I also hope that
it might speak to some others who might be inspired to go
in her wake and report those same kinds of stories to the
world, and do so regardless of the personal risk and do it
heroically, as did my friend, Marie Colvin.
____
For Marie Colvin
(By Katrina Heron)
I've spent my adult life refusing to envision an obituary
for Marie. I planned with all my conscious powers never to
read one, and I promised myself that I would never have to
write one. Along with her family and her great caravan of
other friends, I celebrated Marie's determination to put
herself in harm's way, to ``bear witness'' as a foreign
correspondent in so many parts of the world--Lebanon, Libya,
Israel, the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank,
Chechnya, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Iraq--and waited each time
she went out on assignment, fretting, for her to signal the
all-clear. ``Will call when I'm outta here,'' she would write
as she filed her last story from the danger zone.
From our mid-20s until yesterday, that fragile insistence
of mine mostly held. There were terrifying moments, and Marie
was gravely wounded in 2001; caught in a firefight in Sri
Lanka, she lost sight in one eye and nearly died from
shrapnel wounds. But she survived, and when she arrived back
in New York, we went together to interview ophthalmological
surgeons (waving away, regretfully, the very handsome young
doctor who eagerly auditioned with his grasp of geopolitics),
shopped for eye patches and drank quite a lot of Champagne. I
didn't stop worrying after that, but my hope swelled to a
greater confidence. Marie took the greatest possible
precautions in conflict areas, so far from rash or merely
impulsive that other journalists often looked to her for
guidance on the risk calculus of a given situation. She
focused on bringing back the story and didn't dwell
personally on the dire circumstances in which she found
herself except insofar as they served her formidable powers
of description and, often, hilarity.
I look back over the last year or so of scattered emails,
sitting there innocently in the queue. She wrote last June:
``I am STILL in Misrata, Libya, and the ever brutal Gadaffi
is ruining any chance of a social life or indeed a life by
selfishly refusing to Go. Despite all the graffiti on walls
here giving excellent advice, ``Just Go!''
I had one of my best offers ever today. A rebel fighter on
the front ambled over, on his break from firing, so to speak,
and said, ``Hey, do you want to shoot the mortar?'' It is
definitely a sign that I may have been here too long because
I REALLY WANTED TO SHOOT THE MORTAR. I mean, when will I ever
get a chance to shoot a mortar again?''
A couple of days later: ``I am sitting in the gloaming on
the stern of a Turkish boat in Misurata harbor, looking out
over an ugly seascape of cranes and broken concrete and
blasted buildings from months of bombing. I am finally
homeward bound, a day's journey to Benghazi, a few days in
the rebel capital for a story then an overnight drive to
Cairo. It gives one respect for travel, having to run the
spectrum of transport. It will be strange coming out of this
world that, however mad, has a simplicity to it of sand and
courage and bombs and sleep and canned tuna and a few shirts,
washed out in a bowl when the dust threatens to take over.''
A bit farther on, there's an invitation to connect with her
on LinkedIn, which prompted some hazing about whether she was
trying to beat the rap on her famously abysmal grasp of basic
networking technology (she used a satellite phone but was
flummoxed by her iPhone). In truth, she was a technical
wizard of a different sort, a skilled sailor who had done a
lot of deep-water racing and had recently, proudly, earned
her yachtmaster qualification. She grew up sailing in Long
Island Sound, and the loss of vision had slowed her down not
a bit.
There's a quick back and forth toward fall on a subject we
talked about often by phone and during our last couple of
visits--me going to London, where she lived, or her coming to
California, where I am. She kept saying she wanted to spend
less time in the Middle East and more time at home--and on
the ocean. She had briefly tried a desk job at her paper, the
Times of London, but of course it drove her nuts. Still, the
job was getting more perilous. Tim Hetherington, the
photojournalist killed in Misrata in April 2011, had been
very generously helping me on a book I was editing about
Liberia, where he'd spent a good deal of time. Marie knew
about the project and had written me: ``Weirdly, I went by
the place today where Tim and [photographer] Chris Hondros
were killed. A shiver of mortality. The forecourt of the car
repair shop still bears the mark of the mortar shell that
killed them, and a starburst of chips in the concrete where
the metal flew out as shrapnel.''
