[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20272-20303]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR SCIENCE, THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE, JUSTICE, 
        AND COMMERCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 2862, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2862) making appropriations for Science, the 
     Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and related 
     agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and 
     for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Lincoln amendment No. 1652, to provide for temporary 
     medicaid disaster relief for survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
       Dayton amendment No. 1654, to increase funding for Justice 
     Assistance Grants.

[[Page 20273]]

       Sarbanes amendment No. 1662, to assist the victims of 
     Hurricane Katrina with finding new housing.
       Dorgan amendment No. 1665, to prohibit weakening any law 
     that provides safeguards from unfair foreign trade practices.
       Sununu amendment No. 1669, to increase funding for the 
     State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, the Southwest Border 
     Prosecutors Initiative, and transitional housing for women 
     subjected to domestic violence.
       Lieberman amendment No. 1678, to provide financial relief 
     for individuals and entities affected by Hurricane Katrina.
       DeWine amendment No. 1671, to make available, from amounts 
     otherwise available for the National Aeronautics and Space 
     Administration, $906,200,000 for aeronautics research and 
     development programs of the National Aeronautics and Space 
     Administration.
       Clinton amendment No. 1660, to establish a congressional 
     commission to examine the Federal, State, and local response 
     to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf 
     Region of the United States especially in the States of 
     Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other areas impacted in 
     the aftermath and make immediate corrective measures to 
     improve such responses in the future.
       Coburn amendment No. 1648, to eliminate the funding for the 
     Advanced Technology Program and increase the funding 
     available for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
     Administration, community oriented policing services, and 
     State and local law enforcement assistance.
       Dorgan amendment No. 1670, to establish a special committee 
     of the Senate to investigate the awarding and carrying out of 
     contracts to conduct activities in Afghanistan and Iraq and 
     to fight the war on terrorism.
       Pryor/Mikulski amendment No. 1703, to require the FTC to 
     conduct an immediate investigation into gasoline price-
     gouging.
       Stabenow modified amendment No. 1687, to provide funding 
     for interoperable communications equipment grants.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 11 
a.m. shall be equally divided between the Senator from Alabama, Mr. 
Shelby, and the Senator from Maryland, Ms. Mikulski, or their 
designees.
  Who yields time?
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I yield time to the Senator from 
Michigan to speak on her amendment. I believe her amendment on 
interoperability is the pending amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I yield her such time as she may require.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.


                    Amendment No. 1687, as Modified

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my esteemed colleagues for their 
leadership on this legislation.
  We will have an opportunity in a few moments to make sure that we are 
solving the problem that everyone says is the biggest in terms of 
system failure related to the hurricane in the Gulf. We heard the same 
thing after 9/11. The radios didn't work. The communications didn't 
work. Police and firefighters were running into buildings that they 
should have been running out of, but they didn't know what was 
happening above them. We knew that after 9/11. The 9/11 Commission 
reiterated that. We have talked about it. It is now time to do 
something about it.
  I join with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in reaching out 
to those who have been hurt, who have suffered, who lost everything, 
the families of those who have lost their lives. As the majority leader 
said, coming back from the Gulf, he was astounded at the lack of 
communication. We can fix this. My amendment would begin that process.
  We know, from the Congressional Budget Office, it will take at least 
$15 billion to connect local, State and Federal officials so that we 
have the redundancy, the backup, the connectedness to make sure we are 
responding quickly, effectively, that we know what is going on, on the 
ground, and everybody can get the job done to save lives, save 
property, and protect the American people.
  My amendment would allocate that first piece. I offered it on the 
Homeland Security bill this year. It was not supported. Now is the time 
to support it and get it done. It offers $5 billion with the 
expectation we would come back and do the second payment next year and 
the third payment the year after. I know that my colleague who worked 
on the Homeland Security bill and led that effort is going to say: We 
already have moneys for that kind of thing, and the locals don't spend 
it in the right way. According to the Web site of the Department of 
Homeland Security, the Federal Government has spent only $280 million 
directly on connectedness, interoperability, and communications.
  We could say to folks: Your COPS funding is getting cut, your 
training programs are getting cut, everything else is getting cut so 
you have fewer people on the ground. We want you to put the money into 
only communications.
  That is not reality. In Michigan, we have 1,200 fewer police officers 
on the streets today than we did on 9/11/2001. That is not acceptable. 
My local police and firefighters are trying to hold on and keep the 
staff, keep the equipment they need. It is unrealistic and 
irresponsible on our part to say somehow each local police department 
and fire department, each county and city are going to pay for this 
interoperability that needs to happen so they can talk to the State and 
to Homeland Security, talk to the Justice Department and FEMA, with 
whomever they need to talk.
  Our country was attacked. After 9/11, the Federal Government has the 
responsibility to protect our citizens and respond. After this 
hurricane, again, we know that it is a broader, regional, national 
response that is needed. People are looking to the Federal Government 
for help, and part of that help long term has got to be investing in 
protecting our citizens by making sure the communications systems work. 
I can't imagine we would send our brave men and women into battle 
overseas and not make sure the radios work and are connected. Why would 
we send our people here at home, our brave troops, our firefighters, 
our police officers, emergency responders, nurses, doctors, into harm's 
way in the middle of a disaster and not make sure the communications 
work?
  We are in an age of technology. There is no excuse. I understand 
there are a number of new technologies that involve Web-based systems 
and new kinds of interoperability that we can bring to bear to get this 
done. When I think about what we need to be doing in the aftermath--
first, helping those who have lost so much; second, making sure the 
Federal bureaucracy doesn't victimize folks again and supporting States 
that are reaching out--it is our responsibility to make sure that the 
systems that failed do not fail again. Time is up. No more talk about 
moving one line item to another line item or this or that. I know we 
will hear that they have already received money that hasn't been spent. 
If it has not gotten through the Federal bureaucracy, what the heck is 
going on? Let's get it moving.
  I know my folks on the frontlines are happy to accept funds and happy 
to do what they need to do to get this radio equipment working so they 
protect themselves and their communities. If the bureaucracy is not 
working fast enough, let's make it work. If the resources aren't there 
to make sure our people are protected, let's make sure the resources 
are there. That is our job. The American people are looking at us and 
saying: This is America. What is going on? Why didn't we collectively 
have the foresight to make sure that systems worked, that we have a 
national system? As Senator Blanche Lincoln talked about yesterday, 
when the Red Cross was putting in all of this data on victims to help, 
then FEMA comes in and has to do it again because it is not 
interoperable. Local communities cannot do this alone. States cannot do 
it alone. I hope my colleagues will step up and send a signal that we 
get it. We are going to fix it and do our part to make sure our 
citizens are safe.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority's time has expired.
  The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to respond on this amendment. I want 
to make a couple of points, initially. First, this amendment is not 
Katrina related. That is important. It is an attempt to bootstrap an 
idea that has been offered on the floor a number of times using the 
disaster, the catastrophe which occurred in the Gulf with

[[Page 20274]]

Hurricane Katrina. It is not Katrina related. The breakdown in 
communications in the Katrina event was not an interoperability event. 
The breakdown was because the capital structure which supported the 
systems collapsed. Both the hard line and the wireless lines were not 
functional as a result of the infrastructure collapse. There was also a 
breakdown which was a function of the portable radios that were being 
used having to be recharged by electronic device and there was no 
electricity to recharge them, rather than being battery driven.
  That is the initial conclusion. It wasn't a question of the inability 
of one group to speak to another group, although that is obviously 
always an issue. It was a fact that the entire infrastructure which 
supported the communications systems collapsed.
  More importantly, the proposal to add $5 billion to create a new 
grants program is not Gulf States-focused. It is for the Nation. That 
is a position that the Senator from Michigan has always taken. This 
should be a nationwide effort. She talks about her own State needing 
more funds in the area of interoperability. I assume she is presuming 
that a large amount of the dollars put into this fund would go to her 
own State and other States that had no impact from Katrina. This is not 
a Katrina event. To try to put it on top of this bill in the name of 
Katrina is inappropriate. That is why I intend to make a point of order 
against it.
  Secondly, it is important to remember that the issue of 
interoperability is critical and that we are trying to address it, that 
we have, in fact, put a dramatic amount of dollars into this effort, 
that there is presently, in the fiscal year 2006 Homeland Security 
Appropriations bill, $2 billion that States and locals can choose to 
use specifically to address interoperability, that we have spent $890 
million in fiscal year 2004 on interoperability, and that we understand 
that this is one of the key elements of getting our first responders to 
function effectively. We understand that. The Homeland Security agency 
understands that. But what we also understand is that there are big 
issues involved in accomplishing this that don't involve throwing money 
at the issue, the most significant of which is to reach an agreement on 
the regime by which these agencies are going to talk to each other. 
They haven't been able to do that.
  It is called P-25, which is the regime they have been trying to work 
up and has been going on now for over 10 years. It is an extremely 
complex problem because you have a fire department in a town which will 
buy one system, a police department which will buy another system, the 
people who drive the ambulances will buy another system. Then you have 
layered on top of that the State police, the highway patrol, the 
sheriff's department. All these systems have already been bought and 
already in place, and they are not going to replace them all. How you 
get them to work together has become a complex issue. It isn't so much 
a function of dollars. It is a function of reaching agreement on the 
protocol to get them to talk to each other.
  To put $5 billion on top of $2 billion is a nice statement of 
purpose, but it is way outside of what we can afford, as far as the 
budget is concerned, and it is not applicable to Katrina. We are going 
to spend literally tens of billions of dollars to try to correct the 
Katrina problems. I suspect in that spending there will be money to 
rebuild the infrastructure which collapsed relative to communications. 
To put this money on top of it in the name of Katrina, which will be 
spent across the country, is inappropriate.
  Therefore, Mr. President, I have to make a point of order against 
this because it is clearly over the budget. It is outside the budget 
and is not Katrina related. We are already addressing it within the 
process which we presently have in place, which is the bill for 
Homeland Security, which passed this body with $2 billion that can be 
used for interoperability. Therefore, I make a motion that the pending 
amendment increases spending and the additional spending would cause 
the underlying bill to exceed the subcommittee's section 302(b) 
allocation. I, therefore, raise a point of order against the amendment 
pursuant to section 302(f) of the Budget Act.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable 
sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment. I ask for 
the yeas and nays on something that is absolutely Katrina related--
communications.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion to waive the Budget Act in 
relation to amendment No. 1687, as modified.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Corzine) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ensign). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 40, nays 58, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 227 Leg.]

                                YEAS--40

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Clinton
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Stabenow
     Wyden

                                NAYS--58

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Voinovich
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Corzine
     Vitter
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 40, the nays are 
58. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected. The point of order is 
sustained and the amendment falls.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, 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. SHELBY. 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. SHELBY. On the previous vote, I move to reconsider.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, 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. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, is it in order at this point for me to 
engage in a short discussion of an amendment that I have pending?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is.


                           Amendment No. 1670

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me take the 5 minutes now. I know 
people

[[Page 20275]]

are trying to put together unanimous consent requests. I indicated I 
would take just a few minutes to describe the amendment I have offered, 
which I hope will be voted on at 12:30. They are discussing a consent 
agreement by which they might vote on the amendment I have offered and 
I believe the amendment that Senator Clinton has offered. Even though 
the unanimous consent agreement has not been entered yet, let me at 
least describe the amendment I have offered.
  The amendment I have offered is an amendment that I offered to the 
armed services bill, the Defense authorization bill that came to the 
floor of the Senate and was on the floor for some while. This amendment 
is pending on the Defense authorization bill, but the Defense 
authorization bill has been taken off the floor and it appears it will 
not come back to the Senate, and therefore I will not get a vote on 
this amendment. So I offer the amendment to the appropriations bill, 
understanding this is not the optimum place to do this. I will have to 
suspend the rules to accomplish it. But let me describe what it is.
  We are spending billions and billions of dollars on reconstruction in 
Iraq. I will read some headlines.
  Let me say at the start, the minute anyone comes to this floor and 
mentions the word ``Halliburton,'' they think it is partisan, 
political, going after the Vice President of the United States. It is 
not. It is true he was the CEO of Halliburton, but that was long before 
he reentered public service as Vice President, and none of this has 
happened under his watch. This has nothing to do with the Vice 
President.
  What it does have something to do with is large, no-bid contracts 
given to a very large company, large no-bid contracts with virtually no 
oversight and a substantial waste of the taxpayers' money. Let me read 
some headlines.

       Houston Chronicle, February 3, 2004:
       Uncle Sam Looks Into Meal Bills; Halliburton Refunds $27 
     Million as a Result.
       Houston Chronicle, February 4, 2004:
       Halliburton Faces Criminal Investigation: Pentagon Proving 
     Alleged Overcharges for Iraq Fuel.
       Los Angeles Times, February 13, 2004:
       Ex-Halliburton Workers Allege Rampant Waste: They Say the 
     Firm Makes No Effort to Control Costs.
       May 18, 2004, Houston Chronical:
       U.S. Questions More Halliburton Meal Charges.
       July 27, 2004, Houston Chronicle:
       Millions in U.S. Property Lost in Iraq, Reports Say; 
     Halliburton Claims Figures Only ``Projections.''
       The Los Angeles Times, August 12, 2004:
       Halliburton Is Unable to Prove $1.8 Billion in Work, 
     Pentagon Says.

  Is anybody investigating this? No. This is a company that charges for 
42,000 meals served in Iraq, and it turns out they are serving 14,000 
meals to soldiers. We are paying for 42,000 meals. Does anybody care? 
Overcharges for fuel? These are big, no-bid contracts. And oh, by the 
way, the courageous woman in the Pentagon, Bonnatine Greenhouse, the 
highest civilian in the Corps of Engineers responsible for making sure 
these contracts are handled the right way, is the one who objected to 
these contracts saying it was, in effect, a good old boys club giving 
contracts to their friends. Guess what. This woman, who received 
excellent reviews all of her career and rose to become the highest 
ranking civilian officials in the Corps of Engineers, has been demoted. 
Why? Because she had the courage to speak up and speak out.
  Nobody is investigating the rampant misuse of funds and waste of 
funds in these no-bid contracts. There should be oversight hearings in 
the Congress, but there are not. There is not an oversight hearing held 
on these issues, so I have chaired Democratic Policy hearings, and let 
me tell you a couple of things we have heard.
  How about brand new trucks, $85,000 trucks. Drive one down the road 
in Iraq and get a flat tire and what do you do with it? Abandon it. It 
gets torched. A brand new truck. If it has a fuel pump that is plugged, 
what do you do with it? Abandon it. It doesn't matter--no-bid 
contracts. It is all taxpayers' money. It is unbelievable what we have 
uncovered.
  Serving food to soldiers with date stamps that have long since 
expired and the supervisors say it doesn't matter: Serve them anyway.
  They order towels. The guy who worked for the Halliburton company as 
the purchaser said he was told you can't just order towels for soldiers 
that are just towels; you need to put a logo on the towels. So you put 
the company logo on the towels, and you double the price of the towels 
that go to soldiers, so you have the company logo on the towel. It is 
unbelievable waste, fraud, and abuse. It is not millions or hundreds of 
millions of dollars, it is billions dollars, and nobody is minding the 
store. Nobody cares.
  Some years ago, in 1941, Harry Truman stood in this Chamber, and he 
said there is rampant waste, fraud, and abuse going on in military 
contracting, and we ought to get to the bottom of it. He was 
relentless. He was a Democrat here in this Chamber, and we had a 
Democrat in the White House. It didn't matter. I am sure that was kind 
of an uncomfortable thing; it didn't matter. They set up a Truman 
committee, a special committee that uncovered massive amounts of waste, 
fraud, and abuse.
  In this case, we know it is happening. We have direct testimony it is 
happening with big, no-bid contracts--particularly with Halliburton, 
but there are others as well--and nobody seems to care. Nobody seems to 
care.
  I propose that we create a type of Truman committee, of the type we 
have had previously, that starts taking a good look at waste, fraud, 
and abuse that is occurring. Whenever you give massive quantities of 
money on a no-bid contract and say go ahead and spend, you are going to 
have this waste, fraud, and abuse.
  There are stories about someone saying: Let's air-condition that 
building in Iraq. We will buy some air-conditioners through this 
reconstruction funding, and then it goes from a contractor to another 
subcontractor to a sub, and pretty soon the job is done, you have a 
ceiling fan, and the American taxpayer has paid for air-conditioning. 
It is unbelievable, and it is going on all the time.
  My proposal is very simple. When American taxpayers' money is doled 
out in such enormous quantities--billions of dollars--somebody ought to 
watch the store.
  I held up a poster the other day of stacks of 100-dollar bills which 
were wrapped in Saran Wrap--stacked in big piles because the 
contracting officer, who testified at the committee which I chaired, 
said that is the way it was. We said to the contracting companies: 
Bring cash and bring a bag. We do business in cash. He said: We used to 
actually play football with these stacks of 100-dollar bills with Saran 
Wrap. You could actually throw them back and forth across the room. 
They were paying for the ministries, among other things, in Iraq during 
the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was us, by the way. They 
were paying one Iraqi ministry for 8,206 security guards on duty--
paying 2,206 of them salaries--and there were only 602.
  Does anybody care? Does anybody care about this? Will this Congress 
finally do what it is required to do--to require accountability for the 
expenditure of the taxpayers' money?
  We have spent a massive amount of money dealing with contracting in 
Iraq for reconstruction. What we are finding is that the few people who 
had the courage to blow the whistle about favorite contracts--no-bid 
contracts--having contractors even in the room, in the meeting, when 
they were with talking about what the specs of the contract should be. 
Bunnatine Greenhouse, a young African-American woman who rose to the 
top, the highest civilian job in the Corps of Engineers, blew the 
whistle on this old boys network that was doling out that money to 
private contractors, she is going to pay for it with her job, we are 
told. Shame on them.
  This Congress ought to have the courage to stand up on the side of 
the taxpayers and say: If we are spending taxpayers' money, the 
taxpayers ought to get full value for it. We ought to put an end to 
waste, fraud and because.
  When Harry Truman got to the White House, he had a sign on his desk 
that said ``The Buck Stops Here.'' For accountability on this sort of 
thing, the

[[Page 20276]]

buck doesn't stop anywhere. Nobody wants to look them square in the 
eye. It is time for Congress to look truth in the eye and understand 
what is happening. My amendment is the first opportunity to do that.
  I regret that we didn't have a vote on it on the Defense 
authorization bill. That is where it should have been. I offered it on 
the authorization bill. The bill has been pulled from the calendar and 
from the floor and apparently will not come back. I will offer it today 
and to other appropriations bills. It is uncomfortable, I suppose, for 
those who do not want to vote against this, but they are going to have 
to keep voting against it until at some point there will be sufficient 
votes in this Chamber to do what is right. To do what is right is to 
follow the model of Harry Truman. Even when there was a Democrat in the 
White House, a Democrat said: We insist, we demand, accountability on 
behalf of the American taxpayers, and we are going to put an end to 
waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayers' money.
  It is very simple. This is not a complex amendment. It is the 
simplest of amendments and the simplest of choices.
  In this Chamber--the Chamber of the Senate--we don't do very 
complicated things. Every single choice that we make every day on this 
floor is either yes or no. There is no maybe, no later; it is when it 
comes time to vote yes or no.
  That, it seems to me, is an enormously simple choice with respect to 
an amendment that is this persuasive.
  I hope the Senate, when it votes midday today on this amendment, will 
do the right thing.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
amendment be set aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1707

    (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding funding 
     directives contained in H.R. 2862 or its accompanying report)

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 1707:
       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. SENSE OF THE SENATE.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate finds the following:
       (1) In a time of national catastrophe, it is the 
     responsibility of Congress and the Executive Branch to take 
     quick and decisive action to help those in need.
       (2) The size, scope, and complexity of Hurricane Katrina 
     are unprecedented, and the emergency response and long-term 
     recovery efforts will be extensive and require significant 
     resources.
       (3) It is the responsibility of Congress and the Executive 
     Branch to ensure the financial stability of the nation by 
     being good stewards of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that any funding directive contained in this Act, or its 
     accompanying report, that is not specifically authorized in 
     any Federal law as of the date of enactment of this section, 
     or Act or resolution passed by the Senate during the 1st 
     Session of the 109th Congress prior to such date, or proposed 
     in pursuance to an estimate submitted in accordance with law, 
     that is for the benefit of an identifiable program, project, 
     activity, entity, or jurisdiction and is not directly related 
     to the impact of Hurricane Katrina, may be redirected to 
     recovery efforts if the appropriate head of an agency or 
     department determines, after consultation with appropriate 
     Congressional Committees, that the funding directive is not 
     of national significance or is not in the public interest.


