[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11791-11827]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Virginia is 
recognized.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the pending business is the DOD 
authorization bill and most specifically the amendments by Senator 
McConnell and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. The McConnell amendment 
is to be voted on first, followed by a vote on the second amendment. Am 
I correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.


                    Amendment No. 4272, as modified

  Mr. WARNER. I shall address the McConnell amendment.
  First, the amendments have a great likeness. But I felt, in working 
with

[[Page 11792]]

the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, that his amendment--I ask 
unanimous consent that I be a cosponsor of that amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. I believe very strongly that a second amendment was 
needed because of what we have been working toward--the United States 
and its coalition partners--from the very beginning, and that is to 
provide the Iraqi people with a sovereign nation in which they can 
exercise the full range of authorities and responsibilities of a 
sovereign nation. Therefore, they went about a series of elections. 
Every Member of this Chamber recognizes the courage of the Iraqi people 
in three elections. Then there was the formation of a permanent 
government, a unity government. Having achieved that, they are now 
beginning to exercise the full responsibilities of a sovereign nation. 
I was concerned that we, as a legislative body of our Nation, not 
indicate that we are infringing on their rights of sovereignty.
  This whole issue of amnesty is an important one. I do not, in any 
measure, suggest it is not important. But I think we have to observe 
that they are a sovereign nation. How they go about it should largely 
be within the confines of their own wisdom and goals because our whole 
future is dependent on this Government and the people of Iraq taking 
back their country such that our forces can come back home. Whatever 
that Government does that is constructive toward reaching that goal I 
want to support. So in working on this amendment, I, working with the 
distinguished Senator from Kentucky, drafted one or two provisions with 
him which state as follows:

       It is the sense of Congress that the goal of the United 
     States and our Coalition partners has been to empower the 
     Iraqi Nation with full sovereignty thereby recognizing their 
     freedom to exercise that sovereignty. Through successive 
     elections and difficult political agreements the unity 
     government is now in place exercising that sovereignty. We 
     must respect that exercise of that sovereignty in accordance 
     with their own wisdom;
       History records that governments derived of free elections 
     should not grant amnesty to those who have committed war 
     crimes or terrorist acts, and; [further]
       The United States should continue with the historic 
     tradition of diplomatically, economically, and in a 
     humanitarian manner assisting nations and the people whom 
     have fought once a conflict is concluded.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator from Virginia yield for a question?
  Mr. WARNER. I am happy to yield the floor, if the Senator so desires.
  Mr. McCONNELL. If the Senator will yield for a question, I say to my 
friend from Virginia: Is the Senator from Kentucky correct that the 
genesis of the Nelson amendment is a newspaper story quoting a lower 
level Government official, since dismissed by the Iraqi Government for 
suggesting that forces who may have killed American or Iraqi troops 
would be given amnesty? Is it not correct, I ask my friend from 
Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, that that lower 
level official has since been dismissed from the Iraqi Government?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, he was fired.
  Mr. McCONNELL. He was fired. Is it not the case, I ask my friend, the 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, that the National Security 
Adviser, Steve Hadley, if you will, of the Iraqi Government, stated 
shortly thereafter what the policy of the Iraqi Government was?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Senator is exactly correct.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Is the Senator from Kentucky not correct that the 
policy of the Iraqi Government is not to do exactly what we have been 
having this discussion about on the Senate floor for lo these several 
days?
  Mr. WARNER. That is correct. Based on my discussions with Senator 
Nelson, he in good faith read those reports and felt very strongly, as 
I think many of us do, about the issue of amnesty and came forward with 
that amendment. Then, we purposely delayed final action on these two 
amendments last week, such that in the intervening time there would be 
further clarification. I do believe there has been some further 
clarification of this matter. I can address that in the context of a 
communication from the Department of State, I say to my good friend 
from Kentucky. I was able to obtain this information, which hopefully 
will be forthcoming momentarily, stating just that: The Iraqi 
Government understands precisely what the situation is, that an error 
was made and they have put in place I think adequate corrections.
  Mr. McCONNELL. So I ask one final question of my friend from 
Virginia. Since the Nelson amendment basically addresses a nonexistent 
problem and the McConnell amendment simply asserts what we already know 
to be the policy of the Iraqi Government, that it would likely be a 
good idea for the Senate to go on record as supporting both of these 
amendments at this juncture?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I think, certainly in my judgment, that 
would be an acceptable situation because there is clarity in the 
amendment of the Senator from Kentucky about a point that is very 
important to me; i.e, sovereignty, exercise of that. With no disrespect 
to the Senator from Florida, I believed his amendment as originally 
drafted, and the intent, was to reach across the ocean and have the 
U.S.A. reach into the Government and try to dictate what was to be 
done. So I believe the Senator is correct in that, and I join him in 
that suggestion to our colleagues.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, is the Senator yielding the floor?
  Mr. WARNER. Yes, of course.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Let me add, briefly, as I hear the distinguished 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, at this juncture the 
appropriate thing for the Senate to do would be to vote for both of 
these amendments. It has been made perfectly clear, by statements by 
the National Security Adviser of the new Iraqi Government, that it is 
not the policy of the Iraqi Government to grant amnesty to those who 
killed American soldiers.
  I hope we can move past this reaction to some lower level Iraqi 
official, since fired from the Iraqi Government, over his ill-advised 
and basically untrue suggestions about what the policy of the Iraqi 
Government would be toward those who may have killed American soldiers.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, to answer your question--
parliamentary inquiry: Under the previous order, I understand 15 
minutes were allocated to the majority and 15 minutes to the minority. 
So under the previous order, is that how the Senator from Florida is 
being recognized?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. It is true, in the understanding of this 
Senator, what the distinguished chairman of the Senate Armed Services 
Committee has said. Over the course of the weekend, as he represented 
it to this Senator, that he wanted to wait and see what further 
clarification has happened on this matter since there was such a 
disturbance about the language put forth on the amendment by this 
Senator from Florida. Indeed, over the course of the weekend, a number 
of additional things have occurred that have made it quite clear what 
very likely is the policy of the Government of Iraq. This Senator 
quotes from the Los Angeles Times publication over the weekend:

       The Iraqi government has crafted a far-reaching amnesty 
     plan for insurgents.

  It goes on to say:

       The amnesty plan, which apparently would include insurgents 
     alleged to have staged attacks against Americans and Iraqis. 
     . . .

  That doesn't sound to me like the Government of Iraq is disclaiming 
this, that this is not their policy. To the contrary. The Senator from 
Florida is quite appreciative of the majority whip when he says they 
are going to support the amendment of the Senator from Florida. I would 
certainly hope so, given the fact of the tragedy that has been revealed 
today. I quote directly from CNN:


[[Page 11793]]

       The bodies of two U.S. soldiers found in Iraq Monday night 
     were mutilated and booby trapped, military sources said 
     Tuesday.

  If you turned on the television in the course of the last couple of 
hours, you have heard described in gruesome terms the condition that 
the bodies of these two young Americans were found in, which was 
unrecognizable because of the mutilation.
  Is this the kind of stuff that we in any way, in setting forth the 
sense of the Congress, want in any way, any misunderstanding of what 
the sense of the Congress is, that the policy of the Iraqi Government 
should not be to grant amnesty to those who would do harm to Americans, 
and have done harm, as witnessed by this most recent tragic example of 
how people treat prisoners of war?
  Sadly, I think the facts speak for themselves. Sadly, we could have 
dispensed with this at the hour of 2 o'clock on Thursday, after this 
Senator had offered his amendment. Yet we went on for 2 hours on that 
day and subsequently the next day. It brings us to the following 
Tuesday, now, with the comments that have been made, saying that the 
majority will accept this Senator's amendment.
  I am grateful to the majority, and I think the majority has come to 
the right place. I thank you for recognizing this is the statement that 
should be the policy, as enunciated by the sense of the Congress.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I was one of those last week who spoke to 
this amendment by the Senator from Florida. I know now the Senator from 
Kentucky, the distinguished majority whip, has introduced another 
amendment and has suggested perhaps it would be appropriate to vote for 
both of them, since what in effect was a misstatement by a low-level 
Government employee in Iraq has now been clarified, making it crystal 
clear that it is not the policy of the new Government in Iraq to grant 
amnesty to those who have killed Americans.
  But I have to scratch my head a little bit and wonder why it is we 
are having this debate. We are on the Defense authorization bill, an 
enormously important bill that is being shepherded on the Senate floor 
by the distinguished chairman, for the last time as chairman--at least 
this will be the last time he will serve as chairman because of term 
limits on that committee. But we are essentially having a debate over a 
nonissue, and we are being asked now to send a message to the new Iraqi 
Government that you are going to be admonished, in effect, because of 
some of the missteps of a low-level Government employee.
  I am really confused about the message our friends on the other side 
of the aisle are trying to send our allies in Iraq. On the one hand, we 
have amendments that are offered suggesting that we leave them in 6 
months' time and bring all of our troops home, and whatever happens as 
a result of that, well, it is not our problem anymore; it is their 
problem. On the other hand, amendments like these suggest that anytime 
a low-level government employee misstates the facts and has to be then 
corrected, and that person is then disciplined through dismissal, do we 
in essence want to pick a fight where there is no fight and where it is 
clear what the policy of the new Iraqi Government is?
  I think we should give this new Iraqi Government at least the benefit 
of the doubt that some would give to Saddam Hussein. There are some who 
come to the Senate floor and say, no, it was a terrible mistake for us 
to ever go into Iraq notwithstanding the fact that we know that Saddam 
Hussein was a mass murderer. I, along with other of my colleagues, have 
stood on the edge of mass gravesites where at least 400,000 Iraqis lie 
dead by the hands of this mass murderer Saddam Hussein.
  We know the record is clear that al-Qaida in the form of Zarqawi, who 
was killed just last week, was in Iraq more than 2 years before the 
United States and our coalition partners took out Saddam Hussein. There 
are those who said no, no, no. Iraq has no less linkage whatsoever to 
international terrorism, and now we know the facts are that the worst 
al-Qaida operative of all, the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, was in fact in 
Baghdad and was in Iraq more than a year before Saddam Hussein was 
deposed.
  So I guess I am confused by those who would say, no, let's leave the 
Iraqis on their own, wish them luck, but so much for the loss of lives 
and lost treasure invested in trying to help the Iraqi people free 
themselves from this terrible tyrant and get on their own feet and 
create a stable democracy in Iraq. But then, on the other hand, when 
this new democracy that has done miraculous things over the last few 
years has ratified their new constitution and created a unity 
government and have now finally gotten their permanent government in 
place, that when a low-level figure makes an unauthorized, incorrect 
statement, for which he has been disciplined, we want to come to the 
Senate floor and offer amendments admonishing our friends, the Iraqi 
Government. They are our allies in what has now become the central 
front in the global war on terror.
  If we don't finish the job and support our Iraqi allies in any way we 
can as they continue this fight against al-Qaida, against other foreign 
fighters, against insurgents who want to destabilize the government and 
put Saddam Hussein back in power, if we don't do everything we can to 
support them militarily and rhetorically provide them any assistance we 
can, then we are going to be in a less safe condition because we know 
that any power vacuum that would be created in Iraq would easily be 
filled as it was in Afghanistan by the likes of Osama bin Laden and 
others.
  I appreciate the fact that there are those who say, Well, we ought to 
just vote for both of these amendments. But I really think we are 
heading down a bad road here by slapping the Iraqi Government on the 
wrists for what clearly was a misstatement of a low-level government 
employee for which he has been disciplined and which has now been very 
much clarified that it is not the policy of the Iraqi Government to 
provide amnesty for those who have killed Americans in that country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. President, first, the distinguished Senator from Florida 
referred to a Los Angeles Times article. I think that article should be 
placed in the Record following the colloquy between myself and the 
distinguished Senator from Florida and the Senator from Texas.
  Also, I am not sure that we should make decisions here based on one 
report of one newspaper. I am not impugning the Times; it is an 
outstanding newspaper. But we just do not have any corroboration of 
some of the statements.
  I point out they refer to the amnesty plan which currently would 
include insurgents alleged to have staged attacks against Americans and 
Iraqis.
  The second sentence down is the reconciliation plan which is expected 
to be formally announced soon. So that plan is in the making. There is 
still some formulation of policy going on.
  It is for that reason that I believe a strong vote on both of these 
amendments sends a subtle message about our concern. Let us assume for 
the moment that that plan has not been made formal.
  I inquired of the Department of State as to whether or not anything 
had transpired over the weekend. There was one meeting between Prime 
Minister Maliki and the charges d'affaires of the American Embassy. The 
charges d'affaires reported back to the Department of State.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. WARNER. Has the 15 minutes allocated to the Senator from Virginia 
expired?
  I ask unanimous consent that both sides be extended 5 minutes in this 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. It was stated that there was a meeting between the 
charges d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy and Prime Minister Maliki on 17 
June. Prime Minister Maliki affirmed that

[[Page 11794]]

any future amnesty would not differentiate between those who killed 
Iraqis and those who killed coalition forces. None of these people 
would be pardoned.
  Second, Prime Minister Maliki confirmed that there should not be a 
concern that his reconciliation plan would prohibit Multinational 
Forces-Iraqi--MNFI--operations or impose a timeline for future Iraqi 
support of the MNFI, the point being that they are looking at this 
situation.
  I think that these two amendments will send not a message that 
invades or impairs their exercise of the right of sovereignty but 
expresses the concern on behalf of all.
  The distinguished Senator mentioned the tragic loss of our two 
servicepersons. It has not, to the best of my knowledge, been confirmed 
officially, but nevertheless earlier media reports the tragic killing 
and mutilation of these two brave American soldiers, which is just an 
example of the ferocity of this conflict that we are experiencing over 
there and the enormous risks being taken by the men and women of our 
Armed Forces.
  So I think the message sent by both of these amendments is a timely 
one.
  I urge Senators to vote for both.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator 
yield for a clarification?
  Mr. WARNER. If I might on the Senator's time because ours is down to 
about 1 minute.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I commend the Senator for his 
concern. He knows my affection for him as chairman of the committee.
  Indeed, CNN is reporting that it is even worse than we had described 
out here on the destruction of the two soldiers. CNN sources said the 
two men had suffered ``severe trauma.''
  My question to the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services 
Committee is, in evaluating the McConnell amendment, I am confused by 
the language under the sense of Congress, paragraph 1, the last 
sentence in the paragraph. I quote: ``We''--meaning the United States--
``must respect the exercise of the sovereignty''--meaning of Iraq--``in 
accordance with their own wisdom.''
  The Senator from Florida asks the chairman of the committee: Would we 
respect their sovereignty if their wisdom said it was their policy to 
have amnesty against those who would kill Americans?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I think we should visit that issue only if 
in fact at some point in time that position is made official. The 
purpose of that language--and I accept full responsibility for that 
language--is I feel fervently that the ability for us to conclude our 
operation with our coalition partners in Iraq and to bring our troops 
home is predicated on the strength of the sovereignty exercised by this 
government.
  The Senator knows full well as do others in this Chamber that there 
is a high disrespect, unfortunately, among many Iraqis for the United 
States and its government. If there are any of our fingerprints that we 
are trying to dictate to that sovereign nation how they must make 
decisions, I fear it could impede the progress to bring our forces 
home. That is why that is in there.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I respect that. This Senator respects the 
goals that the Senator from Virginia is stating but I am looking at the 
four corners of the McConnell amendment to wonder if this is something 
that the Senate wants to vote for when, in fact, in the sense of 
Congress that is expressed in the McConnell amendment starting on page 
2 at line 15 and ending on page 3 at line 9, there is not any statement 
in the sense of Congress with regard to the policy of not supporting 
the Iraqi Government if it gives amnesty to people who kill Americans.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I may call the Senator's attention to page 
1 of the McConnell-Warner amendment. It says:

       Sense of the Congress commending the government of Iraq for 
     affirming its position of no amnesty for terrorists who 
     attack United States Armed Forces.

  Could that be any clearer?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. That is in the findings as set forth on page 1 
but not in the sense of Congress. Is it the Senator's feeling that the 
McConnell amendment clarifies the language that says with respect to 
the exercise of sovereignty we must respect the exercise of sovereignty 
in accordance with their own wisdom? Does that clarify it?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am certain that working on the predicate 
that they are a sovereign nation, they can make decisions. There will 
be decisions which are inconsistent with the views that we hold in this 
country. How do we enforce our views without interfering with their 
sovereignty?
  First, let them speak with absolute clarity to this. The McConnell 
amendment--and the Senator keeps saying within the four corners. Look 
at corner No. 1. The introductory has very clear and expressed language 
against the policy.
  Will there be times that we disagree with their exercise of 
sovereignty and their own wisdom? Yes. But if we are to obtain what we 
hope is our goal of giving that nation its sovereign right, we cannot 
be dictating to them how they reach their final decision.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Is it not true that the Senator from Florida would fully agree that 
we want them to have sovereignty and we don't want to dictate to them 
what to do, but that his point is, is it not, that we still should 
strongly urge them not to exercise their sovereignty in a way which 
provides amnesty in advance since we are in the middle of a war with 
people who kill American troops? Is that not true? We can urge them 
without violating their sovereignty. Would the Senator not agree?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator is exactly correct. The amendment 
by this Senator, for which the majority has already said that they are 
urging a vote, will further give specific action; that is, that the 
President of the United States should immediately notify the Government 
of Iraq that the Government of the United States opposes granting 
amnesty to persons who have attacked members of the Armed Forces of the 
United States? So we clearly set it out in the amendment offered by 
this Senator.
  We want to have time for Senator Menendez to speak. How many minutes 
does this Senator have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 7\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from New 
Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Florida for 
both yielding time and for the amendment he has offered which I am 
proud to cosponsor with him.
  I am astonished at some of the debate in the Senate. We are twisting 
and turning not to take a simple position on behalf of the men and 
women who serve in the uniform of the United States in Iraq and to send 
a message elsewhere in the world. What is that simple position? It is 
the sense of Congress that the Government of Iraq should not grant 
amnesty to persons known to have attacked, killed, or wounded members 
of the Armed Forces of the United States. What is so difficult, what is 
so wrong about sending that message?
  I heard some of our colleagues say that this is a nonexistent 
problem. If it wasn't for Senator Nelson's amendment, we would not have 
had the clarifications that have been forthcoming. I would like to see 
the Prime Minister of Iraq say that formally, in public, as the 
position of the Government of Iraq.
  Then I hear some of our colleagues saying that we have to respect the 
Iraqis and their sovereignty. This administration has been telling the 
Iraqis from day one what they want them to do in a variety of ways. 
They have been telling them how they have to form their government, how 
inclusive that government has to be. They have had a whole checklist of 
things they have been telling the Iraqis they want them to do. And now, 
when it comes time to defend the men and women of the United States in 
the Armed Forces by simply sending a sense of the Senate that we want 
to urge the Government

[[Page 11795]]

of Iraq not to include in any amnesty plan those who have committed 
murders of U.S. soldiers or who have injured them, we cannot actually 
pass a sense of the Senate that says that? This is a nonexistent 
problem?
  Let me state how nonexistent it is and how important it is to send 
this message. We woke up to the very sad story of two missing soldiers 
who were found dead, PFC Kristian Menchaca and PFC Thomas L. Tucker. 
Let me tell the Senate what Private First Class Menchaca's uncle said:

       Don't think that it's just two more soldiers. Don't 
     negotiate anything. They [the killers] didn't. They didn't 
     negotiate it with my nephew. They didn't negotiate it with 
     Tucker.

  And we are concerned about Iraqi sovereignty when we have been 
telling the Iraqis what we want them to do, but we are so concerned 
about Iraqi sovereignty that we won't send a sense of the Senate to 
make it clear for this and any other future Iraqi Government that it is 
the Senate position that they should not consider amnesty for those 
ultimately who have committed the crime of killing American troops? 
That is beyond my comprehension.
  It seems to me the reality is we need to make a very clear statement 
today, a clear and unequivocal statement of what the position of the 
United States is as it relates to the protection of our soldiers and 
our view that no amnesty program should exist now or in the future that 
puts the lives of American soldiers in a position to be bargained for, 
negotiated for, and given amnesty for. The only way to send that very 
clear, unequivocal message is to support Senator Nelson's amendment.
  To suggest we are so concerned about their sovereignty and their 
wisdom to the extent we would send a message that you can leave 
American soldiers in harm's way--and yes, we will respect your 
sovereignty. To the extent we won't do anything about you, ultimately, 
considering an amnesty plan that would allow the lives of U.S. soldiers 
to be the subject of forgiveness, that is not what I believe the 
American people want to see. That is certainly not honoring the lives 
of those who gave their lives on behalf of their country or honoring 
their families. Only Senator Nelson's amendment does that.
  It should be strong. It should be bipartisan. It should be unanimous.
  I yield back the remainder of my time to Senator Nelson.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, how many minutes remain for the 
majority and minority?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 2\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the 
Senator from Virginia has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, we are bringing this in for 
landing. I ask the distinguished chairman of the committee, had there 
been discussions on the floor during this debate about the 
clarification of the McConnell amendment by the words ``in accordance 
with their own wisdom''?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I say to my friend at this point in time 
that we believe the amendment speaks for itself. The first section of 
the amendment cites a sense of the Congress commending the Government 
of Iraq for affirming its position of no amnesty for terrorists who 
attack U.S. Armed Forces. What could be clearer than that? That sets 
the tone and the thrust for the entire amendment.
  I have said to my colleagues, it seems to me, in the spirit of 
comity, we have had a good debate, we have seen some further 
clarification of this issue in the time that has evolved since Thursday 
and today; secondly, assuming time is a measure of accuracy, this 
policy is undergoing evaluation in Iraq right now.
  These two amendments, side by side, receiving a strong vote of the 
Senate, should suffice in the mission the Senator from Florida set out 
on and on which I join him.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, in light of the fact that this 
Senator only had 2 minutes to close, I ask unanimous consent that each 
side have 1 additional minute.
  Mr. THOMAS. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. An objection is heard to a closing in which I 
just granted part of my time to the Senator from Virginia, the chairman 
of the Senate Committee on Armed Services?
  Mr. THOMAS. Some of us have other things to do.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I am quite surprised. Sadly, on a day in which 
two more Americans have been mutilated, sadly, on a day in which the 
CNN story is quoting a claim posted on a Web site that our soldiers 
were slaughtered ``in accordance to God's will,'' and given the fact 
that it is pretty clear the amendment of this Senator sets forth the 
policy that it is the sense of the Congress that the Government of Iraq 
should not grant amnesty to persons who kill Americans, I think it is 
self-evident.
  I thank the Senator for sharing these thoughts.
  Mr. WARNER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, the question is on agreeing to the 
McConnell amendment.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 64, nays 34, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 177 Leg.]