Around Thanksgiving, the messages trail off for a bit, as
they often did. But even when I didn't know exactly where she
was, I didn't worry desperately. I was used to periods of
silence, plus there was a group of us that always passed
around bits of her itinerary. Sightings by other journalists
would filter back or someone would see her on CNN or hear her
on NPR. She knew she could call day or night, and I could
always reach at least her voice--I was thinking tonight that
her cell is probably still on, with its years-old, soft and
slightly lilting greeting. But I couldn't bear to hear it now
so I won't try. Christmas Day she there in my inbox, brief
but joyful.
A couple of weeks ago, Marie wrote that she was going to
Syria. I think her colleagues were uneasy, and I know now
that several of our friends tried to talk her out of it. I
felt fairly calm, which just goes to show you how great is
the power of willful optimism. In the last email I have from
her, she wrote: ``I am now in Beirut, negotiating with
smugglers to get me across the border. After six weeks in
Libya this year, under shelling and that low level of anxiety
every day brings, I had said I'll do a bit less of the hot
spots, but what is happening in Syria, especially Homs, is
criminal, so I am once again, knapsack on back with my
satellite phone and computer, clambering across a dark
border.''
I was fast asleep in my bed in Berkeley yesterday when
Marie was killed in Homs. I woke up to what the world was
learning--that the house she and several others were camping
out in had been hit by rockets; that with Marie in the lead,
the group had just run down the stairs to the front door when
a blast obliterated the entryway; that a 28-year-old French
photographer, Remi Ochlik, also died, and three others were
wounded. Right now, all of us are panicked about the
condition of the injured journalists, not knowing whether
rescue workers will be allowed in to Homs to get them. It
brings me back to those frantic, terrible hours in 2001 when
all we knew was that Marie was wounded in Sri Lanka and had
yet to be evacuated.
I have been walking around all day talking to her, asking
her dumbly where she is. Ever since we first met and became
roommates in college, we've been inseparable in one way or
another. In that same last email she said we should charter a
boat this summer--sail merrily to the ends of the earth:
``More when I am back from Syria. I love you very much.''
The phones and email and all the rest have been humming
with misery, and with Marie's love. So many wonderful people
adored her and she them that I've been swathed in stunned,
overflowing warmth all day. At the same time, it's impossible
to believe she's dead, but then I'm scared of the moment when
it will be impossible not to.
Further tributes to Marie Colvin can be found at http://
whitehouse.senate.gov/.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. On behalf of a group of old friends who are stricken
by her loss, I offer this in affection, in appreciation, and in
memorandum.
Marie's mother, Rosemarie Colvin, said of Marie:
Her legacy is: be passionate and be involved in what you
believe in. And do it as
[[Page S1186]]
thoroughly and honestly and fearlessly as you can.
Indeed.
With those words, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I did not know Marie personally, as my
friend and colleague from Rhode Island did. But his words, his passion,
his emotion allow us all to know her a little bit better.
Even just reading the newspaper accounts, she was a remarkable
person. But hearing from Sheldon, both here and speaking to him
privately, it is obvious that those who knew Marie were privileged and
were touched by her life long before her untimely death. She leaves an
amazing mark.
I just wish to say to my colleague Sheldon, there are times that
measure the mettle of a person and one of them is when they go through
grief and tragedy. My respect for him, as high as it was before, is
higher still knowing what he is going through and how he has worked to
handle this difficult situation.
I rise simply as a New York Senator who represents the area, Long
Island, where Marie Catherine Colvin came from. We are working--Sheldon
above all--desperately, to bring her home to her mother Rosemarie, so
her family can provide her with a final resting place, providing her
with the dignity she deserves.
Marie had a remarkable career. It is no doubt that not only, as
Sheldon said, the small band of journalists but many larger than that
and anyone she knew will mourn her death for years to come because we
have not just lost a daring journalist, but we also have lost a
humanitarian, one who took her abilities as an investigator and a
storyteller to speak for the voiceless. It is clear from Sheldon's
remarks and from reading the biographical accounts and her obituary
that this was a woman of both courage and passion who managed to sort
of weave the two into an amazing life where she served so many.
