[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 70 (Wednesday, May 16, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3222-S3226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    STOP THE STUDENT LOAN INTEREST RATE HIKE ACT OF 2012--MOTION TO 
                           PROCEED--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  (The remarks of Senators Grassley and Landrieu pertaining to the 
submission of S. Res. 462 are printed in today's Record under 
``Submitted Resolutions.'')
  Ms. LANDRIEU.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
Senate as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Fiscal Responsibility

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, today we considered five separate budget 
proposals for the Federal Government. At first glance, that would 
appear to be the fiscally responsible thing to do. The families and 
small business owners I talk to back home in Kansas do that every year. 
They operate with a budget, and we know the Federal Government needs to 
do so as well. However, this Chamber has not passed a budget in 1,113 
days. That is more than 3 years.
  In my first speech on the Senate floor as a new Member of the Senate 
a little more than a year ago, I indicated to my Senate colleagues that 
my greatest concern for our country is our Nation's out-of-control 
spending. I am here today because I still have that concern. We spend 
too much money, and we no longer can delay the difficult decisions 
necessary to correct that problem.
  Our national debt stands at more than $15 trillion. This enormous

[[Page S3223]]

amount of debt is slowing our economic recovery and threatening the 
prosperity of our future generations, who will have to pay for our 
fiscal irresponsibility.
  Writing and passing a budget is one of the most basic 
responsibilities of Congress. It is required by law. The budget sets 
forth priorities and guidelines for the fiscal year and begins the 
process of determining how much money should be spent and which 
programs should be cut back, eliminated, or even further supported. 
Without a budget, the annual appropriations process--and I am a member 
of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and I want the appropriations 
process to work, but in many ways that appropriations process continues 
to be on hold. This is not the way to run our country. To put our 
country back on its path to fiscal responsibility, we must set the 
budget. We set budget limits, and then we have to stick to them.
  Any serious conversation about the budget and Federal spending must 
include a candid assessment of our Nation's entitlement programs. Those 
programs include Social Security and Medicare. Mandatory spending makes 
up 56 percent of the Federal budget--if we had one. This percentage 
will only increase in years ahead as more Americans retire and fewer 
workers are there to replace them. Without addressing our long-term 
commitments, our attempts to significantly change our country's fiscal 
outlook will be limited.
  As I said, I am a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, 
where our appropriations process deals with about 30 percent of 
spending on an annual basis. We have done a reasonable job--I hate to 
be overly complimentary to Congress--at holding the line on 
discretionary spending, that 30 percent we deal with every year. It has 
been pretty flatlined over the last several years, but you cannot solve 
our country's fiscal problems by only dealing with the 30 percent that 
we include in the appropriations process. We have to deal with the 
remaining portions of our budget.
  The challenge of not only the appropriations process to determine how 
much money we spend every year but the broader issues of so-called 
entitlement spending cannot be ignored any longer. Of the five budgets 
we considered earlier today, four of them--all but President Obama's 
budget--contained serious proposals to these entitlements. I can 
critique every one of the four budgets that move in the right direction 
of balancing the budget. There are things I would do differently, but I 
commend my colleagues for offering serious solutions to serious 
problems.
  It has bothered me greatly that when Members of the House or Members 
of the Senate offer a serious budget, they are immediately attacked 
from a political point of view as if we can continue to ignore the 
problems we face and simply make sound bites out of proposals that 
Members of the Senate and the House care very seriously about.
  We have to work together to put forward commonsense solutions that 
will preserve these programs for future generations. This is not about 
ending those entitlement programs. In fact, the reports that recently 
came from nonpartisan sources tell us that both Medicare and Social 
Security will face significant shortfalls in the near future. 
Therefore, this is about taking care of those programs to see that they 
are available for those who need them in the future. I want to be able 
to tell every young person--when they ask, will I be able to get Social 
Security when I retire, I want that answer to be yes. If we don't deal 
with the issues, the answer cannot honestly be yes.
  In Congress, we have a solemn obligation to be good stewards of 
taxpayer dollars. Our spending debate is oftentimes seen as something 
that is philosophical or academic or more likely just a partisan 
argument, but the truth is that out-of-control borrowing and spending 
has a very real consequence on the daily lives of every American and 
certainly on the economy in which we live and operate. It is about 
whether Americans can find a job, make payments on their homes and 
automobiles, and whether their children will have a bright future and 
the opportunity to pursue what we all call the American dream.
  When we continue to fail to balance the budget, when we don't put 
ourselves on the path toward a balanced budget, it means increasing 
inflation, with higher interest rates and an uncertain economy, which 
results in fewer business investments and fewer jobs.
  The greatest opportunity we have to improve the lives of Americans is 
to erect an environment where employers feel comfortable in investing 
in the future and create jobs so people can go back to work. When they 
go back to work, they can put food on their family's table, they can 
save for their children's education, they can save for their own 
retirement, and most importantly, every person in America will once 
again be able to pursue the American dream.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                       Surface Transportation Act