                                YEAS--64

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

                                NAYS--34

     Akaka
     Bayh
     Biden
     Boxer
     Byrd
     Carper
     Clinton
     Dayton
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Reed
     Reid
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Stabenow
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Rockefeller
     Shelby
       
  The amendment (No. 4272), as modified, was agreed to.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 4265

  Mr. WARNER. Are the yeas and nays ordered on the Nelson amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. No.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, 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. LEVIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Are we now voting on 
the Nelson-Menendez amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair.

[[Page 11796]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. 
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 79, nays 19, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 178 Leg.]

                                YEAS--79

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Wyden

                                NAYS--19

     Allard
     Bond
     Bunning
     Burns
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Cornyn
     DeMint
     Enzi
     Graham
     Hagel
     Inhofe
     Kyl
     Lott
     McCain
     Sessions
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Rockefeller
     Shelby
       
  The amendment (No. 4265) was agreed to.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


 Amendments Nos. 4308, 4299, 4349, 4271, 4226, 4350, 4351, 4352, 4353, 
  4354, 4213, 4210, 4300, 4209, 4215 as Modified, 4355, 4356, 4217 as 
             Modified, 4357, 4358, 4359, and 4360, En Bloc

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the two managers have been working with 
Members. We have reconciled a series of amendments, and I believe at 
this point in time I will make the following statement: I have sent a 
series of amendments to the desk which have been cleared by myself and 
the ranking member. I ask, therefore, unanimous consent that the Senate 
consider these amendments en bloc, the amendments be agreed to, and 
motions to reconsider be laid on the table. Finally, I ask that any 
statements relating to any of these individual amendments be printed at 
this point in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will 
not object because the amendments have been cleared on our side, I 
would suggest that if we have a moment here, after the UC is accepted, 
we read the list of the amendments so people will know their amendments 
are in here. But if the leaders are ready to send us forward on our 
next mission, then I would withdraw that suggestion.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we first ask that you act on the unanimous 
consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The amendments were agreed to, as follows:


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4308

  (Purpose: To provide for expansion of the Junior Reserve Officers' 
                        Training Corps program)

       At the end of subtitle B of title III, add the following:

     SEC. __. EXPANSION OF JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS 
                   PROGRAM.

       (a) In General.--The Secretaries of the military 
     departments shall take appropriate actions to increase the 
     number of secondary educational institutions at which a unit 
     of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps is organized 
     under chapter 102 of title 10, United States Code.
       (b) Expansion Targets.--In increasing under subsection (a) 
     the number of secondary educational institutions at which a 
     unit of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps is 
     organized, the Secretaries of the military departments shall 
     seek to organize units at an additional number of 
     institutions as follows:
       (1) In the case of Army units, 15 institutions.
       (2) In the case of Navy units, 10 institutions.
       (3) In the case of Marine Corps units, 15 institutions.
       (4) In the case of Air Force units, 10 institutions.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4299

  (Purpose: To require a report on the feasibility of establishing a 
 scholarship or fellowship program to educate future nuclear engineers 
             at the postsecondary and postgraduate levels)

       At the end of subtitle B of title XXXI, add the following:

     SEC. 3121. EDUCATION OF FUTURE NUCLEAR ENGINEERS.

       (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) The Department of Defense and the United States depend 
     on the specialized expertise of nuclear engineers who support 
     the development and sustainment of technologies including 
     naval reactors, strategic weapons, and nuclear power plants.
       (2) Experts estimate that over 25 percent of the 
     approximately 58,000 workers in the nuclear power industry in 
     the United States will be eligible to retire within 5 years, 
     representing both a huge loss of institutional memory and a 
     potential national security crisis.
       (3) This shortfall of workers is exacerbated by reductions 
     to the University Reactor Infrastructure and Education 
     Assistance program, which trains civilian nuclear scientists 
     and engineers. The defense and civilian nuclear industries 
     are interdependent on a limited number of educational 
     institutions to produce their workforce. A reduction in 
     nuclear scientists and engineers trained in the civilian 
     sector may result in a further loss of qualified personnel 
     for defense-related research and engineering.
       (4) The Department of Defense's successful Science, Math 
     and Research for Transformation (SMART) scholarship-for-
     service program serves as a good model for a targeted 
     scholarship or fellowship program designed to educate future 
     scientists at the postsecondary and postgraduate levels.
       (b) Report on Education of Future Nuclear Engineers.--
       (1) Study.--The Secretary of Energy shall study the 
     feasibility and merit of establishing a targeted scholarship 
     or fellowship program to educate future nuclear engineers at 
     the postsecondary and postgraduate levels.
       (2) Report required.--The President shall submit to the 
     congressional defense committees, together with the budget 
     request submitted for fiscal year 2008, a report on the study 
     conducted by the Secretary of Energy under paragraph (1).


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4349

  (Purpose: To require a National Academy of Sciences study on human 
    exposure to contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune, North 
                               Carolina)

       At the end of subtitle D of title III, add the following:

     SEC. 352. NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES STUDY ON HUMAN 
                   EXPOSURE TO CONTAMINATED DRINKING WATER AT CAMP 
                   LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA.

       (a) Study Required.--
       (1) In general.--Not later than 60 days after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Navy shall enter 
     into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to 
     conduct a comprehensive review and evaluation of the 
     available scientific and medical evidence regarding 
     associations between pre-natal, child, and adult exposure to 
     drinking water contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and 
     tetrachloroethylene (PCE) at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as 
     well as other pre-natal, child, and adult exposures to levels 
     of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene similar to those 
     experienced at Camp Lejeune, and birth defects or diseases 
     and any other adverse health effects.
       (2) Elements.--In conducting the review and evaluation, the 
     Academy shall review and summarize the scientific and medical 
     evidence and assess the strength of that evidence in 
     establishing a link or association between exposure to 
     trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene and each birth 
     defect or disease suspected to be associated with such 
     exposure. For each birth defect or disease reviewed, the 
     Academy shall determine, to the extent practicable with 
     available scientific and medical data, whether--
       (A) a statistical association with such contaminant 
     exposures exists; and
       (B) there exist plausible biological mechanisms or other 
     evidence of a causal relationship between contaminant 
     exposures and the birth defect or disease.
       (3) Scope of review.--In conducting the review and 
     evaluation, the Academy shall include a review and evaluation 
     of--

[[Page 11797]]

       (A) the toxicologic and epidemiologic literature on adverse 
     health effects of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, 
     including epidemiologic and risk assessment reports from 
     government agencies;
       (B) recent literature reviews by the National Research 
     Council, Institute of Medicine, and other groups;
       (C) the completed and on-going Agency for Toxic Substances 
     Disease Registry (ATSDR) studies on potential 
     trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene exposure at Camp 
     Lejeune; and
       (D) published meta-analyses.
       (4) Peer review.--The Academy shall obtain the peer review 
     of the report prepared as a result of the review and 
     evaluation under applicable Academy procedures.
       (5) Submittal.--The Academy shall submit the report 
     prepared as a result of the review and evaluation to the 
     Secretary and Congress not later than 18 months after 
     entering into the agreement for the review and evaluation 
     under paragraph (1).
       (b) Notice on Exposure.--
       (1) Notice required.--Upon completion of the current 
     epidemiological study by the Agency for Toxic Substances 
     Disease Registry, known as the Exposure to Volatile Organic 
     Compounds in Drinking Water and Specific Birth Defects and 
     Childhood Cancers, United States Marine Corps Base Camp 
     Lejeune, North Carolina, the Commandant of the Marine Corps 
     shall take appropriate actions, including the use of national 
     media such as newspapers, television, and the Internet, to 
     notify former Camp Lejeune residents and employees who may 
     have been exposed to drinking water impacted by 
     trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene of the results of 
     the study.
       (2) Elements.--The information provided by the Commandant 
     of the Marine Corps under paragraph (1) shall be prepared in 
     conjunction with the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease 
     Registry and shall include a description of sources of 
     additional information relating to such exposure, including, 
     but not be limited to, the following:
       (A) A description of the events resulting in exposure to 
     contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune.
       (B) A description of the duration and extent of the 
     contamination of drinking water at Camp Lejeune.
       (C) The known and suspected health effects of exposure to 
     the drinking water impacted by trichloroethylene and 
     tetrachloroethylene at Camp Lejeune.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4271

   (Purpose: To enhance the authorities and responsibilities of the 
                         National Guard Bureau)

       At the end of title IX, add the following:

               Subtitle D--National Guard Bureau Matters

     SEC. 931. SHORT TITLE.

       This title may be cited as the ``National Defense 
     Enhancement and National Guard Empowerment Act of 2006''.

     SEC. 9322. EXPANDED AUTHORITY OF CHIEF OF THE NATIONAL GUARD 
                   BUREAU AND EXPANDED FUNCTIONS OF THE NATIONAL 
                   GUARD BUREAU.

       (a) Expanded Authority.--
       (1) In general.--Subsection (a) of section 10501 of title 
     10, United States Code, is amended by striking ``joint bureau 
     of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air 
     Force'' and inserting ``joint activity of the Department of 
     Defense''.
       (2) Purpose.--Subsection (b) of such section is amended by 
     striking ``between'' and all that follows and inserting 
     ``between--
       ``(1)(A) the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff, and the commanders of the combatant commands for the 
     United States, and (B) the Department of the Army and the 
     Department of the Air Force; and
       ``(2) the several States.''.
       (b) Enhancements of Position of Chief of the National Guard 
     Bureau.--
       (1) Advisory function on national guard matters.--
     Subsection (c) of section 10502 of title 10, United States 
     Code, is amended by inserting ``to the Secretary of Defense, 
     to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,'' after 
     ``principal advisor''.
       (2) Grade.--Subsection (e) of such section, as redesignated 
     by paragraph (2)(A)(i) of this subsection, is further amended 
     by striking ``lieutenant general'' and inserting ``general''.
       (3) Annual report to congress on validated requirements.--
     Section 10504 of such title is amended by adding at the end 
     the following new subsection:
       ``(c) Annual Report on Validated Requirements.--Not later 
     than December 31 each year, the Chief of the National Guard 
     Bureau shall submit to Congress a report on the requirements 
     validated under section 10503a(b)(1) of this title during the 
     preceding fiscal year.''.
       (c) Enhancement of Functions of National Guard Bureau.--
       (1) Development of charter.--Section 10503 of title 10, 
     United States Code, is amended--
       (A) in the matter preceding paragraph (1), by striking 
     ``The Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Air 
     Force shall jointly develop'' and inserting ``The Secretary 
     of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of the Army 
     and the Secretary of the Air Force, shall develop''; and
       (B) in paragraph (12), by striking ``the Secretaries'' and 
     inserting ``the Secretary of Defense''.
       (2) Additional general functions.--Such section is further 
     amended--
       (A) by redesignating paragraph (12), as amended by 
     paragraph (1)(B) of this subsection, as paragraph (13); and
       (B) by inserting after paragraph (11) the following new 
     paragraph (12):
       ``(12) Facilitating and coordinating with other Federal 
     agencies, and with the several States, the use of National 
     Guard personnel and resources for and in contingency 
     operations, military operations other than war, natural 
     disasters, support of civil authorities, and other 
     circumstances.''.
       (3) Military assistance for civil authorities.--Chapter 
     1011 of such title is further amended by inserting after 
     section 10503 the following new section:

     ``Sec. 10503a. Functions of National Guard Bureau: military 
       assistance to civil authorities

       ``(a) Identification of Additional Necessary Assistance.--
     The Chief of the National Guard Bureau shall--
       ``(1) identify gaps between Federal and State capabilities 
     to prepare for and respond to emergencies; and
       ``(2) make recommendations to the Secretary of Defense on 
     programs and activities of the National Guard for military 
     assistance to civil authorities to address such gaps.
       ``(b) Scope of Responsibilities.--In meeting the 
     requirements of subsection (a), the Chief of the National 
     Guard Bureau shall, in coordination with the Adjutant 
     Generals of the States, have responsibilities as follows:
       ``(1) To validate the requirements of the several States 
     and Territories with respect to military assistance to civil 
     authorities.
       ``(2) To develop doctrine and training requirements 
     relating to the provision of military assistance to civil 
     authorities.
       ``(3) To administer amounts provided the National Guard for 
     the provision of military assistance to civil authorities.
       ``(4) To carry out any other responsibility relating to the 
     provision of military assistance to civil authorities as the 
     Secretary of Defense shall specify.
       ``(c) Assistance.--The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff shall assist the Chief of the National Guard Bureau in 
     carrying out activities under this section.
       ``(d) Consultation.--The Chief of the National Guard Bureau 
     shall carry out activities under this section in consultation 
     with the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Air 
     Force.''.
       (4) Limitation on increase in personnel of national guard 
     bureau.--The Secretary of Defense shall, to the extent 
     practicable, ensure that no additional personnel are assigned 
     to the National Guard Bureau in order to address 
     administrative or other requirements arising out of the 
     amendments made by this subsection.
       (d) Conforming and Clerical Amendments.--
       (1) Conforming amendment.--The heading of section 10503 of 
     such title is amended to read as follows:

     ``Sec. 10503. Functions of National Guard Bureau: charter''.

       (2) Clerical amendment.--The table of sections at the 
     beginning of chapter 1011 of such title is amended by 
     striking the item relating to section 10503 and inserting the 
     following new items:
``10503. Functions of National Guard Bureau: charter.
``10503a. Functions of National Guard Bureau: military assistance to 
              civil authorities.''.

     SEC. 933. REQUIREMENT THAT POSITION OF DEPUTY COMMANDER OF 
                   THE UNITED STATES NORTHERN COMMAND BE FILLED BY 
                   A QUALIFIED NATIONAL GUARD OFFICER.

       (a) In General.--The position of Deputy Commander of the 
     United States Northern Command shall be filled by a qualified 
     officer of the National Guard who is eligible for promotion 
     to the grade of lieutenant general.
       (b) Purpose.--The purpose of the requirement in subsection 
     (a) is to ensure that information received from the National 
     Guard Bureau regarding the operation of the National Guard of 
     the several States is integrated into the plans and 
     operations of the United States Northern Command.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4226

(Purpose: To clarify the applicability of the Uniform Code of Military 
                     Justice during a time of war)

       At the end of subtitle C of title V, add the following:

     SEC. 552. CLARIFICATION OF APPLICATION OF UNIFORM CODE OF 
                   MILITARY JUSTICE DURING A TIME OF WAR.

       Paragraph (10) of section 802(a) of title 10, United States 
     Code (article 2(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice), 
     is amended by striking ``war'' and inserting ``declared war 
     or a contingency operation''.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4350

    (Purpose: To modify authorities relating to the composition and 
appointment of members of the United States Marine Band and the United 
                  States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps)

       At the end of subtitle A of title IX, add the following:

[[Page 11798]]



     SEC. 903. UNITED STATES MARINE BAND AND UNITED STATES MARINE 
                   DRUM AND BUGLE CORPS.

       (a) In General.--Section 6222 of title 10, United States 
     Code, is amended to read as follows:

     ``Sec. 6222. United States Marine Band; United States Marine 
       Drum and Bugle Corps: composition; appointment and 
       promotion of members

       ``(a) United States Marine Band.--The band of the Marine 
     Corps shall be composed of one director, two assistant 
     directors, and other personnel in such numbers and grades as 
     the Secretary of the Navy determines to be necessary.
       ``(b) United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps.--The drum 
     and bugle corps of the Marine Corps shall be composed of one 
     commanding officer and other personnel in such numbers and 
     grades as the Secretary of the Navy determines to be 
     necessary.
       ``(c) Appointment and Promotion.--(1) The Secretary of the 
     Navy shall prescribe regulations for the appointment and 
     promotion of members of the Marine Band and members of the 
     Marine Drum and Bugle Corps.
       ``(2) The President may from time to time appoint members 
     of the Marine Band and members of the Marine Drum and Bugle 
     Corps to grades not above the grade of captain. The authority 
     of the President to make appointments under this paragraph 
     may be delegated only to the Secretary of Defense.
       ``(3) The President, by and with the advice and consent of 
     the Senate, may from time to time appoint any member of the 
     Marine Band or of the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps to a grade 
     above the grade of captain.
       ``(d) Retirement.--Unless otherwise entitled to higher 
     retired grade and retired pay, a member of the Marine Band or 
     Marine Drum and Bugle Corps who holds, or has held, an 
     appointment under this section is entitled, when retired, to 
     be retired in, and with retired pay based on, the highest 
     grade held under this section in which the Secretary of the 
     Navy determines that such member served satisfactorily.
       ``(e) Revocation of Appointment.--The Secretary of the Navy 
     may revoke any appointment of a member of the Marine Band or 
     Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. When a member's appointment to a 
     commissioned grade terminates under this subsection, such 
     member is entitled, at the option of such member--
       ``(1) to be discharged from the Marine Corps; or
       ``(2) to revert to the grade and status such member held at 
     the time of appointment under this section.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of sections at the 
     beginning of chapter 565 of such title is amended by striking 
     the item relating to section 6222 and inserting the following 
     new item:
``6222. United States Marine Band; United States Marine Drum and Bugle 
              Corps: composition; appointment and promotion of 
              members.''.


                           Amendment No. 4351

  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4352

   (Purpose: To authorize the temporary use of the National Guard to 
 provide support for border security along the southern land border of 
                           the United States)

       At the end of subtitle E of title X, add the following:

     SEC. 1044. TEMPORARY NATIONAL GUARD SUPPORT FOR SECURING THE 
                   SOUTHERN LAND BORDER OF THE UNITED STATES.

       (a) Authority To Provide Assistance.--(1) With the approval 
     of the Secretary of Defense, the Governor of a State may 
     order any units or personnel of the National Guard of such 
     State to annual training duty under section 502(a) of title 
     32, United States Code, to carry out in any State along the 
     Southern land border of the United States the activities 
     authorized in subsection (b) for the purpose of securing such 
     border. Such duty shall not exceed 21 days in any year.
       (2) With the approval of the Secretary of Defense, the 
     Governor of a State may order any units or personnel of the 
     National Guard of such State to perform duty under section 
     502(f) of title 32, United States Code, to provide command, 
     control, and continuity of support for units and personnel 
     performing annual training duty under paragraph (1).
       (b) Authorized Activities.--The activities authorized by 
     this subsection are the following:
       (1) Ground surveillance activities.
       (2) Airborne surveillance activities.
       (3) Logistical support.
       (4) Provision of translation services and training.
       (5) Provision of administrative support services.
       (6) Provision of technical training services.
       (7) Provision of emergency medical assistance and services.
       (8) Provision of communications services.
       (9) Rescue of aliens in peril.
       (10) Construction of roadways, patrol roads, fences, 
     barriers, and other facilities to secure the southern land 
     border of the United States.
       (11) Ground and air transportation.
       (c) Cooperative Agreements.--Units and personnel of the 
     National Guard of a State may perform activities in another 
     State under subsection (a) only pursuant to the terms of an 
     emergency management assistance compact or other cooperative 
     arrangement entered into between the Governors of such States 
     for purposes of this section, and only with the approval of 
     the Secretary of Defense.
       (d) Coordination of Assistance.--The Secretary of Homeland 
     Security shall, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense 
     and the Governors of the States concerned, coordinate the 
     performance of activities under this section by units and 
     personnel of the National Guard.
       (e) Annual Training.--Annual training duty performed by 
     members of the National Guard under this section shall be 
     appropriate for the units and individual members concerned, 
     taking into account the types of units and military 
     occupational specialties of individual members performing 
     such duty.
       (f) Prohibition on Direct Participation in Law 
     Enforcement.--Activities carried out under this section shall 
     not include the direct participation of a member of the 
     National Guard in a search, seizure, arrest, or similar 
     activity.
       (g) Duration of Authority.--The authority of this section 
     shall expire on January 1, 2009.
       (h) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) The term ``Governor of a State'' means, in the case of 
     the District of Columbia, the Commanding General of the 
     National Guard of the District of Columbia.
       (2) The term ``State'' means each of the several States and 
     the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 
     Guam, and the Virgin Islands.
       (3) The term ``State along the southern land border of the 
     United States'' means each of the following:
       (A) The State of Arizona.
       (B) The State of California.
       (C) The State of New Mexico.
       (D) The State of Texas.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4353

  (Purpose: To ensure government performance of critical acquisition 
                               functions)

       At the end of subtitle A of title VIII, add the following:

     SEC. 812. GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE OF CRITICAL ACQUISITION 
                   FUNCTIONS.