Marie grew up on Long Island, attended Oyster Bay High School, and of
course, as we know from what Sheldon has said, went on to study at
Yale. She studied anthropology. She moved to New York City, worked as a
UPI police reporter on the midnight to 6 a.m. shift. That is the time
when most crimes occur. That is the times in the dark, particularly in
those days in New York City, to be a journalist was difficult. It took
courage. But even then, Colvin didn't shy away from tough jobs.
She worked her way up, moving to Paris and later to work for the UK's
Sunday Times and became their Middle East correspondent in 1968. She
has been doing this kind of dangerous and important work that
inevitably and inexorably saved lives for so many years, 27 years.
Colvin focused on years when the Middle East was not calm. It hasn't
been the warmest climate for women and certainly was not an area for
the weak of heart. But she didn't just stay for a year or two. She
stayed at the front, and after each conflict ended, she went to the
next one because I think she knew--and, again, Sheldon would know this
much better than I. But just reading about her, she knew her talents
were unique; that there wasn't anybody else who might fill those gaps
and be able to do the kind of reporting that might bring change. So she
followed the conflicts in Chechnya and the Balkans, East Timor, Sierra
Leone, Zimbabwe. She was not just in the Middle East. She was there.
For those who cannot instantly remember some of her coverage, I am
sure they remember her eye patch. This is from her work in Sri Lanka,
where she defied a government ban on journalists' access, traveled over
30 miles through the Vanni jungles to report on the terrible war crimes
of the Sri Lankan civil war. I remember reading them at the time and
being moved to try and do something.
Colvin suffered. She never threw in the towel. If anything, it pushed
her to work even harder. Her quests to help the women and children from
every single war-torn country she entered endeared her to those women,
those communities, those members of our global community who knew and
know that her type of bravery was so rare indeed.
This brutal regime has broken families, torn apart homes, and forever
changed the way of life for the Syrian people. There is darkness that
has descended over Syria by design, by this awful regime. There was
Colvin, shining a candle, letting the world know, and now we are all
deprived of an incredible journalist.
With her, we lose an international role model. We lose the story she
would tell, the light she would bring to the darkest lives, most
recently in Syria but throughout the world, and we lose the voice she
would have found wherever the next merciless regime tried to suppress
it. Yes, Marie Colvin would have been there.
While there is currently no official U.S. diplomatic presence in
Syria due to the awful human rights tragedy being carried out by the
Assad regime, we are working as best we can to explore every avenue to
help Sheldon and her family bring closure and to help her mother, in
particular, who made clear that she will not rest until her daughter
returns home.
On behalf of all my colleagues, I offer my condolences to Rosemarie
Colvin in East Norwich, Marie's mother, and to the many people who will
miss the work of one of the greatest correspondents of this generation.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. 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. BROWN of OHIO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak
for up to 20 minutes and to yield at the conclusion of my first 10
minutes to Senator Portman.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
High School Tragedy
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I join my fellow colleague from
Ohio Senator Portman to offer our condolences and prayers to the people
of Chardon, OH, who experienced a terrible tragedy earlier this week.
On Monday morning, February 27, a troubled young boy opened fire in
the crowded cafeteria at Chardon High School. Three students were
killed. Two students were wounded. The entire community remains shaken.
As fathers, we cannot imagine the loss of a child and the loss of
innocence of children who will now grow up knowing tragedy all too
early in life. As Members of the Senate, we couldn't be more proud of
the resiliency and the love and the compassion the people of Chardon
have shown in the wake of such fear and sorrow.
During the shooting, teachers and school administrators risked their
lives to protect and save the lives of their students. Assistant
Football Coach Frank Hall chased the gunman out of the cafeteria,
Principal Andy Fetchik called 911, and countless other teachers and
students provided safety and comfort until help could arrive.
Chardon law enforcement and first responders--from the 911
dispatchers to the police, to the emergency medical people--arrived at
the scene to apprehend the suspect and restore calm and order.
Chardon Police Chief Tim McKenna and his team--especially the three
officers who rushed to the school--did an outstanding job. Hospital
staff at MetroHealth and Hillcrest cared for the victims and counseled
the families of lost ones. Out of this week's turmoil and tragedy, we
remain proud of the community that has come together through vigils and
prayer services, through support and red ribbons worn.