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I would like to address a slightly 
different topic, which is the continuing conference on the highway 
bill. We passed a very good highway bill in the Senate. We passed it on 
time for the March 31 deadline when the highway trust fund was going to 
expire. We passed it in bipartisan fashion, with 75 Senators supporting 
it. We passed it after it came unanimously out of the Environment and 
Public Works Committee with the support of the chairman, Senator Boxer, 
and the ranking member, Senator Inhofe. We passed it after a very open 
and transparent floor process in which around 40 amendments were agreed 
to either by vote or agreement, and it has the support of everybody 
from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to labor, from the pavers to the 
environmentalists. So it is a good piece of legislation. It was done 
right.
  The problem is that it is running up against a time deadline. As my 
director of transportation tells me, if we delay this too long, he has 
to start dropping projects off of this summer's highway work period 
because the time is slipping away as we dawdle here in Congress on this 
bill.
  It is not just the Rhode Island Department of Transportation saying 
this. Standard & Poor's Global Credit Portal has a report, 
``Increasingly Unpredictable Federal Funding Could Stall U.S. 
Transportation Infrastructure Projects.''
  It says within the report:

       As the construction season begins in the northern half of 
     the country, this continuing uncertainty in funding could 
     force states to delay projects rather than risk funding 
     changes or political gridlock come July.

  So we need to get this done, and I have heard at this point that the 
House Republican conferees intend to hold the conference on this bill 
through late June, and if we do that, that will cost jobs in America, 
that will cost jobs in Rhode Island, that will cost jobs around the 
country because our transportation directors are going to have to take 
work scheduled for the summer and postpone it, and that is a very 
unfortunate turn of events. It has nothing to do with the merits.
  Unfortunately, the House was not able to pass a highway bill of any 
kind, which is unfortunate because it is not the most complicated task. 
It is something we have been doing for decades around here. They 
couldn't get that done, and so what they have done now is gone to 
conference on the Senate bill without a bill of their own, and this 
appears to be causing delay. So I am here to urge that we all encourage 
the House Members of the highway conference committee to expedite their 
work as much as they can. Apparently there is a 2-week period that the 
House is taking off, and if it is delayed by 2 weeks so that Members 
can go home, I don't think that is a profitable use of our time.
  There is a great deal of loose talk around here about jobs. We have 
even had bills that didn't relate to jobs called jobs bills because of 
gimmickry in the title. But this is a real jobs bill. This is 3.9 
million jobs for the country, and it is 9,000 jobs for Rhode Island, as 
calculated in years of work--job years. We are just wasting that if we 
don't get this done on time.
  So if people really want to do something about jobs, they can get the 
highway bill moved along rapidly so that the work can be done in this 
summer work session.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S3224]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Afghanistan