       (a) Government Performance of Functions.--
       (1) In general.--Section 2383 of title 10, United States 
     Code is amended--
       (A) by redesignating subsection (b) as subsection (c); and
       (B) by inserting after subsection (a) the following new 
     subsection (b):
       ``(b) Government Performance of Critical Acquisition 
     Functions.--The head of an agency shall ensure that, at a 
     minimum, for each major defense acquisition program and each 
     major automated information system program, each of the 
     following positions is performed by a properly qualified 
     full-time Federal military or civilian employee:
       ``(1) Program manager.
       ``(2) Deputy program manager.
       ``(3) Chief engineer.
       ``(4) Systems engineer.
       ``(5) Cost estimator.
       (2) Definitional matters.--Subsection (c) of such section, 
     as redesignated by paragraph (1)(A) of this subsection, is 
     further amended by adding at the end the following new 
     paragraphs:
       ``(5) The term `major defense acquisition program' has the 
     meaning given such term in section 2430(a) of this title.
       ``(6) The term `major automated information system program' 
     has the meaning given such term in section 2445a(a) of this 
     title.''.
       (b) Effective Date and Phase-in.--
       (1) Effective date.--The amendments made by subsection (a) 
     shall take effect on the date that is one year after the date 
     of enactment of this Act.
       (2) Temporary waver.--During the two years period beginning 
     on the effective date specified in paragraph (1), the head of 
     an agency may waive the requirement in subsection (b) of 
     section 2383 of title 10, United States Code, as amended by 
     subsection (a) of this section, with regard to a specific 
     function on a particular program upon a written determination 
     by the head of the agency that a properly qualified full-time 
     Federal military or civilian employee cannot reasonably be 
     made available to perform such function.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4354

(Purpose: To require a report on technologies designed to neutralize or 
 defeat the threat to military rotary wing aircraft posed by portable 
           air defense systems and rocket propelled grenades)

       At the end of subtitle G of title X, add the following:

     SEC. 1066. REPORT ON TECHNOLOGIES FOR NEUTRALIZING OR 
                   DEFEATING THREATS TO MILITARY ROTARY WING 
                   AIRCRAFT FROM PORTABLE AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS AND 
                   ROCKET PROPELLED GRENADES.

       (a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall 
     submit to Congress a report on technologies for neutralizing 
     or defeating threats to military rotary wing aircraft posed 
     by portable air defense systems and rocket propelled grenades

[[Page 11799]]

     that are being researched, developed, employed, or considered 
     by the United States Government or the North Atlantic Treaty 
     Organization.
       (b) Content.--The report required under subsection (a) 
     shall include--
       (1) an assessment of the expected value and utility of the 
     technologies, particularly with respect to--
       (A) the saving of lives;
       (B) the ability to reduce the vulnerability of aircraft; 
     and
       (C) the enhancement of the ability of aircraft and their 
     crews to accomplish assigned missions;
       (2) an assessment of the potential costs of developing and 
     deploying such technologies;
       (3) a description of efforts undertaken to develop such 
     technologies, including--
       (A) non-lethal counter measures;
       (B) lasers and other systems designed to dazzle, impede, or 
     obscure threatening weapon or their users;
       (C) direct fire response systems;
       (D) directed energy weapons; and
       (E) passive and active systems; and
       (4) a description of any impediments to the development of 
     such technologies, such as legal restrictions under the law 
     of war, treaty restrictions under the Protocol on Blinding 
     Lasers, and political obstacles such as the reluctance of 
     other allied countries to pursue such technologies.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4213

  (Purpose: To provide for a review of the legal status of the Junior 
               Reserve Officers' Training Corps program)

       At the end of subtitle D of title V, add the following:

     SEC. 569. REVIEW OF LEGAL STATUS OF JUNIOR ROTC PROGRAM.

       (a) Review.--The Secretary of Defense shall conduct a 
     review of the 1976 legal opinion issued by the General 
     Counsel of the Department of Defense regarding instruction of 
     non-host unit students participating in Junior Reserve 
     Officers' Training Corps programs. The review shall consider 
     whether changes to law after the issuance of that opinion 
     allow in certain circumstances for the arrangement for 
     assignment of instructors that provides for the travel of an 
     instructor from one educational institution to another once 
     during the regular school day for the purposes of the Junior 
     Reserve Officers' Training Corps program as an authorized 
     arrangement that enhances administrative efficiency in the 
     management of the program. If the Secretary, as a result of 
     the review, determines that such authority is not available, 
     the Secretary should also consider whether such authority 
     should be available and whether there should be authority to 
     waive the restrictions under certain circumstances.
       (b) Report.--The Secretary shall submit to the Committee on 
     Armed Services of the Senate and the Committee on Armed 
     Services of the House of Representatives a report containing 
     the results of the review not later than 180 days after the 
     date of the enactment of this Act.
       (c) Interim Authority.--A current institution that has more 
     than 70 students and is providing support to another 
     educational institutional with more than 70 students and has 
     been providing for the assignment of instructors from one 
     school to the other may continue to provide such support 
     until 180 days following receipt of the report under 
     subsection (b).


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4210

 (Purpose: Expressing the sense of the Senate on notice to Congress of 
 the recognition of members of the Armed Forces for extraordinary acts 
                 of heroism, bravery, and achievement)

       At the end of subtitle F of title V, add the following:

     SEC. 587. SENSE OF SENATE ON NOTICE TO CONGRESS OF 
                   RECOGNITION OF MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES FOR 
                   EXTRAORDINARY ACTS OF BRAVERY, HEROISM, AND 
                   ACHIEVEMENT.

       It is the sense of the Senate that the Secretary of Defense 
     or the Secretary of the military department concerned should, 
     upon awarding a medal to a member of the Armed Forces or 
     otherwise commending or recognizing a member of the Armed 
     Forces for an act of extraordinary heroism, bravery, 
     achievement, or other distinction, notify the Committee on 
     Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives, 
     the Senators from the State in which such member resides, and 
     the Member of the House of Representatives from the district 
     in which such member resides of such extraordinary award, 
     commendation, or recognition.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4300

       (Purpose: Relating to multi-spectral imaging capabilities)

       At the end of subtitle D of title I, add the following:

     SEC. 147. MULTI-SPECTRAL IMAGING CAPABILITIES.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate makes the following findings:
       (1) The budget of the President for fiscal year 2007, as 
     submitted to Congress under section 1105(a) of title 31, 
     United States Code, and the current Future-Years Defense 
     Program adopts an Air Force plan to retire the remaining 
     fleet of U-2 aircraft by 2011.
       (2) This retirement would eliminate the multi-spectral 
     capability provided by the electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) 
     Senior Year Electro-optical Reconnaissance System (SYERS-2) 
     high-altitude imaging system.
       (3) The system referred to in paragraph (2) provides high-
     resolution, long-range, day-and-night image intelligence.
       (4) The infrared capabilities of the system referred to in 
     paragraph (2) can defeat enemy efforts to use camouflage or 
     concealment, as well as provide images through poor 
     visibility and smoke.
       (5) Although the Air Force has previously recognized the 
     military value of Senior Year Electro-optical Reconnaissance 
     System sensors, the Air Force has no plans to migrate this 
     capability to any platform remaining in the fleet.
       (6) The Air Force could integrate such capabilities onto 
     the Global Hawk platform to retain this capability for 
     combatant commanders.
       (7) The Nation risks a loss of an important intelligence 
     gathering capability if this capability is not transferred to 
     another platform.
       (b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate that 
     the Air Force should investigate ways to retain the multi-
     spectral imaging capabilities provided by the Senior Year 
     Electro-optical Reconnaissance System high-altitude imaging 
     system after the retirement of the U-2 aircraft fleet.
       (c) Report Requirement.--The Secretary of the Air Force 
     shall submit to the congressional defense committees, at the 
     same time the budget of the President for fiscal year 2008 is 
     submitted to Congress under section 1105(a) of title 31, 
     United States Code, a plan for migrating the capabilities 
     provided by the Senior Year Electro-optical Reconnaissance 
     System high-altitude imaging system from the U-2 aircraft to 
     the Global Hawk platform before the retirement of the U-2 
     aircraft fleet in 2011.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4209

   (Purpose: To commend the men and women of the Armed Forces of the 
 United States in Iraq for their on-going service to the United States)

       At the the end of subtitle I of title X, insert the 
     following:

     SEC. 1084. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING THE MEN AND WOMEN OF 
                   THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES IN IRAQ.

       (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) In 2003, members of the Armed Forces of the United 
     States successfully liberated the people of Iraq from the 
     tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein.
       (2) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     bravely risked their lives everyday over the last 3 years to 
     protect the people of Iraq from terror attacks by Al Qaeda 
     and other extremist organizations.
       (3) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     conducted dozens of operations with coalition forces to 
     track, apprehend, and eliminate terrorists in Iraq.
       (4) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     helped sustain political progress in Iraq by assisting the 
     people of Iraq as they exercised their right to choose their 
     leaders and draft their own constitution.
       (5) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     taught over 150,000 soldiers of Iraq to respect civilian 
     authority, conduct counter-insurgency operations, provide 
     meaningful security, and protect the people of Iraq from 
     terror attacks.
       (6) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     built new schools, hospitals, and public works throughout 
     Iraq.
       (7) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     helped rebuild Iraq's dilapidated energy sector.
       (8) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     restored electrical power and sewage waste treatment for the 
     people of Iraq.
       (9) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     established lasting and productive relationships with local 
     leaders in Iraq and secured the support of a majority of the 
     populace of Iraq.
       (10) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     courageously endured sophisticated terror tactics, including 
     deadly car-bombs, sniper attacks, and improvised explosive 
     devices.
       (11) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     paid a high cost in order to defeat the terrorists, defend 
     innocent civilians, and protect democracy from those who 
     desire the return of oppression and extremism to Iraq.
       (12) Members of the Armed Forces of the United States have 
     performed their duty in Iraq with an unflagging commitment to 
     the highest ideals and traditions of the United States and 
     the Armed Forces.
       (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
       (1) the men and women in uniform of the Armed Forces of the 
     United States in Iraq should be commended for their on-going 
     service to the United States, their commitment to the ideals 
     of the United States, and their determination to win the 
     Global War on Terrorism;

[[Page 11800]]

       (2) gratitude should be expressed to the families of the 
     Armed Forces of the United States, especially those families 
     who have lost loved ones in Operational Iraqi Freedom; and
       (3) the people of the United States should honor those who 
     have paid the ultimate sacrifice and assist those families 
     who have loved ones in the Armed Forces of the United States 
     deployed overseas.


                           Amendment no. 4215

 (Purpose: To provide for 2 programs to authorize the use of leave by 
cargivers for family members of certain individuals performing military 
                    service, and for other purposes)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. PROGRAMS FOR USE OF LEAVE BY CAREGIVERS FOR FAMILY 
                   MEMBERS OF INDIVIDUALS PERFORMING CERTAIN 
                   MILITARY SERVICE.

       (a) Federal Employees Program.--
       (1) Definitions.--In this subsection:
       (A) Caregiver.--The term ``caregiver'' means an individual 
     who--
       (i) is an employee;
       (ii) is at least 21 years of age; and
       (iii) is capable of self care and care of children or other 
     dependent family members of a qualified member of the Armed 
     Forces.
       (B) Covered period of service.--The term ``covered period 
     of service'' means any period of service performed by an 
     employee as a caregiver while the individual who designated 
     the caregiver under paragraph (3) remains a qualified member 
     of the Armed Forces.
       (C) Employee.--The term ``employee'' has the meaning given 
     under section 6331 of title 5, United States Code.
       (D) Family member.--The term ``family member'' includes--
       (i) individuals for whom the qualified member of the Armed 
     Forces provides medical, financial, and logistical support 
     (such as housing, food, clothing, or transportation); and
       (ii) children under the age of 19 years, elderly adults, 
     persons with disabilities, and other persons who are unable 
     to care for themselves in the absence of the qualified member 
     of the Armed Forces.
       (E) Qualified member of the armed forces.--The term 
     ``qualified member of the Armed Forces'' means--
       (i) a member of a reserve component of the Armed Forces as 
     described under section 10101 of title 10, United States 
     Code, who has received notice to report to, or is serving on, 
     active duty in the Armed Forces in support of a contingency 
     operation as defined under section 101(a)(13) of title 10, 
     United States Code; or
       (ii) a member of the Armed Forces on active duty who is 
     eligible for hostile fire or imminent danger special pay 
     under section 310 of title 37, United States Code.
       (2) Establishment of program.--The Office of Personnel 
     Management shall establish a program to authorize a caregiver 
     to--
       (A) use any sick leave of that caregiver during a covered 
     period of service in the same manner and to the same extent 
     as annual leave is used; and
       (B) use any leave available to that caregiver under 
     subchapter III or IV of chapter 63 of title 5, United States 
     Code, during a covered period of service as though that 
     covered period of service is a medical emergency.
       (3) Designation of caregiver.--
       (A) In general.--A qualified member of the Armed Forces 
     shall submit a written designation of the individual who is 
     the caregiver for any family member of that member of the 
     Armed Forces during a covered period of service to the 
     employing agency and the Office of Personnel Management.
       (B) Designation of spouse.--Notwithstanding paragraph 
     (1)(A)(ii), an individual less than 21 years of age may be 
     designated as a caregiver if that individual is the spouse of 
     the qualified member of the Armed Forces making the 
     designation.
       (4) Use of caregiver leave.--Leave may only be used under 
     this subsection for purposes directly relating to, or 
     resulting from, the designation of an employee as a 
     caregiver.
       (5) Regulations.--Not later than 120 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Office of Personnel Management 
     shall prescribe regulations to carry out this subsection.
       (6) Termination.--The program under this subsection shall 
     terminate on December 31, 2007.
       (b) Voluntary Private Sector Leave Program.--
       (1) Definitions.--
       (A) Caregiver.--The term ``caregiver'' means an individual 
     who--
       (i) is an employee;
       (ii) is at least 21 years of age; and
       (iii) is capable of self care and care of children or other 
     dependent family members of a qualified member of the Armed 
     Forces.
       (B) Covered period of service.--The term ``covered period 
     of service'' means any period of service performed by an 
     employee as a caregiver while the individual who designated 
     the caregiver under paragraph (4) remains a qualified member 
     of the Armed Forces.
       (C) Employee.--The term ``employee'' means an employee of a 
     business entity participating in the program under this 
     subsection.
       (D) Family member.--The term ``family member'' includes--
       (i) individuals for whom the qualified member of the Armed 
     Forces provides medical, financial, and logistical support 
     (such as housing, food, clothing, or transportation); and
       (ii) children under the age of 19 years, elderly adults, 
     persons with disabilities, and other persons who are unable 
     to care for themselves in the absence of the qualified member 
     of the Armed Forces.
       (E) Qualified member of the armed forces.--The term 
     ``qualified member of the Armed Forces'' means--
       (i) a member of a reserve component of the Armed Forces as 
     described under section 10101 of title 10, United States 
     Code, who has received notice to report to, or is serving on, 
     active duty in the Armed Forces in support of a contingency 
     operation as defined under section 101(a)(13) of title 10, 
     United States Code; or
       (ii) a member of the Armed Forces on active duty who is 
     eligible for hostile fire or imminent danger special pay 
     under section 310 of title 37, United States Code.
       (2) Establishment of program.--
       (A) In general.--The Secretary of Labor may establish a 
     program to authorize employees of business entities described 
     under paragraph (3) to use sick leave, or any other leave 
     available to an employee, during a covered period of service 
     in the same manner and to the same extent as annual leave (or 
     its equivalent) is used.
       (B) Exception.--Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to leave 
     made available under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 
     (29 U.S.C. 2601 et seq.).
       (3) Voluntary business participation.--The Secretary of 
     Labor may solicit business entities to voluntarily 
     participate in the program under this subsection.
       (4) Designation of caregiver.--
       (A) In general.--A qualified member of the Armed Forces 
     shall submit a written designation of the individual who is 
     the caregiver for any family member of that member of the 
     Armed Forces during a covered period of service to the 
     employing business entity.
       (B) Designation of spouse.--Notwithstanding paragraph 
     (1)(A)(ii), an individual less than 21 years of age may be 
     designated as a caregiver if that individual is the spouse of 
     the qualified member of the Armed Forces making the 
     designation.
       (5) Use of caregiver leave.--Leave may only be used under 
     this subsection for purposes directly relating to, or 
     resulting from, the designation of an employee as a 
     caregiver.
       (6) Regulations.--Not later than 120 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Labor may prescribe 
     regulations to carry out this subsection.
       (7) Termination.--The program under this subsection shall 
     terminate on December 31, 2007.
       (c) GAO Report.--Not later than June 30, 2007, the 
     Government Accountability Office shall submit a report to 
     Congress on the programs under subsections (a) and (b) that 
     includes--
       (1) an evaluation of the success of each program; and
       (2) recommendations for the continuance or termination of 
     each program.


                           Amendment no. 4355

   (Purpose: To modify the increase in the fiscal year 2006 general 
                          transfer authority)

       On page 380, line 18, strike ``$3,750,000,000'' and insert 
     ``$5,000,000,000''.


                           Amendment no. 4356

(Purpose: To authorize additional emergency supplemental appropriations 
                         for fiscal year 2006)

       Strike section 1002 and insert the following:

     SEC. 1002. AUTHORIZATION OF ADDITIONAL EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL 
                   APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006.

       (a) Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terror.--
     Amounts authorized to be appropriated to the Department of 
     Defense for fiscal year 2006 in the National Defense 
     Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (Public Law 109-163) 
     are hereby adjusted, with respect to any such authorized 
     amount, by the amount by which appropriations pursuant to 
     such authorization are increased by a supplemental 
     appropriation, or decreased by a rescission, or both, or are 
     increased by a transfer of funds, pursuant to title I of the 
     Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the 
     Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, 2006 (Public 
     Law 109-234).
       (b) Hurricane Disaster Relief and Recovery.--Amounts 
     authorized to be appropriated to the Department of Defense 
     for fiscal year 2006 in the National Defense Authorization 
     Act for Fiscal Year 2006 are hereby adjusted, with respect to 
     any such authorized amount, by the amount by which 
     appropriations pursuant to such authorization are increased 
     by a supplemental appropriation, or decreased by a 
     rescission, or both, or are increased by a transfer of funds, 
     pursuant to title II of the Emergency Supplemental 
     Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and 
     Hurricane Recovery, 2006.
       (c) Border Security.--Amounts authorized to be appropriated 
     to the Department of

[[Page 11801]]

     Defense for fiscal year 2006 in the National Defense 
     Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 are hereby adjusted, 
     with respect to any such authorized amount, by the amount by 
     which appropriations pursuant to such authorization are 
     increased by a supplemental appropriation, or decreased by a 
     rescission, or both, or are increased by a transfer of funds, 
     pursuant to title V of the Emergency Supplemental 
     Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and 
     Hurricane Recovery, 2006.


                           Amendment no. 4217

 (Purpose: To require a report on the future aerial training airspace 
               requirements of the Department of Defense)

       At the end of subtitle D of title III, add the following:

     SEC. 352. REPORT ON AERIAL TRAINING AIRSPACE REQUIREMENTS OF 
                   THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

       (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) Access to and use of available and unfettered aerial 
     training airspace is critical for preserving aircrew 
     warfighting proficiency and the ability to test, evaluate, 
     and improve capabilities of both personnel and equipment 
     within the most realistic training environments possible.
       (2) The growth of civilian and commercial aviation traffic 
     and the rapid expansion of commercial and general air traffic 
     lanes across the continental Unites States has left few 
     remaining areas of the country available for realistic air 
     combat training or expansion of existing training areas.
       (3) Many Military Operating Areas (MOAs) originally 
     established in what was once open and uncongested airspace 
     are now encroached upon by a heavy volume of commercial and 
     general air traffic, making training more difficult and 
     potentially hazardous.
       (4) Some aerial training areas in the upper great plains, 
     western States, and Gulf coast remain largely free from 
     encroachment and available for increased use, expansion, and 
     preservation for the future.
       (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that 
     the Department of Defense should--
       (1) establish a policy to identify military aerial training 
     areas that are projected to remain viable and free from 
     encroachment well into the 21st century;
       (2) determine aerial training airspace requirements to meet 
     future training and airspace requirements of current and next 
     generation military aircraft; and
       (3) undertake all necessary actions in a timely manner, 
     including coordination with the Federal Aviation 
     Administration, to preserve, and if necessary, expand those 
     areas of airspace to meet present and future training 
     requirements.
       (c) Report.--Not later than 120 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall submit 
     to the congressional defense committees a report setting 
     forth a proposed plan to preserve and, if necessary, expand 
     available aerial training airspace to meet the projected 
     needs of the Department of Defense for such airspace through 
     2025.