                           Amendment No. 1670

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask for the regular order with respect 
to amendment 1670.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is now pending.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the 
amendment violates rule XVI.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, pursuant to the notice properly filed, I 
move to suspend the rule with respect to amendment No. 1670, and I ask 
for the yeas and nays.
  I also ask unanimous consent that Senator Durbin be added as a 
cosponsor of that amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the 
vote on the motion to suspend the rules occur at 12:30 today and that 
no amendments be in order to the amendment prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1660

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask for the regular order with respect 
to the Clinton amendment No. 1660.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is now pending.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the 
amendment violates rule XVI.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Clinton, pursuant to 
the notice she properly filed, I move to suspend the rules with respect 
to amendment No. 1660, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote 
occur on the motion to suspend the rules on the Clinton amendment 
immediately following the vote in relation to the Dorgan amendment with 
2 minutes equally divided prior to the vote, and further that no second 
degrees be in order to the amendment prior to the vote; provided, 
further, that all time until the vote be equally divided in the usual 
form.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1707

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to return to the 
pending amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the clerk for reading the 
amendment in its entirety for the benefit of my colleagues. I thank the 
chairman for his agreement to accept this amendment on a voice vote, 
and I thank him for his assistance. I understand it has been agreed to 
by the Democratic side.
  Mr. President, the sense-of-the-Senate amendment is simple, and it is 
very modest. It is an attempt to rein in wasteful spending, 
particularly during this time when portions of our country along the 
Gulf are enduring the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina--indeed a 
national tragedy. As the Nation continues to manage the aftermath of 
Hurricane Katrina, it is imperative that Congress do what it can and 
what it must to help the hundreds of thousands of victims of one of the 
worst natural disasters in our history. I think all of us in this body 
have said that time after time. Congress must do all that is necessary 
to fund the essential relief and recovery efforts and help those in 
need.
  The cost of the recovery and relief effort is enormous, and will 
continue to be, and it should go without saying that we live in times 
of great need and limited resources. In these times, Americans are 
called to sacrifice, and Congress needs to make sacrifices of its own. 
To the extent that it is possible, we should pay for this effort now 
rather than pass on even more debt to future generations.
  We should also make better use of taxpayers' money by eliminating our 
spending on matters of questionable merit or which are nonessential in 
order to better assist the victims of Katrina. These are times when 
Members of Congress need to deny themselves a few of the comforts of 
political office and refrain from directing tax dollars to special 
projects in their States. These projects might help political 
campaigns, but they do not necessarily benefit the country as a whole. 
Regrettably, as far back as I can recall, Congress has found ways to 
fund thousands of unauthorized projects of questionable merit through 
appropriations bills. Perhaps some of these dollars

[[Page 20277]]

would have been better spent on activities that might have limited the 
impact of this tragedy. We are now hearing information that a great 
deal of money was spent in Louisiana on projects that were less 
necessary perhaps--and I emphasize ``perhaps'' because a thorough 
investigation needs to be completed--that should have been spent on 
more important protection of levees and other wetlands and other more 
meritorious projects.
  This year's Commerce, State, Justice, Science and Related Agencies 
appropriations bill, H.R. 2862, is relatively restrained compared to 
recent bills that have moved through the Senate.
  I congratulate the subcommittee chairman from Alabama and the ranking 
member.
  Still, the legislation contains several examples of the types of 
provisions that magically appear in too many of the appropriations 
bills that benefit parochial interests, with little regard to the 
merits, at the expense of national priorities.
  I make this statement and propose this sense-of-the-Senate amendment 
in the hope that my colleagues appreciate that we are now adding 
perhaps $100 billion, or even $150 billion, additionally to the 
deficit, which is already projected to be the third highest in history, 
some 300-and-some billions of dollars.
  For example, H.R. 2862 contains several earmarks that funds 
initiatives that some, including myself, might consider to be of less-
than-pressing importance. Among them is a $10 million earmark for the 
Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, and a $1.75 million earmark for 
something called the Hawaii Humpback Education Program.
  I have no idea what the Hawaii Humpback Education Program is. I would 
imagine it has a lot to do with whales.
  I don't know what the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board is, except 
that I know it continues to receive earmark funding in the 
multimillions of dollars every year, as I examine appropriations bills.
  The bill also provided needed funding for grants to the Small 
Business Administration, and they are needed funds for grants. 
Unfortunately, this bill recommends that the SBA direct funding to 53 
specific programs named in the committee report.
  I want to talk about that for a second.
  The committee report has no enforcement of law, but the 
appropriations committees have made it very clear to the various 
agencies that they do have, in their view, the enforcement of law.
  So we have the worst of all worlds here; we have it in a committee 
report which cannot be removed by amendment, and, yet, at the same 
time, even though it technically doesn't have the force of law, it is 
made clear to the agencies that are affected that they will pay a heavy 
price if they do not carry out the dictates of the committee report.
  It is imperative, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that the SBA 
grants be awarded on the basis of need and merit and for no other 
reason.
  The sense-of-the-Senate amendment that I propose would allow funding 
for earmarks that have not been authorized, have not been requested by 
the President or not related to the impact of Hurricane Katrina to be 
redirected to recovery efforts.
  In other words, the $1.75 million earmark for the Hawaii Humpback 
Education Program would be directed to the recovery and rescue efforts 
associated with Hurricane Katrina.
  This would occur when the Agency or Department head determines, after 
consultation with the appropriate congressional committees, that such 
an earmark is not of national significance or is not in the public 
interest.
  Now there will be arguments in consultation with these appropriation 
committees that they are of national significance or in the public 
interest. I argue that determination should be made on the basis of the 
scenario which I described earlier.
  I expected this amendment to be easily adopted and not take much of 
the Senate's time. But after discussion with the appropriators and 
their staff, I thank the manager and the minority, the Democratic 
leader and their staff, for modifications to the amendment. I hope this 
sense-of-the-Senate amendment will be taken seriously.
  I could propose the impossible: that no earmarks be permitted in any 
appropriations bill, period. But I am not proposing the impossible. Or 
I could propose what is suggested almost daily by the press, that 
Congress turn in its pork. Many are rightly calling into question the 
thousands of projects in the highway bill and suggesting the related 
project funding should more wisely be transferred to recovery efforts. 
The amendment isn't proposing that, either. But perhaps next time that 
will be the proposal I offer, particularly given the dire situation in 
the gulf. We cannot even agree to preclude funding for projects not 
found to be in the public interest.
  I repeat, it is a modest proposal. I hope my colleagues 
overwhelmingly adopt it for the sake of the tens of thousands of 
Americans who have lost almost everything and are relying on their 
Government for necessary support as they struggle for what will be a 
long and difficult time. I also hope we keep in mind future generations 
of Americans who will be inheriting this deficit which is now going to 
be probably one of the largest in history.
  I call upon the appropriators and the leadership to pay careful 
attention to the funding measures yet to be debated and to do their 
part to ensure that we are living up to our obligations to those who 
are suffering, even if it means it comes at some of our personal 
political expense.
  In a time of national catastrophe it is the responsibility of the 
Congress to take quick and decisive action to help those in need. It is 
not appropriate to continue the practice of earmarking scarce funds in 
the face of such a tragedy. This should be a time of sacrifice for the 
sake of our suffering citizens. I repeat, it is a modest proposal.
  I found a curious thing happen in the last few days. Newspapers 
ranging from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to the 
Washington Times all editorialized in the same fashion.
  I ask unanimous consent New York Times editorial entitled ``Bring Out 
Your Pork,'' and Washington Times editorial called ``Pork and Hurricane 
Relief,'' and from the Wall Street Journal entitled ``A `Moronic' 
Proposal'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Sept. 8, 2005]

                          Bring Out Your Pork

       Fair warning to the suffering Gulf Coast masses: Congress 
     is already talking of concocting economic stimulus'' and 
     ``job creation'' packages as hurricane recovery tools. That 
     sounds useful, but unfortunately those terms usually signal 
     that the House and the Senate are about to use the crisis of 
     the moment to roll out wasteful tax cuts for the well-off and 
     pork barrel outlays for hometown voters.
       The overwhelming need of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, 
     coupled with the nation's shock at government ineptitude, 
     should inspire members of Congress to sober up and become 
     something approaching responsible policy makers. If they do 
     decide to reform, there's an easy way to prove it. They could 
     turn in their pork.
       This summer, when Congress had to ignore only a war in 
     Iraq, it passed the annual highway bill, repackaged as a job-
     creation measure. The legislation set a record of $24 billion 
     in 6,371 ``earmark amendments''--the route individual 
     lawmakers take to lock in prized projects for their home 
     districts, regardless of proven need.
       The bipartisan boondoggles that made it under the wire 
     included vanity highways, tourist sidewalks, snowmobile 
     trails, a ``deer avoidance'' plan and a graffiti elimination 
     program for New York. Those wishing to look for still more 
     unnecessary spending can consider the White House's $130-
     billion-and-counting missile defense system, which remains 
     thoroughly inoperable.
       Hurricane Katrina cries out to Congress for something other 
     than business as usual. Imagine what would happen if each 
     member of Congress announced that he or she would give up a 
     prize slab of bacon so the government would be able to use 
     the money to shelter hurricane victims and rebuild New 
     Orleans. The public would--for once--have proof that 
     politicians are capable of setting priorities and showing 
     respect for the concept of a budget.
       Surely Representative Don Young, the Alaska Republican who 
     is chairman of the

[[Page 20278]]

     transportation committee, might put off that $223 million 
     ``bridge to nowhere'' in his state's outback. It's redundant 
     now--Louisiana suddenly has several bridges to nowhere. 
     Likewise, Speaker Dennis Hastert could defer his prized 
     Prairie Parkway, a $200-million-plus project dismissed as a 
     behemoth Sprawlway by hometown critics, and use the money to 
     repair the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.
       The Democratic minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, could afford 
     to donate back some multimillion-dollar plums--just one bike 
     and pedestrian overpass, perhaps, or a ferry terminal. 
     Another Democratic standout, James Oberstar of Minnesota, 
     would have a hard time choosing from his cornucopia, but that 
     $2.7 million for what is already described as the nation's 
     longest paved recreational trail looks ripe.
       The list is long. Such a gesture by the Capitol's patronage 
     first responders would encourage a sense of shared sacrifice 
     in the nation. Members might actually be surprised to see how 
     many of their own constituents are prepared to think of other 
     people's needs before themselves. This page has been a 
     longtime supporter of a freight tunnel between New Jersey and 
     New York--which, we should point out, is actually a tunnel to 
     somewhere. But we'd applaud a delay in the $100 million for 
     freight-tunnel design studies that was included in the 
     highway bill if it was part of a larger reordering of 
     priorities.
       It's time to put New Orleans first.
                                  ____


                     [From the Wall Street Journal]

                         A ``Moronic'' Proposal

       Some public-spirited folks in Bozeman, Montana, have come 
     up with a wonderful idea to help Uncle Sam offset some of the 
     $62 billion federal cost of Hurricane Katrina relief. The 
     Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports that Montanans from both 
     sides of the political aisle have petitioned the city council 
     to give the feds back a $4 million earmark to pay for a 
     parking garage in the just-passed $286 billion highway bill. 
     As one of these citizens, Jane Shaw, told us: ``We figure New 
     Orleans needs the money right now a lot more than we need 
     extra downtown parking space.''
       Which got us thinking: Why not cancel all of the special-
     project pork in the highway bill and dedicate the $25 billion 
     in savings to emergency relief on the Gulf Coast? Is it 
     asking too much for Richmond, Indiana, to give up $3 million 
     for its hiking trail, or Newark, New Jersey, to put a hold on 
     its $2 million bike path?
       And in the face of the worst natural disaster in U.S. 
     history, couldn't Alaskans put a hold on the infamous $454 
     million earmark for the two ``bridges to nowhere'' that will 
     serve a town of 50 people? That same half a billion dollars 
     could rebuild thousands of homes for suffering New Orleans 
     evacuees. One obstacle to this idea apparently will be Don 
     Young, the House Transportation Committee Chairman who 
     captured the funds for Alaska in the first place. A spokesman 
     in his office told the Anchorage Daily News that the pork-
     for-relief swap was ``moronic.'' Sounds like someone who 
     wants Mr. Young to become ``ranking Member'' next Congress.
       In all there are more than 6,000 of these parochial 
     projects--or about 14 for every Congressional district--
     funded in the highway bill. The pork reduction plan is 
     particularly appropriate as a response to Katrina, because we 
     have learned in recent days that one reason that money was 
     not spent on fortifying the levees in New Orleans was that 
     hundreds of millions of dollars were rerouted to glitzier 
     earmarked projects throughout the state of Louisiana.
       We're hearing all sorts of bad ideas about how to offset 
     the $62 billion of spending already authorized for Hurricane 
     Katrina relief. Cancel the Bush tax cuts, raise the gasoline 
     tax by $1 a gallon, increase deficit spending, and sharply 
     cut spending on national defense and the war in Iraq. In 
     Washington, it seems, everything is expendable except for the 
     slabs of bacon that are carved out of the federal fisc to 
     ensure re-election.
       The glory of what is happening in Bozeman is that taxpayers 
     are proving to be wiser about priorities than their 
     politicians. We like the suggestion by Ronald Utt of the 
     Foundation Heritage that, when the new levee is built to 
     protect the Big Easy from future storms, it should bear a 
     bronze plaque stamped: ``Proudly Brought to You by the 
     Citizens of Alaska.''
                                  ____


                      [From the Washington Times]

                       Pork and Hurricane Relief

       ``We should lead by example and give up a few of the things 
     we want in order to give hurricane victims the things they 
     need,'' Sens. John McCain and Tim Coburn told their 
     colleagues. Correct, as far as it goes, but the call to arms 
     rings hollow without specifics. Here's a start: Congress 
     should redirect the transportation bill's $25 billion toward 
     hurricane relief.
       Congress appropriated $51.8 billion in emergency-relief 
     money for Hurricane Katrina's victims, and suspended the 
     normal rules and procedures so the bill would not get 
     entangled in special interests or endless debates. That made 
     sense; lives were at stake and the money was needed at once. 
     But Congress can listen now to those who want to cut 
     discretionary spending so money can be sent for 
     reconstruction in the Gulf states. Congress could erase half 
     that total with the transportation bill earmarks.
       Before Katrina, these earmarks were hardly necessary; 
     today, they look like an abdication of duty. As we noted last 
     month, the most outrageous items in this $286 billion bill 
     were $229 billion for a highway called ``Don Young's Way'' in 
     Alaska, a favorite of the Republican chairman of the House 
     Transportation Committee; $18.75 million for the ``Highway to 
     Nowhere,'' linking Ketchikan, Alaska, to the island of 
     Gravina, population 50; and $20 million for a Magnetic 
     Levitation Transportation System linking Las Vegas and Primm, 
     Nev. Naturally the guilty legislators defended those projects 
     as necessary spending on vital local needs. Of course.
       These projects look particularly foolish now. Katrina has 
     blown the roof off business as usual in Washington, and 
     rightly so.
       Several congressmen appear to get it. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, 
     Texas Republican, offered an amendment to the hurricane-
     relief bill that would have required the House to offset the 
     new Katrina spending with reductions in other spending. Mr. 
     Hensarling, a fiscal conservative, isn't above pragmatism: He 
     would exempt entitlements, homeland-security and defense 
     spending and veteran's affairs from the cuts. But the House 
     didn't consider his amendment because it wanted spending 
     passage of the relief legislation.
       Now that the emergency bill has been enacted, Congress 
     should reconsider ideas like the Hensarling amendment. And if 
     Mr. McCain and Mr. Coburn are serious about leading by 
     example, they will step up to lead by example. Congress can 
     show seriousness by scrapping Mr. Young's ``Highway to 
     Nowhere'' and send the money to the right somewhere--to 
     rebuild New Orleans and the Mississippi coast.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, this is interesting. I don't think in all 
my years I have seen all three of these different periodicals coming 
from somewhat different philosophical bases all editorializing in the 
same fashion. The Wall Street Journal says:

       Some public-spirited folks in Bozeman, Montana, have come 
     up with a wonderful idea to help Uncle Sam offset some of the 
     $62 billion federal costs of Hurricane Katrina relief. The 
     Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports that Montanans from both 
     sides of the political aisle have petitioned the city council 
     to give the feds back a $4 million earmark to pay for a 
     parking garage in the just-passed $286 billion highway bill. 
     As one of these citizens Jane Shaw told us, ``We figure New 
     Orleans needs the money right now a lot more than we need 
     extra downtown parking space.''
       Which got us thinking: Why not cancel all the special-
     project pork in the highway bill and dedicate the $25 billion 
     in savings to emergency relief on the Gulf Coast? Is it 
     asking too much for Richmond, Indiana, to give up $3 million 
     for a hiking trail, or Newark, New Jersey, to put a hold on 
     its $2 million bike path?
       And in the face of the worst natural disaster in U.S. 
     history, couldn't Alaskans put a hold on the infamous $454 
     million earmark for the two ``bridges to nowhere'' that will 
     serve a town of 50 people? That same half a billion could 
     rebuild thousands of homes for suffering New Orleans 
     evacuees.

  It goes on:

       We're hearing all sorts of bad ideas about how to offset 
     the $62 billion of spending already authorized for Hurricane 
     Katrina relief. Cancel the Bush tax cuts, raise the gasoline 
     tax by $1 a gallon, increase deficit spending, and sharply 
     cut spending on national defense in the war on Iraq. In 
     Washington, it seems, everything is expendable except for the 
     slabs of bacon that are carved out of the federal fist to 
     ensure re-election.
       The glory of what is happening in Bozeman is that taxpayers 
     are proving to be wiser about priorities than their 
     politicians. We like the suggestion by Ronald Utt of the 
     Foundation Heritage that, when the new levee is built to 
     protect the Big Easy from future storms, it should bear a 
     bronze plaque stamped: ``Proudly Brought to You by the 
     Citizens of Alaska.''

  In the Washington Times, today:

       Congress appropriated $51.8 billion in emergency-relief 
     money for Hurricane Katrina's victims, and suspended the 
     normal rules and procedures so the bill would not get 
     entangled in special interests or endless debate. That made 
     sense; lives were at stake and the money was needed at once. 
     But Congress can listen now to those who want to cut 
     discretionary spending so money can be spent for 
     reconstruction in the Gulf states. Congress could erase half 
     that total with the transportation bill earmarks.

  The New York Times says:

       Fair warning to the suffering Gulf Coast masses: Congress 
     is already talking of concocting ``economic stimulus'' and 
     ``job creation'' packages as hurricane recovery tools. That 
     sounds useful, but unfortunately those terms usually signal 
     that the House and Senate are about to use the crisis of the 
     moment to roll out wasteful tax cuts for well-off and pork 
     barrel outlays for the hometown voters.

[[Page 20279]]

     Hurricane Katrina cries out to Congress for something other 
     than business as usual.
       Imagine what would happen if each member of Congress 
     announced he or she would give up a prize slab of bacon so 
     the government would be able to use the money to shelter 
     hurricane victims and rebuild New Orleans? The public would--
     for once--have proof that politicians are capable of setting 
     priorities and showing respect for the concept of a budget.
       It's time to put New Orleans first.

  As I said, this is a very modest proposal. I hope we can, as we go 
through our appropriations bills--and there are numerous bills coming 
up, including an additional relief package for New Orleans--that we 
will be able to exercise fiscal restraint. If we would leave the 
earmarks out of the report language and out of the bills, then this 
sense-of-the-Senate amendment would be irrelevant.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment 
of the Senator from Arizona.
  The amendment (No. 1707) was agreed to.
  Mr. McCAIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, as I understand it, in about 5 minutes 
we will be voting on two amendments. One is to establish a Truman-like 
commission to see if there has been profiteering in the contracts in 
relation to the Iraq war.


                           Amendment No. 1660

  Madam President, there is also another amendment offered by the 
Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, on a Katrina commission 
recommendation. I am a cosponsor of that amendment. Prior to the vote, 
I would now like to make a few remarks in support of the establishment 
of a Katrina commission.
  This weekend I reflected--as I am sure the Presiding Officer did when 
you were with your family and maybe made it back to Alaska with 
constituents--that two tragedies have hit our country. One is 9/11, 
which we can never, ever forget. How grateful we are to the 9/11 
Commission for their rigorous investigation as to what happened: what 
went wrong, what went right; what went wrong--the failure of 
communications and technology and intelligence; what went right--the 
bravery of people, the spirit of America.
  Then, also, the 9/11 Commission made concrete recommendations. In 
fact, they are meeting this week to issue a report card on how well we 
have done to implement their recommendations. Three cheers for the 9/11 
Commission on what they have done and what they continue to do.
  All of America has been mesmerized by what has happened in the Gulf--
in New Orleans, in Louisiana, in Alabama, and, of course, in 
Mississippi.
  Senator Clinton's idea--she will be here shortly to express it, and I 
concur--is that we also have a commission now to look at the response 
to the Katrina situation. We appreciate the fact that the President has 
taken responsibility, and he himself wants to know what went right and 
what went wrong. We think that is a very good move on the President's 
part. We support him.
  Second, we know there will be good efforts by our own colleagues, 
particularly in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee, which is very ably chaired by our colleague from Maine, 
Senator Collins, and of which Senator Lieberman is ranking member.
  But it is us investigating us. It is the President looking at his own 
executive branch. I do not doubt the integrity of the President. I do 
not doubt the vigor and pursuit that the Governmental Affairs Committee 
will have. Golly, just look at their record on intel reform. I think we 
know they really do operate with intellectual rigor and integrity. But 
I do believe we need an outside group that will look at us and develop 
an opinion that will be truly independent, made up of appointees from 
both sides of the aisle. They would absolutely not be political, even 
though some might have a background in politics.
  Governor Kean did a fabulous job chairing the Commission along with 
our former colleague, Congressman Lee Hamilton. They had a wonderful 
array of people on the 9/11 Commission.
  So we owe it to the people of the Gulf and we owe it to the people of 
the United States of America to examine this situation and not to do 
finger-pointing. We do not need any more finger-pointing but we sure do 
need pinpointing as to what collapsed, what was not in place.
  Some years ago, I led the reform effort of FEMA. We started with 
President Bush 1 and then kept going under President Bill Clinton, who 
gave us James Lee Witt. FEMA should be one of our premier agencies 
focusing on readiness, response, and recovery. What went wrong? Was it 
us? Did we neglect in oversight? Did we neglect funding Corps of 
Engineers projects? I really don't know that. And maybe we did not 
neglect anything, but nature had enough with our bad behavior and 
kicked us a little bit.
  So I really want to know that, and why. One reason is so it will 
never happen again, just like we never want a predatory attack on the 
United States of America, which is why out of 9/11 came intel reform 
and now the followup. We do not want this result ever to happen again 
when a natural disaster strikes--whether it is a hurricane that hits 
coastal States or whether it is an earthquake, which I know the 
Presiding Officer's own dear beloved State is possibly subjected to and 
which our colleagues from California worry about, and our colleagues 
from Missouri worry about that fault that goes right down through 
Missouri.
  So we have to make sure we have an independent analysis. We would 
then take what the President finds, take what our colleagues find, and 
listen to an independent commission so we can make sure we are truly 
ready, we are truly able to respond, and then to make sure we have the 
wherewithal to do recovery.
  This could have been a dirty bomb in any city in the United States. 
Could we evacuate? Would communications be interoperable? What would 
happen to the poor and the sick? Are they collateral damage? Nobody in 
America is ever collateral damage. We have to have plans. What happens 
to our first responders? If there is an evacuation plan, who evacuates 
their families while they are protecting us? These are the kinds of 
questions, these are the kinds of things that need to go into the 
planning.
  Right now, all that many of us see is that we have spent a lot of 
money on homeland security. But what I see is a lot of salesmen out 
there selling gear. In fact, sometimes I think there are more salesmen 
selling gear than there are first responders. We need to be effective. 
We need to be smart. I want my country to be safer. I want my country 
to be stronger. But I think we need to be smarter. This is why I think 
a good step forward would be an independent commission, not to finger-
point but to pinpoint, so that never ever again would any community 
have to suffer or that they could be in a position to recover better.
  Madam President, 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.
  Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SHELBY. I call for the regular order.


                           Amendment No. 1670

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on 
agreeing to the motion to suspend the rules for the consideration of 
amendment No. 1670. The yeas and nays were previously ordered. The 
clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.

[[Page 20280]]


  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter) and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. 
Warner).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Corzine) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thune). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 44, nays 53, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 228 Leg.]

                                YEAS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Clinton
     Conrad
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Stabenow
     Wyden

                                NAYS--53

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Voinovich

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Corzine
     Vitter
     Warner
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the ayes are 44, the nays are 
53. Two-thirds of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion to suspend rule XVI pursuant to notice 
previously given in writing is rejected.
  The point of order is sustained. The amendment falls.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 1660

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 2 
minutes of debate evenly divided for a vote on another motion to 
suspend the rules.
  The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I have offered an amendment to create an 
independent commission, known as the Katrina Commission, to investigate 
with outside experts the situation we have confronted for the last 2 
weeks in the Gulf Coast. This vote is on a motion to suspend the rules 
to consider this amendment. I hope that we have bipartisan support to 
do just that. There are a number of committees that have a role in this 
Congress to conduct oversight, to ask questions, but just as with 9/11 
we did not get to the point where we believed we understood what 
happened until an independent investigation was conducted.
  This legislation is modeled on the 9/11 Commission. The President 
appoints the chairman. The Republican and Democratic leaders appoint 
the members. This will provide us an opportunity to do the 
investigation away from the work that needs to happen in this Congress 
and in the administration, to meet the immediate needs of the people in 
the Gulf Coast. I hope we will vote to support the Katrina Commission.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time in opposition?
  All time is yielded back.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion to suspend the rule for 
consideration of amendment No. 1660.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Corzine) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 44, nays 54, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 229 Leg.]

                                YEAS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Clinton
     Conrad
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Stabenow
     Wyden

                                NAYS--54

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Voinovich
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Corzine
     Vitter
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 44, the nays are 
54. Two-thirds of the Senators voting not having voted in the 
affirmative, the motion to suspend rule XVI pursuant to notice 
previously given is not agreed to. The point of order is sustained, and 
the amendment falls.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.


                           Amendment No. 1695

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
amendment be set aside and that we call up amendment No. 1695.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry], for himself and 
     Ms. Landrieu, proposes an amendment numbered 1695.

