[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14122-14125]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SENATE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, the Senate has been busy over the past 4 
weeks. I thought I would take a few moments to look back and then look 
ahead a bit.
  The Memorial Day recess seems like a long time ago because so much 
has been shaped by us--referring to the

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progress we have made in the last several days in particular--and 
shaped by the other external events, a steady stream of national and 
world-changing events.
  To begin, I will start with two nights ago when, on Wednesday night, 
we passed the Defense Authorization Act for 2005; and late last night, 
not that long ago, we passed the Defense Appropriations Act of 2005. It 
is appropriate to look at those two bills together because both focus 
on supporting our troops, supporting our U.S. Government in its war on 
terror.
  We had 4 weeks of impassioned debate on the floor of the Senate, and 
at the end of those 4 weeks we completed two very important pieces of 
legislation which very clearly augment the support for our troops that 
are stationed throughout the world and also reflect our profound 
commitment to the defense of the United States of America, the defense 
of the citizens, the people, and the principles we stand for in this 
great country.
  But we are at war. We see it daily; terrorists strike daily. It is 
these two pieces of legislation that focus around support in this war 
on terror and in the defense of this country that we see our efforts 
really come alive. They provide our troops with the resources they need 
to succeed in this noble mission both here at home and abroad.
  The last several weeks were meaningful for me because this whole 
concept of supporting our troops came alive both last week when I 
visited the 101st Airborne down in Tennessee and Kentucky, but also 2 
weeks prior to that when I had the opportunity, with two colleagues, 
Senator Bob Bennett and Senator John Ensign, to go to Kuwait and 
Baghdad in Iraq to visit our troops on the front line.
  We visited with our troops in Kuwait and in Baghdad in clinics. We 
went to visit troops at hospitals. As a physician, I had the 
opportunity to talk to our physicians and nurses, who are doing such a 
tremendous job on the front line, taking care of people who have been 
injured by the terrorist activity. We had lunch with our troops; we had 
dinner with our troops. We spent a lot of time listening to and walking 
and talking with our troops on the front line. We learned a lot.
  Given the savagery we wake up to every day and that occurs over the 
course of the day, which is reflected in our daily news media with the 
terrorist activity, before going over and preparing for my trip, I 
expected that when I went, I would find, possibly, a demoralized 
operation that would threaten to buckle at the next big terrorist 
event. I expected to come into contact with hopeless Iraqis, because 
you don't see the positive developments in our daily news here. I 
thought the Iraqis I met would be in despair with a lack of 
opportunity. I thought I might see that in them in terms of starting a 
new life or a freer life. Yet what we saw--and that is why it is so 
important for our elected representatives to go see this firsthand--is 
a country undergoing a dramatic rebirth. It is a rebirth fueled by 
faith and the importance of those principles--really the same 
principles we celebrated in tribute to Ronald Reagan 2 weeks ago: 
freedom, liberty, democracy. You can see it in the Iraqis' eyes when 
you have the opportunity to interact with them in a personal way. 
Democracy, freedom, and the rule of law are the principles they come 
back to with a lot of hope and optimism, understanding there are real 
challenges, which we are seeing every day along the way.
  Prime Minister Alawi, who happens to be a physician, a neurologist, 
which is a nerve specialist in medicine, we had the opportunity to meet 
about 10 days after he had been chosen to be Prime Minister. Since that 
point in time, almost 3 weeks ago, you have begun to see his face on 
television. He has been speaking and saying to the Iraqi people that 
when these terrorists strike, it is not striking at the United States 
of America, not at the coalition, but the terrorists are striking and 
hurting the Iraqi people. They are trying to destroy the faith and 
belief in freedom and democracy and representative government. It is 
important that it is an Iraqi face that is telling the real story to 
the Iraqi people. According to the Prime Minister, the people are 
responding.
  As Prime Minister Alawi said to us when we met in Baghdad, the 
radical Islamists and Saddamists--the loyalists to the old Saddam 
regime--who are conducting these attacks despise freedom. He said they 
hate freedom, despise it. They despise the rule of law.
  The terrorists know that if democracy succeeds, they have lost; thus, 
we are going to see this increased activity of terrorism. We will see 
it, I am sure, over the next 5 days as we lead up to the turnover of 
sovereignty, and it will likely continue for a period of time, 
according to President al-Yawr of Iraq, as well as the Prime Minister. 
They say that is going to be the reality for a while.
  But despite this terrorist activity--and this is what I think is 
important to share--there is much good news. A lot of progress has been 
made in the last year. Unemployment has been cut to nearly half. Bank 
deposits are up.
  Inflation has been reduced by more than 50 percent.
  Oil production is nine times higher than it was a year ago. 
Electricity is flowing. Forty percent more people have telephones and 
are using telephones today than during the Saddam Hussein era.
  More than 1,200 medical clinics and over 240 hospitals--all the 
hospitals--are now up and running and operating today.
  In the field of education, 2,400 schools have been rehabilitated. The 
Iraqi children are going to school on a daily basis.