                           Amendment no. 4357

(Purpose: To establish a goal of the Department of Defense relating to 
         the use of renewable energy to meet electricity needs)

       At the end of subtitle B of title XXVIII, add the 
     following:

     SEC. 2828. USE OF RENEWABLE ENERGY TO MEET ELECTRICITY NEEDS.

       It shall be the goal of the Department of Defense to ensure 
     that the Department--
       (1) produces or procures not less than 25 percent of the 
     total quantity of electric energy it consumes within its 
     facilities and in its activities during fiscal year 2025 and 
     each fiscal year thereafter from renewable energy sources (as 
     defined in section 203(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 
     (42 U.S.C. 15852(b)); and
       (2) produces or procures such renewable energy when it is 
     life-cycle cost effective to do so (as defined in section 708 
     of Executive Order 13123 (42 U.S.C. 8251 note; relating to 
     greening the Government through efficient energy 
     management)).


                           Amendment no. 4358

    (Purpose: To modify the limitation on availability of funds for 
 Department of Defense participation in multinational military centers 
                             of excellence)

       On page 463, beginning on line 8, strike ``paragraph (1) in 
     fiscal year 2007 for the expenses and costs'' and insert 
     ``paragraph (1)(A) in fiscal year 2007 for the expenses''.


                           Amendment no. 4359

 (Purpose: To require a report on actions to reduce the consumption of 
           petroleum-based fuel by the Department of Defense)

       At the end of subtitle D of title III, add the following:

     SEC. 352. REPORT ON ACTIONS TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 
                   CONSUMPTION OF PETROLEUM-BASED FUEL.

       (a) Report Required.--Not later than one year after the 
     date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense 
     shall submit to the Committees on Armed Services of the 
     Senate and the House of Representatives a report on the 
     actions taken, and to be taken, by the Department of Defense 
     to reduce the consumption by the Department of petroleum-
     based fuel.
       (b) Elements.--The report shall include the status of 
     implementation by the Department of the requirements of the 
     following:
       (1) The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-58).
       (2) The Energy Policy Act of 1992. (Public Law 102-486)
       (3) Executive Order 13123.
       (4) Executive Order 13149.
       (5) Any other law, regulation, or directive relating to the 
     consumption by the Department of petroleum-based fuel.


                           Amendment no. 4360

     (Purpose: To require a report assessing the desirability and 
  feasibility of conducting joint officer promotion selection boards)

       At the end of part II of subtitle A of title V, add the 
     following:

     SEC. 521. REPORT ON JOINT OFFICER PROMOTION BOARDS.

       (a) Report Required.--Not later than June 1, 2007, the 
     Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committee on Armed 
     Services of the Senate and House of Representatives a report 
     on the desirability and feasibility of conducting joint 
     officer promotion selection boards.
       (b) Elements.--The report under subsection (a) shall 
     include--
       (1) a discussion of the limitations in existing officer 
     career paths and promotion procedures that might warrant the 
     conduct of joint officer promotion selection boards;
       (2) an identification of the requirements for officers for 
     which joint officer promotion selection boards would be 
     advantageous;
       (3) recommendations on methods to demonstrate how joint 
     officer promotion selection boards might be structured, and 
     an evaluation of the feasibility of such methods; and
       (4) any proposals for legislative action that the Secretary 
     considers appropriate.

  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I am pleased that my amendment to 
support military families was accepted today by the Senate by unanimous 
consent to S. 2766, the National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal 
year 2007. Let me begin by thanking my good friend, the Senator from 
Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold, who joined me last year in introducing the 
legislation upon which this amendment is based, S. 1888, the Military 
Family Support Act. His advocacy for this issue and for the families of 
our men and women in uniform is greatly appreciated. I would also like 
to recognize Senator Dayton, Senator Lautenberg, and Senator Murray for 
their support for this amendment. Of course, the Senate and our Nation 
benefit greatly from the leadership on national defense issues of the 
Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed 
Services Committee, and the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin. I thank 
them both and their staff for their assistance with this amendment.
  I would also like to acknowledge the cooperation of Senate Homeland 
Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairwoman Collins and 
Ranking Member Lieberman and the expertise of their staff. They were 
very helpful in the process that has led to this amendment, and I 
appreciate their assistance.
  At about this time last year, I was contacted by a group of 
Vermonters who were trying to help their coworkers with family members 
serving in Iraq as part of the Vermont National Guard. I was impressed 
by the generosity of Vermonters who wanted to do all they could to help 
ease the strains of military deployments felt by their friends and 
neighbors. I was also reminded of how a family's day-to-day life is 
disrupted by a deployment of a loved one overseas.
  This amendment calls for two pilot programs to help with family 
disruptions due to an overseas deployment. The first pilot program, 
administered by the Office of Personnel Management, OPM, would 
authorize Federal employees who have been designated by a member of the 
Armed Forces as ``caregivers'', as defined by the Department of 
Defense, DOD, to use their leave in a more flexible manner. No new 
leave would be given to any employees. This amendment simply makes 
leave already available more useful during stressful times for military 
families. The second pilot program allows the Department of Labor, DOL, 
to solicit businesses to voluntarily take part in a program to offer 
more accommodating leave to their employees. This amendment does not

[[Page 11802]]

include in its scope the Family Medical Leave Act, FMLA, and it does 
not require any private sector entity to participate.
  Mr. President, in closing, this amendment aims to make life a little 
easier for those who are already giving so much to our country and to 
their communities.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
amendment be set aside and this amendment be sent to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am 
wondering whether we have an order here where we are alternating and, 
if so, what the situation is.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would respond that we have concluded all 
the work at the moment. I believe our leaders are working out a 
procedure by which the minimum wage amendments are being addressed.
  Mr. LEVIN. I wonder, as the alternative now comes to us, whether we 
could let Senator Harkin first go before Senator Enzi. On the other 
hand, if it is your turn in rotation, then we would have no objection.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, at this moment I think there has been a 
request to go off of our bill. Is that the request of the Senator from 
Wyoming?
  Mr. ENZI. No, Mr. President. Senator Kennedy filed an amendment that 
dealt with the minimum wage. I actually won't send mine to the desk 
right now, but I would like to comment on that right now.
  Mr. WARNER. The Senator is quite correct, quite correct. We will 
remain on the bill for the purpose of debate on such amendments 
relative to minimum wage that may be brought forward, correct. Senator 
Kennedy's is at the desk and you wish to speak to it?
  Mr. ENZI. That is correct. Of course, I am going to ask that he 
withdraw that amendment and I do not propose my amendment because they 
don't have to do with the Department of Defense authorization.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator request to set aside the 
pending amendment?
  Mr. ENZI. The Senator withdraws his request to do that but requests 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has the floor.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I know that some people who are following 
this debate might be wondering how the minimum wage relates to 
legislation that authorizes national security programs in the 
Department of Defense and the Department of Energy for the next year, 
and that is certainly a valid question. The answer is: It doesn't.
  The underlying legislation the Senate has been considering for over a 
week is of tremendous importance to our national security. The bill is 
bipartisan and was reported out of committee unanimously. As those of 
us who chair committees know, it isn't easy to obtain unanimous 
bipartisan support for legislation. Chairman Warner and Ranking Member 
Levin worked hard to achieve this feat because the subject of the bill 
is so critically important. Now I believe we owe it to them, as well as 
to our constituents and every American, to give this national security 
legislation swift consideration so that it can become law.
  The amendment offered by Senator Kennedy has the opposite effect. It 
will slow this bill down because it is an entirely different subject 
than the underlying bill. It will take up valuable debate time that 
should be spent on the bill's national security provisions. Should it 
be adopted, the Kennedy amendment would become a thorny issue for the 
conference committee, and that will further slow down the bill's 
enactment.
  Even more frustrating, the issue Senator Kennedy is raising has been 
considered and voted on by the Senate four times already in this 
Congress. We voted on the majority and minority plans to raise the 
minimum wage twice. We voted on the two of them in March, and we voted 
on them in November. Now, both times, no proposal succeeded.
  Amendments offered by the Senate must comply with certain budget 
rules which, as a member of the Budget Committee, I fully support. 
Amendments that constitute an unfunded mandate are subject to a point 
of order which can only be waived with a vote of 60 Senators. Not 1 of 
the 4 minimum wage amendments has received 60 votes in the Senate this 
Congress. Yet here we are again, facing the same situation, using up 
time on the Defense bill. The outcome is likely to be the same as it 
was the last four times we voted. Knowing this, I find it difficult to 
understand why those on the other side of the aisle want to bring it up 
again on this critically important national security bill.
  Let us not misuse the time we should be spending debating our 
national security priorities for the next year by repeating votes that 
already occurred four times in this Congress. Instead, let's focus on 
how we should prepare for the many threats we face as a nation. The 
good men and women who work for the Department of Defense and the 
Department of Energy need our authorization and our guidance to move 
forward with their activities that keep us safe. We have always done it 
before we do the appropriations on those budgets. We should not let 
them down. We should not let the American people down.
  I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle not to divert 
this debate on to an entirely unrelated matter, the outcome of which is 
clearly determinable. So I urge my colleague, Senator Kennedy, to 
withdraw his amendment. I would add that if he does not, I am plenty 
willing to have the debate again. We want to have the American public 
making as much money as possible.
  I would rise in opposition to the amendment offered by Senator 
Kennedy that would increase the Federal minimum wage to $7.25 over 26 
months, which amounts to a 41-percent increase. My amendment would 
raise the minimum wage by $1.10 in two 55-cent steps over 18 months. 
But, more important than the numbers, only my amendment recognizes the 
enormous burdens a mandate such as this would place on the backs of 
America's small businesses.
  The Senator from Massachusetts has previously referred to the 
economic effect of the minimum wage proposal as a drop in the bucket in 
the national payroll. Comments such as this are precisely why small 
business owners across the Nation believe that Washington, DC, 
politicians do not understand their needs. We must always bear in mind 
that these are the people who create jobs that provide an increasing 
percentage of employment for all workers, including those entering the 
workforce for the first time and those who most need to acquire job 
skills. Those businesses train people with no skills. We are not 
talking minimum wage; we are talking minimum skills. And a lot of the 
small businesses that employ people at a minimum wage hire them at a 
minimum wage with no skills. As they get skills, which in many of those 
businesses occur in the first month they are hired, they go above the 
minimum wage to other levels, and as quickly as they learn other 
skills, they get paid more money or they go elsewhere, which is another 
option.
  It is particularly offensive to those employers doing that training 
to suggest that a 41-percent increase in their labor costs amounts to a 
drop in the bucket. A 41-percent increase in labor costs forces a small 
businessperson to face difficult choices such as whether to increase 
prices, which they usually can't do or face a potential loss of 
customers because they raise the price, or whether to reduce spending 
on health insurance coverage or other benefits for their employees or, 
the worst of all possibilities, to terminate employees. These choices 
are far more significant than a drop in the bucket.

[[Page 11803]]

  Apart from its failure to mitigate the cost of this mandate for small 
businesses, Senator Kennedy's amendment also fails to address the root 
of the problem for our lowest paid workers. Congress, by simply 
imposing an artificial wage increase, will not meaningfully address the 
real issue of the lowest paid workers. Regardless of the size of any 
wage increase Congress might impose, the reality is that yesterday's 
lowest paid worker, assuming he or she still has any job, will continue 
to be tomorrow's lowest paid worker as well. There is a spiral effect 
to these increases when we do them because everybody all up the chain 
has to have an increase to stay ahead of those with no skills. There 
are even union agreements that are tied to raises in the minimum wage, 
which is probably a bigger reason we debate the minimum wage on such a 
frequent basis around here.
  But if everybody gets a raise, something has to happen to cover the 
cost of that raise. As I mentioned, you either eliminate employees so 
that you are increasing productivity to handle the same thing or you 
are raising the price. If you raise the price, you create inflation. If 
you create inflation, what they were able to buy for minimum wage today 
they can't afford for tomorrow's minimum wage because the price went 
up. So a false economy of just demanding by Congress that everybody do 
this really doesn't affect the economy the way we think it will. The 
way that you do that is advancement on the job and earned wage growth. 
Earned wage growth cannot be legislated. We do a disservice to all 
concerned, most especially the chronic low-wage worker, to suggest that 
a Federal wage mandate is the answer.
  What we need to focus on is not an artificially imposed number but 
the acquisition and improvement of job and job-related skills. In this 
context we should recognize that only 68 percent of the students 
entering the ninth grade 4 years ago--68 percent of the students 
entering the ninth grade 4 years ago are expected to graduate this 
year. Do you know what kind of a job you get if you don't graduate from 
high school? Well, 68 percent of the kids who entered 4 years ago--not 
all of them--are going to graduate. For minority students this number 
hovers around 50 percent. In addition, we continue to experience a 
dropout rate of 11 percent a year. These noncompletion and dropout 
rates and the poor earning capacity that comes with them cannot be 
fixed by a Federal minimum wage policy.
  I was in a retail store the other day. I noticed some of the skills 
have deteriorated to the point where the person at the cash register 
can't figure out the dollars themselves. I remember when cash registers 
in stores didn't tell you how much change you had to give the person. 
You had to figure it out, and kids and adults did that. But there are 
errors with that, so modern machines took up the disadvantage that was 
caused by that and we now have cash registers that figure the change 
for you.
  But watch out if you ever change the way you give them the money 
after they figured it on the computer cash register.
  Have you ever had a bill for $10.81 and you gave the clerk $11 and 
then you gave them a penny? That is no skills, if they can't figure out 
they owe you the 20 cents. No skills. That is what the retailers out 
there are training people on--basic, rudimentary things for having a 
job. We don't fix those by legislating.
  If we are going to meaningfully address the issue of low-wage workers 
we have to acknowledge that you do not do that by simply passing a wage 
law. If that were the case, we could pass a law that made the minimum 
wage $20 or $50 or $100 an hour. It is just not that simple. In my own 
State of Wyoming, Governor Freudenthal, a Democrat, this year, in 
speaking about legislation to raise the minimum wage from the current 
$5.15, noted that the real question is how do you enable a worker to 
become more qualified and thereby able to earn a higher wage? He noted:

       How do you make the individual more valuable in the 
     marketplace and demand a higher wage? It's not simply how do 
     you pass a law.

  As I mentioned, the Governor of Wyoming is a Democrat, one who 
understands the reality of this issue in the workplace and the job 
market. Low wages may be the effect; low job skills are the cause. 
Raising the minimum wage does absolutely nothing to enhance job skills 
for low-wage workers. In fact, to the extent it makes entry into the 
workforce more difficult, and increases low-skilled unemployment, as a 
minimum wage hike without economic relief for small business will 
unquestionably do, it will have precisely the opposite effect.
  If we are able to approach this debate in a candid and constructive 
way, we need to acknowledge certain basic principles of economics. 
First of all, wages do not cause sales. Sales are needed to produce 
revenue. And wages don't cause revenue. Revenue drives wages.
  Wages can cause productivity, but the productivity has to come first 
to be able to afford the wages. Wages have to be paid for.
  Skills, however, operate differently than wages do. Skills do create 
sales. Sales do produce revenue. Skills do create productivity. And 
here is the most important part--skills get compensated with higher 
wages or else the employee goes somewhere else to get true higher wages 
to compensate for their increased skills. There is a relationship 
between skill and how much you make. Dropouts will not make as much as 
college graduates. Dropouts will not make as much as someone who has 
been to a technical school. Dropouts will have minimum skills.
  Some people who finish school have minimum skills. I know my dad, 
once, when he was interviewing a person, said the person told him he 
had 5 years' experience. My dad, after questioning him, said: 
Unfortunately, he had 1 month of experience 60 times.
  Wage increases without increased sales or higher productivity, which 
are a result of more skills, have to be paid for with higher prices. 
Higher prices wipe out wage increases. Better skills, not artificial 
wage increases, produce true net gains in income.
  We also need to focus on the goal that the minimum wage should be for 
all workers and what it is for most, which is a starting point in an 
individual's lifelong working career if they are not skilled.
  Let me say that again. We need to focus on the goal that minimum wage 
should be for workers who need a starting point in an individual's 
lifelong working career because they are not skilled. If viewed as a 
starting point, it is clear the focus needs to be far less on where an 
individual begins in his or her work career and far more on how an 
individual can progress--get jobs that have the potential for increase, 
get jobs that teach skills. They are available.
  I always have to mention this. Right now in Wyoming, which is the 
least populated State in the Nation, we have a huge shortage of 
workers. There is a huge shortage of workers. Are these good jobs? Yes, 
they are good jobs. They are in the coal mines. We ship a third of the 
Nation's coal out of my county. It is clean coal and it is open-pit 
mining. We use huge trucks. You could only fit two trucks in this whole 
room and that would be a pretty tight squeeze. The top of it would 
probably touch the top of the roof. They are big trucks. We are having 
trouble getting drivers for the trucks.
  The only requirement for being a driver on one of these trucks is to 
be able to drive and have a clean drug record--be able to pass a drug 
test. When you drive one of these trucks, once you get up to elevation 
and get in the driver's chair, there are anti-
vibration seats, power steering, air-conditioned cabs. That great big 
vehicle is easy to drive.
  What do you get paid for driving it? The starting salary is about 
$60,000, and they train you, provided you have this clean drug record--
$60,000 a year. We are having trouble getting people to come to Wyoming 
to work for $60,000 a year. So it isn't always minimum wage that drives 
these things. Skills are important, but you can even get the skills if 
you look for the jobs that pay well.
  They may be nontraditional jobs. We have a lot of women who are 
driving

[[Page 11804]]

coal haul trucks. They can do it very capably and probably with fewer 
accidents than the men.
  The truth is, real wage growth happens every day. It is not the 
function of Government to mandate it. It is the direct result of an 
individual becoming more skilled and therefore more valuable to his or 
her employer. As a former small business owner, I know these entry-
level jobs are a gateway to the workforce and an opportunity for 
workers to begin to acquire the skills and experience they need. These 
entry-level jobs can open the door for better jobs and better lives for 
low-skilled workers--if we give them the tools they need to succeed.
  We have a great example in Cheyenne, WY. Workers entering the job 
market were given the tools and the opportunity to reach the American 
dream. We have a man there named Mr. Jack Preiss, and he is the owner 
of eight McDonald's in Wyoming. We often talk about McDonald's and 
minimum wage.
  I want to tell you he has had three employees who started working at 
McDonald's at minimum wage who now own a total of 20 McDonald's 
restaurants. They own them. This type of wage progression and success 
should be the norm for workers across the country. However, there are a 
small percentage of workers who have not acquired the necessary work-
based skills and for whom stagnation at the lower tier wage is a longer 
term proposition. The answer for these workers, however, is not to 
simply raise the lower wage rung. Rather, these individuals have to 
acquire the training, experience, and skills that will lead to 
meaningful and lasting wage growth. Our policies ought to be directed 
at that end.
  We have to equip our workers with the skills they need to compete in 
a technology-driven global economy. It is estimated that 60 percent of 
tomorrow's jobs will require skills that only 20 percent of today's 
workers possess.
  It is also estimated that graduating students will likely change 
careers 14 times in their lives. You didn't hear me say change jobs 14 
times in their lives. That is easy. I said change careers 14 times in 
their lives.
  Here is the important part of that statistic. The world is changing 
so fast that 10 of those jobs don't even exist today. They are going to 
have 14 career changes, 10 of which are for jobs that don't even exist 
today. We have to do a better job of educating and training our youth 
to be able to take the kind of jobs we are going to have.
  We need a system in place that can support a lifetime of education, 
training, and retraining of our workers. The end result will be the 
attainment of skills that will provide meaningful wage growth. As 
legislators, our efforts are better focused on ensuring that the tools 
and opportunities for training and enhancing skills over a worker's 
lifetime are available and fully utilized--more available and fully 
utilized than we are in imposing an artificial wage increase that fails 
to address the real issues and in the process does more harm than good. 
Skills and experience, not an artificial wage hike, will lead to 
lasting wage security for American workers.
  As chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, 
one of my priorities is reauthorizing and improving the Nation's job 
training system that was created by the Workforce Investment Act. This 
law would help provide American workers with the skills they will need, 
new skills to compete in a global economy. Those are ones that will 
lead to real, not artificial wage increases.
  Last Congress--this is 3 years ago--I was denied the appointment of a 
conference committee to resolve the differences with the House on this 
important bill by some of the very people who are proposing this 
minimum wage increase. This Congress, this important bill has faced the 
same obstruction. In November of last year we reported this legislation 
out of the HELP Committee by unanimous voice vote. Yet it continues to 
languish, unavailable for debate on the floor of this Congress, with no 
progress being made and little hope for action in this Congress if such 
obstruction continues. This bill would train an estimated 900,000 
people a year to higher skilled jobs--900,000 people a year could be on 
a better career path, could have more skills. That would be a real 
improvement for chronic low-wage workers.
  It makes little sense to me that some of the same people who denied 
the opportunity in the last Congress to enact real improvement now 
think a redetermination of the lowest wage will magically change 
everyone's life. If we truly want to change and improve the lives of 
our lowest paid workers, we must pass the Workforce Investment Act.
  Let's be clear about what a minimum wage hike will and will not do. 
First, we must realize that large increases in the minimum wage will 
hurt low-income, low-skilled individuals. Mandated hikes in the minimum 
wage do not cure poverty, and they clearly do not create jobs. The 
Congressional Budget Office has said:

       Most economists would agree that an increase in the minimum 
     wage rate would cause firms to employ fewer low-wage workers 
     or employ them for fewer hours.