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is printed in the Record of Tuesday, September 13, 
2005, under ``Text of amendments.''
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I offer this amendment, together with 
Senator Landrieu, to provide comprehensive relief to small businesses 
harmed by Hurricane Katrina. There are two reasons why it is important 
to do this at this time on this bill.
  No. 1, the $63 billion of combined assistance in the two supplemental 
spending bills doesn't allocate one portion of it to small businesses 
specifically. So there is no small business relief--no funding for 
small business assistance within the structure of the SBA or for other 
small business assistance programs Congress has created.
  No. 2, this appropriations bill is the funding source for the Small 
Business Administration. It is through the Small Business 
Administration that disaster loan assistance is available for 
homeowners and for business owners, and it is through the Small 
Business Administration that the Federal Government provides the full 
complement of assistance to the small businesses of our Nation. So it 
is appropriate for us to be doing this at this time. The SBA is 
indispensable to the recovery of the gulf region after Hurricane 
Katrina.
  I was down there on Monday and could see for myself the numbers of 
small business people who are impacted, listening to the Governor, the 
Lieutenant Governor, Congressman Jefferson and others, all of whom 
described how critical this help is going to be. The States concerned--
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana--are still in the process of 
assessing the full extent of the damage. There are an estimated 800,000 
small businesses in those three States, but already we have received 
reports that more than 100,000 in Louisiana and some 50,000 in 
Mississippi were damaged or destroyed completely.
  We also know that in Louisiana alone, small businesses provide more

[[Page 20281]]

than 65 percent of the jobs. Sixty-five percent is typical for most of 
America, which is why Senator after Senator comes to the floor and goes 
home to their States and talks about the importance of small business 
to the American economy.
  What the mayor of Baton Rouge told me, what the Governors told me, 
and other officials I spoke with, is how critical it is to be able to 
get the local population back to work as fast as possible and to try to 
mitigate against some of the dislocation.
  The only way we are going to get people back to work, the only way we 
get these areas thriving again, is to make small business a priority of 
the recovery itself.
  Our amendment recognizes that it is going to take months, if not 
years, for a lot of businesses to get back to normal. SBA's Federal 
disaster loans and physical damage loans and economic injury loans are 
going to play a critical role in this recovery.
  Our amendment also recognizes that similar to the domino effect of 
the 9/11 attacks--the domino effect that those attacks had on our 
economy in other places--we need to help not only those businesses 
physically located within the declared disaster area, but also an awful 
lot of businesses that have been indirectly harmed because of the loss 
of business directly to those areas or because of the increase in fuel 
prices.
  The tourism industry, for instance, is so important to New Orleans 
and has suppliers around the country. Travel agents who book 
conferences, companies that provide food and beverages and supplies for 
the hotels, restaurants, and bars. Suddenly they have no orders. There 
are small businesses that could help rebuild the damaged and destroyed 
homes, businesses, and infrastructure of the Gulf region. But they need 
legal protection to make sure they can be part of the Federal contracts 
paying for these projects and services.
  One of the reasons for this is that too often the Federal Government, 
in its effort to move rapidly, which we understand, takes the easiest 
route or path of least resistance and gives big contracts to the 
Halliburtons of the world, leaving a lot of the local economy and small 
businesses still gasping, looking for their way into that pipeline.
  Then, of course, there is the underestimated but, frankly, always 
essential counselor component. A lot of small businesses need help 
figuring out how to restructure, how to process all of this, how to 
make up for the loss of business. Many of them have viable businesses. 
With a small amount of assistance they can keep that viability and 
minimize the negative impact to our economy and to their business.
  In order to put this package together in a way that addressed the 
real needs of the communities, I have worked closely with Senator 
Landrieu who, along with her staff, has worked tirelessly in recent 
days to determine what the businesses in her State need to get 
Louisiana small business on the road to recovery. I think we ought to 
be encouraged--frankly, all of us in the Senate ought to be 
encouraged--at how much we can do under the auspices of the Small 
Business Administration, recognizing that a lot of these businesses 
have no way of fully operating now or any time soon. We try to take 
steps to defer for 2 years the interest and the principal payment for 
those businesses located directly in the disaster area, those that have 
been adversely impacted. For small businesses directly impacted, we 
permit them to use disaster loans, which have interest rates capped at 
4 percent. I remind my colleagues that these are loans. These aren't 
grants. We allow small businesses to refinance existing disaster loans 
and existing business debt in order to consolidate their debt and lower 
their interest payments.
  For those small businesses directly impacted that had SBA 7(a) and 
504 loans before Katrina, if they are unable to make their payments, we 
direct the SBA to assume the payments for up to 2 years or until the 
businesses can resume payments earlier on their own.
  For small businesses that are directly impacted, such as suppliers to 
the extensive tourism industry in the gulf coast, we make available SBA 
7(a) loans at reduced rates, with protections to make sure that those 
who need the loans are the ones getting them.
  For small businesses that need counseling, we increase funding to 
SBA's counseling partners to serve businesses, whether they are in 
Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama, or whether they are still displaced 
in other States such as Texas or Arizona.
  We put in place contracting protections to encourage the Federal 
Government to help rebuild the economy by using local businesses or 
small businesses.
  We authorize $400 million in grants to the States in the declared 
disaster areas in order to make immediate bridge loans or grants to 
those small businesses directly harmed by Hurricane Katrina that need 
access to money immediately and can't wait for the disbursement of 
Federal loans or other assistance. This has worked in the past, and it 
can work now.
  As we all know, Hurricane Katrina knocked out roughly 10 percent of 
U.S. oil refining and natural gas pipeline capacity. That has caused 
prices for gasoline and natural gas to go through the roof all over the 
country. Experts estimate the impact is going to hit us in the winter 
as well when heating oil prices are going to increase as much as 70 
percent. To help small businesses and farmers and manufacturers that 
are being crippled by these energy prices, we give them access to low-
cost disaster loans.
  This is a very straightforward example of how businesses outside the 
disaster area have been indirectly and seriously adversely impacted.
  The other day, I was driving through a couple of States well north of 
Washington, DC--not in Massachusetts but New Jersey, New York, and 
elsewhere--and the gas prices are all reflecting the effects of 
Katrina. Small farmers in the Presiding Officer's State of South 
Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and all across the country are 
deeply impacted by the cost of fuel for their tractors or for their 
trucks for deliveries all across the country. This will help the small 
businesses and farmers and manufacturers that are being crippled.
  The high cost of energy is making American manufacturing 
noncompetitive. Talk to truckers who are traversing the Nation about 
the cost of fuel. It's a huge portion of the current price of goods 
consumed by the increased energy prices. The result is a lot of folks 
who are teetering on the edge with loans out and financed are now 
finding themselves in economic difficulty. So this is a way to help 
them, and this tries to do that.
  I point out to my colleagues that previously the energy relief 
portion of this amendment has passed the Senate three times. There are 
37 Republican Senators currently in the Senate who have previously 
voted for this on several occasions. Our hope is that we can proceed 
forward.
  In addition, to help drive down the impact of Hurricane Katrina and 
its toll on the economy as a whole--including added costs to health 
care for small business, energy for small business, and rising interest 
rates--we temporarily lower the interest rate set by the Federal 
Government itself. There is no need for us to recoup at the same rate, 
if it helps those businesses remain viable.
  The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been calling for this relief 
for Hispanic small business owners because ever since the 
administration raised the fees on 7(a) loans, loans to Hispanics have 
fallen by 14 percent. With the added problems to the economy caused by 
Hurricane Katrina, making capital more affordable is a way to open the 
doors of opportunity and to help people to be able to keep the economy 
moving.
  In closing, I thank Senator Reid, Senator Mikulski, and Senator 
Landrieu for their leadership and help in shaping this legislation. The 
coming weeks and months are critical for small businesses. Frankly, it 
is too easy to go to the meetings back home and stand up in front of 
the small business community and say: Aren't you great; you are 98 
percent of the businesses of America. You are the engine of our 
economy.

[[Page 20282]]

  Over 60 percent of America's employees work in small business. Almost 
all the new jobs in America come from small business. Small business 
has been hurt by the hurricane and by the indirect impact of that 
hurricane on other sectors of our economy. This is an opportunity for 
the Senate to be able to address those dire needs. I hope my colleagues 
will join in that effort.
  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. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues from 
Massachusetts and Louisiana, Senators Kerry and Landrieu, in support of 
this amendment to provide assistance to businesses and farmers who are 
facing serious economic injury from the current run-up in fuel prices.
  This amendment would establish a 4-year pilot program to provide 
emergency relief through affordable, low-interest Small Business 
Administration and Department of Agriculture disaster loans to small 
businesses and farms harmed by significant increases in the price of 
fuels. Small businesses have narrow operating margins and limited 
reserves to cover unexpected or significant increases in costs, and 
commercial loans are not available to respond to this kind of 
situation. Existing disaster loan programs must be expanded so that 
small businesses and farms will be able to tap into the capital they 
need to manage their way through this period of high fuel prices. 
Without action by the Congress, many small businesses and farms will be 
confronted with higher costs, reduced profits and likely layoffs.
  The Senate has this opportunity to reconsider, and again pass, 
legislation that would provide vital relief. This amendment has enjoyed 
bi-partisan support for several years. I was pleased to be a cosponsor 
with over 30 colleagues when it was first introduced in the 107th 
Congress as S. 295, and when it was reintroduced in this Congress as S. 
269. Most recently, in June, the Senate passed this measure as section 
303 of the comprehensive energy legislation. Unfortunately, like other 
Senate passed provisions, it ended up on the cutting room floor during 
the conference with the House. Now, however, the need to assist 
businesses and farms that are being injured by skyrocketing fuel prices 
is far greater than it was in June.
  Businesses in New Mexico have expressed concern about prices and 
urged support for this bill and I know that their experience is shared 
by businesses across the Nation. Last Tuesday, the Energy Committee 
held hearings on the fuel price crisis and heard sobering testimony 
about the constraints on oil supply and on the expectation for 
sustained high prices for other fuels as well.
  I ask that letters from the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce 
and from the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce in support of this 
amendment be printed in the Record. I very much appreciate their 
endorsement of this Senate effort to respond to the need of small 
businesses as they struggle with high fuel prices. The catastrophe 
along the gulf coast has made a bad situation worse, and we have a 
responsibility to provide assistance to those who need a way to sustain 
their businesses during this crisis.
  I urge my colleagues to again support this amendment, as it was 
supported in June, so that our businesses and farms will receive the 
assistance they so desperately need.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                               Albuquerque Hispano


                                          Chamber of Commerce,

                              Albuquerque, NM, September 14, 2005.
     Senator Jeff Bingaman,
     Hart Senate Office Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Bingaman: The Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of 
     Commerce (AHCC) is an organization with over thirteen hundred 
     (1,300) smal1 businesses. These small businesses face many 
     challenges on a daily basis to ``keep the shop open.'' Of 
     overwhelming concern are today's spiraling fuel costs.
       We are writing to express our alarm about the increasing 
     fuel prices and to endorse the Small Business and Farm Energy 
     Emergency Act of 2005, S. 269, which we understand is 
     expected to be offered as an amendment in the U.S. Senate. 
     Many of our members throughout New Mexico are facing a cash 
     flow crisis from high and rapidly increasing prices for 
     gasoline, natural gas, propane and other fuels that are 
     essential to their businesses.
       Typically, our members have small cash flows, narrow 
     margins, and have very limited reserves to cover unexpected 
     or significant increases in costs. This legislation would 
     establish a 4-year pilot program to provide emergency relief 
     through affordable, low-interest Small Business 
     Administration and Department of Agriculture disaster loans 
     to small businesses and farms harmed by significant increases 
     in the price of fuels. The dramatic increase in the price of 
     gasoline for transportation has compounded the slower but 
     steady increase in natural gas, propane, kerosene and other 
     fuels that are essential to many business operations. It is 
     vital that existing disaster loan programs be expanded so 
     that small businesses and farms will have access to the 
     capital they need to manage these new cost challenges. 
     Commercial loans simply are not available for this type of 
     emergency. Without Federal assistance, many of our members 
     are confronted with curtailing operations, raising prices and 
     suffering declining sales, layoffs, and even bankruptcy.
       We understand that this emergency loan program was included 
     in the national energy legislation which passed the U.S. 
     Senate earlier this year, but that it was dropped during the 
     conference committee with the House of Representatives. Many 
     of our members face a crises with each new fuel bill and need 
     assistance without further delay. We applaud the Senate's 
     previous effort to get this important bill enacted and urge 
     that you continue to fight for its inclusion in other bills, 
     and its prompt passage into law.
       Thank you for your continued support for small business and 
     for this important legislation.
           Sincerely,
                                               Joseph P. Castillo,
     Chief Operations Officer.
                                  ____

                                                        Los Alamos


                                          Chamber of Commerce,

                               Los Alamos, NM, September 14, 2005.
     Senator Jeff Bingaman,
     Santa Fe, New Mexico.
       Dear Senator: I am writing on behalf of the Los Alamos 
     Chamber of Commerce to express our alarm about rising fuel 
     prices and to endorse the Small Business and Farm Energy 
     Emergency Act of 2005, S. 269, which we understand is 
     expected to be offered as an amendment in the U.S. Senate. 
     Many of our members throughout Northern New Mexico are facing 
     a cash flow crisis from high and rapidly increasing prices 
     for gasoline, natural gas, propane and other fuels that are 
     essential to their businesses.
       Typically, our members have small cash flows, narrow 
     margins, and have very limited reserves to cover unexpected 
     or significant increases in costs. This legislation would 
     establish a 4-year pilot program to provide emergency relief 
     through affordable, low-interest Small Business 
     Administration and Department of Agriculture disaster loans 
     to small businesses and farms harmed by significant increases 
     in the price of fuels. The dramatic increase in the price of 
     gasoline for transportation has compounded the slower but 
     steady increase in natural gas, propane, kerosene and other 
     fuels that are essential to many business operations. It is 
     vital that existing disaster loan programs be expanded so 
     that small businesses and farms will have access to the 
     capital they need to manage these new cost challenges. 
     Commercial loans simply are not available for this type of 
     emergency. Without Federal assistance, many of our members 
     are confronted with curtailing operations, raising prices and 
     suffering declining sales, layoffs, and even bankruptcy.
       Most of our members are in the Los Alamos area, a remote 
     location from major distribution centers so we face a 
     particularly difficult situation with regard to rising energy 
     costs.
       We understand that this emergency loan program was included 
     in the national energy legislation which passed the U.S. 
     Senate earlier this year, but that it was dropped during the 
     conference committee with the House of Representatives. Many 
     of our members face a crisis with each new fuel bill and need 
     assistance without further delay. We applaud the Senate's 
     previous effort to get this important bill enacted and urge 
     that you continue to fight for its inclusion in other bills, 
     and its prompt passage into law.
       Thank you for your continued support for small business and 
     for this important legislation.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Kevin Holsapple,
                                               Executive Director.

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1665

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are on the Commerce-Justice 
appropriations bill. My understanding is there

[[Page 20283]]

are a number of amendments left, one of which is the amendment I have 
offered. It is an amendment that is germane, an amendment I expect to 
have a vote on. I know that amendment has caused quite a lot of 
consternation on the floor of the Senate in recent hours, also in the 
Washington Post, and now in a letter from two members of the 
President's Cabinet, on behalf of the President, suggesting that were 
this amendment to come to his desk in a piece of legislation, they 
would recommend a veto.
  This is about trade issues and about whether we are finally, as a 
country, going to stand up for this country's economic interests.
  I only take the floor again to urge those who do not want to have a 
vote on this amendment to relent. We have a right to have a vote. I 
properly offered this amendment, and I would expect a vote before the 
day is out.
  The vote is very simple. It is an amendment that says no funding in 
this appropriations bill can be used by the Commerce Department or the 
trade ambassador's office to negotiate a trade treaty that reduces or 
eliminates the protections that we have in this country to protect 
domestic producers against unfair trade.
  I have mentioned before that some years ago I drove to the Canadian 
border one day with a man named Earl Jensen. Earl had a 12-year-old, 2-
ton orange truck. We drove to the Canadian border with some durum 
wheat. We got to the Canadian border and we were stopped. They said: 
You can't take American durum wheat into Canada. They stopped us.
  On the way to the Canadian border, we saw 18-wheelers hauling 
Canadian wheat into our country. We saw truck after truck after truck 
bringing Canadian wheat across the border into our country, and we 
couldn't get a little old 12-year-old orange truck into Canada with 
about 150 bushels of durum wheat.
  What was happening was the Canadian Wheat Board--which is a 
sanctioned monopoly by the Government, which would be illegal in this 
country--was selling all that wheat into our country at secret prices, 
undercutting American farmers, engaging in unfair trade, taking money 
straight out of the pockets of American farmers with unfair trade. You 
could not do anything about it.
  We demanded of the Canadian Wheat Board all of the information--the 
materials, the data--that defined their sales that they were making at 
secret prices. We sent the Government Accounting Office, the GAO, up to 
the Canadian Wheat Board. They thumbed their nose at us and said: We 
don't intend to give you any of that information. We don't intend to do 
anything that gives you information. Go fly a kite, they said.
  So year after year after year that unfair trade existed, until 
finally an action was filed against the Canadians, and some 
countervailing duties were levied against that wheat coming in as 
unfair trade. Well, that countervailing duty represents a protection we 
have in our country for farmers, yes, for businesses, for industries--
protection against unfair trade by other countries that attempt to 
destroy a business or destroy an industry in our country by sending in 
products that are deeply subsidized or sold at dumped prices in order 
to injure this country's economy or injure an industry in this country.
  We have laws against that. The laws are antidumping laws and 
countervailing duty laws. We have laws that would prohibit another 
country from targeting our country with unfair trade. We have a right 
to stand up for our interests and say: You can't do that. That is what 
these laws are about--countervailing duty laws and antidumping laws.
  But now there is a new set of trade negotiations occurring in Doha, 
halfway around the world. They are occurring in secret, and our country 
is involved in them. Our country has indicated, at the demand of other 
countries, that we will get rid of our protections, such as 
countervailing duties and antidumping laws. Our country said: OK, we'll 
negotiate some changes in that.
  Let me read what this morning's Washington Post has to say. It says:

       The Bush administration agreed to negotiations on U.S. 
     anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws when the latest 
     round of world trade talks was launched in 2001. Many other 
     countries view the measures as an unfair trade barrier and 
     want to discipline U.S. ability to use them.

  In other words, other countries are saying it is unfair we have 
antidumping laws in this country.
  It is unfair that we have laws that prohibit other countries from 
dumping their products in this country at far below the cost in a way 
that would endanger U.S. industries and businesses and workers. It is 
unfair, they say. So they want to negotiate an end to those few things 
left in our trade laws that allow us to protect our own economic 
interests.
  The administration, involved in the Doha talks, has said they would 
agree to put all of these things on the table to potentially negotiate 
away our antidumping laws and countervailing duty laws. Rather than the 
$2 language of trade, another way to describe it is to talk about what 
it means to this country and to its workers and businesses. As you 
know, I have talked at great length about the number of companies that 
have outsourced their jobs, told their American workers: We don't need 
you any longer, don't want you, because your jobs are gone. They are 
now in China or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka or Indonesia or any number of 
other countries where we can hire people for pennies on the dollar and 
not have to worry about all the nuisances that exist in this country 
with respect to child labor and safe workplaces and the ability of 
workers to organize and form a union, and so on.
  So as companies increasingly move their jobs offshore to other 
countries, we are engaged more and more in unfair trade practices 
against our country, and our trade negotiators are willing to negotiate 
away the last vestiges of protection we have.
  From the Washington Post:

       The Bush administration urged the Senate on Tuesday to 
     reject an amendment they said would cripple chances of 
     reaching a new World Trade Agreement.
       The measure . . . is aimed at preventing U.S. trade 
     negotiators from agreeing to change any laws that allow the 
     United States to impose duties against unfairly priced or 
     subsidized imports.

  The trade ambassador says:

       We strongly urge the Senate to reject this unwise 
     amendment.
       The provision would ``provide our trading partners an 
     excuse to refuse to negotiate on sectors and subjects they 
     consider sensitive'' and greatly diminish our chances of 
     reaching an ambitious world trade deal.

  I am not particularly interested in anybody reaching a deal if the 
deal is not fair to this country. The objective of negotiating is not 
to negotiate a deal, if a deal is not fair to us. It doesn't matter 
whether you are talking about GATT, United States-Canada, NAFTA, CAFTA, 
at the end of the day, our trade negotiations in the last 25 years have 
left this country in a weaker position and have put this country in a 
position where our jobs are leaving this country. I am not interested 
in a trade deal unless it represents this country's best interests.
  It is time for this country to understand that trade agreements must 
be mutually beneficial. This week, to a giant yawn in the Senate 
Chamber, there was an announcement that we had the fifth highest trade 
deficit in the history of our country. It was only $58 billion for a 
month. Did that create a traffic jam for people to come to the Chamber 
to say: Maybe we ought to stare truth in the eye and deal with this 
issue? No. It wouldn't interrupt any naps around here. Nobody cares 
about trade. Nobody cares about jobs. Nobody wearing blue suits is 
going to lose their job because politicians don't get outsourced; it is 
just workers. They are the ones who come home and say: Honey, I lost my 
job. I worked there 20 years and did a great job, but they have told me 
my job is now going to India. And by the way, I am going to train the 
person in India that works my job because they are bringing them over 
to get training from me. Then I am done.
  My only purpose for offering this amendment is to say that at some

[[Page 20284]]

point this country might want to stand up for its own economic 
interests, for its farmers, businessmen, and workers. It has not done 
that. I am anxious to have a discussion about how anybody in this 
Chamber thinks it advances our interests to go to Doha and, in secret, 
negotiate an agreement that would weaken the protections we have for 
our producers to require competition in trade be fair. I wish to have a 
discussion or a debate with anybody in the Senate who thinks that is a 
good deal for this country. I don't know. Maybe we have become immune 
to the news when in a month our trade deficit is $57 billion, $59 
billion, $55 billion. Our trade deficit with China alone in a month is 
$16, $17, $18 billion. Every single day we buy $2 billion more from 
abroad than we send abroad, 365 days a year.
  You can make a case, if you are an economist with real tiny glasses 
and not much breadth of thought, that the budget deficit and our budget 
is what we owe to ourselves. You can make that case. You cannot make a 
similar case with respect to the trade deficit. That is a deficit that 
we owe to others outside of this country. Those are claims against 
American assets. It is what Warren Buffett, a businessman I hugely 
admire, calls creating an economy of sharecroppers.
  It is fascinating to me that somehow we are told there is a doctrine 
of comparative advantage with respect to the Chinese, which is our 
largest trading partner in terms of the deficit. We have a huge deficit 
with China that is likely now to reach close to $200 billion in 1 year. 
What is the comparative advantage? Is it a natural economic advantage 
such as the Portuguese and English trading wool or wine? No. The 
advantage is, you can hire somebody for 33 cents an hour, work them 7 
days a week, 12 hours a day. If they complain, you can throw them in 
jail. And if they try to form a labor union, you can fire them first, 
then throw them in prison. That is the advantage. The advantage is 
borne on the backs of workers.
  We are not exporting enough product because we are importing $2 
billion a day more than we are exporting. What we are exporting is 
misery, the misery of people who are working in circumstances where 
they don't have a voice. They are fired if they attempt to form a labor 
union. They work in unsafe plants. They work 7 days a week and they are 
paid pennies an hour. That is the export of misery.
  I didn't intend to speak at great length about this. The 
administration has written a letter saying, through Rob Portman, trade 
ambassador, and Carlos Gutierrez, the Secretary of Commerce:

       We and other senior advisors will recommend to the 
     President that he veto this legislation if the Dorgan 
     amendment were included.