  Let me refer back to medicine. Over 85 percent of the children are 
immunized, which is actually higher than many urban areas in the United 
States of America.
  So there is a lot of good news that is underway. We are moving in the 
right direction.
  I also wish to mention what is becoming increasingly apparent to me, 
especially after traveling there, is the $18 billion we appropriated, 
we sent to Iraq to be spent, has not yet been spent. There are about $8 
billion or $9 billion that has not been spent. The rest of it has been 
allocated but still not spent.
  What we are likely to see over the next several weeks or months is 
acceleration in the flow of that money. That money goes into health, 
education, electricity, oil, infrastructure, micro-
loans in support of the economy, and that infusion of money and 
resources will make a difference. It has just flowed too slowly over 
the last 6 to 8 months since we have appropriated it, and now that will 
accelerate. We are assured by those people who will be overseeing that 
money that the system is set up to allow that money to flow much more 
quickly, which will have a more dramatic, even greater, impact.
  The test is here, though. This test of the turnover to sovereignty is 
before the Iraqi people. The Iraqis will face their first true test of 
sovereignty, and it is absolutely imperative that our troops be able to 
adequately support their Iraqi partners when asked to do so. Prime 
Minister Alawi, as well as President al-Yawar, made it very clear they 
need the continued support of the coalition during this turnover of 
sovereignty and in this period of transition, which will be months and 
maybe years, as they rebuild their own police forces and security 
forces, and that just simply takes time.
  The Senate this week, by passing those two bills--the Defense 
authorization bill and the Defense appropriations bill--has acted on 
behalf of the American people to maximally support our troops, to 
maximally support this war on terror, and the passage of these two 
bills reflects our commitment to bring fundamental human rights and 
liberties to a ravaged and oppressed region of the world. That is real 
progress on the floor of the Senate, passage of those two bills in the 
last 72 hours.
  Looking again over the last 4 weeks, a second area in which we made 
real progress is the judicial nominations. Since June 1, the Senate has 
confirmed 24 judges for positions in the U.S. Federal courts. The 
installation of these new judges is vital to the creation of a healthy 
and efficient Federal court system, and the United States is fortunate

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to have judges of such high caliber, supreme caliber now eligible to 
serve on the bench. So 24 more judges have been confirmed since June 1.
  There has been real progress in a third field, and that is other 
nominations. Alan Greenspan was confirmed to another term as Chairman 
of the Federal Reserve, our former colleague, Jack Danforth, as our new 
Ambassador to the United Nations just this week, and John Negroponte as 
Ambassador to Iraq. Again, very important nominations have been 
addressed, judicially and in other fields.
  In a fourth area, I will mention several measures. One is the Child 
Nutrition Act. My colleague from Mississippi, Thad Cochran, did a 
tremendous job in the Agriculture Committee with the Child Nutrition 
Act. It has not been on the front page that we passed that act. But in 
this particular bill is the School Lunch Program, the School Breakfast 
Program, the Summer Feeding Program, and the Women, Infants and 
Children, so-called WIC, nutritional program. An interesting statistic 
is that about 50 percent of all newborns today qualify for the WIC 
Program. It is an amazingly high number, but it shows the importance 
and significance of this program which has been extended.
  Also, in this particular bill that Senator Cochran led through the 
Senate and was passed in the Senate is the application of nutritional 
standards which, as a physician, as one very interested in health, 
especially children's health and infant's health, I think is very 
important.
  In addition, we created the Department of Homeland Security 
headquarters. That is a first. That is at the Nebraska Avenue complex.
  So we made real progress over the last 4 weeks. We have a lot of 
work--much work--to be done in the remaining days of the 108th 
Congress. As I said many times--in fact, I usually open and close with 
it each day--the number of legislative days remaining in this session 
is few, rapidly dwindling, and there are a whole range of issues we 
must address before November. The Senate must seize this week's 
momentum and be focused when we reconvene on July 6.
  Very briefly, as we look ahead to when the Senate comes back, we will 
return to the consideration of class-action reform legislation. It is a 
very important piece of legislation. I had hoped initially to complete 
debate on this measure before the recess, but I accommodated concerns 
of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who support this 
measure, and we postponed consideration of class action until we get 
back from the recess.
  In fact, I should mention, just as a reminder, that this is my third 
attempt as majority leader to bring class action to the floor of the 
Senate. I moved to proceed to the bill in October, October 22. The 
other side of the aisle blocked us proceeding to that piece of 
legislation.
  Secondly, I scheduled long in advance that we would come to class 
action on June 1, but I was asked by my Democratic colleagues, the ones 
who support this legislation, to postpone it and do not go to it June 
1.
  Thirdly, I have scheduled it for when we return on July 6. We have to 
address it at this juncture. We just have so few days left in this 
session that now is the time to address class action, and we will be 
addressing it when we come back. This is my third attempt to bring it 
to the floor of the Senate.
  Every day all of us, although we may not think about it, as consumers 
are affected by increased prices due to either exorbitant lawsuits that 
do not make any sense or just frivolous lawsuits that may be reflected 
in the current class-action mechanism.