  That is a CBO estimate from October 18, 1999.
  What every student who has ever taken an economics course knows is 
that if you increase the cost of something--in this case a minimum wage 
job--you decrease the demand for those jobs. Misleading political 
rhetoric cannot change the basic principle of supply and demand. The 
majority of economists continue to affirm the job-killing nature of the 
mandated wage increases. A recent poll concluded that 77 percent or 
nearly 17,000 economists believe that a minimum wage hike causes job 
loss.
  It is kind of a spiral that we get into.
  We simply cannot assume that a business that employs 50 minimum wage 
workers before the wage increase is enacted will still employ 50 
minimum wage workers, whether the business is in Washington, Wyoming, 
or Massachusetts. Employers can't absorb an increase in their cost 
without a corresponding decrease in the number of jobs or benefits they 
can provide workers. We know there are losers when we raise the minimum 
wage. But who are the individuals who will benefit?
  Minimum wage earners who support a family solely based on the wage 
are actually pretty few and far between. Fully 85 percent of the 
minimum wage earners live with their parents, have a working spouse, or 
are living alone without children.
  Of the minimum wage earners, 41 percent live with a parent or 
relative, 23 percent are single or the sole breadwinner of the 
household with no children, and 21 percent live with another wage 
earner.
  All are low-skilled workers or brandnew employees. In a shoe store 
you might have the lowest-skilled people unpacking the shoes. By the 
time they can check inventory and correctly put it on the shelf so they 
can find the size when the customers come in, they get a raise. If they 
can actually wait on a customer--that is kind of the goal in most 
businesses, to be able to wait on a customer--that is another level of 
wage increase. The better they do waiting on customers--which is the 
important part in the business--the more they get paid.
  Research shows that the poor targeting and other unintended 
consequences of the minimum wage make it a terribly ineffective 
approach to reducing poverty in America--the intended purpose of the 
policy. In fact, two Stanford University economists concluded that a 
minimum wage increase is paid for by higher prices that hurt poor 
families the most.
  A 2001 study conducted by Stanford University economists found that 
only one in four of the poorest 20 percent of families would benefit 
from an increase in the minimum wage. The way to truly improve the 
wages and salaries of these American workers is through education and 
training--not an artificial wage increase.
  With these realities in mind, I will offer an amendment, unless 
Senator Kennedy wishes to withdraw his amendment. We can go on with the 
Defense debate. There must be serious discussion on that possibility. 
So I will allow that to go on and make a few more comments.

[[Page 11805]]

  But I am considering offering an amendment that recognizes the true 
cost of the minimum wage increase on American workers and businesses, 
and particularly small businesses.
  My amendment includes a minimum wage increase of $1.10, and it also 
addresses other needs for reform and the needs of small businesses that 
create the most jobs in this country. Therefore, my amendment is 
protective of economic growth and job creation.
  Let me turn to a brief review of the provisions that would be 
contained in my amendment. In doing so, we must bear in mind that small 
businesses continue to be the engine that drives our economy and the 
greatest single source of job creation. Any wage increase imposed on 
small businesses poses difficulties for that business owner and, more 
importantly, for his or her employees.
  My amendment recognizes this reality and provides a necessary measure 
of relief for these small business employers.
  My amendment would make the following changes that are critical, 
particularly for small business. The first one is updating the small 
business exemption.
  Having owned a small business in Wyoming, I can speak from personal 
experience about how difficult any minimum wage increase is for small 
businesses at the low end of the scale level and job growth.
  Small businesses generate 70 percent of new jobs. Since the negative 
impact of a minimum wage increase will affect small businesses most 
directly, we have proposed addressing the small business threshold 
which is set under current law at $.5 million. If the original small 
business threshold enacted in the 1960s--that is when we came up with 
this arbitrary number, in the 1960s--if it were to be adjusted for 
inflation, it would amount to over $.5 million.
  The small business threshold was last adjusted 15 years ago. In those 
ensuing years since the national minimum wage rate has been hiked, the 
economy has undergone a dramatic change, and the way work is done in 
this country has changed forever.
  The pending amendment raises that threshold for small business 
determination to $1 million to reflect these changes.
  My amendment also incorporates bipartisan technical corrections that 
were originally proposed in 1990 by then Small Business Committee 
Chairman Dale Bumpers, Democrat from Arkansas, and cosponsored over the 
years by Senator Reid, now the Democratic leader, Senator Harkin, 
Senator Pryor, Senator Mikulski, Senator Baucus, Senator Kohl, and 
others. Those Senators can attest to the Department of Labor's 
disregard of the will of Congress and interpreted the existing small 
business threshold to have little or no meaning. The Labor Department 
would make a Federal case out of the most trivial paperwork infraction 
by the smallest small business because of what it interpreted as a 
loophole in the law.
  Some would say that the 1989 bill to hike the minimum wage and the 
small business threshold was inartfully drafted and permitted this 
result. Others say the Department is misreading the clear language of 
the statute.
  Regardless, the fact is that a threshold enacted by Congress is not 
providing the balance and fairness that was intended. This amendment 
corrects the problem by stating clearly that the wage and overtime 
provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act apply to employees working 
for enterprises engaged in commerce or engaged in the production of 
goods for commerce. My amendment also applies those wage and hour 
worker safeguards to home-work situations.
  Second, ensuring procedural fairness for small business: This next 
provision is just common sense and good government legislation.
  Surely, we can all agree that small business owners--the individuals 
who do the most to drive our economy forward--deserve a break the first 
time they make an honest paperwork mistake when no one is hurt and the 
mistake was corrected.
  Let me say that again.
  Surely, we can all agree that small business owners--the individuals 
who do the most to drive our economy forward--deserve a break the first 
time they make an honest paperwork mistake where no one is hurt and the 
mistake is corrected.
  Small business owners told me over and over again how hard they try 
to comply with all the rules and regulations imposed on them, mostly by 
the Federal Government. As a former owner of small business myself, I 
know what they mean. Yes, for all that work, a government inspector can 
fine a small business owner for paperwork violations alone, even if the 
business has a completely spotless record and the employer immediately 
corrects the unintentional mistake. Even the best intentioned employer 
can get caught in the myriad of burdensome paperwork requirements 
imposed on them by the Federal Government. And I will even go so far as 
to say a lot of times the paperwork isn't clear, because I have filled 
out a lot of those documents.
  To comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, sometimes we use 
something for insurance that deals with health, and the questions can't 
be the same.
  So there are a lot of possibilities unless you follow the manual very 
closely. And small businesses don't have time to do that because they 
are trying to make a living for themselves and their employees.
  There are a lot of opportunities out there which the Federal 
Government gives them to make paperwork mistakes that really don't 
affect anybody. But if we have enough people working in the Federal 
bureaucracy to check and see if all the t's are crossed and all the i's 
are dotted, we can find some mistakes, particularly if that person only 
has to concentrate on one document. The small business owner has dozens 
that he has to comply with.
  The owners of small businesses are not asking to be excused from any 
obligations or regulations, but they feel they deserve a break if they 
previously complied perfectly with the law. Small business men and 
women who are first-time violators of paperwork reduction deserve some 
protection.
  The third part of the bill would provide regulatory relief for small 
businesses.
  As any increase in the minimum wage places burdens on small 
employers, it is only fair to simultaneously address the ongoing 
problem of agencies not fully complying with the congressional 
directive contained in the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Act.
  That is a mouthful.
  Under the law, agencies are required to publish small entity 
compliance guidelines for those rules that require a regulatory 
flexibility analysis. Unfortunately, agencies have either ignored this 
requirement or when they tried to comply have not done so fully or 
carefully.
  My amendment does this by including specific provisions that the 
Government Accountability Office has suggested to improve the clarity 
of the requirement.
  The fourth thing it would do is remove the barriers to flexible time 
arrangements.
  My amendment includes legislation that could have a monumental impact 
on the lives of thousands of working men and women and families in 
America.
  This legislation would give employees greater flexibility in meeting 
and balancing the demands of their work and family.
  We came up with an idea like this, and it is real important to pay 
attention to it. We stole it from the Federal Government. The Federal 
Government imposes this on agencies. The Federal Government says you 
are going to give the employees flexibility.
  The first time I ever heard of this was in Wyoming. Some people in 
Wyoming are married to people that work for the government, probably 
not nearly as strange as out here. Out here, I think a lot of people 
who work in government are married to people who work in government. 
But out there, a lot of people who are working in government are 
married to people who aren't working in government.

[[Page 11806]]

  We give this benefit to government employees--being able to have a 
little flex in their time. But we prohibit it in the private sector. We 
say you cannot do this even though we let the government folks do this. 
There, it would be a bad idea for your employees. We don't want you to 
have any flexibility. We know both the Federal employee and the private 
employee would like to watch their kids play soccer. The private 
employee better have his soccer schedule done so he doesn't need any 
flextime. But the government worker ought to be able to take it 
whenever they feel like it and trade it around.
  We give the Federal Government the kind of flex I am talking about in 
this bill. Particularly in a family where the private employee is 
married to a government employee, they do not understand why they 
cannot have the same right as the government employee. They can bank a 
few hours and have a little longer weekend the next weekend, all in the 
same pay period. Their spouse can do it. They can have a little longer 
weekend. They can go use the boat over the longer weekend, but for the 
one that works for private industry it would be illegal. You cannot do 
that.
  Just try and explain that to a family. That is how I first found out 
about this problem. I had a mother who wanted to be able to do the same 
thing as her husband. Her husband worked for the State government. He 
could do it. He could bank hours. But if it is a private sector, no, 
that would be stealing overtime from people. Why would it be stealing 
overtime in the private sector when it is not stealing overtime in the 
government sector? I don't understand that.
  You will hear more, if we debate these things, and if we decide we 
are going to impose it on the Department of Defense and the Department 
of Energy authorization. If we decide we are going to impose that, 
comments will be on this flextime provision. Most of it will be on this 
because it is kind of a red herring that you can throw up and say, We 
do not trust business. Yes, we trust government but we don't trust 
business. You will hear that as the main part of this debate.
  That is why I have spent a little time concentrating on it here.
  This legislation would give employees in the private sector 
flexibility like in the government sector in meeting and balancing the 
demands of work and family.
  Whatever we do, remember that part--only asking for private business 
what we give to government employees. Let me give some of the latest 
statistics: 70 percent of employees do not think there is a healthy 
balance between their work and their personal life; 70 percent of 
employees say family is their most important priority.
  The family time provision in my amendment addresses these concerns 
head on. It gives employees the option of flexing their schedule over a 
2-week period. In other words, employees would have 10 flexible hours 
they can work in 1 week in order to have 10 hours off in the next week.
  Flexible work arrangements have been available in the Federal 
Government for over two decades. Have we had any arguments about them? 
No, they have been a great idea. They have been accepted and desired 
and used. But don't let the private sector have that. Because it works 
in one place doesn't mean it might work in another place. Let's 
continue to discriminate against private business. That is what we are 
saying when we do not allow the flextime.
  This program has been so successful that in 1994 President Clinton 
issued an Executive order extending it to parts of the Federal 
Government that had not yet benefited from the program. President 
Clinton said:

       [The] broad use of flexible arrangements to enable Federal 
     employees to better balance their work and family 
     responsibilities can increase employee effectiveness and job 
     satisfaction while decreasing turnover rates and absenteeism.

  It would allow the Federal employees to better balance their work and 
family responsibilities--that sounds good to me--and it can increase 
employee effectiveness and job satisfaction while decreasing turnover 
rates and absenteeism. That sounds pretty good, too.
  Let's see now. We tried it for over two decades and decided to extend 
it to all Federal Government, so it has to be a good idea. Would we 
pass on a bad idea to the Federal Government? Would they stand for it 
if we did? No. So why can't we give it to the private sector? Why do we 
say: Private sector, you are just not as good as Government employees. 
You do not deserve the same breaks we give Government employees.
  As I mentioned, this will be the bulk of the debate on this 
particular issue, the flextime part. It could have been a lot more 
inclusive. Actually, the Federal Government gets to do more than what I 
have stated, but we are definitely not going to allow that. We are 
putting this down to a very small minimum to see if we can get any 
movement on it at all.
  As I said, we have voted on this before, and the answer is, Heck, no, 
we will not give the private sector that kind of a privilege. We don't 
care what the Federal Government gets to do, you can't treat the 
private sector decently. No, they didn't say that, I said that.
  I could not agree more with what President Clinton said when he did 
his Executive order. I am saying now we need to extend this same 
privilege to the private sector workers. It would allow employees to 
better balance their work and family responsibilities, it can increase 
employee effectiveness and job satisfaction, while decreasing turnover 
rates and absenteeism. That was President Clinton talking about this 
kind of provision for the public sector. I am saying, if it is that 
great, we ought to do it for the private sector, too.
  We know this legislation is not a total solution. We know there are 
many other provisions under the 65-year-old Fair Labor Standards Act 
that need our attention, but the flexible time provision is an 
important part of the solution. It gives employees a choice, the same 
choice Federal workers have.
  The fifth part of this would extend the restaurant employee tip 
credit. A major employer of entry-level workers is the fast food 
service industry. Another part of it is the regular food service 
industry. The regular food service industry relies on what is known as 
the tip credit, which allows an employer to apply a portion of an 
employee's tip income against the employer's obligation to pay the 
minimum wage.
  Currently, Federal law requires a cash wage of at least $2.13 an hour 
for tipped employees and allows an employer to take a tip credit of up 
to $3.02 of the current minimum wage. To protect tipped employees, 
current law provides that a tip credit cannot reduce an employee's 
wages below the required minimum wage. Employees report tips to their 
employers, ensuring an adequate amount of tips are earned.
  Seven states--Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, 
and Washington--do not allow a tip credit; however, requiring raises 
for all hourly employees when States increase the minimum wage. The 
lack of a tip credit requires these employers to give raises to their 
most highly compensated employees, the tipped staff. If you are working 
in a nice restaurant, the tips will be more than the salary. Nontipped 
employees in these businesses are negatively impacted by the mandated 
flow of scarce labor dollars to the tipped position. In addition, 
employers are put at a competitive disadvantage with the colleagues in 
the rest of the country who can allocate employee compensation in a 
more equitable manner.
  My amendment expands the tip credit to nontip credit States, 
consistent with the initial establishment of the credit under the Fair 
Labor Standards Act, anticipating the increase in minimum wage.
  The sixth provision is small business tax relief. If we are going to 
impose greater burdens on small business, we should give them some tax 
relief at the same time. My amendment extends small business expensing 
by 1 year. Simplify cash accounting methods. I am the only accountant 
in the Senate, so I probably ought to explain what cash accounting is. 
That could be a

[[Page 11807]]

huge debate all by itself. It means that the business can actually use 
the dollars coming in as part of the accounting as opposed to 
anticipated dollars that would be coming in. It works off the actual 
cash flow rather than some of the accrual methods that we use. I will 
not go into that. Accounting is important, but it often puts people to 
sleep. It would simplify cash accounting methods and provide restaurant 
depreciation relief.
  All of these tax provisions are fully offset in the bill. That means 
they are paid for. That means there is some way of covering the cost of 
them so that it isn't the general budget.
  In total, the additional provisions in my amendment are intended to 
mitigate the small business impact of a $1.10 increase in the minimum 
wage so people can keep their jobs. I share the view of many of my 
colleagues that if we are going to impose such a mandate on the Federal 
level, we must do our best to soften the blow. This may be the best we 
can do today, but I entreat all of my colleagues to look at the true 
root of the problem for minimum wage workers. That is the acquisition 
of job-based skills: more skills, more money.
  We all share the same goals, which is to help American workers find 
and keep good-paying jobs and to keep the best paying jobs in this 
country. Real job skills, not artificial wage levels, should be our 
focus. Education, training, and job experience are the solution for 
low-wage workers. We have to pass the Workforce Investment Act that 
will train those 900,000 people a year to higher skill jobs.
  In terms of education and training, we need to move forward on that 
kind of meaningful legislation that will lead to increased wages and 
better jobs that we all want for our Nation's workers.
  In terms of job experience, we must always remember that businesses, 
particularly small businesses, create the jobs and provide the gateway 
to the working world for the vast majority of low-wage workers.
  If we do not balance a minimum wage increase with economic relief for 
the small businesses, we will stifle job creation and shut the 
employment door on the very individuals we are trying to help.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment offered by Senator 
Kennedy and, if we continue to have the debate and I submit my 
amendment, to support my amendment. Both raise the minimum wage. One 
covers the cost of the minimum wage so that it would not drive down the 
number of people employed in this country.
  We have been trying to increase employment. We want those people 
starting with minimum skills to work their way up the ladder to owning 
the business. That can happen in America. That can happen if we give 
them an incentive to learn to improve their skills and we don't impose 
false security of mandated higher wages that drive a spiral upward and 
eliminate jobs. Elimination of jobs is not the answer. Training people 
to higher skills so they can demand more money or go to work somewhere 
else is the answer.
  If we are going to have this debate on the Department of Defense 
bill, I would be happy to submit my amendment to have it voted on, 
along with Senator Kennedy's amendment. We have done that before. We 
know what the results will be, I suspect. Both of them will be subject 
to a point of order. We usually agree not to go for the point of order 
but just order the vote and have the 60-vote threshold we have always 
had. We would be willing to do that, but a more appropriate time to 
debate this would be another time on another bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the issue we are talking about, my good 
friend and the chairman of the Committee on Human Resources is talking 
about, and that I have talked about earlier, is whether we were going 
to have an opportunity in the Senate to take a few minutes to consider 
an increase in the minimum wage for the lowest paid workers in America. 
I had offered that as an amendment on the Defense authorization bill.
  One might ask: Why are we doing this on the Defense authorization 
bill? The answer to that is we would not have another opportunity to do 
it on any other bill until the recessing of the Senate.
  In my opening remarks when I offered that amendment, I indicated to 
the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services that we would be glad 
to work out a time for consideration that would not interfere with the 
general debate and discussion of the issues on the Defense 
authorization bill, but we have been unable to get that at this 
particular time. Therefore, we are talking about this issue at this 
time.
  The Senator from Wyoming asked why is this relevant to the Defense 
authorization. I think the answer is rather compelling. That is, when 
we think of why the service men and women are fighting in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, and around the world, they are fighting for American 
values, American principles. Part of American values and principles is 
economic fairness, not the exploitation of poor workers in the United 
States of America. That is why it is relevant.
  We are talking about the ideals and the values of the United States 
of America. We are talking about family values. We are talking about 
what people at the lowest rung of the economic ladder are going to get 
paid.
  I bet some of these individuals who will be affected by the minimum 
wage are over in Iraq now fighting. They are wondering, why in the 
world are we taking up time when we have not increased the minimum wage 
in the last 9 years and we have taken the time to see six pay increases 
for the Senate? They are saying: Why aren't you providing that increase 
for the minimum wage for these workers? That is what we are talking 
about.
  Can anyone imagine that? We are going to get another pay COLA 
increase next week. We have increased our own salaries $30,000 over the 
period of the last 9 years. And how much have we given to an increase 
in the minimum wage? Zero.
  We have, I daresay, men and women who are serving in Iraq whose 
parents are probably earning the minimum wage. We are talking about 
getting an increase to $7.25 an hour.
  This issue never used to be a partisan issue. I regret it has turned 
out to be a partisan issue. We have been unable to get our Republican 
friends to give us an opportunity to vote on an increase in the minimum 
wage. We are caught in this situation because we cannot get an up-or-
down vote on the increase in the minimum wage.
  Since the time of the initiation of the minimum wage, going back to 
Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Republican, all 
had an increase in the minimum wage. Richard Nixon, an increase in the 
minimum wage. George Bush, an increase in the minimum wage. But we do 
not have anything after Bill Clinton and the increase in the minimum 
wage. Nine years is the longest period in history for no increase of 
the minimum wage. If the Senator would let us have an up-or-down vote, 
we will take a very short time period. We are interested in taking a 
short time. We only received the Republican alternative about an hour 
and a half ago. We still don't know what the scoring is on it. The 
initial statement we have heard is that it is pretty much the same as 
it was a year ago, and that basically cuts overtime pay. It also 
undermines the States' opportunities to deal with problems on the tip 
credit. It also eliminates worker protections under the Fair Labor 
Standards Act. That is a fine option that is going to be out. That is 
what we have gotten in the last hour or so.
  If I had the attention of my friend from Wyoming, the managers of the 
bill are here, I would ask unanimous consent that upon completion of 
the Defense bill, the Senate turn to the minimum wage bill, the text of 
which is my amendment, that the Enzi amendment be in order, that there 
be 4 hours of debate equally divided, and then we would go to a vote.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would have to object.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I have heard the objection. We have had complaints about 
my offering the minimum wage amendment on this legislation. Then what 
do