The day after the shooting, more than 1,000 people crammed into the
St. Mary's parish across from Chardon High School. The overflow crowd
of another 1,000 was outside listening to Principal Fetchik express how
proud he was of the students.
Yesterday, President Obama spoke to Principal Fetchik to say how
proud he was--as Senator Portman and I are--of the school and of the
community.
At the prayer service, Superintendent Joseph Bergant explained why
the school would close for a few days this week to reflect, for
students and families to get the help they need, for parents to hug
their children, and for children to hug their parents.
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Yesterday, I spoke with Superintendent Bergant to express Connie's
and my gratitude and prayers. The investigation into how and why this
happened continues, but resilience, compassion, and love, we know, will
remain.
Tomorrow classes resume in Chardon and at Lake Academy and Auburn
Career Center, where students and staff are also dealing with this
tragedy. Tomorrow, Chardon High School students will march together
from the town square to the school in a show of solidarity and unity.
They will remember Joy Rickers and Nicoloas Wajczak, who are still
recovering from their injuries. They will honor those fellow students
no longer with them. Daniel Parmertor was a 16-year-old high school
junior. Known as Danny, he was a student who loved snowboarding and
video games and computers. He enjoyed wing nights at Cleats with
friends and was excited about starting his first job in a bowling alley
and picking up his first paycheck.
His father Bob, a boiler technician with First Energy, and his mother
Dina, a nurse at Hillcrest Hospital, were finishing their night shifts.
If we can imagine, they were finishing their night shifts when they
learned of the shooting.
In their statement, the family said:
Danny was a bright young boy, who had a bright future ahead
of him. The family is torn by this loss.
He is survived by his parents, siblings, grandparents, a great-
grandmother, and numbers of aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Russell King, Jr., was 17 years old. His friends described him as
sociable and who got along with everyone. A junior, he was enrolled in
Chardon High School and the Auburn Career Center. He was studying
alternative energy such as solar and wind power as so many young people
are today.
Demetrius Hewlin was 16 years old, affectionately known as ``D'' to
his family and friends. Demetrius was interested in healthy living,
staying active, playing computer games, and reading books.
In their statement, his family said:
We are saddened by the loss of our son and others in our
Chardon community.
Demetrius was a happy young man who loved life and his
family and friends.
We will very much miss him, but we are proud he will be
able to help others through organ donation.
Imagine that, the parents and the family thinking of others so
immediately.
He is survived by his parents, grandparents, a brother and sister,
and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins.
On behalf of all Ohioans, the Senate, and joining with Senator
Portman, we offer our continued prayers and condolences to the Chardon
community.
Thank you. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I rise with my colleague Senator Brown,
who has just spoken about this terrible tragedy that occurred in our
State on Monday at Chardon High School in Geauga County. I was calling
into a radio program in the Cleveland area on Monday morning when the
first reports started to come in. Frankly, it was unbelievable that
there could be a shooting anywhere but certainly in a high school and
in this community that I visited that Senator Brown and I both know.
Unfortunately, the rumors ended up being true and the tragedy is--as
Senator Brown has just described so well--that lives were cut short and
these were lives full of promise. We will never know those young people
Senator Brown was just talking about as adults, but we will always
remember them, and now they are memorialized in the Congressional
Record.
My wife Jane and I have been keeping the families in our prayers, and
for that matter the entire Chardon High School community. We continue
to pray for the healing of those who were injured in flesh and in
spirit through this terrible act. As the parent of a high school
student who is about the same age as these young people, I cannot
imagine what the parents have gone through over the last 4 days.
Chardon is a beautiful community. It is almost a New England-style town
on the Western Reserve, with a beautiful town square. It is a place of
certainty, and that certainty, of course, now has been shattered. It
touches so many people around Ohio.
One of my staff has two cousins who attend the school, and along with
two other cousins who have already graduated from the school,
fortunately, their family members are all OK. But it shows that despite
being a big State, all of us in Ohio are tied together.