  We set out in a bipartisan way to develop a very good bill that 
should have 62 votes or more, an overwhelming majority of the Senate. 
It is a very good bill that addresses appropriate class action reform. 
I stress, it is bipartisan. The bill we are bringing to the Senate 
floor is a bipartisan bill. I am looking forward to a healthy and 
honest debate and to ultimately pass this sorely needed reform.
  I do want to thank my Republican and Democratic colleagues who have 
worked together to fashion the bill that, as I said, at least in 
conversations, the legislation has been written and has 62 or more 
votes at this juncture.
  Looking ahead to next month, I have announced that the Senate will 
also debate the Federal marriage amendment. Certainly this is much 
anticipated legislation. I expect us to have a comprehensive and 
defining debate on this important issue. This issue is central, I 
believe, to understanding our country's values and identity. I initiate 
this process--and it is a constitutional process--in the Senate because 
I believe elected representatives, not activist judges, should be the 
ones who define this institution, which reflects the social fabric of 
our society. In large part, it is in response to what activist judges 
have taken upon themselves, and that is to radically redefine what 
marriage is. It is really in response to that that we are going to have 
this national discussion, and it is going to be right on the Senate 
floor.
  In July, the Senate will also act on a trade issue, the U.S.-
Australian Free Trade Agreement. This is important legislation. In 
passing this new legislation, the United States will inject almost a 
half billion dollars into our economy. This will continue to drive our 
own country's continuing economic growth.
  A couple of issues that are down the track--they are not there yet, 
so we need to get all the way down the track if we are going to keep 
moving America forward. One is the transportation bill. That bill is in 
conference now. It is a very important bill that has to do with safety 
on our highways, creation of jobs, economic growth and prosperity in 
communities that depend upon good highways and good roads to facilitate 
commerce, and the list goes on. It is a bill that has been passed in 
the Senate and in the House. As people know, there are significant 
differences. My goal is to have those differences worked out in the 
conference and to send a bill to the President of the United States 
that he will sign.
  To me, the exercise is really--I will not say worthless; it is always 
important to exercise, but if the President is not going to sign the 
bill, we are simply not going to accomplish what we want to in jobs, in 
economic prosperity, in safety issues related to our highways.
  The second issue I will mention is the manufacturing jobs bill on the 
Senate floor. The FSC/ETI bill, as some people refer to it, really just 
centers on a very simple concept that we have a Euro tax, a tax that is 
imposed on the U.S. businesses right now that is increasing 1 percent a 
month, that this bill addresses. We have passed it in the Senate. The 
House has passed their bill. Now it is time for us to go to conference 
so we can work out the differences and eliminate the impact of this 
Euro tax on America.
  So a lot has been accomplished over the last 4 weeks. I hope we can 
continue this momentum--in fact, we will continue this momentum--and 
come back from the recess with a commitment to serving America's best 
interest in a focused way.
  The 1 week I left out of the last 4 weeks is the week we spent in 
tribute to Ronald Reagan, where we recognized the life and legacy of 
one of America's greatest Presidents. A little over 2 weeks ago, we 
paid our final respects to President Ronald Wilson Reagan. Over the 
course of the week, we had the opportunity to mourn the passing of this 
great American leader but also to celebrate the values for which he 
stood. There were countless tributes paid to President Reagan, his 
beloved wife Nancy, and to the entire Reagan family. All of those 
tributes helped us celebrate the memory of this optimistic, bold, and 
compassionate President. World and national leaders filed through this 
building, the Nation's Capitol, down the hallway behind me, to pay 
respects as the President lay in state. We had the opportunity to 
welcome many of those world and national leaders, but what was truly 
remarkable to me was to be able to be in my office or in the hallway 
and see the hundreds and then the thousands and then the tens of 
thousands of ordinary, regular, hard-working Americans who came to

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the Nation's Capital from all around the country, people who would 
drive hundreds, indeed thousands, of miles. People would get on an 
airplane and arrive at 10 at night to stand in line for 4 or 5 hours to 
pay their respects.
  Throughout the week, our shining Capital City united peoples 
throughout the world, both those who could be here, those who watched 
on television, those who read the newspapers, and those who heard it on 
the radio. It united the American people and the world peoples in a way 
that is very rare. Indeed, it is the sense of national and global 
community that embodied the legacy of the 40th President, and though we 
said goodbye to the man, we carry forward his relentless faith in those 
values of freedom and democracy.
  Later this afternoon, I will be traveling to the NATO Istanbul summit 
in Turkey in anticipation of this trip where international leaders will 
be gathering to look ahead and address the international climate. 
Couple that trip, my anticipation of what I will find and learn on that 
trip, with the summary I just gave and the events that occurred in the 
last 4 weeks in this country and on the floor of the Senate, I 
personally will be celebrating the Fourth of July with a renewed sense 
and appreciation for and faith in the ideals that are represented in 
the United States of America.
  We have a lot of challenging days ahead, and we have a lot of 
exciting days ahead. We will continue honoring our country's great, 
bold, and storied legacy when the Senate reconvenes on July 6.
  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. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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