[[Page 11808]]

we do? We say: OK, let's let this go through. But just give us an 
opportunity to consider an increase in the minimum wage on the floor of 
the Senate with a very short time limitation. And we can't get 
agreement on that. There you go. That is what this is all about.
  I must say the idea that this isn't appropriate, if we could have 
gotten an option to go ahead and have the individual bill for an 
increase in the minimum wage, have an opportunity to vote on both the 
Senator's amendment and our amendment, let's have that and let's go 
back to the good old days where a majority would carry. That is fine 
with me. That would be fine with me. I will just take a half an hour on 
our side. Surely, the Senate can find time to give a half an hour to 
the issue of increasing the minimum wage for workers. One half hour, 
let's see where the Senate goes, whoever gets more than 50 votes. That 
used to be the way around here. But not now. We hear complaining about 
bringing up the minimum wage on this bill, and they still are going to 
have to get 60 votes on it because there will be a point of order 
raised against this on the budget.
  We have heard a great deal before, at the time when my good friend 
was talking about his health care bill about wanting to have a debate 
on his health care bill. Remember that? It wasn't all that long ago. 
Let's have a good up-or-down debate. Let's have a vote. What is it, 
denying the opportunity for people to have this debate?
  Well, we would be more than glad to have this legislation. You can 
have on your side a half an hour. We will take a half an hour. Let the 
chips fall where they may. If the leader wants to come out and make 
that, we have offered similar to that. There has been objection to it, 
but it is a reflection of our good faith.
  From an early reading of the amendment of the Senator from Wyoming, 
they would raise the minimum wage by $1.10. Would the Senator tell me 
what the cost of the Enzi amendment is? What is the cost? Do we have a 
budget point of order?
  Could I address the Senator from Wyoming? If he could tell me what 
the budget cost of his amendment would be? While he is doing so, I will 
mention a couple of other points.
  His amendment would raise the minimum wage by $1.10 instead of by 
$2.10, which our bill does. It cuts overtime, and it also reduces 
benefits so only 1.8 million workers would be covered. That is 4.8 
million fewer than my amendment. Theirs is $1.10 an hour instead of 
$2.10, and there are 4.8 million fewer than my amendment. Then it also 
cuts overtime pay. It ends Federal labor standards coverage for over 10 
million workers. By raising the gross income of the companies that will 
be covered, they will eliminate 10 million workers. They will be 
eliminated from any kind of minimum wage or fair labor standards 
protections.
  Then it basically overturns State actions that are dealing with what 
they call the wage tip credit which States vary about how they do it. 
But the Enzi amendment puts a cap on that. The States now, for example, 
can have a higher minimum wage than we have. We haven't preempted the 
States because it has always been a flooring. Some States believe that 
those who depend on tips ought to be given a somewhat additional break. 
We are talking about people who make $5.15 an hour, maybe make $6 or $7 
in tips, and you are trying to nickel-and-dime them on that with the 
Enzi amendment, preempt the States.
  I hope my colleagues have a chance to read through this overnight 
because we are preempting the States that have reached a different 
conclusion with regard to tip credit. The Enzi amendment says that is 
going to be out.
  That is quite a mouthful. People understand those issues pretty well. 
They are very important. I don't know whether we have an answer. I will 
be glad to hear it later on. Could the Senator give me what the budget 
cost for his amendment would be?
  Mr. ENZI. I would like to be able to do that. I don't have the 
numbers that I need to have. I appreciate the question, but I can't 
give you an answer yet.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Well, I imagine we will get them later in the afternoon 
or get them on tomorrow. Could the Senator indicate when we might 
anticipate those? The reason this is important is because we are 
talking about 50 pages of tax issues in the Enzi amendment. Therefore, 
there is a cost to it. It does seem to me that prior to the time that 
we have a vote, we ought to know what those particular costs are. We 
have on the one hand the issues that are directly related to the 
minimum wage, and then we have the costs in terms of an addition to the 
deficit.
  I don't know whether the Senator could tell us that we are going to 
get it later this evening. If you can give us the assurance, if you 
think we will have it this evening, that is fine; otherwise, whatever 
help the Senator could provide, I would be grateful.
  Mr. ENZI. In answer to the question, Mr. President, I can't tell how 
long it will take for the Joint Tax Committee to have the new numbers. 
But I can tell you, I didn't know that the Senator was going to offer 
his amendment until yesterday. The estimated revenue effects that we 
have are from the one that we did and voted on last year which shows 
over a 10-year period that all costs are covered with a slight surplus.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I am not sure that I completely understood the Senator's 
response in terms of the cost. What is the cost of the first, second, 
third, fourth, or fifth year? We will try and get that, if we could.
  I point out to my colleagues, the amendment I offer is 2\1/2\ pages. 
The Enzi amendment is 71\1/2\ pages, 50 of which are tax provisions. It 
does seem to me if we were debating, look, ours is $2.10, yours is 
$1.10, let's go at it. Let the Senate make a judgment. But it isn't 
that. We have 50 pages in here of tax provisions that are going to 
evidently be called incentives on the one hand but to others they are 
going to increase the deficit on the other hand. I am not exactly sure 
what those are. Then we are not only being questioned about that, but 
we also know that we have in that proposal a cut of overtime pay and 
the ending of Federal Labor Standards Act coverage for 10 million 
workers and basically a preemption of States that want to treat the tip 
credit in the way that they want, which is quite a proposal. I would 
hope that we would have a chance, which I expect we will, to at least 
examine it over the evening.
  This chart says the $1.10 increase leaves 4.8 million workers behind, 
the difference between the Enzi proposal and the way ours is drafted.
  I wanted to address a couple of the issues the Senator has pointed 
out with regard to small business. This chart shows results of a Gallup 
Poll of May 2006: 86 percent of small business owners say the minimum 
wage does not affect their business. The question was: How does the 
minimum wage affect your business? Eighty-six percent said no effect; 8 
percent, negative effect; positive effect, 5 percent; no opinion, the 
rest.
  So it is kind of interesting, we have sort of gone beyond this point 
in terms of where the small business community is. They have a pretty 
good understanding of what happens. What we have found out with the 
increase, for example, on the living wage, you take the most dramatic 
example is the neighboring city of Baltimore. When they increased it to 
a living wage, what happened? First of all, they had less turnover. It 
was less costly on the city in terms of training new workers.
  Secondly, they increased their productivity. They got less 
individuals who stayed home on sick leave because people began to take 
a greater pride in their work. Why? Because they were being treated 
with greater respect. And finally, the overall cost of the program, 
even though they increased it to about $11.50--I am not sure, I think 
it is even above that; they were one of the first with a living wage--
they found out that the workers were working harder, took greater pride 
in their work, and there was greater productivity, a greater increase 
in morale, and their overall costs have actually gone down.
  States with higher minimum wages create more small businesses. I was 
listening to the Senator talk about the

[[Page 11809]]

burden on small businesses. I just showed a recent Gallup Poll of small 
businesses which was in May of this year. Here are the 10 States plus 
DC with minimum wages higher than $5.15, and overall growth of small 
business is 5.4 percent. Forty States have a minimum wage of $5.15, and 
there is 4.2 percent growth. The States with the higher increase in the 
minimum wage saw an increase in the total numbers.
  Study after study finds raising the minimum wage does not cause job 
loss. This is by David Card and Alan Krueger, from Princeton's 
reanalysis of the effect of the New Jersey minimum wage increase on the 
fast food industry and representative payroll data, 1998. The increase 
in the minimum wage probably had no effect on total employment and 
possibly had a small positive effect. Four different tests of the two 
increases on employment impact fail to find any systematic, significant 
job loss associated with the 1996-1997 increases, Economic Policy 
Institute. Detailed studies of California's last two decades, the 
State-increased minimum wage legislation, consistently no employment 
for workers.
  This chart shows the increases in 1996. It is too bad we have to go 
back so far, but we haven't had an increase in the minimum wage. Here 
is the increase in the minimum wage to $4.75. I think it was $3.45 
prior to that time. We went to $4.75. This is total job growth after we 
had the increase in the minimum wage. Then we increased to it $5.15. 
This is a chart that shows the total job growth in the United States 
during that period. This idea about the impact on jobs is interesting, 
but it has been refuted time and time again.
  This chart shows that the last minimum wage increase did not increase 
unemployment. These are the figures on unemployment.
  The last increase to $5.15 actually shows the unemployment going down 
over the period of the years, from 1997 until 2000. It doesn't have the 
most recent figures. But it is a pretty good indication of what was 
happening during that time. So we find that the States which have a 
higher increase in the minimum wage are expanding in small business. 
Eighty-six percent of small business, according to the Gallup poll, 
said it doesn't have any effect, in terms of employment. The national 
review about what has happened the last two times we raised the minimum 
wage was that it had virtually no impact in terms of the employment 
issue.
  Finally, inflation. That issue is always another canard that is 
pointed out. They say if you raise the minimum wage, we are going to 
cause inflation. Look at what we are doing, Mr. President. Increasing 
the minimum wage to $7.25 is vital to these workers, but it is a drop 
in the bucket to the national payroll. All Americans combined earned 
$5.4 trillion a year. A minimum wage increase to $7.25 would be less 
than one-fifth of 1 percent of the national payroll. There it is. No 
inflation, no adverse impact on unemployment. Small business feels that 
it doesn't impact or affect them. The studies show that small 
businesses have grown in States where they have had an increase in the 
minimum wage.
  These are the economic arguments, but most of all, as we have said 
day in and day out, this is a fairness issue. These are men and women 
who work hard and play by the rules and take a sense of pride in their 
work. They work as teachers aides, in nursing homes, cleaning up the 
great buildings of American commerce, and they work hard and try to do 
a decent job. More often than not they have two and sometimes three 
other jobs. Primarily, they are women. As I have pointed out, it is a 
women's issue. Primarily, those women have children. It is a children 
and a women's issue. It is a family issue. It is a family value issue 
and a civil rights issue because so many of the workers are men and 
women of color. And fairness, fairness. You don't have an economic 
argument against increasing it to $7.25, and you don't have an argument 
that is relevant to decency and fairness in opposing this kind of 
increase.
  Americans understand fairness, they understand decency, and they 
understand the importance of hard-working Americans who are playing by 
the rules. A job in America should get you out of poverty, not keep you 
in it. And the alternative to our increase in the minimum wage will 
keep you in poverty. We can do better as a country, and we will.
  I see my friend from New Jersey who desires to address the Senate on 
the minimum wage. I hope he will have an opportunity to do that for as 
long as he likes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I am proud to join Senator Kennedy in 
his call to increase the minimum wage to $7.25 and to cosponsor this 
amendment. In my mind, this amendment is not just about wages, it is 
not just about fairness; it is about dignity. Certainly, there could 
not be any finer advocate for our Nation's workers than my colleague 
from Massachusetts, who has pushed relentlessly to get this body to act 
and provide that opportunity for dignity and to provide a long, overdue 
increase in the Federal minimum wage.
  Yet despite his efforts, despite coming to this floor time and time 
again to call for a simple yet critical wage increase, this body has 
not heeded his calls. Despite the fact that some 7 million American 
workers are struggling to keep their heads above water, this body has 
chosen inaction.
  That is a disgrace.
  I think it is shameful that Members of this body have walked away 
time and again when given the chance to provide hard-working Americans 
with what is at the core of the work ethic we hold as a Nation--fair 
pay for a hard day's work.
  We are not talking about a giveaway or a free ride; we are simply 
talking about a fair and decent wage that ensures those working their 
hardest make enough to get by. To be honest, workers making the Federal 
minimum wage today don't make enough to get by. The average worker 
earning the minimum wage and working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, 
to support a family of three will only earn $10,700 on the current 
minimum wage. That is $6,000 below the Federal poverty line for a 
family of three.
  No family can afford to live on those wages, especially not a family 
in a high-cost State such as New Jersey. In New Jersey, which has the 
highest median income in the Nation and one of the highest average rent 
costs in the country, $5.15 an hour is simply not enough to get by. 
People in New Jersey know that. Leaders in New Jersey know that, and 
that is why our State acted to increase the minimum wage to $6.15 last 
October. Raising the minimum wage to $7.25, as this bill would do, 
would benefit an estimated nearly 200,000 New Jerseyans.
  I am proud that New Jersey has been a leader for increasing the 
minimum wage. I heard Senator Kennedy's reference to some studies about 
it. In fact, we are lifting people up in the process. New Jersey's move 
to be a leader, rather than wait for the Federal Government to lead the 
way, is providing a better standard of living for New Jerseyans.
  We need leadership now in Washington. While Congress refuses to act, 
millions of workers across the country are being left behind. Nine 
years is far too long for those workers to wait. Nine years is too long 
for those who work around the clock, hoping to save a little extra for 
groceries, so they can buy school supplies or clothes for their 
children or for those who are saving so one day they can live in a 
place that they are proud to call home.
  Mr. President, that is what this amendment is about. It is about more 
than just wages. It is about providing a decent and fair standard of 
living for those who share in the dream of America, as every other 
worker in this country. It is for those who work their hearts out every 
day so that they may provide a better life for their families. It is so 
that children in this country never have to know what it feels like 
never to have enough.
  Increasing the minimum wage would give more than 7 million children 
of minimum wage earners a chance for a better life.
  As the son of poor immigrants, hard-working parents who worked day in 
and day out as a carpenter and a seamstress in a factory, I knew what 
it was

[[Page 11810]]

not to have enough. My parents didn't have time to fight for better 
wages. They were working hard to achieve the American dream. Similar to 
so many before them, my parents saw hard work as a path to a better 
life for themselves and their children. That continues to be the story 
for so many hard-working Americans.
  But unless wages rise to keep up with the rising costs, to meet the 
realities facing working families, that dream will be out of reach for 
millions of minimum wage earners, who earn a wage that is worth less 
than it was nearly 30 years ago.
  Now, I ask how the Members of Congress, who get a cost-of-living 
adjustment, can at the same time say to those people in this country 
working at the minimum wage--even after you work 40 hours a week, 52 
weeks a year, which puts you at the poverty level--Members of Congress 
get an increase in the cost of living, but they cannot vote after 9 
years to give those hard-working minimum wage workers the first 
increase in 9 years.
  Every day that we stand idle, the minimum wage continues to lose 
value, our Nation's workers fall further and further behind. We have to 
give working families the chance to work their way out of poverty. We 
want Americans to be self-sufficient. Yet when we have individuals who 
get up every day and do some of the hardest work that our country has 
to offer--and it is honest work and decent work, but it is hard work--
every day they get up and go to work--and they cannot afford to be ill 
because most of them don't get health care. If they don't go to work 
that day, they don't have the resources to take home for their 
families. Can we not say as a Nation that we want to honor their work, 
that we want to reward their work, so that work becomes the vehicle by 
which there is self-sufficiency? That is what we say when we are 
unwilling to increase the minimum wage.
  The increase we are proposing would put more than $4,000 in the 
pockets of these hard-working Americans. This is enough to help a low-
income family afford 2 years of child care, a year and a half in 
utility bills or a year of tuition at a public college.
  This may be a simple increase for some, but an extra $2.10 an hour 
will mean a lot more for the 15 million workers who have been waiting 
and waiting and waiting for 9 years for a better wage, a better 
standard of living, for hope and opportunity, and for a message that 
their work is rewarded.
  Mr. President, these workers have waited long enough. They are 
waiting for leadership. They are waiting for a Congress that accepts 
cost-of-living adjustments to ultimately recognize that they, too, need 
an adjustment in their salary. Let's get our priorities straight and 
stand up for our Nation's families. Let's show true leadership and 
provide these workers across the country what they deserve. Let them 
work their way out of poverty. Let's pass this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I want to talk about the amendment of the 
Senator from Massachusetts. I want to specifically commend the Senator 
for his passion and enthusiasm. But it reminds me of a line in an old 
country song: ``You only hurt the ones you love.''
  The graphs that we were shown were macro graphs about all economies 
and all unemployment in the country. The people on minimum wage, which 
this is designed to help, are those at the lowest end of the skill 
level and the beginning level of employment.
  When the distinguished Senator from New Jersey referred to the 15 
million Americans who were on the minimum wage 15 years ago as if they 
were still on it today, it was deceiving and misleading. Those are not 
the same 15 million people. They are 15 million new people who are 
getting a foothold in the joy that is America by beginning on the 
ladder of employment.
  Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has repeatedly 
cautioned the Congress on this very subject and against raising the 
minimum wage for that reason. The Chairman pointed out that such a move 
``increases unemployment and, indeed, prevents people who are at the 
early stages of their careers from getting a foothold in the ladder of 
promotions.''
  The Federal Government can dictate what anybody pays anybody, but we 
cannot dictate who is hired. If we raise the component cost of 
employment--as the bill of the Senator from Massachusetts would--29 
percent, it stands to reason that you put at risk 29 percent of those 
who are employed at the lowest level. What happens is that people seek 
a more efficient worker at the detriment of the least skilled and the 
least qualified.
  One year after the first minimum wage was established, Franklin 
Roosevelt's own Department of Labor made the following observation:

       In a number of instances, there have been reports that 
     workers who had been receiving less than [the new minimum 
     wage] had been laid off, and replaced by more efficient 
     workers.

  The marketplace will drive employment, and when we in Government 
infuse ourselves into an issue and make an arbitrary adjustment, then 
the marketplace will make the adjustment for the business community and 
the more efficient worker will be employed.
  When the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts referred to the 
tremendous job growth and creation between the next-to-the-last 
increase in the minimum wage and the last increase in the minimum wage, 
again it was a macro graph. The fact is that while employment 
skyrocketed during the dot-com era, those were high-technology, high-
end jobs. The reality was that, as a result of the Congressionally-
mandated increase in the minimum wage, technology replaced a lot of 
those minimum wage, low-skilled jobs, and actually unemployment 
increased at the lowest end. It is only right to compare apples to 
apples and oranges to oranges.
  It is interesting that researchers at the University of Wisconsin did 
a study not too long ago to determine what the minimum wage did to 
welfare mothers, that I give you, Mr. President, as an example. The 
study revealed that welfare mothers in States that raised their 
respective minimum wages remained on public assistance 44 percent 
longer than those in States where the minimum wage was not raised, 
making the point I made earlier; that is, getting a foothold on the 
ladder of success in America means getting in the employment chain. And 
the more we put pressure on how much it costs to bring someone into 
that chain, the more it punishes or penalizes someone who is not in it.
  There is another deception which goes on in this argument, and that 
is that everybody who is on the low end of the chain and a minimum wage 
earner is at the bottom of the scale in life.
  President Clinton's first Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, once 
observed ``most minimum wage workers aren't poor.'' He is right. Today, 
according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the average family 
income of a minimum wage worker is above $43,000 a year--well above the 
national average. There are reasons for that.
  Accordingly, minimum wage increases are inefficiently targeted to 
help poor workers since fully 85 percent of minimum wage earners live 
with their parents, have a working spouse, or are living alone without 
children. In fact, when Congress last raised the minimum wage in 1997, 
only 17 percent of the benefits of that increase went to families 
living below the poverty level. For comparison, over 33 percent of the 
benefits went to the richest two-fifths of all families, which is 
another secret to raising the minimum wage.
  It is not just at the lowest end of employment or the beginning 
level, but there are contracts in America that are indexed to the 
minimum wage. If the United States of America and this Congress force 
an increase in the minimum wage, then it very well could trigger, in a 
labor contract, in a labor organization with a company, an automatic 
increase in the pay scale for people far and above the minimum wage. 
Once again, it has an arbitrary effect on the marketplace that the 
marketplace will adjust, and when it adjusts, someone