We have been in touch with the Chardon officials offering to help
where it is appropriate. I know Senator Brown has made a call, as has
the Governor, and the President has made a call. We all want to be
there and help in any way we can. We can draw some hope from the
heroism of the day.
Unbelievably, the assistant football coach and teacher, Frank Hall,
chased the shooter with his gun and showed a lot of bravery. A math
teacher, Joe Ricci, rescued one of the injured students. We draw hope
from the rank and leadership of Principal Andy Fetchik, Chardon schools
Superintendent Joe Bergant, Geauga County Sheriff Dan McClelland,
Chardon Police Chief Tim McKenna, and the first responders who
responded as they always do, and we appreciate and commend them for
their reactions and their ability to deal with a very difficult
situation.
The community has received a lot of support and will need it as they
come together to grieve and to heal. The reports I have heard about,
the vigils and gatherings over the last week have been moving. I am
told as students returned to school for the first time today, they
gathered in that town square I talked about and walked together in
unison.
We need to make sure we continue to pull together and continue to
support the community and school. For the parents to heal is a journey,
and the journey has just begun.
I have been moved by the expressions of support from other local high
school students too. Apparently, other students of the Cleveland area
have gone Hilltopper red and black, which is the mascot, to show their
support for other students. We are in the Chamber with some of our
pages who are about the same age as these students and that show of
support and love is appreciated and it shows the character of our
State. We pull together in Ohio. We pull together in times of tragedy,
through tears and through pain. We will get through this.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with my colleague about
the tragedy and to be sure that in the Record we are memorializing this
event and ensuring that those students whose lives have been cut short
will all be remembered.
God bless Chardon and the Chardon community.
I yield back the balance of my time.
I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Energy Policy
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about our
Nation's energy policy.
Georgians, as well as folks all across America, are shocked every
time they pull up to the gas pumps, both at the price of gas per gallon
and at the jaw-dropping total cost each time they fill up their tanks.
With rising food prices and a weak economic recovery, skyrocketing gas
prices could not come at a worse time. This situation illustrates why
it is imperative for Congress to focus on creating a policy to expand
and diversify our energy sources so the American people are no longer
held hostage by prices at the pump.
The necessity of congressional action has become all too clear as gas
prices continue to rise and unrest in the Middle East threatens the
global economy. We cannot afford to keep sending hundreds of billions
of dollars per year to foreign countries, many of which are not
America's friends, to meet our energy needs. Doing so poses a threat to
our national security and further harms our Nation's struggling
economy.
Unfortunately, the President and his administration have made some
decisions that contribute to rising gas prices and that prevent us from
being able to take advantage of vast energy
[[Page S1188]]
resources located right here in North America.
First, the President's recent decision to reject the Keystone XL
Pipeline was extremely disappointing. Canada is a trusted ally and
friend to the United States, and by tapping into its vast oil reserves,
we could have substantially lessened our need to import oil from other,
potentially hostile, nations. Not only would this project instantly
have created many jobs, it would also have helped secure our Nation's
energy future.
In addition, the long line of burdensome regulations coming from the
administration threatens both economic growth and energy costs in the
United States. Instead of navigating through this unprecedented
regulatory environment, more and more industries will choose to take
their business overseas. This could potentially include refiners and
other businesses essential to domestic energy production. In fact, we
are already seeing the movement of the deep oil rigs in the Gulf of
Mexico to China--a classic example of what could happen even more so in
the future.
Rather than hindering domestic production of oil and gas, we must
encourage the development of the abundant energy resources we have
right here in the United States, and we must do so in an
environmentally responsible manner. I will continue to support domestic
oil and gas exploration and production. It is an essential component of
a comprehensive energy policy that will enable America to become more
energy independent.
As I hear more reports of new oil and natural gas deposits found
within our borders and off America's shores, I am stunned that we are
not doing more to encourage the development of these resources. I can't
think of a better means of improving our economy, by both reducing
America's energy imports and encouraging job growth. Unfortunately, the
administration continues to hold up and unnecessarily delay the
approval of drilling leases and permits. Now is not the time to tie up
valuable and much needed American energy production in bureaucratic
redtape.