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak about the war in 
Afghanistan. I have spoken on the Senate floor many times over the last 
number of years about the war. I have done so because I believe the 
American people and our servicemembers in the field deserve a policy 
worthy of their efforts and their sacrifice and a thorough examination 
of the issues at hand. I have done so also because when it comes to 
matters of war, the Senate has an important responsibility to ask tough 
questions of any administration.
  I believe we are entering a critical phase in our engagement in 
Afghanistan which will have implications for our eventual drawdown of 
troops in the year 2014.
  Earlier this month the President spoke to us from Kabul on the new 
Strategic Partnership Agreement known by the acronym SPA. Of course, 
this is an agreement with Afghanistan. He described a transition plan 
which focuses on protecting and promoting shared Democratic values, 
advancing long-term security, reinforcing regional security and 
cooperation, social and economic development, and strengthening Afghan 
institutions and governance.
  I agree with the general approach laid out in the Strategic 
Partnership Agreement, but I have several outstanding questions and 
concerns regarding U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. I wish to describe 
some of these concerns and lay out specific steps the administration 
should take with respect to the war to ensure that U.S. security 
interests and the tangible security, political, and economic gains in 
Afghanistan are, in fact, protected.
  I have participated in more than 20 hearings on Afghanistan and 
Pakistan with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. I have 
personally chaired four hearings on aspects of our engagements in the 
region. I have visited Afghanistan and Pakistan three times, most 
recently in August 2011, with the Presiding Officer, Senator Bennet, 
along with Senator Blumenthal and Senator Whitehouse. When we were 
there, we met with, as I have done on other visits, U.S. military and 
civilian leaders, as well as senior government officials in both 
countries.
  Through this engagement, I have sought to examine U.S. goals and 
progress in this war within three broad areas: first, the formation of 
representative political institutions; second, the overall security 
environment; and third, the development of key sectors in Afghan 
society, including education, health, the economy, and the well-being 
of women and girls. In examining these factors, it is clear to me that 
a responsible drawdown of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan 
must be concurrent with not only progress on security and an increase 
in well-trained Afghan national security forces but with a strong 
commitment to a transparent political process in Afghanistan.
  We should work to ensure that there will not be a crumbling of 
institutions similar to that seen prior to Afghanistan's civil war in 
the 1990s. In fact, without representative political institutions, I am 
concerned that the training of the Afghan national security forces 
could, in fact, be counterproductive and that we would end up 
developing a force that answers to a dysfunctional political system.
  Politics and governing institutions matter a great deal, and there 
are tangible steps the United States can take to support Afghanistan's 
political development in the short term. Let me be clear. We should be 
under no illusions that Afghanistan's political system will, nor 
necessarily should, reflect our Western model developed over centuries. 
But there are universal principles that should apply in Afghanistan, 
including the inclusion of all key political groups and transparency in 
elections and governance. In fact, the adoption of these universal 
principles is perhaps the only antidote to continued decades of 
conflict.
  First, the 2014 transition to Afghan leadership will require the 
active participation of the constellation of ethnic groups in 
Afghanistan. They will need to have some confidence in the political 
process or Afghanistan could very easily again descend into civil 
conflict, similar to that seen in the aftermath of the Soviet 
withdrawal in the 1990s. The opposition represented in what was 
formerly known as the Northern Alliance will likely be among the most 
skeptical. The United States can play an important role in bringing the 
interested parties together for dialog to identify areas of concern and 
a path forward looking toward 2014 and beyond.
  Second, Presidential elections are scheduled to take place in 2014. 
According to the Constitution, President Hamid Karzai is limited to two 
terms and should step down. President Karzai has seen his country 
through a very difficult and historic time. Afghanistan's elections--
the foundational act in a democratic system--have historically not met 
international standards and have established the basis for an 
unresponsive government, unresponsive government officials, and, 
unfortunately, widespread corruption. A peaceful transition of power in 
Afghanistan is not only good for the country and good for its 
democratic institution, it is vital to our own transition out of 
Afghanistan.
  Third, Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Commission needs to become 
a truly independent body. Currently, the President selects the 
commissioners, creating the suspicion that the body is biased. In 
accordance with international standards, the commissioners should be 
selected by a body that reflects the broad consensus of the Afghan 
people, not just the President. A statutory check on executive 
authority is needed to ensure the impartiality of the body in the years 
to come and enhance public confidence in the electoral system overall.
  Fourth, President Karzai has issued a Presidential decree which 
allows him to nominate the 5 national and 133 provincial commissioners 
of the Electoral Complaints Commission. This body also needs to be 
independent from the executive branch to remove any perception of bias. 
During the last election, there was a lack of transparency in the 
handling of these electoral complaints. Afghan authorities need to take 
steps now to ensure that the national and provincial commissioners are 
fair and transparent in their work. As it stands now, the political 
opposition does not trust the Electoral Complaints Commission to 
equitably deal with inevitable disputes that emerge from the process.