[[Page 11811]]

will lose a job or find it harder to get a job.
  The University of Georgia in my home State recently did a study. The 
economist who did that study was Joseph J. Sabia, a Ph.D. graduate in 
economics from none less than Cornell University. He used Government 
data from January of 1979 until December of 2004. This is a 25-year 
longitudinal study, and in sum, Dr. Sabia found that a 10-percent 
increase in the minimum wages causes a nine-tenths of 1 percent to a 
1.1 percent decrease in retail employment, and an eight-tenths of 1 
percent to a 1.2 percent decrease in small business employment. Dr. 
Sabia's research confirmed yet again that low-skilled workers is the 
group that is most likely to be most negatively impacted by the minimum 
wage hike.
  The study also reiterated minimum wage hikes are not an effective 
means of reducing poverty among working poor because most minimum wage 
workers are second or third earners in a family--teens or dependents--
and most workers in poor households earn more than the minimum wage.
  But the best study I refer to most often is the study I conducted 
during 33 years in the private sector employing hundreds of individuals 
in a real estate company. I knew what competitive marketplace factors 
were, and I knew how, when we brought people in--and I had some jobs in 
my company that were at the lower end, minimum wage to start. They may 
have been in maintenance, may have been in building upkeep, may have 
been operators on the night desk. But I always found myself being 
pressured by the market, not the Government, to raise the wage of the 
good worker because the good workers, as they improved and gained their 
self-confidence, shopped around.
  In most of the years I worked, we were in the type of economy we are 
today. We were in full employment where you are competing for the best 
and the brightest. Those who are motivated, those who enter the system, 
those who are at minimum wage to start with will quickly rise as they 
gain skills, confidence, and self-esteem.
  If we think an arbitrary, mandatory 29-percent increase in somebody's 
wages is going to solve poverty, improve their self-esteem or, in fact, 
solve the problem the Senator from Massachusetts intends it to solve, 
we are wrong. Instead, it is probably going to deny about 29 percent of 
those starting at that level an opportunity early on. It probably, as 
President Roosevelt's Administration found in 1939, is going to cause 
some people to actually lose their jobs. And worst of all, it is a 
feel-good amendment whose intention ends up having the absolute 
opposite result.
  I care deeply for everybody in my State, everybody in this country, 
and for everybody entering the workplace. I believe the minimum wage is 
appropriate, but I believe to take a time of full employment, a time of 
a vibrant economy, a time when study after study indicates the exact 
opposite of what the distinguished Senator said, would be sending the 
absolute worst signal.
  I believe in the empowerment of our workers, not in the slavery of 
our workers. I don't believe Government should arbitrarily try to fix 
something that, in fact, the marketplace fixes day in and day out 365 
days a year.
  I urge my colleagues in the Senate to not try to fix something that 
is not broken. I will oppose the Kennedy amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, our friend and colleague, the Senator 
from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, is looking forward to addressing the Senate 
in just a minute or two.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. 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. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I wish to review for the Senate what has 
been happening to many families in this country over recent years 
regarding the important growth of poverty and its relationship to the 
minimum wage. It has a very direct relationship. The figures are rather 
startling. It is appropriate, when we are talking about an increase in 
the minimum wage, that we have some fuller understanding about the 
growth of poverty in our Nation over recent years.
  Mr. President, 5.4 million more Americans are in poverty. We had 31.6 
million in 2000, and now there are 37 million. There is a 5.4-million 
greater number of Americans living in poverty in the United States. Of 
those 5.4 million, 2.5 million are children.
  It is interesting, when we talk about an increase in the minimum 
wage, if we look at the countries of Western Europe--take Great 
Britain, for example, which has the second most powerful economy in 
Western Europe. In October, they will increase the minimum wage, and it 
will go to $9.80 an hour. Listen to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, and the pride that he takes as a public servant, Chancellor 
of the Exchequer--effectively our Secretary of Treasury and the head of 
OMB combined--in having lifted 2 million children out of poverty over 
the last 6 years. We have put 2.5 million children into poverty in the 
last 5 years.
  There are 5 million more Americans who are on the verge of hunger. 
These figures are from Food Security in the United States, USDA. These 
are not figures from those of us who are supporting an increase in the 
minimum wage. These are the figures. We have 5 million more Americans 
who are feeling the pangs of hunger, and the great percentage of those 
are children, again.
  What is consistent in the last 5 years? No increase in the minimum 
wage, the growth of the number of people in poverty, the growth of the 
problems of hunger. We have Americans struggling to survive in this 
current economy, the Bush economy. Too many Americans are living in 
poverty: 1 in every 10 families; nearly 1 out of every 5 children in 
this country; 1 out of every 5 Hispanic Americans, and 1 out of every 4 
African Americans.
  This is interesting. It shows the extraordinary growth of poverty, 
particularly child poverty, in the failure to increase the minimum 
wage. So one says: What does that really have to do with the minimum 
wage no longer lifting a family out of poverty?
  In 1965, 1970, 1975, for a period of some 20 years, we had a minimum 
wage that was above or at the poverty level. Republicans and Democrats 
did this for 20 years, and now we are seeing an absolute collapse. 
There was a little blip with the increase in the minimum wage, and now 
we are down to an alltime low, some $5,888 or less. We know that in the 
last 9 years, the increase to $5.15 is buying about 15 to 20 percent 
less. It is not only $5.15 an hour, the purchasing of that $5.15 per 
hour is less.
  The United States has the highest child poverty rate of the 
industrialized world. Here it is. Of all the industrial nations of the 
world, we have the highest poverty rate. That obviously has something 
to do with what their parents are being paid. Not completely; there are 
other programs in these countries that are directed toward children.
  The Presiding Officer, a former Secretary of Education, is familiar 
with what a number of these countries do in terms of trying to assist 
and providing special allowances for children in a number of ways. 
Nonetheless, what comes out of it is the fact that we have the highest 
child poverty rate of any industrial nation in the world. The fact that 
we have not had an increase in the minimum wage is directly related to 
that.
  Again, if you look over at this chart here, the States with the 
highest child poverty have the lowest minimum wages, with the exception 
of Pennsylvania, and that is a State with 20 percent greater child 
poverty than the national average but has a higher minimum wage. But 
the rest are basically States with lower minimum wages, a direct tie-in 
with the minimum wage and poverty and child poverty.
  We have a chance to do something about child poverty and about 
poverty

[[Page 11812]]

in this country, and we can do it in a way that is not going to 
endanger inflation or provide increasing unemployment or threaten the 
small business community.
  As we have gone through this, we have seen those arguments which have 
been raised and which were raised again this afternoon by my good 
friends from Wyoming and Georgia. They are arguments I have listened to 
for the last number of years I have been in the Senate. The fact is 
that when we have had an increase in the minimum wage, no one has ever 
said: Let's go back, let's go back, although we are going to be faced 
with an alternative tomorrow to my increase in the minimum wage that 
will take us back, will eliminate the coverage, eliminate overtime for 
a number of workers, and that is unfortunate.
  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. KENNEDY. 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. KENNEDY. Mr. President, earlier today we went through a good deal 
of the history of the minimum wage, and we also went into the growth of 
poverty, particularly for children and for those who receive the 
minimum wage. I wish to read a couple of real-life stories because I 
think it is always useful to understand that besides the graphs we have 
been able to show and the statistics we have been able to show on these 
charts, we also show in real terms what is happening to a lot of our 
fellow citizens, our fellow Americans.
  This is a story from the Sacramento Bee, and I ask unanimous consent 
that it be printed in the Record in its entirety. This is June 18, 
2006, last Sunday:

       Monique Garcia earned minimum wage for most of a decade 
     before becoming homeless. She washed dishes, swept floors, 
     collected parking tickets, worked cash registers, staffed 
     drive-through windows, and flipped burgers. Despite that, two 
     months ago, the 26-year-old single mom found herself with too 
     little money for rent and no place to go.
       She moved with her 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son 
     into St. John's, a family shelter tucked into an industrial 
     corner of Sacramento. They share a room with another minimum-
     wage worker and her two young children. Garcia and her 
     roommate trade off, one watching the kids while the other 
     works.
       It's hard, you've got a family to support and minimum wage 
     isn't it, Garcia said last week.

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Sacramento Bee, June 18, 2006]

              Life on $6.75 an Hour: When Ends Don't Meet

                          (By Jocelyn Wiener)

       Monique Garcia, a single mother living on minimum wage, 
     ended up homeless.
       As the gulf between what they earn and what they owe 
     continues to grow, many of the region's minimum-wage workers 
     have turned to food banks for sustenance. Some, like Garcia, 
     have moved into homeless shelters or cars for housing.
       These workers welcome Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal 
     to hike the minimum wage by a dollar, to $7.75 an hour. They 
     cheer a separate plan proposed by state legislators--and 
     supported by many labor groups--that would ensure the minimum 
     wage increases each year to keep pace with inflation. About 
     1.4 million of the state's lowest-paid workers would be 
     affected.
       California's minimum wage is lower than that of more than 
     half a dozen states, but is higher than the federal minimum 
     of $5.15 an hour. Washington state has the highest minimum at 
     $7.63 an hour, and it is indexed to inflation.
       California's Industrial Welfare Commission is scheduled to 
     consider the proposals early next month. Many business groups 
     oppose a minimum wage increase because it could force 
     increases for higher-paid employees, as well, and might cause 
     some small businesses to close.
       According to a report published earlier this year by the 
     California Budget Project, a nonprofit group that conducts 
     economic and policy analysis to benefit the poor, the 
     purchasing power of the minimum wage has dropped $0.88 since 
     2002, a decline of 11.5 percent.
       Advocates for the working poor say earnings have slipped so 
     far out of sync with the cost of living that the proposals 
     are unlikely to remedy families' deep financial distress. 
     Barring a drastic policy change, they say workers like Garcia 
     will continue to struggle mightily under the ballooning costs 
     of health care, transportation, child care and housing.
       ``I hope I am wrong,'' said Ralph Gonzalez, a social worker 
     with the Sacramento County Department of Human Assistance. 
     ``I hope with the increase of the minimum wage we can get it. 
     But with all my years of experience, I really doubt it. I 
     really do.''
       Another California Budget Project report, this one released 
     in September 2005, estimated that a single adult in the 
     Sacramento region needed to earn about $11.61 an hour, or 
     $24,151 a year, to cover housing, utilities, transportation, 
     food, health care, taxes and miscellaneous expenses. They 
     calculated that a single parent raising two children, such as 
     Garcia, would need to earn $24.17 an hour, or $50,272 
     annually, to cover basic expenses.
       Minimum-wage earners patch together strategies to make ends 
     meet: some cram into one bedroom apartments shared by 
     multiple families. Many work two or three jobs. They run up 
     debt to pay medical bills, buy clothing at rummage sales and 
     visit food banks when there's nothing left to eat. Many 
     teeter on the edge of homelessness until, like Garcia, they 
     fall off.
       Garcia has round brown eyes, a long ponytail and the names 
     of her children, Yesenia and Joshua, tattooed over her heart. 
     Until last week, she worked about 15 hours a week at Round 
     Table Pizza. Now she's applying at Del Taco and Wal-Mart and 
     a discount store. She's worked full-time in the past and 
     would like more hours, but recently hasn't been able to get 
     them. She's afraid to take a second job because her absence 
     already is hard on her children. For the same reason, she 
     finds it difficult to complete the coursework she needs for a 
     GED, virtually a requisite for most better-paying jobs.
       That leaves her with about $190 every two weeks, after 
     taxes, she said. Even with a $300 monthly check from 
     Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for her 7-year-old 
     daughter, and a monthly $300 in food stamps, she doesn't have 
     enough to rent an apartment.
       To even consider an application, most landlords want her to 
     earn at least double the rent. The cheapest one-bedroom she's 
     seen is in North Highlands, for $400.
       John Foley, executive director of Sacramento Self Help 
     Housing, said most landlords in Sacramento actually require 
     tenants to make 2.7 times the rent. Most refuse to rent to 
     people with any history of evictions or bad credit.
       ``It's legal to have those criteria,'' he said. ``But, of 
     course, they really crunch the poor.''
       He said it is especially disconcerting that workers in 
     Sacramento cannot afford rent, because the region is 
     relatively affordable compared with much of the rest of the 
     state.
       ``We ought to be able to fix it here,'' he said. ``That's 
     what's so shameful.''
       Health care costs, which increase more than 7 percent each 
     year across the country, also pinch the working poor. Some 
     workers, like Garcia, receive Medi-Cal. But, for a whole host 
     of reasons, many others are ineligible for government 
     programs.
       Marina Aguilar, an uninsured Der Wienerschnitzel worker, 
     knows intimately the burden of medical bills. She says her 
     husband, an asthmatic, was admitted to a local hospital 
     overnight after a severe attack two years ago. He was 
     uninsured, and the bill for his short stay came to $5,000. 
     For two years, Aguilar says, she and her husband--who lays 
     tile for a living--have paid $100 every month on that bill. 
     So far, they've paid more than $2,000, but they still owe 
     about $4,000 because of interest.
       Aguilar, a 37-year-old mother of three, earns minimum wage 
     working 30 to 35 hours a week. Her husband is now insured, 
     but she is not covered by his plan. Last month, her doctor 
     told her there was something in her breast that needed to be 
     biopsied. The biopsy alone would cost $5,000. Her mother, 
     grandmother, great-grandmother and sister all had cancer; the 
     risk is clear.
       ``I'm worried, because if I have cancer, cancer spreads 
     very quickly,'' she said in Spanish as she sat in her sister-
     in-law's lace-curtained home across the street from the 
     Sacramento Food Bank.
       Aguilar would like to use the money she earns to buy things 
     for her 10-, 15- and 19-year-old daughters and 3-year-old 
     grandson. She'd like to take the younger ones to Chuck E. 
     Cheese's, maybe even on a vacation someday. She's never been 
     on a vacation.
       Low-wage work can seem, to many workers, to be a whirlpool 
     from which they can never escape. Gonzalez, of the Sacramento 
     County Department of Human Assistance, has another name for 
     it: Catch-22.
       Homeless people don't have alarm clocks or easily 
     accessible showers, he said. So those workers who are 
     sleeping in their cars, or under a bridge, often lose their 
     jobs because they can't be presentable for work. Those who 
     are not homeless may need to ride a bus several hours to get 
     to work on time. They may not be able to afford the high cost 
     of child care. Few services exist to help them, Gonzalez 
     said.

[[Page 11813]]

       At nearly age 60, Epitacio Leon has spent 43 years watering 
     and tilling and picking the state's agricultural fields. His 
     face is baked dark from decades in the sun, his fingernails 
     are caked with earth, his bottom teeth are missing. His most 
     recent raise, from $6.75 to $7 an hour, represents the 
     highest wage he's ever earned.
       Leon rises at 4 every morning in the tiny trailer where he 
     lives alone. He eats breakfast, then catches a ride to the 
     fields with another worker. By 6 a.m. he is working, 
     irrigating tomato and sunflower fields near Woodland. He 
     works for 12 hours, then comes home exhausted. He drinks a 
     few beers and goes to bed.
       ``I'm old already,'' he said in Spanish as he sat in his 
     niece's Woodland home last week. ``I'm tired of working 
     already.''
       If he retires now, he said, he wouldn't get enough money 
     from the government to pay his bills.
       The sounds and smells of his great-niece's high school 
     graduation barbecue floated into the living room. Always 
     working, never saving, Leon didn't have a family of his own. 
     But he visits his niece's family on evenings and weekends and 
     special occasions, and finds pleasure in playing the role of 
     great-uncle.
       On the evening of the graduation party, his 10-year-old 
     great-nephew walked into the living room. Leon teased him a 
     little, then asked him to bring him a beer. Then he stopped 
     him.
       ``Let me see whether I have a peso,'' he said, fishing in 
     his pocket. He pulled out a $1 and a $10 bill. He deliberated 
     a moment before handing the boy the $10.
       The boy beamed. Leon smiled a little.
       It would be nice to retire some day, he said. But it won't 
     be next year, and probably not the year after that.
       The Cost of Living:
       $5.15 federal minimum hourly wage.
       $6.75 California's minimum hourly wage.
       $7.63 Washington state's minimum hourly wage, the highest 
     in the nation and indexed for inflation.
       $11.61 hourly wage a single adult in the Sacramento region 
     needs to cover basic living expenses.
       $24.17 hourly wage a single parent raising two children in 
     this region needs to cover basic living expenses.

  Mr. KENNEDY. The stories continue along. This is happening out in 
Sacramento.
  Here is a story about, for all intents and purposes, Christie:

       Christie did a job that this labor-hungry economy could not 
     do without. Every morning she drove her battered '86 
     Volkswagen from her apartment in public housing to the YWCA's 
     child care center in Akron, OH, where she spent the day 
     watching over little children so their parents could go to 
     work. Without her and thousands like her across the country, 
     there would have been fewer people able to fill the jobs that 
     fueled America's prosperity. Without her patience and warmth, 
     children could have been harmed as well, for she was more 
     than a babysitter. She gave the youngsters an emotionally 
     safe place, taught and mothered them, and sometimes even 
     rescued them from abuse at home.
       For those valuable services, she received a check for about 
     $330 every two weeks. She could not afford to put her own two 
     children in the day care center where she worked.

  She is looking out for children, and she is unable to provide the 
childcare for herself.
  Carolyn Payne did everything right but still can't find a job with 
decent wages.

       She had earned a college diploma, albeit a two-year 
     associate's degree. And she had gone from a homeless shelter 
     into her own house, although it was mostly owned by a bank. 
     The third objective, ``a good-paying job,'' as she put it, 
     still eluded her. Back in the mid-1970s, she earned $6 an 
     hour in a Vermont factory that made plastic cigarette 
     lighters and cases for Gillette razors. In 2000, she earned 
     $6.80 an hour stocking shelves and working cash registers at 
     a vast Wal-Mart superstore in New Hampshire.
       ``And that's sad,'' she said.

  She just can't make it and is in a homeless shelter. These people, 
our brothers and sisters of America who want to work, want to provide 
for their families, will do hard and difficult work. Carolyn Payne 
should have a greater sense of hope in the richest and the most 
powerful country in the world. We will give them that if we increase 
the minimum wage.
  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. KENNEDY. 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. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am going to describe what I understand 
is in the amendment which is being offered by Senator Enzi. I think it 
is important that we have a chance over the evening--because it looks 
less likely that we are going to be completing this debate tonight. We 
have others who are on their way over here. But I am going to review 
this and try to get through it, and then if I have misstated it, I hope 
I will be corrected.
  In the last 9 years, while costs have been rising, the minimum wage 
has been stuck at $5.15 an hour; that is, $10,712 a year, $6,000 below 
the poverty line for a family of three. Since 1997, the minimum wage 
has lost 20 percent of its value. The Enzi proposal is a $1.10 
increase--far short of making up for this lost value. It won't even 
make up for the lost value of the purchasing power of the existing 
minimum wage. It leaves behind 4.8 million workers who would be covered 
by the Democratic proposal because it only raises the wages of 1.8 
million workers.
  The raise to $5.15 was historically low, lower than any but for one 
increase in the 1960s. In fact, before the 1997 increase, the minimum 
wage had fallen to its lowest level since 1960. So we can't allow such 
a low increase for hard-working minimum wage workers.
  Eighty percent of the 14.9 million Americans who would be affected by 
the minimum wage are adults, and more than a third are the sole 
breadwinners in their families. Minimum wage workers have waited 9 
years. They deserve one that is fair.
  On the issue about the 10 million Americans who will lose the minimum 
wage in overtime protection, first, the Bush administration and 
Republican leadership in Congress stripped away overtime protection 
from 6 million Americans. That has already taken place. That has 
already taken place. They have done that through rules and regulations. 
Now they want to deny over 10 million more workers, minimum wage 
workers, overtime pay by eliminating the fair labor standards coverage 
entirely. Do you see what I mean? If you eliminate the coverage of the 
Fair Labor Standards Act, you eliminate the protections for overtime 
pay.
  Currently, all employees who work for employers who are engaged in 
interstate commerce, have gross annual sales of at least $500,000, are 
guaranteed the minimum wage and overtime pay. But even in businesses 
that have less than $500,000 in annual sales, employees still have 
individual minimum wage and overtime coverage if they are engaged in 
interstate commerce. The Enzi amendment would raise the $500,000 annual 
sales to $1 million and eliminate the fair labor standards coverage for 
workers who are engaged in interstate commerce. No more overtime for 
those individuals--10 million.
  Raising the annual business threshold to $1 million and eliminating 
the individual coverage would force greater numbers of hard-working 
Americans, retail workers, security guards, garment workers, 
waitresses, and their families into poverty. Raising the annual 
threshold and eliminating individual coverage would allow businesses to 
pay their workers less than the Federal minimum wage and require them 
to work longer hours without overtime pay.
  So, on the one hand, you get the $1.10 increase for 1.8 million, 
which will not even cover the lost value of the $5.15 since the last 9 
years. Then you eliminate the overtime protections for these workers as 
well. Because the Fair Labor Standards Act guarantees overtime and 
equal pay for women and men, this exemption jeopardizes these rights 
for over 10 million workers.
  The gross annual sales threshold was created as a way to determine 
that employers were engaged in interstate commerce, not as a way to 
exempt workers from minimum wage and overtime protection. Doubling the 
annual sales threshold and eliminating individual coverage would take 
away those protections for over 10 million workers, contradicting the 
long-term intent of the Congress to expand the Fair Labor Standards 
Act.
  For over 60 years Congress has repeatedly amended the Fair Labor 
Standards Act to provide more protection, more minimum wage and more

[[Page 11814]]

overtime protection--not less. This will be the first time we will see 
the significant reduction rather than an expansion.
  Instead of trying to exclude over 10 million workers from the 
guarantee of a minimum wage, we should be trying to raise it. It has 
been more than 9 years. Americans have waited long enough.
  This chart indicates raising the business exemption reverses a 
tradition of extending worker rights.
  Congress amended the business exemption in 1961, 1967, 1969 and 1989, 
each time to afford more employees minimum wage and overtime 
protections. The current $500,000 exemption was established 
deliberately to cover more employees. By raising the exemption, the 
Republican proposal would reduce the protection for the first time.
  That is very important.
  I want to cover the last two points. I see the Senator from 
Connecticut here.
  Under the Republican proposal, workers opt into the flextime system, 
but once they do, they do not control their own schedules. They work a 
50-hour workweek when their employer tells them to, not when they 
choose to.
  Under the current system, workers would get overtime for those extra 
10 hours a week. Under the Republican proposal, they would not.
  The Republicans claim the proposal would give the parent time to see 
a child's soccer game or attend a child's school play. They, in 
reality, don't get that freedom. They just get paid less for working a 
longer workweek.
  Public sector workers also have greater protection from being coerced 
to agree to flextime if they don't want it. Public employees generally 
have the protection of a union contract as well as the constitutional 
due process protections afforded them in the Civil Service, although 
this administration is trying to undermine those due process rights as 
well. Public employees can challenge abuses of flextime within the 
context of those protections, whereas most public employees cannot.
  As then-Governor Ashcroft explained in 1985, when the Senate was 
considering whether to permit flextime in the public sector:

       State and local governments are qualitatively different in 
     structure and function from private business. Public 
     employees serve under exceptional circumstance, the most 
     significant characteristic of which is the protection public 
     servants enjoy because they work in government.