  God forbid that we should include an amendment that stands up for 
this country's economic interests.
  All of these folks have painted these wonderful mosaics with respect 
to trade agreements, whether it is CAFTA or any of the others. After 
each single trade agreement, our trade deficit has increased, and the 
number of American jobs lost, the number of American jobs moving 
overseas has increased. You would think at some point just by chance 
the Congress would decide, this doesn't make any sense. At some point 
when you see things don't work, you probably decide you might want to 
reevaluate them. Not this Congress. In fact, if something is not 
working, this Congress says: Let's do a lot more of it. It is like the 
old story about the guy hauling coal. He is losing money so he starts 
hauling a lot more coal. That is the attitude of this Congress: It 
doesn't matter, $700 billion a year in deficits. Let's do some more. 
Let's send our guy to Doha.
  It is interesting. Why do you think trade negotiations are going on 
in Doha? Why not London or Paris or New York? Why in Doha in secret? 
Because if they had these trade negotiations in London, Paris or New 
York, the streets would be jammed with protesters. So they go to Doha 
and have a negotiation that is in secret, and they come back and tell 
us--with fast track, so that you can't offer any amendments--here is 
what we negotiated behind that closed door. Like it or lump it; you 
can't change it.
  This is now a new world order. It is going to affect our country in a 
lot of ways. It won't affect anybody wearing blue serge suits, just 
workers. If workers lose their jobs and those jobs are sent overseas, 
that is part of the advancement of an enlightened economy.
  This is not enlightenment, not after you work for 100 years, to 
decide that you want to create a standard by which people can live 
well, work, get paid a decent wage, work in a safe workplace, have job 
protection, the ability to organize, and then negotiate all of that 
away which is exactly what is happening.
  I mentioned yesterday James Fyler. I probably shouldn't have said: 
James Fyler died of lead poisoning. He was shot 55 times. James Fyler 
was a labor organizer, and he lost his life for trying to organize for 
rights of workers. That was in 1914. Over a long period of time, we 
finally made progress and decided there are conditions of production 
with respect to the environment and workers and other things that make 
sense. And now all of a sudden, once we have established those rules, 
you can avoid all those rules as a company by pole-vaulting over them 
to India or China and deciding: That is where I am producing because I 
don't have to put up with all this nuisance such as not being able to 
hire kids or having to pay a livable wage or having to put up with 
workers that want to organize with respect to workers' rights.
  I mentioned yesterday how much I admired liked Lech Walesa. He was 
the fellow in Poland who took down a Communist Government, leading 
workers' rights strikes in the country of Poland. We deeply admired 
him. Maybe we ought to stand up for similar issues in other parts of 
the world on economic matters. Maybe once we ought to decide that our 
real role is to bring others up, not push us down. That is why I offer 
this amendment.
  I know there are plenty of people who feel very strongly that I am 
dead wrong about this, but they are not supported by the facts. All of 
the evidence is opposed to it working. There isn't anyone who can come 
to this heir argument that the current trade strategy is floor and tell 
me that a strategy that produces $700 billion a year in trade deficits, 
$2 billion a day in trade deficits, somehow works to the advantage of 
this country. It does not. It weakens America. We will not long remain 
a world economic power unless we have a strong manufacturing base and 
decide to stand up for the standards we fought for, for a century, that 
created a broad middle class that represented the purchasing power to 
move America forward. That is what so many forget.
  Mr. President, I wish to make one other point. The amendment is 
nearly identical to the amendment offered by Senator Dayton and Senator 
Craig when we had fast track before the Senate, and it received 61 
votes. It passed the Senate, though it was dropped in conference. That 
is why I assume they do not want to vote on this amendment today. They 
worry they will lose the vote in the Senate.
  My hope is they will understand that I have timely filed this 
amendment. It is germane. I have a right to a vote. I insist on a vote. 
And I believe it is the only conceivable way we can finally begin to 
change this country's trade policies and tell trade negotiators they 
cannot get into an airplane, fly halfway around the world, shut the 
door of the room in which they are going to negotiate, and negotiate 
away protections of American businesses and workers who demand fair 
trade. They cannot do that. We will not allow them to do that.
  I say to the leadership on the other side, I hope they will now come 
back and have a vote on my amendment this afternoon. Win or lose, I 
feel passionately that this country needs to speak about this issue and 
do so in support of this country's economic interests.
  Mr. President, 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.

[[Page 20285]]


  Mr. CONRAD. 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 Budget

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we know the country has been hit by the 
catastrophe of Katrina. We know hundreds of lives have been lost. We 
know tens of billions of dollars of property damage has been done. We 
know there are thousands of people who have been displaced, who are 
without their homes. We know there is widespread devastation across an 
entire region of the country. We know the insurance losses to the 
country apparently approach $100 billion. We also know enormous damage 
has been done to our budget situation with the Federal Government.
  I thought this was perhaps an appropriate time to come to the floor 
to talk about the changes in our budget situation and the implications 
for the future and how important it is that we begin to focus on the 
damage that has been done to our fiscal condition and to begin the 
process of thinking through what our response will be. Are we going to 
stay with the same plan that was in place before, or are we going to 
recognize a new reality and move to a different plan and hopefully 
steer the country back to some fiscal course that has better long-term 
prospects?
  We know, putting in perspective before Katrina, where things stood; 
that we faced in this country very large deficits in historical terms. 
We go back to 2001, when we actually enjoyed a surplus of $128 billion, 
and each year since that time, the deficits have grown to record 
proportion. In 2004, the deficit reached a record level of $412 
billion. The estimates for 2005, before Katrina, were $331 billion, 
still an enormous deficit, and in many ways it understates the 
seriousness of our fiscal condition because, as the occupant of the 
chair knows very well, the budget deficit is a more conservative look 
at how serious our situation is in the sense that it understates what 
is actually happening because the amount of the increase in the debt of 
our country is far greater than the reported deficit.
  I find there is a lot of confusion on that as I go around my State. 
People think the amount of the deficit is what gets added to the debt, 
but that is not the case. What is added to the debt is much greater. In 
fact, we anticipate now that the debt will increase in 2005, not by 
$331 billion, but now with Katrina, well over $600 billion.
  We now know Katrina has absorbed already $62.3 billion of additional 
spending. We were last told that the Federal Government was spending 
about $2 billion a day in response to Katrina, truly a stunning amount 
of money. That is over and above all other Federal expenditures. And 
this $62.3 billion is just a downpayment.
  There was a report in the Wall Street Journal that the first 
estimates on Katrina costs for Washington hit $200 billion. This is in 
a story that just appeared on September 7. The lead says:

       The Federal Government could spend as much as $150 billion 
     to $200 billion caring for the victims of Hurricane Katrina 
     and rebuilding from its devastation, according to early 
     congressional estimates--a total bill that would far surpass 
     the initial costs of recovering from the 9/11 terror attacks 
     and could put Katrina on track to become the most expensive 
     natural disaster in American history.

  None of us begrudge spending this money to help the victims. We all 
understand that is a Federal obligation, a tragedy of such sweeping 
dimension that it requires a full Federal response. But we need to 
evaluate these enormous expenditures in light of the very deep deficit 
ditch we are already in in this country, a deficit ditch that is only 
exceeded by the debt ditch that is being dug by the policies that are 
being pursued in Washington.
  I think all of us who have been engaged in these debates know how 
serious the long-term outlook is. To evaluate what has happened in the 
past so that we better understand our future, I wanted to go back to 
2001. After the 2000 elections, the 2001 Congressional Budget Office, 
looking ahead, told us this was the range of possible outcomes for the 
budget going forward. This would be a projection on what the surpluses 
might look like going forward. They picked this midrange going forward.
  They were projecting surpluses. That was the long-term outlook. The 
Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, told 
us we could expect something like $6 trillion in surpluses over the 
next 10 years at that time. I remember many of my colleagues told me 
repeatedly, when I urged them not to be betting on this 10-year 
forecast: Kent, you are being much too conservative.
  Do you not understand that when we have these tax cuts, we will get 
much more revenue? We will not be at the midline of this range of 
possible outcomes. Instead, we will be significantly above it because 
if you cut taxes, the theory was there is going to be more money.
  Well, we can go back now and look at what actually occurred, not what 
some ideological slogan predicted, but what actually occurred in the 
real world. In the real world what happened with deficits is this red 
line. It is far below the bottom of the projections that were made by 
the Congressional Budget Office. Not only did we not achieve the 
midpoint of the range, nor anywhere close to that, we were not even at 
the bottom of the range of possible outcomes. We are far below the 
bottom. So the theory that if we cut taxes, we get more revenue and 
this would all work out has not worked very well in the real world.
  That can be seen if we look at the revenue line in historical 
perspective. This is the revenue line going back to 1959 as a 
percentage of our gross domestic product. The economists say that is 
the best way to look at it because that takes out the effects of 
inflation year to year. Look what we see. Revenue was almost 21 percent 
of GDP in 2000. The President at the time said revenue is very high 
historically, and he was exactly right, revenue was high historically. 
His answer was to cut taxes. But look at what has happened. Revenue in 
2004 was 16.3 percent of GDP, the lowest it has been since 1959. So 
once again, the notion that if we cut taxes we are going to get more 
revenue did not work. We cut taxes repeatedly and revenue has 
collapsed. The result is the gap between spending and revenue has once 
again opened up and is producing massive budget deficits.
  If we look ahead, it is all too predictable where we are headed. The 
administration earlier said they are going to cut the deficit in half 
over 5 years, but they got that result by leaving things out. They left 
out the full effect of war costs. They left out the cost of fixing the 
alternative minimum tax, which costs $700 billion to fix. The 
alternative minimum tax is the old millionaires' tax. It is now a 
middle-class tax trap. The alternative minimum tax affected 3 million 
people this year. Ten years from now it is going to affect 30 million 
people if we do not respond. So, of course, we are going to respond. We 
must respond. But it costs money and the money is not in the budget, 
just as war costs passed September 30 are not in the budget.
  When these things are put back in, what one sees is a much different 
outlook going forward, and this is before Katrina. I want to emphasize 
this is before Katrina. What we see is a deficit picture that gets much 
worse, especially after this 5-year budget window. The budget the 
President submitted was for 5 years. Previously we had been doing 10-
year budgets. I think one reason the President changed to 5 years is 
because we see the deterioration that is going to occur if the 
President's budget proposals are adopted, because the President is 
saying, spend more money but cut the revenue base as well. In fact, he 
is proposing over $1.5 trillion of additional tax cuts.
  If we do a reality test, I think we have to ask ourselves the 
question, where is this all headed? We cannot pay our bills now. We are 
running near-record deficits. Spending is exploding. Sixty billion 
dollars has been appropriated to Katrina alone in the last few days. 
The President says, cut the revenue base by $1.5 trillion. Most of that 
cut will occur beyond the 5-year budget window, and this is before the 
baby boomers retire. What possible sense does this policy make?

[[Page 20286]]

  We have before us a budget plan that makes the situation worse. The 
budget itself will increase the debt $600 billion a year every year for 
the next 5 years, and I will discuss that in the next chart. In 
addition to the budget plan, there is a plan called reconciliation, a 
process of fast-tracking legislation that was supposed to be used to 
reduce the deficit. In passing their budget this year, our colleagues 
decided to use that fast-track process to actually increase the 
deficit. Why? Because they have $35 billion of spending cuts over the 
life of the budget but they have $70 billion of revenue cuts. The 
result is the deficit is increased. The debt is increased--not reduced, 
but increased.
  When one looks at the budget that was passed in the Senate and 
ultimately passed in the House and then passed both Chambers, what one 
sees is the debt of the country going up dramatically before Katrina. 
The debt was going to go up over $600 billion a year each and every 
year of the budget that was passed.
  I know it is hard to believe, but these are the numbers in the budget 
document itself. In the budget document itself, their prediction of 
what will happen to the debt of the country shows that the debt will go 
up $683 billion this year. That is not the deficit, it is the increase 
in the debt of the country. Very often I find people are confused 
between the deficit and the debt. I think we should be focusing at this 
moment on the debt because that captures the money that is being taken 
from Social Security and all the other trust funds, money that has to 
be paid back, but there is no plan to pay it back.
  The debt is going to increase under the plan of the budget that is 
before us, before Katrina, $683 billion this year; $639 billion the 
next year; $606 billion the third year; $610 billion the fourth year; 
$605 billion the fifth year.
  There has been some improvement in this year, more than $50 billion 
of improvement from when this budget resolution was drafted. But, 
again, that is before Katrina. That improvement this year has been 
wiped out next year by the two legislative acts we have passed so far 
to deal with Katrina, over $60 billion in those two, with much more to 
come.
  So we are right back in this neighborhood of increasing the debt by 
these massive amounts. What is most alarming is this increase in debt 
is occurring in the sweet spot of the budget cycle, before the baby 
boomers retire. When the baby boomers retire, then we see the real 
challenge begin. To look visually at what is happening to the debt, I 
prepared this chart because I think it communicates about as well as I 
can how we are building a wall of debt. The gross debt of the United 
States at the end of this year is estimated to be $7.9 trillion. One 
can see, with the course we are on, that debt is going to be jumping by 
$600 billion, some of these years more than $600 billion, each and 
every year for the next 5 years; massive increases in debt. At a time 
the President told us if we adopted his plan back in 2001, one will 
recall he said there is going to be maximum paydown of the debt. Do we 
see any paydown of the debt occurring? No paydown of the debt. The debt 
is skyrocketing.
  There is not much interest in this town, or perhaps elsewhere, about 
this problem. But there will be. I predict there will be because, one, 
the markets cannot be fooled; reality cannot be fooled. The reality is, 
we are going deeper and deeper into hock.
  Who are we going into hock to? Well, increasingly we are going into 
debt with other countries around the world. We owe Japan over $680 
billion. We owe China over $240 billion. We owe the United Kingdom over 
$140 billion. My favorite is the Caribbean banking centers. We owe the 
Caribbean banking centers over $100 billion. I like to ask audiences 
back home if anyone is doing business with the Caribbean banking 
centers. I have never had a hand go up. I do not know where the 
Caribbean banking centers get their money, but we owe them $108 
billion.
  The debt is skyrocketing at the worst possible time, before the baby 
boomers start to retire. Because this debt is skyrocketing, we owe more 
and more countries around the world. In the last 4 years alone, foreign 
holdings of our debt have increased more than 100 percent. Think about 
that. Other countries' holding of debt has gone up more than 100 
percent in 4 years. That is utterly unsustainable. It has taken us over 
200 years to build up a debt around the world and we have doubled it in 
the last 4. That is not a sustainable circumstance.
  Couple that with the trade deficit--the trade deficit running over 
$600 billion a year--it seems to me it is very clear that as a country 
we are living beyond our means.
  There are real consequences to doing so. Here is the pattern of 
Social Security beneficiaries. Of course, the same chart would apply to 
Medicare. We are just below 40 million people now eligible. By 2050, 
there are going to be 81 million. This is the demographic tsunami that 
is headed our way, and it is going to swamp a lot of boats. Our country 
has to get ready. We have to respond.
  The biggest long-term problem we have is not with Social Security. 
Social Security's 75-year shortfall is estimated at $4 trillion. I 
personally do not believe that. I think that overstates the shortfall 
in Social Security. Why? Because this is based on an assumption. The 
shortfall in Social Security is based on an assumption that the economy 
is only going to grow 1.9 percent a year every year for the next 75 
years. In the past 75 years, the economy has grown at 3.4 percent a 
year. If the economy were to grow in the future as it has in the past, 
80 percent of this shortfall would disappear.
  Does that mean we do not have a problem? No. I wish it did, but we 
have a big problem. The problem we have, as I diagnose it, is first of 
all those very large budget deficits we are running now, coupled with 
the shortfall in Medicare, which is seven times the projected shortfall 
in Social Security. This is the real 800-pound gorilla: Medicare--a 
shortfall of almost $30 trillion estimated over the next 75 years. This 
shortfall, I believe, is much more likely to come true than the 
projected shortfall in Social Security because it is based not only on 
an aging population but medical inflation that is running far ahead of 
the underlying rate of inflation.
  If you put it all together, we have massive budget deficits made much 
more severe by the war in Iraq and Afghanistan that is adding $6 to $8 
billion a month; coupled with Katrina, who knows what the ultimate cost 
will be? It is at least $60 billion and counting. And then we have 
these massive long-term shortfalls, especially in Medicare.
  Then I look at the President's plan. The President says: Steady as 
she goes. Spend the money, but on top of it add massive additional tax 
cuts, tax cuts that are represented by these red bars, tax cuts that 
explode at the very time the Social Security and Medicare trust funds 
go cash negative. There can only be one possible result, and that is 
massive red ink, massive deficits, massive debt--a completely 
unsustainable situation.
  It is not enough to curse the darkness. We also have to talk about 
what can be done here to begin to dig out. I believe on the revenue 
side of the equation, before we talk about any tax increase for 
anybody, we ought to talk about this tax gap. That is the difference 
between what is owed and what is being paid. It is estimated now 
conservatively at over $350 billion a year.
  The vast majority of us pay what we owe; companies do, individuals 
do. But increasingly there are people and companies that do not. They 
now estimate that amounts to $350 billion a year of lost revenue. That 
is utterly unfair to the rest of us who are paying what we owe, and we 
ought to insist that everybody pay what they owe. If we could do that, 
we would close this yawning chasm by some significant amount--nobody 
knows quite how much. On the revenue side of the equation, I believe 
that ought to be our first order of business.
  On the spending side of the equation, the first order of business 
ought to be to focus on Medicare and the 5 percent of beneficiaries who 
use 50 percent of the money. Five percent of the people use 50 percent 
of the money. They are

[[Page 20287]]

the chronically ill. What can we do about it? What we can do is focus 
like a laser on those who are the chronically ill and better coordinate 
their care.
  A pilot problem was done with 22,000 patients like that; assign 
nurse-practitioners to every one of those cases to better coordinate 
their care. The first thing they did was lay out the prescription drugs 
the patients were taking, and they found in many of the cases they were 
taking 16 prescription drugs, and they found in many cases half of them 
they should not be taking or didn't need to take.
  I did this with my own father-in-law. I went into his home when he 
was ill. Sure enough, he was taking 16 prescription drugs. I got on the 
phone to the doctor and I went down the list. About the third drug I 
listed, the doctor said to me: He should not be taking that. He should 
not have been taking that for the last 3 years. I went further down the 
list. About two other drugs, the doctor said to me: He should never be 
taking those two together. They work against each other.
  By the time we were done, we had eliminated 8 of the 16 prescription 
drugs he was taking. I said to the doctor: How does this happen? The 
doctor said to me: You know, it happens all the time. He said: I am the 
family practice doctor. He has a heart doctor, he has a lung doctor, he 
has an orthopedic doctor. He is getting prescription drugs at the 
hospital clinic, the corner clinic, the clinic down at the beach, and 
he is getting them mail order. He is sick and confused. His wife is 
sick and confused. The result is chaos.
  All too often, that is what is happening. When we put nurse 
practitioners on the 22,000 chronically ill cases that were studied, 
they reduced hospitalization 40 percent, they reduced costs 20 percent, 
and they got better health care outcomes because they got people to 
stop taking drugs they should not be taking. They got them to stop 
having duplicate medical tests that didn't have any value but to put 
them through more stressful procedures. We ought to take that study on 
22,000 and we ought to ramp it up to a quarter of a million or 
something like that and see if we could get those same results on a 
much bigger universe and see if we could continue to save money and get 
better health care outcomes.
  Those are just two ideas, closing the tax gap and dealing with the 
tremendous explosion in costs in Medicare where, again, 5 percent of 
the people are using half of the entire budget. We ought to focus like 
a laser on that half of the expenditure, and we ought to do it quickly. 
The sooner we act on these problems and challenges, the better off we 
are. The longer we stay with our heads in the sand, the more Draconian 
will have to be the solution.
  Katrina was a disaster of unparalleled dimension. All of us weep for 
those who have lost family members and friends. We are saddened by the 
other losses that have occurred as well. But we should not compound the 
problem by sticking with a fiscal plan that puts this country deeper 
and deeper into the deficit and debt ditch. That would add to the 
calamity. That would compound the disaster.
  We ought to take this opportunity to begin to plan how we dig out. It 
is imperative that we act sooner rather than later. It is imperative 
that the Congress and the President begin a plan to put us back on a 
more sound fiscal footing. It would truly be ironic if this disaster 
were allowed to spread to an even deeper fiscal disaster, one that 
could cause the harm of Katrina to spread outside the Gulf region to 
every part of our country.
  I am very hopeful that the President will provide leadership and that 
Congress will respond. If the President does not provide leadership, 
the Congress should demonstrate leadership and take this bull by the 
horns and recognize we need a new fiscal blueprint for this country. We 
need to start digging out of this deficit ditch and prepare a brighter 
and better future for our country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
Senate as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            KATRINA TAX BILL

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, at the outset, let me praise my colleague 
from North Dakota for his wisdom and his leadership in addressing an 
issue this Nation has forgotten for too long a time; that is, the 
notion of fiscal responsibility and the fact that the United States of 
America today finds itself in a fiscal ditch. How we address the fiscal 
challenges of our future will largely depend on his leadership and the 
leadership of our colleagues in the Senate to make sure the legacy we 
pass on to our children is not a legacy of debt that will hang around 
their necks for generations to come. I appreciate the leadership of 
Senator Conrad from North Dakota.
  Last week I stood before the Senate and said that Congress needed to 
take a three-pronged approach to responding to the devastation brought 
to this Nation by Hurricane Katrina. That three-pronged response, from 
my perspective, required us to do as much as we could to save lives and 
make sure we were responsive to the victims of Hurricane Katrina; 
second, we needed to move forward with a Gulf Coast recovery plan to 
help that part of our Nation recover; and finally, we needed to move 
forward to address the lessons to be learned from this horrific 
devastation of a great part of our Nation.
  On the first step, this Congress has taken steps in rushing billions 
of dollars in emergency funding to the Gulf Coast. That funding should 
help the victims of Katrina begin their long road to recovery.
  On the second step, it is my hope that Congress and the President of 
the United States will move forward and embrace a Gulf Coast recovery 
plan. As the minority leader has stated over the last several days, we 
need to have a mini-Marshall Plan that runs the program which will 
invest billions and billions of dollars in an effort to try to recover 
the 90,000 square miles of land that were devastated by Hurricane 
Katrina.
  I commend my colleagues from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and 
throughout the country. They have been working on developing a plan. 
They are showing true leadership and taking the primary role in getting 
assistance to their States. I am working with them and sharing my ideas 
with them.
  I believe a Gulf Coast recovery plan should, in fact, be created and 
announced soon. That Gulf Coast recovery should require a plan to be 
developed for the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast. It should identify 
the costs that will be associated with the implementation of that plan, 
and it should oversee its successful implementation. Finally and very 
important, that plan should minimize the corruption and waste that 
might occur where there are billions upon billions of dollars that are 
being spent in this recovery effort where much of that money is being 
allocated through noncompetitive bids.
  Third, I strongly believe it is important for us as a United States 
of America to move forward to learn the lessons from this devastation. 
The independent commission that has been proposed by my colleagues in 
this body should, in fact, be embraced by the President of the United 
States and this Nation. When we look at what happened with respect to 
the devastation from Hurricane Katrina, it is clear to me, as a person 
who for much of the last decade of my life served as attorney general 
of the great State of Colorado, that our Nation and our Government 
failed to protect the lives of people, to protect people and their 
families, and to protect their property.
  It is elemental with any kind of emergency preparedness effort that 
we must be ready for any emergency that occurs. We must respond to an 
emergency that occurs, and we must recover from that emergency. It is 
beyond dispute that this Nation failed with respect to the effort to be 
ready to address the issues of Hurricane Katrina, and once Hurricane 
Katrina made landfall we failed again to provide the kind of response 
that our National Government should have in fact responded.
  We need to have this investigation occur so that we can learn the 
truth