  Throughout this process, the United States should emphasize the 
importance of international standards in the conduct of elections and 
stand ready to support a process that is based on those universally 
accepted principles. We know at the Bonn conference in 2011 Afghanistan 
pledged--pledged--to strengthen and improve its electoral process. We 
must hold them to that commitment. The United States should condition 
its aid in support of the administration of the 2014 election based on 
these reforms. Let's send a very clear message: We will not be a party 
to funding the administration of an election similar to those conducted 
in the years 2009 and 2010. The administration must begin to act now. 
Electoral reforms take time to adopt and implement. The clock is 
ticking.
  While political challenges abound in Afghanistan, the Parliament has 
emerged as an important check on the executive and over the past 
several years has begun to exercise more of a voice in governance. We 
have seen several examples in recent years where the Parliament has 
weighed in on important issues. Moreover, 27 percent of the Afghan 
Parliamentarians are women--a stunning statistic compared to where we 
were 10 years ago. The Parliament's upward trajectory is a promising 
pillar of the democratization process, but more can be done. The United 
States can play an important role in exposing Afghan Parliamentarians 
to legislative experiences from other and different developing 
democracies and the opportunity to meet their counterparts in other 
Parliaments.
  During our trip to Afghanistan last August, I and Senators 
Whitehouse, Bennet, and Blumenthal had the fortunate opportunity to 
travel to five of

[[Page S3225]]

the ISAF regional commands. We saw firsthand the progress made by our 
airmen, soldiers, marines, and sailors on the ground. Due to their 
efforts, the enemy has lost territory and influence. According to the 
Pentagon, the number of attacks by militants dropped in 2011 for the 
first time in 5 years.
  There has been undeniable progress in pushing back the Taliban, but 
these military gains are delicate and will be short-lived without an 
Afghan force that can assume more responsibility for security. I 
discussed these issues with LTG William Caldwell, the former commander 
of the NATO effort to train the Afghan forces. Lieutenant General 
Caldwell has been ably replaced by LTG Daniel Bolger. We have seen 
significant progress in the training and deployment of the Afghan 
Special Forces Units which, according to the Pentagon, have made 
``impressive strides towards becoming an independent and effective 
force.'' We have also seen growing independence of the Afghan regular 
units. As of the end of March, 13 ANA kandaks have been designated as 
able to operate independently with advisers. In September of 2011, 
there was only one kandak with that designation. We have gone from 1 
unit to 13 in a rather short period of time, so we know there is 
progress.
  But despite this progress, however, challenges in training the Afghan 
National Security Forces, in fact, remain.
  First, the Afghan security forces still do not have an elite Pashtun 
officer corps and only 6.6 percent of the enlisted recruits are 
southern Pashtuns. This is a significant shortfall that must be 
addressed if the security forces are going to develop the cohesion 
necessary to ably represent the ethnic makeup of the country and 
address ongoing security challenges in the south.
  Second, NATO currently requires 2,774 trainers to conduct its 
training mission but faces a shortfall of 440 positions. While this 
capability has improved, the training shortfall remains stubbornly high 
and has an adverse impact on NATO's ability to adequately train the 
Afghans in a timely manner. Our NATO partners can and should do more to 
help address this deficit.
  Finally, I have concerns about the long-term pricetag associated with 
the Afghan National Security Forces. While investing in these forces 
will be a fraction--a small fraction--of the $100 billion to $120 
billion a year currently spent in Afghanistan by our government, we 
must work to ensure that the force is right-sized to the security 
challenges in the country and that there are strict accountability 
measures in place to ensure that the Afghan National Security Forces 
abide by all U.S. standards in terms of human rights and the Geneva 
Conventions.
  While we have made progress on the battlefield, the Taliban and 
terrorist groups like the Haqqani network remain capable of spectacular 
attacks across the country and, as we know, in Kabul, the capital. 
Thirty-four percent of the attacks by militants took place in Regional 
Command East, an area where the Haqqani network is most active. I 
believe that the Afghan National Security Forces will be capable by 
2014 of providing security in much of the country, but we need to 
maintain a capability to attack and disrupt terrorist groups in the 
country that seek to project force outside of Afghanistan's borders and 
do harm to U.S. interests.
  Central to the political effort is the ongoing effort to reconcile 
with the Taliban. I have a high degree of skepticism that this can 