A responsible energy policy that includes increased domestic energy
production; improved energy efficiency through technology; improved
conservation; and a diversified energy supply with the use of renewable
fuel sources will keep gas prices low, lessen our dependence on foreign
oil, and strengthen our economy. I am hopeful we will take action on
some form of comprehensive energy legislation during this Congress. For
the sake of our national security and our economy, we need to tackle
this issue now instead of procrastinating and letting others handle it.
I made this same speech 4 years ago when we saw gas prices approach
$4 a gallon. Here we are 4 years later with the same hurdles standing
in front of us with respect to the lack of a long-term energy policy in
this country. So I hope that in a bipartisan way we can develop an
energy policy, even if it is short term and even if it is narrowly
focused, that will provide relief to Americans with respect to the
rising gas prices, which are going to impact every single product that
is made in America today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Senator Chambliss pertaining to the introduction of
S. 2151 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I yield the floor and ask that I be
followed by Senator Brown of Ohio, who assured me he would be waiting
in the Chamber when I concluded.
But since I see he is not here, 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. FRANKEN. 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. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about
my amendment to the transportation reauthorization bill that I have
introduced with Senator Blunt. I am grateful this amendment has been
included in the base bill of Leader Reid's substitute amendment.
I will take a couple of minutes to explain this amendment. It is a
simple commonsense amendment. I am glad it has been accepted. It is
also particularly significant to my home State of Minnesota.
On August 1 of this year, we will mark the fifth anniversary of the
tragedy in my home State of the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge
in Minneapolis. The collapse killed 13 people and injured 145. That
tragedy should have been a wake-up call in America and in this body.
Bridges should not collapse in the United States of America.
Unfortunately, the state of many of our bridges today is still
extremely concerning. According to the most recent data compiled by the
Federal Highway Administration, one in nine highway bridges in this
country is classified as ``structurally deficient.''
Let me say it another way. One of nine bridges in our country needs
significant rehabilitation or replacement and requires yearly
inspection.
In Minnesota alone, more than 1,100 bridges were listed as being
structurally deficient. The bill we are debating today consolidates
many varied surface transportation programs into five main pots of
money. The Highway Bridge Program would be consolidated in the new
National Highway Performance Program, and of this new program, 60
percent would have to be spent on restoring National Highway System
roads and bridges into a state of good repair. The other 40 percent is
more flexible and can be spent on a variety of projects, including
Federal-aid highways that are not on the National Highway System, or
the NHS.
However, if those non-NHS roads have a bridge that needs repair, that
project would not have been an allowable use of this flexible pot of
money. My amendment, which is now included in the base bill, fixes
that. It allows the 40-percent pot of money to be used to repair
bridges on non-NHS Federal-aid highways.
It is common sense. If roads are eligible for this funding, then
bridges along these roads should be eligible as well. This is a no-
brainer to me, especially given the poor state of our bridges today.
The I 35W bridge collapse was a tragedy. It was a monumental failure of
policy. I am determined not to let that happen again.
I thank Senator Blunt for joining me in this effort. I also wish to
thank Transportation for America and Smart Growth America for their
support on this important fix.
I yield the floor and 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. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I would like to talk about an
important part of the transportation jobs bill the Senate is debating
this week. The bill is about creating jobs by modernizing our roadways
and highways, about making our bridges safer--we know what that means
in Minnesota, the State of the Presiding Officer--and about improving
public transportation and reducing congestion across the country. But
it is also about improving the public safety of the vehicles that
travel our country.
We know about the success we have had as a nation because of the
partnership between the auto industry and the government and adopting
safety rules and working with the industry and making our travel safer.
We know about the very impressive increase in safety on our Nation's
highways. And there is still work to be done.
Five years ago tomorrow, a fatal motorcoach accident rocked a small
Ohio community and brought national attention to the need for
commonsense safety measures that could save lives.
Bluffton University is a small university in Bluffton, OH, near
Interstate 75 in Allen and Hancock Counties in the northwest part of
the State. The school's baseball team was on their way to Florida for
spring training when their bus lost control on a poorly marked exit
ramp outside Atlanta. The bus toppled from the overpass. Like the
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majority of fatal motorcoach accidents, when the bus rolled over, the
passengers were ejected from their seats and thrown through the bus
windows. Seven people were killed and dozens were injured.