[[Page 20288]]

and learn the lessons. We need to know why, when the Governor of 
Louisiana declared a disaster emergency on Friday the 26th of August, 
it took up to 3 days until President Bush declared the area a disaster 
area. Why did it take 3 days for that to occur? Why did it take 4 days 
for the Department of Homeland Security to declare Katrina an incident 
of national significance--4 days for the Department of Homeland 
Security to declare Katrina an incident of national significance--5 
days before National Guard troops arrived in significant numbers, and 6 
days before FEMA took over the evacuation of New Orleans?
  These are important questions we need to ask. We need to have some 
answers to these questions.
  The resignation of FEMA Director Michael Brown is a step in the right 
direction.
  I also applaud President Bush for taking personal responsibility for 
the Federal Government's failure in this arena.
  Congress now needs to move forward with a full bipartisan 
investigation into what went wrong. We did it when the 9/11 Commission 
was created in this Congress and in this Senate. The results of that 
Commission are now being implemented.
  We hope the administration and the majority leadership in the Senate 
will change their minds and support legislation to create an 
independent Katrina commission.
  Over the last week, we have seen the terrible toll of the worst 
natural disaster in our Nation's history. The images of devastation and 
human loss will haunt all of us, and the emerging statistics of the 
scope of this disaster are overwhelming and continue to date. One 
million people have been displaced from their homes.
  I sometimes think about the town that was nearest to the ranch where 
I grew up. The place matters in perspective. My town had 1,000 people 
and probably about 400 residences within that town.
  We are talking about 1 million--one-fourth the population of the 
State of Colorado--displaced from their homes because of Hurricane 
Katrina. More than 500 people have been confirmed dead, and we yet are 
counting additional casualties and will not know the final number 
perhaps for weeks.
  With the more than 200 people who died in Mississippi, the more than 
200 people who died in Louisiana, or the people who died in Alabama and 
Florida--the fact is that their deaths should not be deaths in vain; 
that we should learn from the hurt of this Nation, from their loss of 
life.
  Eighty percent of New Orleans is still underwater today, and much of 
the Gulf Coast is in tatters. The recovery pricetag--who knows what 
that may be. Many people are saying the ultimate pricetag for both the 
response and the recovery will exceed $200 billion.
  Yet spread among this despair and destruction we have seen many 
instances of the greatness of heroism examples of Americans. The great 
State of Colorado is no exception. Colorado's emergency workers are on 
the ground on the Gulf Coast participating in the rescue and cleanup 
efforts and assisting evacuees.
  Just this week, two firefighters from Centennial, CO, helped rescue a 
family of four still stuck in their home in New Orleans. Coloradans, 
like Americans throughout the Nation, have donated tons of supplies, 
millions of dollars, and thousands of volunteer hours to Katrina 
relief. Coloradans by themselves have already given more than $6 
million to the American Red Cross.
  That is a spirit of generosity and a spirit of community that is 
fundamental to this Nation.
  Colorado has already accepted 1,000 evacuees to the Denver area. To 
prepare for their arrival, volunteers scrapped Labor Day plans and 
scrambled to clean and outfit the old Lowry Air Force Base barracks. 
Since the evacuees arrived, volunteers helped serve food, pass out 
donated clothes, and drive evacuees around to complete chores.
  These examples give us great hope and resolve to begin the long 
process of rebuilding the millions of broken lives and hearts on the 
Gulf Coast.
  The American people and their generosity and bravery are the 
strongest tools we have to help our countrymen and women recover from 
Hurricane Katrina.
  To that end, I will today introduce a piece of legislation to nurture 
that American spirit of generosity and enable more Americans to 
contribute to the hurricane effort.
  The first thing the legislation I will introduce will do is help 
folks who have generously taken in hurricane survivors into their 
homes, and to be able to do so in a manner that provides them a tax 
benefit.
  According to the Department of Homeland Security, 248,000-plus 
evacuees are staying at 774 shelters across the country. This figure 
underscores the fact that more than 700,000 evacuees are staying 
elsewhere. An estimated hundreds of thousands of hurricane victims are 
staying in private homes. In Colorado, at least 600 hurricane victims 
are staying in private homes. They are staying with family and friends, 
and sometimes even with strangers.
  Right now, a person who writes a check to the Red Cross can get a tax 
deduction. But people who open up their homes to victims, feed them and 
help them, do not get a similar tax deduction. That generosity should 
not be penalized in any way.
  My bill would offer a tax credit of a simple $20 per day to help Good 
Samaritans cover the cost of feeding and keeping evacuees in their 
homes. That is $20 a day to help Good Samaritans cover the cost of 
feeding and keeping evacuees in their homes. Households that take in an 
evacuee would be able to claim up to $900 in tax relief. Households 
that take in more than one hurricane victim would be eligible for up to 
$2,000 in tax relief. And low-income families who have no tax liability 
would be able to receive up to $500 in a refundable tax credit to help 
take care of hurricane victims. This assistance wouldn't cover all the 
costs of lending a helping hand, but it would recognize the sacrifice 
and generosity of folks who open their homes and hearts to Katrina 
survivors, and they should be applauded by our Nation.
  The second thing my bill would do is to raise the limit of charitable 
contributions for Katrina relief. Right now, the amount of tax 
deduction an individual can get for charitable contributions is limited 
to 50 percent of the person's adjusted gross income. My bill would lift 
the limit for 4 years to allow individuals who can give more to do so.
  Americans are aching to help, and this provision would allow them to 
do just that, and even more. Senators Grassley, Baucus, chairman and 
ranking members of the Finance Committee, have developed a package of 
tax incentives to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. I applaud them for 
their efforts. Their bill also touches on these two issues of offering 
assistance to households who house victims and extend caps on 
charitable giving. I commend them for tackling the issue, and I am glad 
to work with them to include these provisions.
  My bill is slightly different in that it offers good neighbors a more 
generous tax credit as opposed to a tax deduction, and lowers the 
barriers to low-income families to get help.
  We have many challenges ahead, but because we have witnessed the 
bravery, generosity, and ingenuity of the American people, I am 
confident that the gulf coast's best days are still ahead.
  I will introduce my bill later today. I urge my colleagues to support 
the bill and take a small step to nurture and encourage the best part 
of the American spirit and American generosity.


                        The Pledge of Allegiance

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I also wanted to take a minute to address 
an issue concerning a decision that was handed down by a Federal 
district judge concerning the Pledge of Allegiance--a decision of the 
district court judge in San Francisco in which he determined that it 
was unconstitutional for the public schools to recite the Pledge of 
Allegiance in the classroom because of the reference it makes to ``one 
nation under God.''
  He declared that decision to be one that was founded on his view that 
such

[[Page 20289]]

a requirement in our public schools was unconstitutional and in 
violation of the first amendment. I disagree with the finding of the 
district court judge.
  Last year, as attorney general for Colorado, I joined many of my 
colleagues, both Democrat and Republican, in making an argument to the 
U.S. Supreme Court and to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that, in 
fact, it was constitutional for us to allow our children to recite the 
Pledge of Allegiance, and to use the term ``under God'' in that 
recitation in our schools.
  I believe the Ninth Circuit decision back in 2002 was wrong, and I 
believe the district court judge's decision today is also wrong.
  I will later today write a letter to Attorney General Gonzales asking 
him to participate in behalf of the United States in the appeal of the 
Federal district court judge's decision, again to the Ninth Circuit, 
and hopefully up to the U.S. Supreme Court so that we can get a final 
determination on this issue concerning the Pledge of Allegiance and how 
it is recited in our public schools.
  In my own reading of the Constitution, and joined by most of my 
colleagues on both the Democratic and the Republican sides of the aisle 
during the time that I was attorney general, it was our conclusion 
that, in fact, the Pledge of Allegiance could be recited and that the 
reference ``one nation under God'' was, in fact, in keeping with the 
constitutional requirements of the first amendment.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1695

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I understand we are currently 
considering the Kerry-Landrieu amendment to the CJS appropriations 
bill. We have been considering amendments to this important bill all 
day in light of the devastation and tremendous challenge that is before 
the Nation right now to help rebuild our gulf coast area and 
particularly the southeastern part of the State I have the great 
privilege and honor of representing.
  I understand there are various different opinions from the Republican 
side and the Democratic side about what to do and how much to do and 
when to do it regarding either communications or housing or health care 
or education. I understand a lot of those details are being worked out 
as we debate on the floor.
  In a spirit, though, of bipartisanship, I do come to the floor to 
urge special consideration for this particular amendment. Believe me, 
there are so many amendments to this bill I have voted for today and 
wish we could have adopted. But the reason I feel particularly strongly 
about this amendment is because small business is the heart and soul 
and strength of the economy in Louisiana, in the gulf coast region, 
and, as a matter of fact, throughout the Nation. I do not think we 
realize that. We say it, but I do not think we really believe it. So I 
thought I would come to the floor and talk about how many businesses in 
Louisiana have been destroyed, totally destroyed, and destroyed not 
because the people who run them have lost their lives, but either their 
facilities are underwater, their equipment has been ravaged by the 
winds and the storm, or perhaps their inventory has been completely 
wiped out. It has happened to 110,000 small businesses out of 300,000 
businesses. So we are talking about a third of the businesses that were 
here 3 weeks ago and are gone or are not able to operate anywhere near 
their 100 percent or 50 percent or even 25 percent capacity.
  Now, I know this because I am getting calls from hundreds of small 
business owners that go something like this: Senator Landrieu, we are 
trying to answer the phones when they ring. When the communication 
systems work, we are answering the phone. We want to come back and 
build up our business. But doesn't anybody in Washington understand, 
you can't build a region until you build small business back?
  It is the first thing we have to help build back. Why? Because these 
small businesses employ most of the people we are trying to help. 
Without a paycheck, it does not do a lot of good to give people 
anything else because they need a paycheck to basically live and put 
capital back into the community.
  So I am making a special request of my colleagues, particularly the 
Senator from Maine, Ms. Snowe, who has been such a great advocate for 
small business, for Senator Kerry from Massachusetts, who has been a 
wonderful and very effective advocate for small business. I am pleading 
with my colleagues on this amendment particularly. If we can accept 
this version, great. If there is another version that could help, 
please, let's do something today to send a signal to small businesses.
  Gautreau's is a very well known and beautiful little restaurant that 
has been around for many years in New Orleans. It is a small cafe. 
Patrick Singley is the owner. He has had 20 employees. This is just one 
of hundreds of stories I could tell. His 20 employees keep calling him 
asking when they can come back to work. He has lost the roof of his 
restaurant. His restaurant is completely flooded. His insurance company 
is covering his expenses for 2 weeks. The last I looked, those 2 weeks 
are gone. It may be months before he can reopen. He can't pay his 
workers.
  We could adopt this amendment today in the Senate and get it over to 
the House. In a few days, they could take up this amendment.
  This is not new legislation. Except for one provision that I 
understand is new, everything else exists. It has worked before, and it 
could work again. We have to get these small businesses help: deferred 
payments on their SBA disaster loans; help them refinance their 
existing disaster loans and their business debt; increase the disaster 
loan cap from $1.5 million to $10 million, as we did for 9/11 victims. 
I know that some businesses could borrow $250,000 to get back in 
business and be in good shape, but some small businesses are going to 
need to borrow a million dollars to get back in shape. Yet others are 
going to need to borrow $10 million. We know large companies are going 
to be borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even billions, 
depending on how large the companies are.
  Small businesses that have trouble accessing capital because of their 
small size need the Federal Government to stand up for them and support 
them. The supplemental 7(a) program is one with which we are familiar. 
We have supported it. There are State bridge loans. This amendment, 
which is part of this package, would authorize $400 million to the 
affected State governments of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama to 
provide emergency bridge loans or grants to small businesses in the 
disaster area that have been adversely affected. In other words, a lot 
of these businesses have insurance policies, but those insurance 
policies won't kick in for some time. Many of these small businesses 
don't have a lot of cash, 6 months or a year, to continue their 
operations--this is a very important component of what we are trying to 
do--whether they are a shoe store, a candy store, a restaurant, a 
manufacturer, a telecom company, or a high-tech company in Louisiana 
trying to operate. Small business counseling--we could all use a little 
counseling--our small businesses can most certainly use it to help them 
get through this difficult time.
  I know others have spoken about the amendment. I know there is a big 
decision. Some say: We don't want to do it now. We want to do it not in 
a piecemeal fashion. We have to wait until the whole package is 
together.
  I am saying, as a Senator from Louisiana, we can't rebuild without 
our small businesses rebuilding first. We have to help people with 
food, water, and shelter. We have to lift them out of the floodwaters. 
We are still burying our dead respectfully. We are saving lives. But 
the first cornerstone of rebuilding must be helping our small

[[Page 20290]]

businesses get back on their feet. They employ most of the people. They 
have been the hardest hit. They are the ones that have the least 
ability to maneuver in a situation such as this.
  I am pleading with the Senate, please take a hard look at this 
amendment. Don't just say: We will do it in a month or two. Forty 
percent of businesses that go through a disaster never start up again. 
According to national statistics, 43 percent of small businesses never 
reopen. An additional 30 percent close down permanently within 2 years. 
It is not fair to small businesses that have staked their anchor in 
Louisiana for generations. Fathers who have passed these businesses to 
their sons, mothers to their daughters, grandparents to their 
grandchildren, need help now.
  That is why I appreciate Senator Kerry and Senator Snowe for this 
amendment. Senator Kerry has offered it, and many people are thinking 
about whether to vote for it.
  I just had a visit from one of our fine business owners who is 
currently serving, thank the Lord, as chairman of the board of 
directors of the U.S. National Chamber of Commerce, Maura Donahue from 
St. Tammany Parish. She just left my office. She and her husband 
operate a small business. I said: Maura, God has put you in this 
special place for a reason, because you know personally, as the 
businesses that have suffered in Louisiana, what we need. Her 
leadership is going to be tremendous. I want to acknowledge her. 
Through all the difficulties she has been, through her own business and 
her own family, she is there to help businesses in Louisiana. She can 
speak from firsthand experience what this storm has done to her own 
business and to the employees.
  Let me define small business. I don't know exactly how many people 
her business employs, but I am talking about businesses that have less 
than 20 employees. That is little, not tiny--1 or 2 could be small--but 
20. That is where the bulk of our employment is. If we allow them to 
collapse because we can't get it together, we can't agree, or we have 
to wait for 2 months, most of these businesses will not be around by 
the time the package gets through Washington bureaucracy. I am here to 
plead on behalf of small business, please give them a chance to stand 
up. Their electricity is getting back on. They need their roofs fixed, 
inventories restored, cell phone service turned on, BlackBerries need 
to work. Then they can start putting people back to work. If not, the 
bill that is going to come to this Congress for us to give unemployment 
to people, for us to pick up their medical, for us to pick up their 
livelihoods is going to be even more.
  Let's get our small businesses started first. That is why I support 
this amendment. I don't know when we will vote on it. I offer my strong 
statement of support for the small businesses in my State, for all 
businesses, but particularly for the small businesses that employ about 
85 percent of the people who are desperate for employment and desperate 
for a place to show up to go to work.
  I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ensign). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


Amendments Nos. 1654, 1694, as Modified, 1701, 1708, 1709, 1710, 1711, 
                             1712, en Bloc

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the managers' 
amendments, which I now send to the desk, be considered and agreed to 
en bloc. These noncontroversial amendments have been cleared on both 
sides of the aisle.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, we, too, concur with the managers' 
package. We think the amendments are very good. We look forward to 
moving the bill. We are ready to vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 1654) was agreed to.
  The amendments were agreed to en bloc, as follows:


                    Amendment No. 1694, as Modified

  (Purpose: To waive the match requirement under the Bulletproof Vest 
  Partnership grant program for purposes of replacing defective vests)

       On page 142, after line 3, insert the following:
       Sec.   . The Attorney General may waive the matching 
     requirement for the purchase of bulletproof vests of the 
     Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 1998 for any law 
     enforcement agency that purchased defective Zylon-based body 
     armor with Federal funds pursuant to such Act between October 
     1, 1998, and September 30, 2005, and seeks to replace that 
     Zylon-based body armor, provided that the law enforcement 
     agency can present documentation to prove the purchase of 
     Zylon-based body armor with funds awarded to it under such 
     Act.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 1701

 (Purpose: To increase funding for the Technology Opportunity Program)

       On page 155, between lines 10 and 11, insert the following:

     SEC. 206. TECHNOLOGY AND OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM.

       (a) Of the total amount appropriated in this Act for the 
     Technology and Opportunities Program, that amount shall be 
     increased by $5,000,000, which shall be made available for 
     the grants authorized under title I of the ENHANCE 911 Act of 
     2004 (Public Law 108-494; 118 Stat. 3986).
       (b) Amounts appropriated under this Act for the 
     Departmental Management of the Department of Commerce are 
     reduced by $5,000,000.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 1708

 (Purpose: To provide the sense of Congress on the 11th International 
                         Coral Reef Symposium)

       On page 170, between lines 9 and 10, insert the following:
       Sec. 304. It is the sense of Congress that the U.S. Coral 
     Reef Task Force should join with its Federal and State 
     partners to provide an appropriate level of financial and 
     technical support to make the 11th International Coral Reef 
     Symposium a successful event.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 1709

 (Purpose: To establish an Unsolved Crimes Section in the Civil Rights 
                 Division of the Department of Justice)

       At the end of title VI, insert the following:
       Sec. 6__.(a) It is the sense of Congress that all 
     authorities with jurisdiction, including the Federal Bureau 
     of Investigation and other entities within the Department of 
     Justice, should--
       (1) expeditiously investigate unsolved civil rights 
     murders, due to the amount of time that has passed since the 
     murders and the age of potential witnesses; and
       (2) provide all the resources necessary to ensure timely 
     and thorough investigations in the cases involved.
       (b) In this section:
       (1) The term ``Chief'' means the Chief of the Section.
       (2) The term ``criminal civil rights statutes'' means--
       (A) section 241 of title 18, United States Code (relating 
     to conspiracy against rights);
       (B) section 242 of title 18, United States Code (relating 
     to deprivation of rights under color of law);
       (C) section 245 of title 18, United States Code (relating 
     to federally protected activities);
       (D) sections 1581 and 1584 of title 18, United States Code 
     (relating to involuntary servitude and peonage);
       (E) section 901 of the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. 3631); 
     and
       (F) any other Federal law that--
       (i) was in effect on or before December 31, 1969; and
       (ii) the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of 
     the Department of Justice enforced, prior to the date of 
     enactment of this Act.
       (3) The term ``Section'' (except when used as part of the 
     term ``Criminal Section'') means the Unsolved Crimes Section 
     established under subsection (c).
       (c)(1) There is established in the Civil Rights Division of 
     the Department of Justice an Unsolved Crimes Section. The 
     Section shall be headed by a Chief of the Section.
       (2)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal law, 
     the Chief shall be responsible for investigating and 
     prosecuting violations of criminal civil rights statutes, in 
     each case in which a complaint alleges that such a 
     violation--
       (i) occurred not later than December 31, 1969; and
       (ii) resulted in a death.
       (B) After investigating a complaint under subparagraph (A), 
     if the Chief determines that an alleged practice that is a 
     violation of a criminal civil rights statute occurred in a 
     State, or political subdivision of a State, that has a State 
     or local law prohibiting the practice alleged and 
     establishing or authorizing a State or local official to 
     grant or seek relief from such practice or to institute 
     criminal proceedings with respect to the practice on 
     receiving notice of the practice,

[[Page 20291]]

     the Chief shall consult with the State or local official 
     regarding the appropriate venue for the case involved.
       (C) After investigating a complaint under subparagraph (A), 
     the Chief shall refer the complaint to the Criminal Section 
     of the Civil Rights Division, if the Chief determines that 
     the subject of the complaint has violated a criminal civil 
     rights statute in the case involved but the violation does 
     not meet the requirements of clause (i) or (ii) of 
     subparagraph (A).
       (3)(A) The Chief shall annually conduct a study of the 
     cases under the jurisdiction of the Chief and, in conducting 
     the study, shall determine the cases--
       (i) for which the Chief has sufficient evidence to 
     prosecute violations of criminal civil rights statutes; and
       (ii) for which the Chief has insufficient evidence to 
     prosecute those violations.
       (B) Not later than September 30 of 2006 and of each 
     subsequent year, the Chief shall prepare and submit to 
     Congress a report containing the results of the study 
     conducted under subparagraph (A), including a description of 
     the cases described in subparagraph (A)(ii).
       (4)(A) There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out 
     this subsection $5,000,000 for fiscal year 2006 and each 
     subsequent fiscal year.
       (B) Any funds appropriated under this paragraph shall 
     consist of additional appropriations for the activities 
     described in this subsection, rather than funds made 
     available through reductions in the appropriations authorized 
     for other enforcement activities of the Department of 
     Justice.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 1710

  (Purpose: To provide additional funding for the Methamphetamine Hot 
                             Spots program)

       On page 135, line 25, strike ``$515,087,000'' and insert 
     ``$534,987,000, of which $19,900,000 shall be offset by 
     reducing appropriations in this title for Department of 
     Justice supplies and materials by a total of $19,900,000,''.

       On page 136, between lines 13 and 14, in the item relating 
     to Methamphetamine Hot Spots, strike ``$60,100,000'' and 
     insert ``$80,000,000''.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 1711

(Purpose: To provide additional funding for Violence Against Women Act 
   programs to assist victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence)

       On page 111, line 5, strike ``$125,936,000'' and insert 
     ``$116,936,000''.
       On page 130, line 23, strike ``$362,997,000'' and insert 
     ``$371,997,000''.
       On page 132, strike line 14 and insert the following:
     386;
       (9) $2,000,000 for the Rape Abuse and Incest National 
     Network (RAINN);
       (10) $1,000,000 for nonprofit, nongovernmental statewide 
     coalitions serving sexual assault victims; and
       (11) $6,000,000 to be allocated, in consultation with the 
     Department of Health and Human Services, to nonprofit, 
     nongovernmental statewide domestic violence coalitions 
     serving domestic violence programs.


                           Amendment No. 1712

(Purpose: To provide additional funds to the National Hurricane Center)

       On page 129, line 7, before the ``:'' insert the following:
       ``, and of which $5,000,000 should be for site planning and 
     development of a Federal Correctional Institution in the Mid-
     Atlantic region''.


                    amendment no. 1694, as modified

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate has agreed by 
unanimous consent to include in the Commerce-Justice-Science 
appropriations Act, H.R. 2862, an amendment proposed by myself, Senator 
Shelby and Senator Specter to waive the match required under the 
Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 1998 for law enforcement 
agencies that received funds under that act, used them to purchase 
Zylon-based body armor, which has recently been shown by the Department 
of Justice to be defective, and now want to replace those faulty vests 
with funds awarded by that act. This waiver would be granted only if 
those agencies can present documentation to prove that they purchased 
Zylon-based body armor with funds awarded to them under the Bulletproof 
Vest Partnership Grant Act. I thank my friends Senator Shelby, the 
chairman of the CJS Appropriations Subcommittee, and Senator Specter, 
the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for cosponsoring this 
amendment and for their leadership on this issue.
  I was proud to partner with our former colleague Senator Campbell to 
author and shepherd into law the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act 
of 1998, which was reauthorized by the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Act 
of 2000 and most recently as part of the State Justice Institute 
Reauthorization Act of 2004, to create the Bulletproof Vest Partnership 
grant program as a means of helping law enforcement agencies purchase 
body armor for their rank-and-file officers. We wrote that act, in 
part, in response to a situation that became apparent in the tragic 
Carl Drega shootout in 1997 on the Vermont-New Hampshire border, in 
which two State troopers who did not have bulletproof vests were 
killed. The Federal officers who responded to the scenes of the 
shooting spree were equipped with life-saving body armor, but the State 
and local law enforcement officers lacked protective vests because of 
the cost.
  Bulletproof vests remain one of the foremost defenses for our 
uniformed officers. Since their introduction more than 30 years ago, 
body armor has saved more than 2,700 lives. From 1999 through 2005, 
over 11,500 jurisdictions have participated in the Bulletproof Vest 
Partnership Program, with $118 million in Federal funds committed to 
support the purchase of an estimated 450,000 vests. The Bulletproof 
Vest Partnership Program funds up to 50 percent of the cost of each 
vest purchased or replaced by law enforcement agency applicants. Under 
law, the program is required to fully fund the 50 percent of requested 
vest needs for jurisdictions under 100,000 in population. Remaining 
funds are distributed to jurisdictions of over 100,000 in population.
  Concerns from the law enforcement community over the effectiveness of 
body armor surfaced nearly 2 years ago when a Pennsylvania police 
officer was shot and critically wounded through his relatively new 
Zylon-based body armor vest. Responding to requests that Senator 
Campbell and I made, as well as from law enforcement officials, 
Attorney General Ashcroft launched the Body Armor Safety Initiative. 
The National Institute of Justice, NIJ, was directed to initiate an 
examination of Zylon-based bullet-resistant armor--both new and used--
to analyze upgrade kits provided by manufacturers to retrofit Zylon-
based bullet-resistant armors, and to review the existing program by 
which bullet-resistant armor is tested to determine if the process 
needs modification.
  On August 24, 2005, the Justice Department announced that test 
results indicate that used Zylon containing body armor vests may not 
provide the intended level of ballistic resistance. Unfortunately, an 
estimated 200,000 Zylon-based vests have been purchased, many with 
Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program funds, and now need to be 
replaced. The Justice Department has adopted new interim requirements 
for its body armor compliance testing program. It has also added an 
additional $10 million to the $23.6 million already available for the 
current fiscal year to law enforcement through the Bulletproof Vest 
Partnership program to assist agencies in their replacement of Zylon-
based body armor vests.
  Before concerns on Zylon-based vest safety arose, DOJ and NIJ had set 
voluntary compliance testing protocols to assess whether models of 
ballistic-resistant body armor comply with a certain minimum standard 
of protection and resistance. All models of ballistic-resistant body 
armor that complied with those standards were eligible for funding 
under the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act. As it turns out, 
those standards were not rigorous enough and the certification process 
was not onerous enough, thereby subjecting our Nation's law enforcement 
officers to severe safety risks.
  Across our Nation, law enforcement agencies are struggling over how 
to find the funds necessary to replace defective vests that are less 
than 5 years old with ones that will actually stop bullets and save 
lives. Vests cost between $500 and $1,000 each, depending on the style. 
The extra $10 million released by the Justice Department is only a drop 
in the bucket and these officers are being forced to dip into their own 
pockets to pay for new vests unless the Federal Government offers more 
help. The amendment by Senator Shelby, Senator Specter and me that has 
been included in the CJS Appropriations Act will help ease the burden 
faced by officers and their families and further our mission to provide 
every

[[Page 20292]]

police officer who needs a safe vest with the means to purchase one.
  Mr. SHELBY. 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.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I know for those who are watching on C-
SPAN, they wonder what are we doing as we go through names such as 
Akaka and Baucus in a quorum call. Actually, what we have been doing is 
working very quietly with other Senators to see, where they have 
offered amendments, if we could negotiate compromises and just take 
them. We have been working very collegially with my wonderful colleague 
from Alabama, Senator Shelby.
  As you can see, we just cleared eight amendments on which we could 
come to bipartisan support. So there is a lot of work going on right in 
back of these doors and also with other Senators in their offices.