work, at least in the short term. The Taliban has shown little interest 
in compromise, and recent events show that this group is willing to 
target civilians and to conduct devastating terror attacks against the 
Afghan people. Ultimately, there does need to be a political end to 
this conflict, as there is in all wars. But how we get there is 
important, and the administration must set clear guidelines. In the 
meantime, I support maintaining pressure on the Taliban until it 
accepts the Afghan Constitution and agrees to peacefully participate in 
the political process.
  During our visit to Afghanistan last August, we also had the honor to 
meet with several of Pennsylvania's servicemembers. Since 2001, 
Pennsylvania has lost 80--80--servicemembers, and 589 have been 
wounded. These courageous individuals gave what President Lincoln 
called the ``last full measure of devotion'' to their country. We owe 
them a debt of gratitude, and we owe a debt of gratitude, as well, to 
their families and to veterans returning from the field. I, like a lot 
of our colleagues, have visited with our wounded warriors and their 
families at Bethesda, Walter Reed, and other places, and we keep them 
in our thoughts and prayers every day. The courage and commitment of 
these young Americans is hard to describe in a speech and it is hard to 
illustrate, but it does demonstrate the best of who we are as a 
country, and we see that every day.
  We know in the area of development as well, there are enormous 
challenges across a lot of sectors in Afghanistan that will likely 
extend for years. Prior to the civil war, Afghanistan was one of the 
poorest countries in the world. After decades of war, Afghanistan's 
minimal infrastructure was destroyed. The challenges today to 
significant progress are indeed substantial. Government corruption 
obstructs any serious effort at rule of law and any basic respect for 
contracts, which is a fundamental element of business growth. The 
precarious security environment also serves to deter any international 
investment. Poppy growth, fueled by the heroin trade, remains rampant. 
Women continue to be subjected to unspeakable violence and 
discrimination across the country.
  Amid these daunting challenges, the United States should prioritize a 
few key areas for developmental progress, so as to mitigate the 
challenges leading to 2014.
  The foundational basis for development in any society is the 
educational system. We know that in 2002 only 900,000 students were 
enrolled in school. Just 9 years later, 2011, more than 8 million 
children were enrolled in school, 35 percent of whom were girls. This 
will have a long-term, long-lasting effect on Afghan society, and the 
United States should be proud of this element of our engagement and 
should seek to protect those gains. I and other Senators, when we saw 
this, were pleased to see that the partnership agreement prioritized 
the access to, and the enhanced quality of, education.
  We have also seen significant strides in the field of health care. In 
2002, only 9 percent of Afghans had access to basic health services. 
Today that number has grown to 64 percent of the population. More 
children live to see their fifth birthday than ever before in 
Afghanistan. Health care too was emphasized in the agreement that the 
President talked about recently, and it focused on basic health 
services and specialized care for women and children.
  These are real achievements, but they are very fragile.
  Also fragile are the overall gains made for women and girls in 
Afghanistan. I was privileged, as I know Senator Bennet, Senator 
Whitehouse, and Senator Blumenthal were privileged, to meet with a 
group of Afghan women leaders during our August 2011 trip. We were all 
tremendously inspired by their determination to continue to fight for 
women's rights in the face of blatant oppression and violence.
  In 2010, I cochaired a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on 
the plight of women in Afghanistan. We must preserve the progress that 
women and girls have achieved in the past 10 years. Empowered women 
have an immensely positive impact on their communities, investing 
resources in education, health care, and other basic needs. They also 
dissuade young men from turning to militancy. In 2011, Secretary 
Clinton told a group of Afghan women--and I am quoting--``We will not 
abandon you, we will stand with you always.'' We as a nation have an 
obligation to stand by that commitment to the women and girls of 
Afghanistan. It is not only the right thing to do, it is in our 
national security interest to do this as well.
  I agreed, like many did, with the findings of a 2011 report by the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which made three main 
recommendations with respect to U.S. assistance to Afghanistan. First, 
it called for a multiyear civil assistance strategy for the country. 
Second, the report called for a ``Reevaluation of the performance of 
stabilization programs in conflict zones.'' Third, it called for a 
focus on sustainability. The report argued that all U.S. assistance 
projects should meet three basic criteria: They should be ``necessary, 
achievable, and sustainable.'' This simple concept is critically