John and Joy Betts of Bryan, OH--a couple who have become friends of
mine--lost their son David, one of the students who died that day. He
was a baseball player and student at Bluffton. I have gotten to know
the Betts family since the accident. They have been courageous
advocates in raising awareness of motorcoach safety and demanding
congressional action. To the family's credit, they used the loss of
their son to save the sons and daughters of many others who will not
face those tragedies because of the work the Betts family is doing on
behalf of this motorcoach safety legislation.
The National Transportation Safety Board's final report from the
Bluffton motorcoach accident--released almost 4 years ago--echoed
recommendations the NTSB has been urging for years. For nearly 5 years,
I have been working with Senator Hutchison, whose State has seen its
share of tragic motorcoach accidents, to put those recommendations into
law. In a bipartisan manner, we are fighting to make motorcoaches safer
for the millions of passengers who ride them every day.
Today, because of the Betts family, other courageous families, and
activists, we are taking a step in the right direction if we pass the
bill.
In the 110th, 111th, and now the 112th Congress, Senator Hutchison
and I have introduced the bipartisan Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act,
which includes many of the NTSB's ``most wanted'' safety improvements.
Specifically, the bill would address many of the major safety
shortfalls from the Bluffton accident, which have plagued tour bus
operations for too long. It would mean better protection systems for
occupants and stronger passenger safety standards. It would improve
safety equipment and devices and the need for onboard recorders with
the capability to collect crash data. These safety measures are neither
exotic nor complicated; they are commonsense safety features that have
been and in many cases are widely used. But since they are not required
by law, they have not been installed in most American motorcoaches.
Instead of saving lives, the public safety remains at risk.
Some who oppose improved tour bus safety standards will tell you that
this isn't a motorcoach problem, that they have a problem with rogue
bus companies or bad drivers. Certainly, that is part of the problem,
but we cannot simply look the other way and reject the idea that
improving the safety of motorcoach manufacturing and motorcoaches is
unnecessary or fiscally imprudent.
John Betts said:
It is necessary through our current regulations to get bad
operators off the road. However, it is not sufficient as it
does nothing to ensure safety once the crash has occurred.
I couldn't agree more. We can get bad operators off the road, but
that is not enough to ensure passenger safety in the tragic event of an
accident. If the technology to save lives and reduce injury in
motorcoach accidents exists, we must put that technology to use. This
bill does that.
Last year in Cleveland I was joined by John's sister and brother-in-
law, Pam and Tom Bryan of Vermillion, OH. We met with a Greyhound bus
driver who showcased new Greyhound buses equipped with some commonsense
safety measures that clearly will save lives and protect both
passengers and motorists on the road.
The Betts family and operators like Greyhound understand the urgent
need and have too often relived the painful reminders that safety
improvements for tour bus operations are long overdue. That is why this
Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act is important, and it is why Greyhound's
endorsement of this bill is so critical to turning public sadness and
outrage into public action. Bus operators such as Greyhound think we
can do this, and manufacturers do too. The technology is there.
The bill is common sense, bipartisan, and it will save lives. How
many more motorcoach deaths--in Ohio, Texas, and most recently in New
York and New Jersey--do we have to witness before bus companies start
doing the right thing? As a father and Senator, it is disturbing to
know that students are still traveling in motorcoaches without even the
option of buckling up. Our laws should ensure that our vehicles and
roads are safer, not less safe, for students, families, and elderly
people, who often take motorcoach charters to events and concerts and
such.
Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the Bluffton University tragic
motorcoach accident. Our legislation is in the underlying
Transportation bill we are debating on the floor. I urge its passage. I
urge continued inclusion of these provisions, as Senator Hutchison and
I have asked. It is commonsense, middle-of-the road, bipartisan
legislation that will save lives, undoubtedly.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Ms. Murkowski pertaining to the introduction of S.
2151 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. 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.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, for everyone's information, it is not as if
we have been sitting around doing nothing. We have been trying to work
something out on this highway bill. Hopefully, in the next little bit
we can do it. We have not been very successful this day. I am glad we
had that vote to try to move forward, but there are still some
obstacles in the way.
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