                           Amendment No. 1648

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, pretty soon we are going to be debating 
the Coburn amendment. We could not reach an agreement on it, even 
though there was a good-faith effort.
  This Coburn amendment could bring great damage to the efforts for 
innovation and discovery in this country. What the Senator from 
Oklahoma wishes to do is eliminate a program called the Advanced 
Technology Program that is currently at the National Institute of 
Standards.
  This is a Government agency under the Department of Commerce, and its 
job is, No. 1, to establish standards of products that are coming to 
the marketplace so that they would be uniform--for example, that every 
firehose would have the same gauge so the guys coming down from New 
York, working with the people from Alabama, could bring their equipment 
and it could be joined together. That is what a standard is.
  Madame Curie discovered radium, and it was there they established the 
Curie standard on how to measure radioactivity. But it does more than 
that. The Advanced Technology Program actually promotes innovation and 
technology transfer.
  The amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma would eliminate the 
funding, and commitments that have already been made to those people 
primarily in the private sector would be eliminated. It would hurt 
critical research and development. This is very important to our 
competitiveness. We keep talking about offshoring. We don't want to 
offshore jobs. What we need to do is come up with the new ideas, come 
up with the new products that create the new jobs right here in the 
United States of America.
  The amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma is well intentioned. He 
wants to eliminate a Government program and provide it to local law 
enforcement and to weather. We understand what his priorities are. In 
the bill, working on a bipartisan basis, we feel we have done that.
  I know, in the reading of the bill, one can see we provide over $1 
billion to State and local law enforcement. We provide half-a-million 
dollars to the COPS program that helps local law enforcement be able to 
add more COPS on the beat. We add more money, $775 million, to the 
Weather Service operation, which has proved so wonderful and effective 
in predicting hurricanes and, actually, tornados and other things.
  I support the goal of the Coburn amendment to increase funding for 
these critical programs, but we cannot support the cutting of the 
Advanced Technology Program.
  On March 17 of 2005, 53 Senators voted to support the ATP program in 
an amendment to the budget resolution. So I am going to urge my 
colleagues to defeat the Coburn amendment.
  I have come not to defend another Government program. I am not here 
to defend another agency. I am here to protect the interests of the 
United States of America in innovation, discovery, and partnerships 
with the private sector that actually come up with those new ideas. 
Many of those ideas save lives, and they create the jobs that save 
livelihoods.
  My colleague from Oklahoma had some great charts, and it implied that 
ATP was corporate welfare. This is not corporate welfare. This is a 
creative approach that offers partnerships between the Federal 
Government and the brain power of the private sector. Through these 
partnerships, ATP accelerates the development of innovative 
technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs and widespread 
benefits for the Nation, but they are so early in the development it is 
very difficult for them to attract private investment, even venture 
capital.
  How does this agency work? ATP funds development in technology that 
is too new or too risky for private sector investment in the so-called 
``valley of death'' between research and commercialization. There is 
lots of money around for research and there is money around for 
commercialization but not for that bridge between those. ATP fills this 
gap. It does not displace private capital because these projects cannot 
get private capital. ATP applicants are required to look first for 
private capital, venture, wherever they can find it. ATP is the funder 
of last resort.
  For example, in the 1990s, NIH was conducting research on the human 
genome and DNA. It was a breakthrough effort, and at the same time NIH 
worked simultaneously with ATP and industry. Why? We needed practical 
tools to use the discoveries that benefit the Nation so we just would 
not have this research in the lab. Guess what came out of it. ATP's 
investment came out with new ideas for DNA technology to detect 
disease, to get lifesaving drugs to the market, to catch criminals.
  State crime labs are using that technology. They are using DNA to go 
back to old death penalty cases to make sure that we have the right 
person who committed a particular crime. DNA is saving lives, and it is 
also restoring justice in this country. It is a phenomenal 
breakthrough. We helped take it from the lab, worked with the private 
sector, and came up with these new ideas.
  Is ATP important and effective? Sure. It has benefited the Nation for 
two reasons. One, we partnered the Government with industry and the 
private sector to develop those new technologies. For example, ATP was 
a partner in the development of something I am tremendously interested 
in, and I know the Presiding Officer is. It helped come up with a new 
generation of digital mammography and radiology. It provided far more 
accurate detection at far lower cost, and it is projected to save over 
$200 million in health care costs. Helping develop that one idea is 
saving lives, helping families and, at the same time, what it saves in 
the burgeoning health care costs would pay for ATP itself.
  ATP has contributed to the development of more than 240 new 
technologies that have been commercialized. It improves our economy. 
Just 41 of their 700 projects to date have given us economic benefit.
  The other thing that my colleague from Oklahoma suggests is, again, 
we are funding big corporations. Why are we doing that? I will not give 
their names but this blue chip and this S&P 500 and so on. Well, what 
colleagues need to know is that 75 percent of all ATP recipients are 
small businesses.
  Are large companies involved in ATP? Yes. How? Because they have 
joint ventures offered with smaller companies in their chain of 
development. In these arrangements, almost all ATP funding goes to the 
smaller company, but the larger companies handle all administrative 
costs so that the small companies can focus more on product 
development. By the way, large companies do not get a free ride. Large 
companies must match the ATP by 60 percent. So this is a partnership to 
leverage these private sector efforts.
  For example, large automakers partnered with the auto parts supply 
people to improve the manufacturing

[[Page 20293]]

of American automobiles. It has improved our aerospace industry, making 
manufacturing more competitive.
  Finally, ATP does not subsidize companies to do product development. 
Companies have to have their own scientific plan. They have to have a 
business plan on how the technology will go to market. Our ATP only 
funds the development of the new technologies. Companies must then take 
it to the marketplace.
  We understand that our new colleague wants to use the Federal 
taxpayer dollar wisely, and he wants to protect communities by using 
the money to go to law enforcement and weather. We want to help that, 
too, and we have put the money in the budget for that. What we want to 
do, when we are talking about protecting the American people, is 
protect them through innovation, discovery, and the new ideas for the 
new products that lead to the new jobs that keep this country ahead and 
an economic superpower.
  I hope that when our colleague comes and discusses this and we have a 
vote, my colleagues--certainly those on my side of the aisle--will take 
my word for it that we have supported law enforcement, we have 
supported the Weather Service, and this Advanced Technology Program is 
crucial to the future of our country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN, Mr. President, the Advanced Technology Program, ATP, 
promotes the development of new, innovative products that are made and 
developed in the United States, helping American companies compete 
against their foreign competitors and contribute to the growth of the 
U.S. economy.
  We have lost nearly 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since January 
2001. In the face of these losses and strong global economic 
competition, we should be doing all we can to promote programs that 
help create jobs and strengthen the technological innovation of 
American companies.
  The ATP is a very modest program which, according to the Department 
of Commerce, has had a result eight times more in technologies 
developed than the amount of money we have put into the program. This 
is an eight-time return on investment in advanced technologies which is 
achieved when the Department of Commerce partners with industry through 
the ATP.
  During consideration of the Senate budget resolution in March, the 
Senate adopted a Levin-DeWine amendment to restore funding for the 
Advanced Technology Program, putting the Senate on record in support of 
this program. Leaders on the Commerce, Justice, and Science 
Subcommittee also support this important innovative program and have 
funded it at $140 million in their bill for fiscal year 2006. I urge my 
colleagues to continue their support for the ATP and oppose this 
amendment that would gut the ATP.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, America's future, indeed the world's 
future, will be more powerfully influenced by science and technology 
than ever before. Where once nations measured their strength by the 
size of their armies and arsenals, in the world of the future, 
knowledge and innovation will matter most.
  The Advanced Technology Program, ATP, at the National Institutes of 
Standards is a modest Government program, $140 million for fiscal year 
2006, that helps spur the development of technologies that create the 
industries and the high-wage jobs of the future.
  What sets this program apart from our other publicly supported R&D 
programs is that it focuses on the technology needs of American 
industry, not those of the Federal Government. Its pre-competitive 
research nonetheless addresses many of America's most pressing 
widespread challenges including improving homeland security, 
strengthening our manufacturing processes, and lowering our dependence 
on foreign sources of energy.
  Awards are made strictly on the basis of rigorous peer-reviewed 
competitions. Additionally, it has very strict cost-sharing rules, and 
it does not fund product development.
  The Advanced Technology Program fills a unique role in U.S. 
innovation policy. ATP bridges the gap, the so-called ``valley of 
death'' between innovative ideas arising from basic research in the 
laboratory, and the access to market capital to commercialize them.
  Federal funding for R&D is currently in decline, hovering at about 
half of its mid-1960s peak of 2 percent of GDP. Excluding spending on 
defense, homeland security, and space, Federal investment in 
fundamental research is expected to decline in real terms over the next 
5 years.
  Although industry funds nearly 65 percent of U.S. research and 
development, growth in industrial R&D is slowing. Moreover, industry 
concentrates most of its R&D on near-term product and process 
improvements. Truly radical innovation is often left to new firms, 
which often have difficulty attracting capital. Venture capital firms 
steer away from high-risk technology development because profits are 
too uncertain or too distant. In fact, less that 1.5 percent of venture 
capital funding is available for proof-of-concept, or seed funding, and 
early product development.
  However, through partnerships with the private sector, ATP's early 
stage investment accelerates the development of innovative, high-risk, 
high-pay-off, longer-term efforts to develop technologies that promise 
significant commercial profits and widespread benefits for the Nation.
  The administration's own analysis documents that the ATP program has 
generated $17 billion in economic benefits from just 41 of the 736 
projects it has completed, a truly staggering rate of return on 
taxpayers' investments. In a comprehensive review of ATP in 1991, the 
National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council found that it 
was a highly rated public-private partnership program that spurred the 
development of new technologies and concluded that ``the ATP it could 
use more funding effectively and efficiently.''
  It is no wonder that nations from around the world are intensely 
interested in learning more about how our ATP process works in order to 
fine tune their own national efforts in innovation. In an effort to 
boost their economic growth, Taiwan, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, 
the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom are all developing 
programs based on major features similar to our Advanced Technology 
Program.
  So why, a reasonable person might ask, are we trying to kill what 
other nations are trying to copy?
  That is one of the key questions the Senate must address when 
considering the proposed amendments to the Commerce-Justice-Science 
appropriations measure that would cripple the Advanced Technology 
Program.
  Other countries are coming up fast behind us on the technology track 
and are pouring resources into their scientific and technological 
infrastructure. If current trends continue, there is a very good chance 
that U.S. competitiveness in key high-tech areas may fall behind.
  When we talk about competitiveness, what we mean is our capacity to 
increase the real income of all Americans by producing high-value 
products and services that meet the test of world markets. The fact 
that we need to be competitive in the global market is not some mere 
abstraction, nor is it some future worry that we have time to ignore 
today.
  High-tech R&D today is so enmeshed in our economy that it is part and 
parcel of the jobs and growth issue. The relationship between 
innovation and economic growth has only increased in recent years as 
the world shifts to an increasingly knowledge-based economy. The way we 
should think about it is that knowledge drives innovation, innovation 
drives productivity, and productivity drives our economic growth.
  ATP has helped drive economic growth in my State of New Mexico by 
partnering with companies of all sizes and non-profits encouraging them 
to take on greater technical challenges.
  An ATP project funded in 1991 teamed six top printed wiring board 
suppliers and users and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque to

[[Page 20294]]

address technical deficiencies that had developed due to cutbacks in 
corporate research budgets. The U.S. industry which had been losing 
market share at the time, dropping from 42 percent to 26 percent, was 
able to turn around this decline because of research co-funded by ATP. 
Over 200,000 jobs were rescued.
  ATP projects in New Mexico have also included joint efforts with 
Cabot Superior MicroPowders in Albuquerque to reduce the amount of 
precious metals used in the manufacturing process to reducing the costs 
of fuel cells. Star Cryoelectronics in Santa Fe linked up with ATP on 
technology to enable rapid identification of particulate contaminants 
and defects during semiconductor fabrication. ATP along with MesoFuel 
in Albuquerque is developing a technology to generate pure hydrogen 
reliably and safely.
  The need for the Advanced Technology Program has never been more 
apparent. We have absolutely no choice but to emphasize what we do best 
in this fierce global competition.
  Our most important strength has always been innovation. Our can-do 
spirit of commercializing technological innovation has always been 
America's core competence. And today that ability is further honed by 
the Advanced Technology Program that enables us to innovate better and 
faster than anyone else.
  Rather than cutting back on our investments in the future, we must 
continue to invest in proven programs like ATP to develop the 
technologies to create the new industries that will provide solid 
economic growth in the years to come.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SHELBY. I call for the regular order with respect to the Coburn 
amendment No. 1648.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is now pending.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I oppose this amendment. This amendment 
would terminate funding for the Advanced Technology Program, what we 
call ATP. ATP is unique among Federal research programs. Most Federal 
research is focused on advancing scientific knowledge. However, there 
is a very long road from scientific discovery in a university lab to 
the commercialization of that product.
  According to the National Science Foundation, less than 1.5 percent 
of venture capital funding in the private sector is available as seed 
funding for proof-of-concept. ATP seeks to fill that gap in funding.
  The program was founded to ensure that not only do we win the Nobel 
Prizes with our excellent venture research but that we also 
commercialize our discoveries ahead of our foreign partners and thereby 
create jobs for our own people.
  Some have said the idea that we are in a global technology race is 
outdated. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether it is 
semiconductors in China and Taiwan or nanotechnology in Europe, our 
global competitors are investing heavily in programs to beat us to the 
marketplace. Surely we can afford the $140 million investment included 
in this bill to stay competitive.
  The Advanced Technology Program projects have succeeded in a wide 
range of fields. They are already delivering cheaper, better bone 
marrow transplants, mammograms, and cartilage repair. They are enabling 
companies to make biodegradable plastic from corn, improving 
manufacturing, and powering longer lasting lightweight fuel cells.
  Moreover, this program has helped small businesses. More than 75 
percent of all ATP projects include a small business. Sixty-six percent 
of ATP projects are led by or involve only a small business. Of the 
single-applicant awards, 78 percent have gone to small businesses and 
11 percent have gone to medium-sized businesses and nonprofits. By 
contrast, only 11 percent of solo awards have gone to large businesses.
  In a more extensive and comprehensive review, the National Academy of 
Sciences found ATP to be an effective Federal partnership that they 
said ``could use more funding effectively and efficiently.''
  Measurement and evaluation have been part of the ATP program since 
its inception. The most recent ATP annual report showed the program has 
generated $17 billion in economic benefits from 41 of its 736 completed 
projects.
  In short, this program works. After all, the Council on 
Competitiveness's National Innovation Initiative report noted that 
``innovation will be the single most important factor in determining 
America's success through the 21st Century.''
  If we adopt the amendment offered by my friend from Oklahoma, Senator 
Coburn, we would cut off a program which has as its sole purpose 
investing in American innovation.
  This program has the support of the Senate. On March 17 of this year, 
the Senate voted 53 to 46 in favor of a sense-of-the-Senate amendment 
to the budget resolution stating:

       It is the sense of the Senate that the Senate Committee on 
     Appropriations should make every effort to provide funding 
     for the Advanced Technology Program in fiscal year 2006.

  That is exactly what we are doing. This bill funds technology 
initiatives which fuel our economy. The program works. In this austere 
budget environment, there is no room for programs that do not work. We 
do not have that luxury.
  I oppose the termination of the Advanced Technology Program. I move 
to table the Coburn amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Alaska (Mrs. Murkowski) and the Senator from Louisiana 
(Mr. Vitter).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the senator from New Jersey (Mr. Corzine) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 68, nays 29, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 230 Leg.]

                                YEAS--68

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--29

     Brownback
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Craig
     DeMint
     Dorgan
     Ensign
     Feingold
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harkin
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lott
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Santorum
     Snowe
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Corzine
     Murkowski
     Vitter
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know my colleague from Arkansas is 
intending to seek recognition in a moment. I wanted to ask the manager 
and ranking member of the subcommittee, I offered the amendment that 
deals with trade and weakening of trade remedies. I offered that 
previously, and I am wondering where that might exist with respect to 
the vote we might have this evening. I know the manager wants to finish 
the bill. I want to be helpful in doing that, but I think my amendment 
is germane. It has been offered. I have debated it. I wonder what we 
might expect with respect to a vote.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, it is my understanding that Senator 
Grassley

[[Page 20295]]

has been in some negotiations regarding the amendment. Trade is under 
the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee. I don't know where he is 
now. I do not know if he voted, but we have been working with him.
  I know the Senator wants to bring up his amendment as soon as he can. 
But I want to make sure Senator Grassley is ready and on the floor. We 
will try to locate him.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama. I 
believe the amendment is germane. I have debated it, and I hope we can 
find a way to have a vote on that amendment. It is a very important 
amendment with great merit. My expectation is we ought to proceed.
  I thank the Senator, and I will look forward to having the 
opportunity to have this vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.


                           Amendment No. 1703

  Mr. PRYOR. I call for the regular order of business with respect to 
Pryor amendment No. 1703.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is now pending.


                    Amendment No. 1703, as Modified

  Mr. PRYOR. I have a modification which I have sent to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be so modified.
  The amendment (No. 1703), as modified, is as follows:
       On page 190, between lines 14 and 155, insert the 
     following:
       Sec. 522. Of the funds appropriated to the Federal Trade 
     Commission by this Act, not less than $1,000,000 shall be 
     used by the Commission to conduct an immediate investigation 
     into nationwide gasoline prices in the aftermath of Hurricane 
     Katrina; Provided, That the investigation shall include (1) 
     any evidence of price-gouging by companies with total United 
     States wholesale sales of gasoline and petroleum distillates 
     for calendar 2004 in excess of $500,000,000 and by any retail 
     distributor of gasoline and petroleum distillates against 
     which multiple formal complaints (that identify the location 
     of a particular retail distributor and provide contact 
     information for the complainant) of price-gouging were filed 
     in August or September, 2005, with a Federal or State 
     consumer protection agency, (2) a comparison of, and an 
     explanation of the reasons for changes in, profit levels of 
     such companies during the 12-month period ending on August 
     31, 2005, and their profit levels for the month of September, 
     2005, including information for particular companies on a 
     basis that does not permit the identification of any company 
     to which the information relates, (3) a summary of tax 
     expenditures (as defined in section 3(3) of the Congressional 
     Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 622(3)) 
     for such companies, (4) the effects of increased gasoline 
     prices and gasoline price-gouging on economic activity in the 
     United States, and (5) the overall cost of increased gasoline 
     prices and gasoline price-gouging to the economy, including 
     the impact on consumers' purchasing power in both declared 
     State and National disaster areas and elsewhere; Provided 
     further, That, in conducting its investigation, the 
     Commission shall treat as evidence of price-gouging any 
     finding that the average price of gasoline available for sale 
     to the public in September, 2005, or thereafter in a market 
     area located in an area designated as a State or National 
     disaster area because of Hurricane Katrina, or in any other 
     area where price-gouging complaints have been filed because 
     of Hurricane Katrina with a Federal or State consumer 
     protection agency, exceeded the average price of such 
     gasoline in that area for the month of August, 2005, unless 
     the Commission finds substantial evidence that the increase 
     is substantially attributable to additional costs in 
     connection with the production, transportation, delivery, and 
     sale of gasoline in that area or to national or international 
     market trends; Provided further, That in any areas or markets 
     in which the Commission determines price increases are due to 
     factors other than the additional costs it shall also notify 
     the appropriate state agency of its findings. Provided 
     further, That the Commission shall provide information on the 
     progress of the investigation to the Senate and House 
     Appropriations Committees, the Senate Committee on Commerce, 
     Science, and Transportation, and the House of Representatives 
     Committee on Energy and Commerce every 30 days after the date 
     of enactment of this Act, shall provide those Committees a 
     written interim report 90 days after such date, and shall 
     transmit a final report to those Committees, together with 
     its findings and recommendations, no later than 180 days 
     after the date of enactment of this Act; Provided further, 
     That the Commission shall transmit recommendations, based on 
     its findings, to the Congress for any legislation necessary 
     to protect consumers from gasoline price-gouging in both 
     State and National disaster areas and elsewhere; Provided 
     further, That chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code, 
     does not apply to the collection of information for the 
     investigation required by this section; Provided further, 
     That if, during the investigation, the Commission obtains 
     evidence that a person may have violated a criminal law, the 
     Commission may transmit that evidence to appropriate Federal 
     or State authorities; and Provided further, That nothing in 
     this section affects any other authority of the Commission to 
     disclose information.

  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, this is an amendment relating to price 
gouging on gasoline. I thank many of my colleagues who have cosponsored 
and helped in this process: Senators Mikulski, Salazar, Obama, 
Stabenow, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Corzine, Bingaman, Dorgan, Durbin, 
Inouye, Feingold, Dodd, Kerry, and there may be one or two others who 
have wanted their names added in the last few moments. I thank my 
cosponsors for all the work they have done.
  This started with me traveling the State of Arkansas, as many Members 
have traveled their home States, during the August recess, and 
everywhere I went people talked about high gas prices. This is putting 
a strain on the economy, putting a strain on families, hurting not only 
every section of the country but also every sector of the economy.
  It is very difficult for the people in my State, and I am sure it is 
hard for people in other States, to pay record high prices at the gas 
pump, only to open the business pages and see the oil companies are 
making record profits.
  A bad situation has become worse in the aftermath of Hurricane 
Katrina. Americans have a right to know why gas prices are so high. 
They have a right to know if there is price gouging occurring. This 
amendment does not say there is. This amendment requires the FTC to do 
an immediate investigation into high gas prices to make comparisons and 
determinations and make sure there is no price gouging occurring.
  I don't want to say he agrees completely with this amendment, but 
certainly President Bush has said on ABC, on ``Good Morning America'':

       I think it ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking 
     the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be 
     looting or price gouging at the gasoline pump or taking 
     advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud.