[[Page S3226]]

important. A great deal of funding and resources has been expended in 
Afghanistan, much of it on important and necessary programs. But with 
the withdrawal of international troops and a commensurate decrease of 
funds going into the country, there is a distinct possibility that 
Afghanistan could experience an economic depression which could have 
dramatic security implications. There is time now to address this 
problem by conducting a careful review of all U.S. assistance to the 
country. Those programs that are not sustainable should be phased out. 
While this may have painful short-term consequences, it will be better 
for the long-term viability of the Afghan economy.
  The United States and the international community should consistently 
reemphasize that while there will be a transition in 2014, this does 
not mean the wholesale withdrawal and disengagement from Afghanistan. 
The Strategic Partnership Agreement has helped send this message. The 
United States will still have significant security concerns in the 
country and should maintain a strong counterterrorism capability. Work 
will still remain in providing support and assistance to the Afghan 
National Security Forces. The international community can also continue 
to play a key role in helping Afghan society to develop.
  All of this falls squarely within our national security interests, 
and all parties in Afghanistan and in the region should hear this 
message.
  Finally, I will end with a few comments about Pakistan. I continue to 
believe that Pakistan is too important to U.S. interests for us to 
sever ties or significantly diminish the relationship. We know we have 
had trouble in our relationship, but we know a couple of other things 
as well. Pakistan has lots of nuclear weapons. It is a hotbed of 
Islamic extremism. It also provides the best logistics routes for our 
supplies headed into and out of Afghanistan, and Pakistan will play an 
essential role in ensuring the transition to a peaceful Afghanistan.
  Despite the seemingly insurmountable challenges and at times 
divergent strategic interests, we must continue to find a way forward 
and work together where our interests do overlap. Pakistan has made 
significant sacrifices in countering extremism within its borders, 
mostly against forces that represent a direct threat to the state 
itself. It has yet to go after the Haqqani network in a serious way. It 
continues to provide a haven for the Quetta Shura Taliban, which is the 
headquarters of those seeking to destabilize the Afghan State.
  Pakistan has not taken adequate measures to confront the 
proliferation and trade in illicit bombmaking materials which have 
killed thousands of its own citizens and hundreds and hundreds of our 
U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan. Taking all of this into 
account, there is a significant element of Pakistani society that we 
cannot consider allies. This is why I strongly support the 
conditionality built into U.S. assistance to Pakistan, which requires 
that the Pakistani authorities make significant progress in countering 
terrorism and attacking IED networks. If they do not take steps to 
address these issues, this assistance will be significantly cut, and it 
should be.
  For more than 2 years I have worked to address this critical problem 
of improvised explosive devices, which are responsible for the majority 
of deaths and injuries among our servicemembers in Afghanistan. The 
primary explosive ingredient in IEDs used in southern Afghanistan is 
calcium ammonium nitrate, CAN. It is also used as a fertilizer and is 
produced in factories in Pakistan. I have been adamant that the 
Pakistani Government must significantly increase its commitment to 
regulating the bomb components and preventing them from being smuggled 
across the border into Afghanistan.
  In June 2010 I introduced S. Res. 570, which called for an increased 
effort by Pakistan to effectively monitor and regulate the manufacture, 
sale, transport, and use of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in order to 
prevent its entrance into Afghanistan. The resolution passed the Senate 
unanimously on June 28, 2010.
  During our recent visit to Pakistan, I discussed this issue with 
several senior government officials, as did Senator Bennet, Senator 
Whitehouse, and Senator Blumenthal. The Pakistani leaders expressed an 
interest in countering the proliferation of bomb components and 
presented to us an action plan for interdicting these materials. 
However, the proof of their commitment has yet to be seen through the 
implementation of this plan.
  In December of 2011, I introduced an amendment to the National 
Defense Authorization Act that would require the Secretary of Defense 
to certify that Pakistan is demonstrating a continuing commitment to 
and making significant efforts toward the implementation of a strategy 
to counter IEDs. This provision, unfortunately, was removed during the 
conference committee. The final version of the bill requires the 
Secretary of Defense to produce a report on Pakistan's efforts to 
counter IEDs.
  I continue to believe combating the threat posed by IEDs is one area 
where our interests do in fact overlap with Pakistan. At this time of 
frayed relations, IEDs continue to kill Pakistanis, Afghans, and, of 
course, Americans on the battlefield. By working together against this 
common threat, we can begin to rebuild confidence in the relationship 
and make progress toward more vexing strategic issues that affect our 
countries.
  In September of 2010, I gave a speech on Afghanistan and Pakistan at 
the Army War College in Carlisle, PA. Former Secretary of War Elihu 
Root believed that the Army War College was established in 1903, ``not 
to promote war, but to preserve peace by intelligent and adequate 
preparation to repel aggression.''
  That is what Secretary Root said all those years ago. As we look 
forward to 2014 and a long-term relationship with the people of 
Afghanistan, all of our support for representative political 
institutions, improving the security environment, and Afghan social and 
economic development are intelligent and adequate preparation to repel 
aggression.
  The next year and a half will be very consequential. If the United 
States works to strengthen representative institutions, bolsters the 
Afghan security forces, and maintains sustainable development 
assistance, all will pay dividends for our peace and security for years 
to come.
  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. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________