  That is from President Bush. Certainly, the sentiment is there that 
if there is gouging going on, we need to know about it. This requires 
the FTC to do an immediate investigation and come back and report to 
Congress with their findings within 30 days.
  I give a special thank you to Senator Domenici. We worked very 
closely with him and his staff, we worked very closely with Senator 
Shelby and his staff, and Senators Bingaman, Cantwell, Bill Nelson, and 
Ben Nelson. Everyone played a role. I give a very special thank you to 
our friend and colleague from Maryland, Senator Mikulski. She has done 
yeoman's work on this amendment. She and her staff--I need to give 
credit to all the staff. We reached a bipartisan agreement on this a 
few moments ago. I thank all my colleagues and certainly I look forward 
to hearing from Senator Mikulski on this very important issue on which 
she has worked so hard.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I understand the distinguished Senator 
has commented about this amendment and about my participation. I thank 
him for his comments and state it was a pleasure to work on it. I think 
it will accomplish something. The people want some hope that it is 
being looked at objectively. I am glad to be part of it.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President. I rise today to speak about a very 
important amendment authored by Senator Pryor, which I have 
cosponsored. Our amendment allocates a minimum of $1 million of the 
funds in this appropriations bill to allow the Federal Trade Commission 
to complete the investigation into possible gasoline price gouging. I 
was one of the authors of the original provision included in the energy 
bill that directs the FTC to investigate gasoline pricing practices. So 
I am very pleased to be joining Senator Pryor in ensuring that we get 
some answers quickly.

[[Page 20296]]

  I offered my original amendment to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 in 
June of this year when we were debating the energy bill on the floor of 
the Senate. Back in June we were already experiencing high gasoline 
prices that fluctuated wildly from day to day, and in some cases, from 
hour to hour. I heard from many Michigan families who are unable to 
budget for gasoline to take their kids to school and commute to and 
from work because the prices they paid each week varied so much. I also 
heard from people in Michigan that they are extremely worried about 
gasoline pricing practices. They are concerned that they are getting 
gouged at the pump with no recourse.
  A lot has changed since June and I am sorry to say that it hasn't 
been for the better.
  Since June we have had a catastrophic hurricane ravage Alabama, 
Mississippi, and Louisiana. We have poured our hearts and our donations 
into those States to help the people who lost their homes and 
livelihoods get back on their feet. And we will continue to work as 
hard as possible to rebuild the towns and cities that have been 
destroyed.
  But the impacts of Katrina spread beyond the Gulf Coast States. 
Whether or not we got a single breath of wind from the storm, we are 
feeling the continued impacts of Katrina's impact in all our States in 
the form of high gas prices.
  In Michigan we saw prices as high as $3.21 per gallon earlier this 
month. Prices have eased a little bit in the weeks since Katrina hit 
the Gulf Coast States, but consumers are still very wary. There was a 
quote from a Michigan resident published recently in the Detroit News 
that speaks volumes about consumer confidence in gasoline pricing. Mr. 
Tony Mapson of Detroit, upon seeing gasoline priced at $2.69 per 
gallon, said, ``Maybe it is a con. They raise the price so high and 
then lower it so we don't complain so much.''
  I think Mr. Mapson speaks for many Americans who distrust the price 
they are given at the pump. This is the reason I included a provision 
in the energy bill, which was signed into law on August 8, instructing 
the FTC to investigate gasoline price gouging. There has been some 
disagreement about when the FTC needs to finish their investigation 
under the law. It was my intention that the investigation should be 
started immediately and the FTC should complete it and report the 
findings back to Congress within 90 days of enactment. The FTC 
interprets the law to mean that they have 90 days to begin their 
investigation. As of today, it is has been 37 days since my price 
gouging provision became law. I strongly urge the FTC to immediately 
begin their investigation as directed by the Energy Policy Act and 
include the provisions in the amendment we are offering to the 
Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill. We must have the results 
of the investigation as quickly as possible so that we can take any 
necessary actions.
  I strongly urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment.


                           Amendment No. 1710

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Cantwell 
for her tireless leadership in the fight against meth. Meth abuse has 
reached epidemic levels across our country, and by working to ensure 
that we don't shift the burden onto local communities, Senator Cantwell 
has given State and local law enforcement an important ally.
  Accepting her amendment to add $20 million to the hotspots program 
brings funding for meth State and local law enforcement to $80 million. 
Coupled with the bipartisan addition of $43 million of meth 
authorization dollars that Senator Cantwell cosponsored and other meth-
related funding, this bill makes an enormous Federal commitment to help 
our State and local effort to fight the meth battle.
  Senator Cantwell's amendment sends vital Federal support to law 
enforcement officers and first responders on the front lines of the 
meth epidemic everywhere. These crime fighters need more funds to help 
combat this dangerous drug, and Senator Cantwell has fought to give 
them resources they need. I appreciate her work to improve this bill, 
as do countless law enforcement officers across America.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise as the ranking member of this 
subcommittee, and also as a cosponsor of the Pryor amendment.
  First of all, I thank the Senator from Arkansas for offering this 
amendment which would give $1 million to the Federal Trade Commission 
to investigate whether there is some type of price gouging, price 
fixing, going on in the marketplace.
  I thank the Senator for his leadership and the fact that he wants to 
proceed on the basis of fact and not just rhetoric and finger-pointing.
  We thank the Senator from New Mexico, the chairman of the Energy 
bill. This has received bipartisan support, exactly what we need. Boy, 
do we need it.
  We in Maryland are hot. We are absolutely hot about these gas prices. 
Maryland has the third highest gas prices in the United States of 
America. Who are we behind? Are we behind California with complicated 
environmental rules? No, we are behind the District of Columbia, and we 
are behind New York. No one can say why. Our Governor convened a 
special meeting of oil executives to tell him why, and he is 
dissatisfied. Our general assembly is working on it to see if there is 
something we can do at the State level.
  There is clamor for getting rid of the Federal or State taxes. People 
want the prices to come down.
  We want to know, is there gouging? Is there fixing? We want to 
operate on the basis of fact.
  In my home State of Maryland, my cost of commuting has gone up $30 a 
week. I can afford it, but many Marylanders cannot. I saw on a local TV 
station a mother who filled up her minivan, a soccer mom. It was $90. 
She put her head on the windshield and cried; how could her family 
afford it?
  We see the variance in prices, block by block; in one neighborhood 
gas is selling for $3.49 and less than 5 miles away, in Baltimore City, 
it is selling cheaper. Go to another pump further out in a valley 
situation and it is selling for $3.63. Guess what. Over in another 
neighborhood, it is selling for $3.03--a 60-cent-per-gallon difference. 
Can anyone tell me what it is about the marketplace that it is 60 cents 
difference? Who is pulling the strings?
  The consequences are severe. If you have a family and are a commuter, 
you wonder how you can continue to be a soccer mom and a dad and go to 
work every day.
  Business in my community is affected, big and small; small 
businesses, from the florist who delivers the flowers, to the 
pharmacist who is willing to deliver prescription drugs, to the 
electrician, to the plumber using a pickup.
  Much of our food supply comes by truck to our supermarkets. They will 
have to charge more. It means food is going to go up. People love 
Maryland and love our crabs, but our watermen are aghast to take the 
boat out. It is costing a fortune. Marylanders want to know the facts.
  I am pleased to join with the Senator from Arkansas. This has been a 
bipartisan agreement. This will move it forward. Let's fund this at the 
FTC. Let's get the investigation underway and get ahold of the gas 
prices affecting so many Americans.
  I thank the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Shelby, for his 
patience while we worked so assiduously on the bipartisan agreement.
  I ask unanimous consent the Pryor-Mikulski amendment be agreed to.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I take a minute and commend the Senator 
from Arkansas, Senator Pryor, for his leadership and for reaching out 
to the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator 
Domenici, and Senator Mikulski and Senator Talent, and so many others. 
This is a bipartisan approach. Senator Pryor is the leader.
  Nobody likes gouging. Gasoline is too high. We want the markets to 
work. If market forces work, there won't be gouging. It will be an 
orderly movement of supply and demand--if the demand is too high, the 
prices will go up, but not like that, not like I have seen

[[Page 20297]]

it at the pump, as we have seen coast to coast.
  The American people fear there is gouging going on. Senator Pryor 
should be commended for pursuing this issue. We hope the Federal Trade 
Commission will do its work. I support the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 1703), as modified, was agreed to.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. SHELBY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                     Amendment No. 1652, Withdrawn

  Ms. MIKULSKI. I will talk about another amendment from the senior 
Senator from Arkansas. I ask that Lincoln amendment No. 1652 be 
withdrawn because that policy content will be accomplished on another 
bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     Amendment No. 1669, Withdrawn

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent my amendment, No. 
1669, be withdrawn.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SUNUNU. I thank the ranking member and the chairman of the 
subcommittee. We tried to work out an accommodation on the amendment. 
They made a good-faith effort, and we were unable to do so.
  I also want to let the chairman and the ranking member know that the 
amendment I had filed dealing with eminent domain will not be offered. 
This is a very important issue. I do not believe government should be 
able to take private land for the purposes of private economic 
development. People are well aware of the case this deals with. It is 
of grave concern to a lot of Members. The chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee indicated they will have hearings on this matter next week. I 
look forward to a full discussion of the case and the issues associated 
with the taking of private land. I want the chairman and the ranking 
member to know I will not offer that amendment that has been filed.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I thank the Senator for his withdrawing of the 
amendment yet maintaining his stand. I, too, am sympathetic to the 
policy direction the Senator is interested in under eminent domain.
  The Senator might not know my history, but I got into politics 
fighting a highway. Had the recent Supreme Court decision stood, we 
would not have had a fighting chance. Just to tell the consequences of 
that, the highway would have gone where our Inner Harbor is; it would 
have gone through Camden Yards, the Ravens Stadium, and where we are 
trying to create the digital harbor. We got our economic development 
but not the way the planners wanted.
  I am sympathetic. It has raised some liberal eyebrows, but I look 
forward to working with you, and maybe we will have a Sununu-Mikulski 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.


                           Amendment No. 1709

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I rise to congratulate the Senate on 
having just agreed to the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in the form 
of an amendment, the Talent-Dodd amendment. I will speak a few minutes 
about it. My friend from Connecticut also will make a few comments 
about this amendment.
  The Senate's action will be viewed, if we can get it agreed to by the 
House, as a historic moment, a blow in favor of civil rights and 
finding out the truth in cases that have been covered up for years, in 
a sense, but are still there.
  Let me briefly address the merits of the amendment that the Senator 
from Connecticut and I have cosponsored before the Senate. The bill 
creates an unsolved civil rights crime section of the Civil Rights 
Division, a cold case section of the Civil Rights Division, the sole 
purpose of which would be to investigate unsolved murders that were a 
violation of the civil rights laws at the time they occurred and have 
never been solved. Many cases, particularly the cases that occurred in 
the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, were not solved because they never were 
investigated and because no effort was made to solve them.
  Currently, the Civil Rights Division does investigate those cases. We 
certainly applaud the efforts both of the Civil Rights Division and in 
many cases of local prosecutors who have cooperated. We are not 
suggesting the Civil Rights Division is not trying to investigate those 
cases now. In many instances, they are.
  This is what we are hearing from advocates and family members of 
those who have been murdered in the past. They tell us they are working 
with the Justice Department and in many cases are pleased with their 
response. But what we do not have is a regularized, systematic 
commitment on the part of the Government to find the truth in these 
cases. We do not have a set of people who are dedicated to doing that 
and nothing else.
  We think it is very important to do this for several reasons. In the 
first place, a section of people who are dedicated to that task will 
develop a forensic expertise in investigating those kinds of cases that 
you are not going to get if you occasionally investigate them but do 
not do it on a regular basis.
  In the second place, we think once the section exists and it becomes 
known to the public, it will encourage people to come forward with 
information, people who might have been afraid to do so to this point, 
but they will know this Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Section is there, 
this cold case section is there. They will contact that section and 
give them information about past offenses and tragedies.
  Finally, we think the existence of this section will cause those who 
committed these crimes--and in some cases who are still walking around 
in the belief they are beyond justice--to not rest easy anymore. As my 
friend from Connecticut has said, we want them to sweat. We want them 
to know the Government is trying to find them, that there is a section 
of the Government that is out to get them for the murders they may have 
committed 40 or 50 years ago or for which they may have been complicit, 
for which they may have believed they were safe from investigation. So 
we think there are a lot of advantages to this section.
  I will say a little bit about the history of it. I was having a 
discussion with a man named Alvin Sykes. Alvin is a nationally 
recognized civil rights advocate from Kansas City, who has been very 
active in getting the Emmett Till case from mid-1950s reopened, trying 
to achieve justice in that case. We were talking about that 
investigation. We were working on that issue. He said: Why don't we 
have a regularized procedure for looking at cases such as the Emmett 
Till case?
  This was the case of a young man from Chicago who went to visit his 
uncle in Mississippi. He was kidnapped, beaten, murdered, and his body 
was dumped in the river because he had allegedly, the day before, 
whistled at a white woman. The two men who were responsible for that 
were tried actually, but after about 60 minutes of the jury's 
deliberations, they were acquitted. They subsequently had interviews 
with national magazines in which they basically admitted their 
complicity, admitted their guilt, and they were never prosecuted. They 
died, unfortunately, without being brought to justice. But there are 
others maybe who were complicit who could be brought to justice. There 
are a lot of those cases out there such as this. We believe a section 
such as this will bring them to light and do justice.
  Mr. Sykes said: Why don't we have a section like this? There is not 
any reason we shouldn't.
  So the bill creates this cold case section, if you will, of the Civil 
Rights Division, requiring they investigate these murders and requiring 
they report back to the Congress. In some cases they will find the 
truth and be unable to prosecute anybody, but at least they will 
uncover the truth and be able to report back and tell us that. Or if 
they have not been able to uncover the truth, at least they will do 
their best,

[[Page 20298]]

at least we will have done our best, even at this late date, to achieve 
justice in these cases.
  I think that is very important for two reasons. The first reason is, 
when you talk to the family members of those who were victimized, those 
who were in these cases, you realize that the fact the case was 40 or 
50 years ago does not mean it has been forgotten. These family members 
have been unable to reach closure on these cases. They have been unable 
to put them behind them and move on because there is this tremendous 
tragedy that occurred where they lost somebody because of a vicious 
crime. They feel as though the rest of society has not taken an 
interest in bringing the criminals to justice. We have a chance to 
allow these family members to find out the truth, and to move on in 
their own lives. We owe them that. The country owes them that.
  The country needs closure as well. We need to know what happened, and 
we need to know, as a country, that we did the best we could in a 
systematic and planned way to find out the truth in these cases, to 
bring those to justice where justice is possible, and to mourn with the 
survivors of these victims, to know the truth, and then be able to pull 
together and move forward. This bill allows us to do that.
  I thank very much the managers of the bill on both sides of the 
aisle, as well as Senator Specter and Senator Leahy for their support. 
We have not gone through the Judiciary Committee in doing this, but 
everybody felt it was important to get this done, and that this was the 
bill we could use as a vehicle for doing it.
  I think there are a lot of people around the country who have been 
working tirelessly to get these cases reopened for whom this is going 
to be the most encouraging news they have had in a long time.
  I hope my colleagues will take satisfaction in having done a very 
good thing and having struck this blow for justice, struck this blow 
for having an opportunity to close these cases and move forward.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and defer to my good friend from 
Connecticut.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, first, I commend my colleague and friend 
from Missouri. He is a tireless fighter and a persistent advocate. 
Under normal procedures we would not be adding a proposal such as this 
to an appropriations bill. Therefore, I must begin by expressing our 
sincere gratitude to the Chairman and the ranking Democrat of this 
subcommittee on appropriations for both of their willingness to accept 
an authorizing bill of this nature. Their willingness to accept what I 
think is a very sound and good proposal by the Senator from Missouri, 
myself, and others who have joined in this effort, is something for 
which we are very grateful. I thank them for their willingness to 
entertain this proposal and to accept it as an amendment to this bill.
  There are those who would say this amendment is a case of ``too 
little, too late.'' In some ways they are right. Where is the justice, 
I suppose, when a moral monster such as Edgar Ray Killen roamed free 
for literally decades after killing young civil rights workers in this 
country? That fact alone speaks to the excusable failures of our legal 
system to bring to justice those who committed brutal crimes.
  As the Senator from Missouri pointed out, not that many years ago 
these crimes were rarely investigated in parts of our country. There 
was no effort made whatsoever to determine who engaged in these brutal 
violent acts. In more recent history, of course, we have seen a strong 
effort. I applaud those who engage in this effort.
  The Senator from Missouri and I believe there is a good justification 
for dedicating an adequate amount of resources with some special 
designation to go back and reopen the books. Those who engaged in these 
activities, who think they never have to worry another day in their 
lives about being pursued, take note--take note that you may never and 
should never have a sleep-filled night again, that we will pursue you 
as long as you live, that we will do everything in our power to 
apprehend you and bring you to the bar of justice.
  That is the message we want to convey to the families, the friends, 
and others who lost loved ones, who put their lives on the line by 
advocating a greater justice, helping our Nation achieve that ``more 
perfect union'' that our Founders spoke about, that Abraham Lincoln 
articulated brilliantly more than a century and a half ago.
  That is at the heart of all this--to try to level this field. We will 
never be a perfect union, but each generation bears the responsibility 
for getting us closer to that ideal.
  America stands for the principle of equal justice for all. Yet for 
far too long, many Americans have been denied that equal justice, and 
many despicable criminals have not been held accountable for what they 
have done to deprive people of those equal opportunities. This is a 
failure we can never forget.
  So this Senate, in this Congress, on this date, early in the 21st 
century, is saying that we will not forget. This amendment is on 
record. This amendment seeks to right the wrongs of the past and to 
bring justice to people who perpetrated these heinous crimes because of 
racial hatred. We are saying that we want to create the mechanism to 
allow us to pursue these wrongdoers in the coming years. It cannot 
bring back and make whole those who have suffered and were murdered by 
a racist criminal hand. But it can reaffirm our Nation's commitment to 
seek the truth and to make equal justice a reality.
  The hour is, obviously, very late. Memories are dimming. Those who 
can bring some important information to the legal authorities are 
passing away. This amendment may be the last and best chance we have as 
a nation to write a hopeful postscript in the struggle for racial 
equality in our Nation.
  We urge our friends in the House of Representatives, the other body, 
to accept this idea, to join with us in this late hour to right these 
wrongs done in our recent past.
  Again, my compliments to my friend from Missouri.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here this afternoon to salute the 
Senator from Missouri for his tireless work on this piece of 
legislation and to applaud also the Senator from Connecticut who has 
been a leader for civil rights legislation in this country for a long 
time. I thank them both not only for their initiative, for thinking of 
this, but also for pushing it and being persistent about it. I can 
remember when the Senator from Missouri came to me on the floor months 
ago talking about it. I thank them both for giving me a chance to be an 
original cosponsor and for their hard work on shepherding it through 
the Senate in this way.
  The Senator from Connecticut pointed out that it has not been that 
long since these crimes have happened. In my lifetime, it has not been 
that long. I was a student in the South in the 1950s. I was a college 
student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville when it was still 
segregated. I helped to try to desegregate it--successfully. In that 
same year, in the early 1960s, Congressman John Lewis was trying to sit 
in. He could not get a seat for lunch. In that same year, the judge on 
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans for whom I worked a 
few years later, Judge John Minor Wisdom, had ordered Ole Miss to admit 
James Meredith.
  In those years, when African-American families drove through 
Nashville, if they were sick, they could not be admitted to many of the 
hospitals; if they needed a place to sleep, they could not be admitted 
to many of the motels; if they needed a place to eat, they could not go 
to many of the restaurants. That was the life then. That was not that 
long ago. Many families throughout the South, as well as other parts of 
the country, but throughout the South, lived in fear because of that 
climate.
  The Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act will help heal some of the scars 
that

[[Page 20299]]

have been left on our society in the wake of the civil rights struggle.
  This past June, shortly after Edgar Ray Killen was convicted for the 
41-year-old murder of three civil rights workers, the Nashville City 
Paper ran an editorial that summed up why resolution of these cases is 
so important, and why this legislation by Senator Talent and Senator 
Dodd is so important. The editorial concluded:

       As long as Civil Rights era killers are still alive and 
     free, justice has not yet been fully served. Hunting them 
     down and bringing them to account for their actions is far 
     and away the best apology any of us can make for their 
     crimes.

  This is not leadership by lament. This is leadership by action. I 
commend the Senate for taking such positive steps toward recognizing 
and rectifying these injustices.
  This action is a reflection of one of those aspects of our Nation's 
character that distinguishes us in the world. We dedicate ourselves to 
high ideals. We have since our very beginning. Sometimes we have failed 
to live up to those ideals. But when we do, we have most often 
recommitted ourselves and taken action to correct our shortcomings. 
Therefore, we abolished slavery. Therefore, we granted women the right 
to vote, even though it was after many years. Therefore, we 
desegregated our schools. Today we shall add to that litany that we 
have taken steps to bring to justice criminals of the civil rights era. 
Justice delayed is justice denied. Today we see to it that justice will 
be delayed no longer.
  I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I look forward 
to the day when this new office opens its doors in the Department of 
Justice.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the continuing scenes of the suffering and 
devastation in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast weigh heavily on 
our hearts and minds. It is clear that as a nation we have a monumental 
challenge ahead of us to rebuild and restore one of America's most 
unique and important regions. There is the challenge of repairing and 
replacing the physical infrastructure of a number of cities, including 
the great city of New Orleans. There is also the challenge of restoring 
jobs and income and opportunity and hope to hundreds of thousands of 
desperate and displaced people.
  Hurricane Katrina did more than rip the roofs off buildings along the 
Gulf Coast. It also ripped off the mask that has covered up the plight 
of millions of working Americans who live in poverty, as well as nearly 
one out of every five American children who are now growing up in 
poverty. Too often the poor are out of sight and out of mind. Katrina 
changed that. Hurricane Katrina opened the eyes of people all across 
this country. The poor are now in sight and on our minds. Americans are 
shocked. Frankly, we are ashamed that such desperation and deprivation 
could exist on such a large scale in the wealthiest nation on Earth. 
Americans expect more, and we deserve more.
  Those of us who are working in the cool air-conditioned buildings of 
Washington have to take a long, hard look at the priorities and choices 
that have contributed to a situation where Americans, moms and dads, 
husbands and wives, people of all walks of life, work hard but still 
are unable to make ends meet and still live in poverty. One might think 
that we would be so embarrassed about these misplaced priorities that 
have contributed to this situation that we would change course, that we 
would do all we can to support those who work hard to make ends meet.
  One would think that reordering priorities would be especially 
important in our efforts to rebuild the Gulf Coast, to restore jobs and 
create new opportunity, get income into people's pockets so they can 
rebuild their lives and jump start the local economy.
  Unfortunately, as if we had learned nothing at all, one of the very 
first actions taken by President Bush in the wake of this storm was to 
issue an executive order suspending the Davis-Bacon Act, the Federal 
law that requires employers on Federal projects to pay employees the 
prevailing wage of that area. This is a law that has been supported by 
every President since Franklin Roosevelt, Republican and Democrat.
  Even more disturbing, if press reports are to be believed, the 
President is apparently planning to compound the damage by also 
rescinding what is known as the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act 
which contains similar wage protections for employees working on 
Federal service contracts. It is a law that goes back over 50 years.
  Until now, I have muted my voice. I have not criticized the President 
nor anyone else on what has happened in New Orleans and what happened 
in the wake of Katrina. I have said that the time for that would come 
later. For now, it is time to get food and shelter and clothing and 
health care to the people so devastated. That is why I am so 
disappointed with this action by the President which will negatively 
impact workers' wages. So, while we need to set up a separate 
commission to look at what happened in the aftermath of the hurricane, 
why the planning was not done, why so much suffering and death before 
poor people were moved to places of safety, the fact is things are now 
moving ahead.
  With the stroke of a pen, the President is going to remove the 
requirement for the prevailing wage to be paid for workers in this 
region. If press reports are to be believed, he is now going to 
compound it by rescinding the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act that 
would apply that prevailing wage to Federal service contracts.
  This is exactly the wrong way to put the Gulf Coast region back on 
its feet. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama already have low wage 
levels compared to the rest of the Nation. For example, the current 
prevailing wage in the New Orleans area for a truck driver working on 
rebuilding the levees is $9.04 an hour. In the New Orleans area, the 
prevailing wage for an electrician is $14.30 an hour. Think about it. 
That comes to an annual income of barely $18,000 a year for a truck 
driver and about $28,000 a year for an electrician working full time. 
It is hard enough for a family to rebuild their lives in that 
devastated area at that income. Why in the world would the President 
want to slash that income, especially at this time?
  Let's look at some more of the workers who would be negatively 
impacted by this action. We are talking about sheet and metal workers 
in Pearl River County, MS, who currently make less than $19,000 a year. 
That is their prevailing wage. We are talking about carpenters in 
Mobile County, AL, who currently make less than $20,000 a year. We are 
talking about laborers in Livingston Parish, LA, who make less than 
$20,000 a year. At this time, why would we want to cut their already 
meager income? These are the very workers we will be counting on to 
rebuild the highways and bridges, reconstruct houses and schools and 
hospitals, get our electricity up and running again in all those areas. 
These are the workers who will do the hazardous waste cleanup. Their 
wages are already barely at the poverty line. The President's actions 
will drive those wages down even lower.
  Given the conditions these people will be working in--areas rife with 
bacteria and mold, chemical contaminants--we ought to be giving them a 
wage premium to work in these areas. Instead, the President's action 
will give them a wage cut. This policy fails the basic test of fairness 
and equity. Is the President calling for a cap on executive salaries? I 
haven't heard him call for that. Is there any effort to see if the 
companies involved in the cleanup and rebuilding would be willing to 
accept less than the normal profit? I see that one of the first no-bid 
contracts let was to Halliburton.
  We know who the former president of Halliburton is: Vice President 
Dick Cheney. We know that one of the chief clients of the former head 
of FEMA, Mr. Albaugh, who now has a consulting firm, is Halliburton. We 
know that Mr. Albaugh's hand-picked successor, Mr. Brown, was the head 
of FEMA when they gave the no-bid contract to Halliburton. It sounds 
like a sweetheart deal to me. Is the President calling for a cap on 
profits earned by those companies? Of course not. So why in the

[[Page 20300]]

world is the President singling out low-income workers in that area and 
saying: We are not just going to put a cap on what you make. We are 
going to lower prevailing wage. We are going to take it away. Why is he 
cutting their pay at a time when we should be trying to boost income 
and give a helping hand to people in this area?
  For the life of me, the more I think about this, the more I read 
about it, I don't get what the President is trying to do. They have a 
prevailing wage. He is saying, you are not going to get that. What 
happens when you don't have a prevailing wage in a desperate situation? 
There is always somebody worse off than you that will take a job at 
less pay. There is always somebody a little bit more desperate. So if 
the prevailing wage for a truckdriver was $9 an hour, if there is no 
prevailing wage, the company could come in and say: Anybody want a job 
for $8 an hour? Someone says: Yes, I will take it for $7. Someone else 
will say I will take it for $6 because I am so desperate. I need work. 
I need income.
  You end up with a race to the bottom on the wages these jobs pay if 
you don't have that prevailing wage. That is precisely what is going to 
happen in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. It is a blow to the 
workers who have already lost their homes. Many have lost jobs, 
families disrupted, coming back to clean up the mess in their 
neighborhoods. Now they are being told their wages are going to fall. 
Think about this. Before Katrina, a truckdriver would be making $9.04 
an hour. Post-Katrina, they will get less money. Can someone please 
explain to me what sense this makes? Pre-Katrina we pay you more for 
the work you do; post-Katrina, we are going to pay you less.
  I say to the President of the United States: You are going to be on 
television tomorrow night to talk about the cleanup effort. Please 
explain to the American people why it is you took away the prevailing 
wage for workers. Explain why it is necessary for them to make less now 
than they made before. Explain why it is necessary to cap their wages, 
but we don't cap the profits of the companies doing the work. We don't 
cap the executive salaries of the executives of those companies.
  This is devastating. I have held my criticism of the President, but 
this is unconscionable. This is not right. It is not right for 
individuals, and it is foolish economic policy for a region that we are 
trying to get back on its feet. FEMA is already signing scores of 
contracts for vast sums of money. The question is: Will a fair share of 
this money work its way down to the ordinary laborers who do the dirty, 
hazardous jobs of cleanup and rebuilding? Or will it mostly go for 
executive salaries and corporate profits? Certainly, we do not want a 
replay of Iraq, where billions of dollars in contracts have been 
awarded, enriching people at the top, but with precious little 
trickling down to ordinary Iraqis to put income in their pockets and 
encourage a grassroots economic recovery.
  Surely we can learn from the mistakes we made in Iraq where we just 
threw billions of dollars to these companies, and not much of it got 
down to the people in Iraq. Surely we can learn from that and not 
repeat those mistakes in the Gulf Coast.
  The good news is that it is not too late for the President to correct 
this misdirection. We are still at the beginning of our response to the 
devastation of Hurricane Katrina. As we saw when the FEMA Director was 
reassigned earlier this week and has since left, of course, the 
President and his team have shown a capacity for shifting gears and 
making midcourse corrections. That is fine.
  Tomorrow night, the President needs to take a second midcourse 
correction in the strongest possible terms. I urge the President to use 
his prime-time address to the Nation to reverse course and reinstate 
the Davis-Bacon protections for the Gulf Coast region.
  I also urge the President to put in place a network of auditors and 
overseers to ensure that the billions of dollars going to Katrina 
relief is spent effectively, that the lion's share is used to restore 
and create jobs, to boost incomes, to spark a bottom-up economic 
recovery and revival all across the devastated region.
  There have been numerous articles written in the days since Katrina 
hit the Gulf Coast underscoring how shocked Americans are to see with 
our own eyes the poverty and the deprivation that unfortunately still 
exists on a large scale in the wealthiest Nation on Earth. We need to 
address the issue of poverty in this country. We knew before Katrina 
struck. We saw the data. The U.S. Census Bureau issued updated poverty 
data showing that 37 million live in poverty--13 percent of our 
population. Since 2001, 4 million more Americans have fallen into 
poverty. Nearly 5 million more Americans are without health insurance. 
And worst of all, poverty is increasing sharply among the working poor, 
people who have full-time jobs. The Census Bureau's numbers show that 
over the last year alone, the number of Americans who work but live in 
poverty increased by 563,000 people--over half a million. Meanwhile, 
the latest Census numbers show that over the last year, real median 
earnings fell by nearly $1,000 for male workers, more than $300 for 
female workers.
  It should offend our basic sense of fairness to know there are any 
Americans working full time, playing by the rules, and still living in 
poverty. Once again, it is not too late to act. Katrina can serve as a 
wake-up call to all of us to reorder our priorities, as I said earlier.
  Before Katrina, people in the Congress, the leadership, the 
Republicans in Congress were poised to slash food stamps and Medicaid 
for the poor at the same time that we were supposed to get a bill to 
eliminate the estate tax and extend other tax cuts for the wealthiest 
Americans. Prior to Katrina, their agenda consisted of coming back here 
and cutting food stamps, cutting Medicaid for the poor, cutting estate 
taxes, giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. Let's hope 
Katrina has been a wake-up call that these are misordered, wrong 
priorities. They would have been misordered before Katrina, and they 
are glaringly misguided in a post-Katrina America. We should be 
focusing on initiatives that lift people out of poverty, not slashing 
programs that provide health care and food support to working families.
  We must increase the minimum wage, which today is not even a living 
wage but a poverty wage. We need to increase education and job training 
opportunities. We need to be making college loans and grants more 
widely available and cheaper. We need to be strengthening the ladder of 
opportunity that allows people to achieve their own American dream. We 
cannot do that if we keep doing what we have been doing--if we keep 
cutting taxes for the wealthiest of Americans, then turning around and 
compensating for the deficit created by those huge tax loopholes by 
slashing food stamps and Medicaid and taking away the prevailing wage 
for workers in the Gulf Coast region.
  I close my statement by, again, calling upon President Bush to do a 
midcourse correction. I don't know who advised you, Mr. President, to 
use your pen to cut the prevailing wages for our workers in the Gulf 
Coast region. Whoever advised you, they were wrong. Now is your time to 
do a midcourse correction. Tomorrow night, when you address the Nation, 
Mr. President, tell the American people that you are going to reinstate 
the prevailing wage for our workers in the Gulf Coast. In fact, give 
them a premium for all the dirty, hard work they'll have to do. And 
then don't suspend the act that also provides a prevailing wage for our 
service workers because they are going to be doing a lot of the hard 
work also in cleaning up the mess in New Orleans and around the Gulf 
Coast region.
  It would be a terrible thing if we take hard-earned taxpayers' 
dollars that we are committing to rebuilding the Gulf Coast region, to 
rebuilding the economy and helping people rebuild their lives--it would 
be a slap in the face to the American taxpayer if we allow that money 
to go disparately into the pockets of the executives of the companies 
that get all the contracts, and in turn cut the wages of the workers 
who will be physically doing the hard work and

[[Page 20301]]

the heavy lifting. That is not the America that we want post-Katrina.
  Mr. President, tomorrow night, do the right thing: change your 
course.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeMint). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Hurricane Katrina may be the worst natural 
disaster in my lifetime, maybe in modern memory. The stories that come 
back from that hurricane and that disaster are so touching. Today, a 
man was rescued in his home. It was reported in the news that had he 
gone another day without water, he would have died. It is amazing that 
he survived through these weeks since Hurricane Katrina struck.
  Senator Mary Landrieu, our colleague from Louisiana, came back with 
so many real-life stories that were so touching. There is one she told 
me and several others that I repeated back in my home State of 
Illinois. It is an amazing story about a 65-year-old woman who was 
living alone in a simple house in New Orleans and had nowhere to go and 
no way to leave. She thought her little house, which had been through 
an awful lot, could take whatever God would give, and she was relieved 
when the hurricane skirted around New Orleans.
  Within hours, of course, disaster struck in the form of a flood. She 
told Mary Landrieu, who found her in one of the hospital facilities, 
that the water just came rushing in, first 4 feet of it, and then more. 
As it was rising, she was wondering where she would turn. She went 
through her house and thought maybe, just maybe she could crawl up into 
the attic. She set a stepladder up in her kitchen, but she did not have 
the strength to move from her stepladder up into the attic. She could 
just barely get her head up into the attic. The water rose to the 
ceiling, to her chin, while she was standing on that stepladder. She 
stood on that stepladder for 2 days. She told Mary Landrieu that she 
kept wondering why the level of the water was changing every once in a 
while. Of course, it was the tidal flow of the water from the Gulf of 
Mexico, the tidal flow in her kitchen.
  Finally, one of her neighbors thought about her, came and helped her 
out, and the two of them scrambled up to the roof. With a little help, 
she survived to tell the story.
  She told Mary Landrieu that in those dark hours, standing on that 
ladder with water up to her chin, she survived on faith, faith in God 
but faith in the belief that someone would come to help her.
  For many people in New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama and 
throughout the State of Louisiana, that someone was our Government. 
People knew that at the worst moments they could count on our 
Government to be there because our Government is our American family 
and we do pull together. When one part of our family is in distress, we 
pull together to help. And she waited and waited and waited.
  A doctor I met in Chicago on Friday at one of the evacuee centers 
happened to be in New Orleans on Monday when the hurricane and then the 
flood hit. He said he didn't see his first rescue worker until Thursday 
in the city of New Orleans. He was lucky. He was on high ground in a 
hotel--a doctor. He really became the head of a small hospital in that 
hotel.
  Something awful happened as a result of this hurricane. Too many 
people were left behind. Too many people were let down. The most 
vulnerable people in America didn't have their Government, their 
American family standing there to help them in their greatest hour of 
need.
  For a long time there was a political exchange back and forth in 
Washington: Who is at fault? Who made the mistake? The talk shows, the 
talking heads, all of them had an opinion. The White House said: Don't 
get involved in a blame game. That was their phrase. Many others said 
it really wasn't the Federal Government's fault, it was this, it was 
that. It went on and on.
  Senator Mikulski, who just came back to the floor, managing an 
important bill, was one of the first, if not the first, who came to the 
floor and suggested the head of FEMA should move on to another job.
  Senator Mikulski, thank you for your leadership. He is gone. I joined 
her in that chorus. Whatever Mr. Brown's qualifications were, they were 
not up to the job of handling this natural disaster.
  The President came out within the last day and conceded the fact that 
he had not met his responsibility to the American people in Hurricane 
Katrina. That is an important admission on his part. I think, once 
having conceded that point, we can move forward.
  I come to the floor now because the Senate missed an extraordinary 
opportunity to move forward on a bipartisan basis today. There was an 
amendment offered by Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, who certainly 
knows about disasters, having lived through 9/11 with her colleague, 
Senator Schumer. Senator Clinton came to the floor today and said: We 
learned a lesson on 9/11 that if you really want to get to the bottom 
of what failed in Hurricane Katrina and what we can do to repair the 
damage in the future, to make certain that the American Government and 
the American family stand behind its most vulnerable members, we need 
an independent 9/11-type commission, a bipartisan commission that will 
take an honest look. Don't load it up with Congressmen and Senators who 
may have some political axe to grind but make it truly independent.
  It worked for 9/11. The two men who were chosen, Gov. Tom Kean, 
former Republican Governor of New Jersey, and Congressman Lee Hamilton, 
former Democratic Congressman from Indiana, did an extraordinary 
service for our country. Their analysis of 9/11 led to the most 
significant intelligence reform in modern history in our country, and 
it passed with an amazing, strong, bipartisan vote, thanks to the 
exceptional work of Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, and 
Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat of Connecticut, and Congresswoman 
Jane Harman of California. They all came together with this 
intelligence reform that grew out of this independent commission.
  Senator Clinton came to the floor today and said it worked well for 
America's greatest terrorist attack. Let us apply the same concept, the 
same model for this Hurricane Katrina disaster.
  We had a chance on a bipartisan basis to rise to the occasion today, 
and we failed. We failed to pass the Clinton amendment. On a partisan 
rollcall, Senator Clinton's call for an independent commission was 
rejected. Why? Why? When you consider the devastation of this 
hurricane, when you consider the billions of dollars that need to be 
spent now to bring back these communities and the families and the 
lives, why, when we know that we want to be prepared tomorrow, God 
forbid, if another disaster strikes? Why wouldn't we follow Senator 
Clinton's suggestion? Why wouldn't we create this independent, 
bipartisan commission that can get to the heart of the issue?
  The American people want this, and the Senate rejected it on a 
partisan rollcall today. That is truly unfortunate. Those who lived 
through 9/11 recently commemorated a sad fourth anniversary. The lives 
of those who were lost, of course, will never be reclaimed. Their 
memories live on. But their families have dedicated themselves, not 
just to preserving their memory but to doing something important for 
America. Those families stood behind the 9/11 Commission. They were the 
political force that kept that commission moving forward when 
politicians on both sides of the aisle found plenty of excuses to stop.
  We need another group of families today. We need the Hurricane 
Katrina families to come forward. We need for them to say to this 
Senate, the House of Representatives, and this Government, we truly 
need another independent commission. We need their

[[Page 20302]]

voices and we need their strength. I think with it, we will succeed.
  Today, Senator Clinton, despite her best efforts, did not succeed. 
But for the good and safety and security of this Nation, we must.
  I look forward to returning to this issue as quickly as possible. I 
hope we can find a way to not only analyze what we failed to do with 
Hurricane Katrina but make certain we bring the relief and recovery 
families need and make America safe again for so many vulnerable 
Americans who count on our leadership.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, first I would like to thank the senior 
Senator from Illinois for his kind words about my advocacy.
  You see, I wanted not only new leadership at home--that is why I 
called for Michael Brown to step down--but I believe FEMA needs a new 
focus. It needs a new energy. And it needs a new independence.
  In the 1990s I worked to form FEMA, after Hurricane Andrew, and 
actually worked with President Bush (I) and Andrew Card. We started 
that. President Clinton came in, we kept our reform efforts up, we got 
James Lee Witt, and what we really focused on was, No. 1, that FEMA 
become independent; No. 2, that it be run by professionals--meaning 
emergency management, military, or even private sector people with 
crisis management experience because this is enormously important to 
saving lives, saving livelihoods, and quite frankly, being good 
stewards of taxpayer money. We are about to spend $60 billion, and we 
are into no-bid contracts? OK?
  So that is why I wanted Brown to go. The President has appointed 
someone. I look forward to getting acquainted. I supported the 
commission, not to finger-point, but to pinpoint, just like the 9/11 
Commission. Where do we need to reform? Where do we need to 
reinvigorate? Where do we need to refocus?
  Yes, the President is going to look into it, and he should. Yes, the 
Congress is going to look into it, under the able leadership of Senator 
Collins and Senator Lieberman. But I believe in independence. Frankly, 
as you know, I say to the Senator, just as in medicine, nothing goes 
wrong when you get a second opinion from outside. So that is what I 
hoped would happen. But I look forward to working with the President on 
recovery.
  We have to make sure we are ready and able to respond if it happens 
again. Thank you for your kind words.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank my colleague.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, last night, Senator Baucus and I 
introduced a package of tax relief measures designed to help the 
victims of Hurricane Katrina both in the short and long term. We know 
that tax incentives helped to revitalize New York after 9/11. They can 
do the same for New Orleans, Gulfport, and the other hurricane-hit 
areas. We're pleased that members of the affected region join us in 
this effort including Senators Lott, Landrieu, Vitter, Cochran, and 
Shelby.
  The immediate relief package that we are announcing today will help 
get short-term aid to hurricane victims by encouraging food donations 
and the employment of displaced individuals, for example. For those who 
have suffered casualty losses, we have liberalized the tax rules to 
permit affected taxpayers to deduct losses from damaged property. We 
also want to help protect Katrina victims from undeserved IRS 
harassment.
  We expect to see prompt action by Congress on this tax relief 
package. We need to get these tax incentives on the books and help 
Katrina victims make a fresh start.
  After this package is completed, our focus will be on longer term tax 
incentives to help rebuild homes and businesses. We are looking at 
depreciation changes, tax-exempt bond authority--arbitrage rebate--and 
enterprise-zone initiatives.
  Life will never be the same for our fellow citizens in gulf region. 
And what we have all seen over the last 2 weeks will stay in the hearts 
and minds of all of us for years to come.
  With this first initiative from the Finance Committee--and there will 
be more in other areas where we have jurisdiction--we want the victims 
in all of the affected areas to know that they can count on us to 
create a set of measures that wit1 help return vitality and vigor to 
the gulf region.


                            NOTICE OF INTENT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, in accordance with rule V of the standing 
rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing on behalf of 
myself and Senator Bingaman that it is our intention to move to suspend 
paragraph 4 of rule XVI for the purpose of proposing to the bill, H.R. 
2862, The Science, State, Justice, Commerce Appropriations Bill, the 
following amendment: No. 1706.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')


                           amendment no. 1660

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, Congress must make an immediate, thorough 
review of the Government's response to Hurricane Katrina and its 
aftermath.
  As a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, I am committed 
to working with Chairwoman Susan Collins and Ranking Member Joe 
Lieberman to ensure that the investigation is conducted in a bipartisan 
fashion.
  We have already begun this investigation. On Wednesday, September 14, 
our committee held its first hearing on the effects of Hurricane 
Katrina and heard from former California Gov. Pete Wilson, former New 
Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, and former Grand Forks, ND, Mayor Patricia 
Owens. Each of these respected public officials have led their citizens 
through past natural disasters and shared their experiences with us in 
the hearings.
  In the coming weeks, we will call in leaders from the administration 
and other relevant parties to determine what was done right and what 
was done wrong in responding to Hurricane Katrina. We intend to make 
whatever changes in structure, funding and personnel that are necessary 
to ensure that we are prepared to handle disasters--either natural or 
manmade--in the future.
  During consideration of the fiscal year 2006 Commerce-Justice-Science 
appropriations bill, Senator Hillary Clinton offered an amendment to 
create a new committee to investigate Hurricane Katrina. I did not 
support this amendment for two reasons. First, it violated Senate rules 
by adding legislation to an appropriations bill. I have strongly 
opposed such legislative ``riders'' in the past since many of the 
``riders'' have been used to undermine environmental laws. I believe 
that legislation should move through the appropriate authorization 
committees for consideration.
  Second, I believe that our Homeland Security Committee is doing the 
necessary work to conduct a full investigation. The work has already 
begun. A new committee could take months to be organized and set up. 
The American people should not have to wait to have accountability.


                           Amendment No. 1670

  Mr. CHAFFEE. Mr. President, I wish to speak about the Senate 
amendment No. 1670, offered by Senator Dorgan. Earlier today the Senate 
held a procedural vote on this amendment, and I want to make clear the 
reason for my vote.
  Senator Dorgan's amendment would create a Special Committee of the 
Senate on war and reconstruction contracting. It is modeled on the 
highly successful committee that former President Harry Truman chaired 
during his Senate tenure from 1941-1944. That committee demanded the 
strictest accountability from defense contracting and thus saved our 
Government billions of dollars.
  I agree with the aim of Senator Dorgan's amendment, and look forward 
to supporting legislation in the future that would establish a special 
committee to review war and reconstruction contracting. Given the great 
cost, length and importance of the war on terrorism, I think it is 
appropriate to convene such a special committee to ensure that taxpayer 
dollars are spent wisely.
  However, Senator Dorgan offered this piece of authorizing legislation 
on

[[Page 20303]]

an appropriations bill. The procedural vote was whether the Senate 
should set aside rule XVI, which prohibits such authorizing on 
appropriations. There is a troubling history of legislating on 
appropriations. From 1995, when the Senate voted in effect to over-turn 
rule XVI, until 1999, when the rule was established, there was a 
proliferation of so-called ``legislative riders'' on appropriations 
bills. No authorizing committee's territory is safe without firm lines 
clearly differentiating between authorizing work and appropriations 
work. Moreover, from 1995-1999 many of the riders were aimed at 
undermining environmental laws.
  To avoid returning to this practice, I support rule XVI and its 
prohibition against adding authorizing amendments to appropriations 
bills, and thus voted to oppose Senator Dorgan's amendment. Again, I 
state this to make clear that my vote was to uphold an important Senate 
rule, and not to oppose Senator Dorgan's amendment.


                    Amendment No. 1688, as Modified

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that 
amendment No. 1688, which was submitted by Senator Stabenow, be 
modified with the changes that are at the desk and, further, that the 
amendment be considered and agreed to with the motion to reconsider 
laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 1688), as modified, was agreed to, as follows:

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:
       Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may 
     be used to include in any new bilateral or multilateral trade 
     agreement the text of--
       (1) paragraph 2 of article 16.7 of the United States-
     Singapore Free Trade Agreement;
       (2) paragraph 4 of article 17.9 of the United States-
     Australia Free Trade Agreement; or
       (3) paragraph 4 of article 15.9 of the United States-
     Morocco Free Trade Agreement.

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. It has been laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.


                           Amendment No. 1671

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I now call for the regular order with 
respect to DeWine amendment, No. 1671.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is now pending.


                Amendment No. 1715 to Amendment No. 1671

  Mr. SHELBY. We have a second-degree amendment which has been agreed 
to on both sides. Therefore, on behalf of Senator DeWine, I send the 
second-degree amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Shelby], for Mr. DeWine, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 1715 to amendment No. 1671.

  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 1 strike line 6 and all that follows through page 
     2, line 2, and insert the following:

     $859,300,000 shall be available for aeronautics research and 
     development programs of the National Aeronautics and Space 
     Administration. Of the amount available under this section in 
     excess of $852,300,000, not more than 50 percent of such 
     excess amount may be derived from any particular account of 
     the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I believe this amendment has been cleared 
on both sides. I urge its adoption.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 1715) was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the first-degree amendment, 
as amended, is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 1671), as modified, was agreed to.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 1662

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I now ask for the regular order with 
respect to Sarbanes amendment No. 1662.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is now pending.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, this amendment has been cleared on both 
sides. I urge the adoption of the Sarbanes amendment.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I concur.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 1662) was agreed to.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, 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. SHELBY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be suspended.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________