  I am also going to add to the statement an analysis on the tip credit 
that would show how this effectively preempts the State from being able 
to make a judgment on this. This is a one-size-fits-all. It is ``the 
Federal Government knows best.''
  If we pass it here, we preempt what Massachusetts can do, what 
Connecticut can do, what Georgia can do. It doesn't seem to me to be 
the wise course of action. We permit States to make their own judgment 
to increase the minimum wage because that is what it is, a minimum. It 
is a bottom. But this proposal is going to interfere with the States' 
wage policy in other ways.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me begin, if I may, by once again 
commending our colleague from Massachusetts for his leadership on this 
issue. Over the years, no one has been a stronger champion, a louder 
voice, a stronger voice on behalf of the most disadvantaged in our 
society than the senior Senator from Massachusetts. Once again he is 
proving that point with this amendment he has offered. Frankly, as I 
recall in years past, increases in the minimum wage were the ones that 
were endorsed by both parties. I am old enough to remember when an 
increase in the minimum wage would have occurred in far less time than 
9 or 10 years.
  Nearly a decade has elapsed since the last increase. I am sure my 
colleague from Massachusetts can tell me on the average, it was 
probably every 2 or 3 or 4 years that the increase would occur. When it 
did, when the proposal was offered and it was worked out between the 
two parties, it went through almost unanimously if not unanimously. But 
here we are. This is an indication of what has happened in our beloved 
country over the last number of years.
  Nearly 37 million of our fellow citizens, including 13 million 
children are currently living at or below the poverty level in the 
United States. Yet we somehow cannot find ways among ourselves here to 
reach a consensus to increase the minimum wage to $7.25 over the next 2 
years--a $2.10 increase.
  I find that rather shocking. I suppose it is an indication of what 
has happened to the body politic in this country, that you cannot find 
common ground to make a difference in the lives of almost 40 million of 
our fellow citizens.
  These Americans are struggling out there every single day and as I 
mentioned earlier, 13 million of them are totally defenseless--our 
children. Certainly, while Members of Congress may find it odd, the 
average citizen out there, even those who are making way beyond the 
minimum wage, were they here tonight in this Chamber, would tell you 
how difficult it is to meet the rising cost of living--food, housing, 
clothing--not to mention soaring energy costs. Yet in the midst of all 
of that, we find it impossible to provide an increase, after nearly a 
decade, of $2.10 per hour for these families in our country.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a moment?
  Mr. DODD. I am happy to yield to my colleague from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. As all of us know, the Senator has been the chairman of 
the Children's Caucus here in the Senate. He is the author of the 
Family and Medical Leave legislation. He worked 5 years to get that 
legislation passed. It has been a great success. There were extensive 
hearings in our committee over the course of the years on children and 
children's needs, children's education.
  Does he agree with me that we have seen this remarkable growth of 
child poverty in the last 5 years? The Senator has just mentioned this. 
I just want to underline it. In the strongest economy of the world, we 
are seeing a significant growth in child poverty and child hunger in 
this Nation, and we have seen, as the Senator pointed out, the virtual 
lack of increase in the minimum wage and the reduction of purchasing 
power.
  Does the Senator join with me in recognizing what we have seen? The 
U.K., which is the second strongest economy in Europe, will be going to 
$9.80 an hour in December. Gordon Brown takes pride in the fact that 
they have raised 1.8 million children out of poverty in the U.K. over 
the period of the last 5 years. In Ireland it is $9.60, and they have 
raised hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.
  Does the Senator agree with me that the fact of the failure of 
increasing the minimum wage has had an extremely negative impact on the 
well-being of children in our country, resulting in the fact that there 
are hundreds of thousands, even millions more children who are living 
in poverty because we have failed to do that?
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I say to my colleague, if he will yield 
back, I couldn't agree with him more. This is one of the great myths 
about the minimum wage increase. You will hear over and over again; in 
fact, we have heard it here already today: If you increase the minimum 
wage, this hurts business. This makes it more difficult to hire people, 
to employ people.
  I found it rather interesting that in surveys done among the business 
community, particularly the small business community, 86 percent of 
small business owners do not think the minimum wage affects their 
business.
  The Senator from Massachusetts is absolutely correct that raising 
children out of poverty is directly related to the ability of their 
parents to provide for them.
  Again, it should not take lecturing here to my colleagues in this 
great body to make the case, in the 21st century, that we are going to 
have to have the best prepared, best educated, healthiest generation we 
can produce if we are going to remain competitive in a global economy. 
When you have 13 million of your children growing up in

[[Page 11815]]

poverty, how are these children going to effectively compete? How are 
they going to be well educated? How are they going to be healthy enough 
not only to be good parents themselves, but good workers, and good 
citizens?
  It seems axiomatic. It should be understood on its face. If we 
continue on the road we are traveling, with the number of children in 
our country growing up in poverty increasing, it is going to make it 
more difficult for our country to compete in the 21st century.
  There is a graph here which I know the Senator has seen, but it makes 
the case of what is happening. The United States has the highest child 
poverty rate in the industrialized world: Denmark, Sweden, France, the 
Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Japan, Canada, U.K., Italy. All of these 
countries, major competitors in the world, do a far better job seeing 
to it that their children are better prepared to meet those challenges.
  Our future is lagging behind when a substantial number of children 
are growing up, in our great country, in poverty. This is through no 
fault of their own. It is through the accident of birth, being born 
into a family where their parents are struggling to earn a decent wage 
and make ends meet. These are working families, by the way. These are 
not families collecting subsistence or some kind of charity. They are 
out there working, earning an income that does not allow them to meet 
the basic necessities of life.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DODD. I am glad to yield to my colleague.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator has given just an excellent statement about 
what happens to children when they live in poverty. I was wondering if 
the Senator would comment about the growth of hunger over the last 5 
years. There are 5 million more of these people now, according to the 
USDA, and more than 20 percent of these are children. Five million more 
Americans are hungry or on the verge of hunger.
  I wonder, I ask someone who chaired the Children's Caucus, I ask 
about the fact that children are increasingly pressured in terms of the 
issue of hunger, what does this do to a child in terms of a child's 
development?
  Let me add one addendum. I believe the Senator may remember what 
happened, I think it was in Philadelphia, where they expanded the 
school lunch program to include a school breakfast program. They found 
out that the grades of the children all went up noticeably--I think it 
was somewhat close to 10 percent. In any event, it was clearly noticed, 
as they found out, when children have decent nutrition, their 
performance--in terms of educationally, culturally, socially, and from 
a discipline point of view--is very importantly impacted. I wonder if 
the Senator would tell us from his own experience what he knows about 
this.
  Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague for bringing up this chart to 
emphasize the point. I think these numbers are from the Department of 
Agriculture.
  Again, the Senator is making an excellent point. If you have a hard 
time understanding what the Senator from Massachusetts is saying or the 
Senator from Connecticut, ask any teacher. Ask any teacher in this 
country, particularly at the elementary school level, what sort of 
academic performance, what sort of attention spans you have with a 
child who has received adequate nutrition, a decent meal, compared to 
those who have not. You will hear anecdote after anecdote of what 
happens with children who do not have proper nutrition--not to mention 
the growing health care problems that can emerge.
  This is just good, sound investment policy. If you really care about 
the future of your country, if you really care about whether or not our 
Nation's children are going to be able to perform adequately in this 
century, then clearly making sure that they have the basic essentials 
is, again, so obvious that it should not require a debate on the floor 
of the Senate to make the point.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for one more question?
  Mr. DODD. Yes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Now we find out there is increasing hunger, and now we 
know it affects more than one million children.
  Can the Senator tell us what he knows about Americans and their 
degree of support to relieve the hunger of children? It is truly 
overwhelming, is it not?
  Mr. DODD. It is not surprising but it is worthy of being repeated.
  Ninety-four percent of our fellow citizens across this country, 
regardless of geography and economic circumstance, of gender, 
ethnicity, whatever the differences may be, agree with the following 
quotation: People who work should be able to feed their families. 
Ninety-four percent subscribe to that notion.
  The Senator from Massachusetts is talking about working families. Our 
fellow citizens believe that if you are a working family, you should be 
able to make enough money to feed your family.
  This is the United States of America. This is not some Third or 
Fourth World country we are talking about. Yet with 37 million of our 
fellow citizens, adults and children, unable to meet the requirements 
of basic food and nutrition, it ought to stun everyone in our country.
  What we are trying to do is make it possible for these people who are 
working hard to be able to provide for their families. That is all we 
are talking about.
  I point out to colleagues who have offered an alternative to this 
proposal, that a $1.10 per hour increase to $6.25 per hour over the 
next 2 years, means that millions of children would be left behind.
  What the Senator from Massachusetts is offering--with a bipartisan 
group of support, we hope--is a $2.10 per hour increase to provide for 
the needs of working families. What the Senator from Massachusetts has 
laid out I couldn't agree more with him. If you are truly interested in 
making a difference in this country, that extra $1 per hour could make 
a huge difference in the ability of these families to make ends meet.
  Among full-time, year-round workers, poverty has increased by 50 
percent since the 1970s. Minimum wage employees working 40 hours a 
week, 52 weeks a year are earning $10,700 a year. That is almost $6,000 
below the Federal poverty guidelines of $16,600 for a family of three--
$6,000 less than you ought to be able to have if you are going to meet 
the poverty guidelines.
  Here we are in the 21st century, and the minimum wage is losing its 
value as well. Since the minimum wage was last raised nearly 10 years 
ago, its real value has eroded by 20 percent. Minimum wage workers have 
already lost all of the gains from the 1996-1997 increase.
  Today, the real value of the minimum wage is more than $4 below what 
it was in 1968. To have the purchasing power it had in 1968, the 
minimum wage would have to be more than $9.25 per hour--not the $5.15 
we are currently at.
  I want to make a point as well about what the impact of this minimum 
wage increase would have on the lives of working families.
  Nearly 15 million Americans would benefit from the minimum wage 
increase to $7.25 per hour. That is 6.6 million people directly 
affected in a positive way and another 8.3 million affected indirectly. 
Almost 60 percent of these workers are women, and 40 percent are people 
of color. Eighty percent of those who would benefit are adult workers, 
not teenagers seeking pocket change, as some have said, and more than a 
third of these are adults are the sole providers for their families.
  Again, we are talking about an increase to $7.25 per hour, which is 
still hardly enough to make ends meet when you consider the cost of 
food, clothing, housing, not to mention the skyrocketing cost of energy 
that has hit everybody in this country. We all know how hard it is to 
provide for our families.
  If you raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour, it would mean an 
additional $4,400 a year. That additional money would be enough for a 
low-income family of three to buy 15 months of groceries which they 
couldn't otherwise get, 19 months of utilities which

[[Page 11816]]

they would not otherwise be able to afford, 8 months of rent, over 2 
years of health care, 20 months of child care, 30 months of college 
tuition at a public 2-year college. Consider those numbers--20 months 
of child care that these working families need if they are going to 
keep their jobs and keep their children safe, not to mention 30 months 
of college tuition. It may not seem like much, but it is important.
  In 10 years, the person earning minimum wage has received no pay 
increases, unless they have been lucky enough to live in a State that 
increased the minimum wage.
  But for most of our fellow citizens, that has not been the case. And 
we now have nearly 40 million of our fellow citizens living at or below 
the poverty level.
  I repeat this because I know my colleagues care so much about it. To 
have 13 million of our children in this country who, except by accident 
of birth, have found themselves living under these circumstances and 
having to survive at that level is unacceptable.
  This is the United States of America. We ought to be doing far 
better.
  To find out, as we recently pointed out on the chart, that almost 
every other industrialized country in Western Europe is doing far 
better by their children, far better by their minimum wage workers, 
ought to be a source of collective embarrassment for this great country 
of ours.
  I don't think I have to make this case too often. We know how 
difficult it is going to be to compete in the 21st century. If we don't 
have a generation coming along that is well educated and well prepared 
to meet the challenges of the 21st century, it is going to be hard for 
Americans to remain strong and competitive.
  You just have to read about what is happening in our major 
competitive countries. We take great pride in 60,000 high school 
students in this country who competed last year in the science fair, a 
great number. Compare that with 6 million who competed in the same 
science fair in the People's Republic of China last year.
  That is the challenge of the 21st century.
  With 13 million kids in this country going without getting a decent 
meal every day, we are going to have a real problem on our hands if you 
do not begin to address that.
  I feel strongly about this and I wish we could reach agreement 
quickly. I remember the days when the minimum wage increase was done by 
a voice vote. We worked out the differences and sat down and 
negotiated, and it was passed unanimously on a record vote or a voice 
vote. How sad it is that we have come to this, where nearly a decade 
later we are sitting here arguing with each other about whether 15 
million of our fellow citizens could get a bump of $2.10 per hour up to 
$7.25 an hour.
  This ought to be something we can all agree on and not engage in this 
kind of acrimonious debate.
  I want to point out, as well, that there are other provisions that 
will be offered by the majority that are very troublesome to me, 
including a fundamental change in the overtime pay schedule that I 
think is very unfair to people. This goes beyond the minimum wage 
worker. Here we have always provided that if you work more than a 40-
hour week in that week, then you get time and a half. That has been 
Federal law. We are now saying we are going to apply a 2-week standard. 
An employer could have you work 50 hours in 1 week and 30 hours in the 
next. That is 80 hours, but for the 10 hours more in the first week, 
you don't get the additional pay.
  That is unfair to a lot of people in this country. If you work an 
additional 10 hours in a week, that can be hard labor, and you ought to 
get time and a half. The law requires it. That would be a $3,000 per 
year pay cut for a median income worker and an $800 pay cut for minimum 
wage workers. That additional 10 hours of overtime pay could make a big 
difference.
  I don't know why the majority decided to add that provision. It seems 
to me that is unduly harsh to an awful lot of people.
  We talked about the poverty level working with the minimum wage. I am 
talking about people who are above the poverty level but are struggling 
and don't have to be making $16,000 or $10,000 to be struggling in this 
country. You could be making $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 a year. If you 
are a family of four, you may very well be struggling, considering the 
cost-of-living increases that have gone on. For that man or woman who 
works an additional 10 hours a week, 10 hours away from their families 
after putting in 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, that additional 10 hours 
can be hard. And to say I am not going to give time and a half for 
those 10 hours I think is unfair to those people.
  If that ends up being adopted, I think it is a great step back as 
well.
  I hope we will adopt the proposal that the Senator from Massachusetts 
has offered. I commend him, once again, for making a strong case.
  Again, on behalf of 13 million children in this country, and million 
of people who are out there struggling tonight to take care of their 
families, to raise good families, I urge adoption of the amendment 
being proposed by our colleague from Massachusetts. I hope it will be 
adopted by our colleagues when voted on tomorrow. It is an important 
contribution. Nine years is too long to wait for an increase in the 
minimum wage.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. 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. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, on behalf of the leadership, I make this 
unanimous consent request.
  I ask unanimous consent that the first amendment, No. 4323, be 
withdrawn; provided further that Senator Enzi be recognized in order to 
offer a first-degree amendment relating to the minimum wage; provided 
further that the Senate then resume debate at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday 
and that there be 1\1/2\ hours of debate equally divided between the 
chairman and ranking member of the HELP Committee or their designees. I 
further ask unanimous consent that at the use or yielding back of time, 
the Senate proceed to a vote on Kennedy amendment No. 4322, to be 
followed by a vote on the Enzi amendment, with no amendments to the 
amendments in order; provided further, if either amendment does not get 
60 votes in the affirmative, then that amendment would be automatically 
withdrawn.
  I further ask unanimous consent that following those votes, Senator 
Levin be recognized in order to offer amendment number No. 4320 related 
to Iraq. There will be 5 hours equally divided in relation to that 
amendment, and following that debate, the amendment be set aside and 
Senator Kerry be recognized to offer his amendment related to Iraq.
  Mr. DODD. Reserving the right to object, I express my appreciation to 
the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Michigan. I have an 
amendment I am considering offering dealing with Guantanamo Bay.
  I inquire as to whether there is an opportunity to work that out?
  Mr. WARNER. I simply say, I understood the Senator has that 
amendment. I have asked colleagues on this side to be here. They are 
now present.
  The Senator indicated you would lay it down now for the purpose of 
introducing the amendment, having a colloquy on the amendment, and the 
time for the voting would be established by the leadership at some 
point in the future.
  Mr. DODD. I thank the chairman.
  Mr. WARNER. The Senator is now ready to proceed.
  Mr. DODD. I wanted to make sure in the discussion there was a space 
for that.
  Mr. HARKIN. Reserving the right to object, I am here to speak on the 
minimum wage amendment.
  Are we going off of that?
  Mr. REID. We will vote on it in the morning.
  Mr. HARKIN. OK.
  Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, is it my understanding that

[[Page 11817]]

there would be no amendments allowed to my amendment?
  Mr. REID. If the Senator will yield, we just got a call that some 
Senator objects to this.
  Mr. WARNER. I didn't hear what the distinguished Democratic leader 
said.
  Mr. REID. A Senator just called objecting to this request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection to the unanimous consent 
proposed by the Senator from Virginia?
  Mr. LEVIN. There is an objection, apparently, which we just received 
in the cloakroom.
  Although I support it, we have to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, last March in the bankruptcy reform bill, 
the Senate debated the minimum wage with Senator Kennedy offering an 
amendment to increase the minimum wage over a 2-year period to $7.25. 
That amendment failed on a largely party-line vote, 46 to 49. Again, 
last October, another Kennedy amendment to increase the minimum wage 
over a 2-year period, to $6.25, again failed on a largely party-line 
vote, 47 to 48.
  Both votes ignored the fact that 37 million Americans, many holding 
down full-time jobs, are living in poverty.
  Here we are again. This week we again debate an amendment offered by 
Senator Kennedy, me, and many others, to increase the minimum wage. I 
hope this time the outcome will be different. Indeed, with 37 million 
Americans living in poverty, almost 13 percent of our population, we 
have to have a different outcome. We have to raise the minimum wage.
  Poverty is increasing sharply among the working poor. The new Census 
Bureau numbers show over the last year alone, the number of Americans 
who work but live in poverty increased by 563,000. The number of 
Americans who work but live in poverty increased by half a million.
  A job ought to lift people out of poverty not keep them in poverty. 
But that is what we have today--more and more Americans working, yet 
more and more Americans falling into poverty who are working. A job 
ought to lift you out of poverty. It offends our basic sense of 
fairness to know there are many Americans who work full time, play by 
the rules, and still live in poverty.
  Millions of Americans find themselves doing this, including 13 
million children. That is why it is absurd, beyond reason, hard to 
explain to the average person why the minimum wage has been stuck at 
$5.15 an hour for the last 9 years.
  How would any Senator like to have the same salary that he or she got 
9 years ago? Seven times in the last 9 years we have raised our 
salaries. We have adjusted upward to account for the increased cost of 
living. Yes, over the same time, we have callously allowed the income 
of workers earning the minimum wage to languish, lose value every year, 
as inflation has gone up and they stay the same. It is incredible we 
would raise our salaries seven times in 9 years and never raise the 
minimum wage.
  The amendment offered by Senator Kennedy and me and others to raise 
the minimum wage to $7.25 is, as I said, long overdue. Prior to last 
March, it had been 5 years since we last had a vote on the minimum 
wage. It has now been 9 years since we last raised the minimum wage.
  To have the same purchasing power, for example, if we took the year 
1968, the minimum wage today would have to be more than $9.26 an hour. 
Minimum wage workers earn a paltry $10,712 a year total, almost $16,600 
below the Federal poverty guidelines for a family of three.
  This chart shows the salary of a full-time minimum wage worker to be 
$10,712. The average family health care premium in 2005 was $10,880. 
Right now, 35 percent of minimum wage workers in America are the sole 
support of their families. These are not just teenagers. Some may be 
teenagers; more often than not it is a single, working mother. They can 
work hard all year at the minimum wage--and they do work hard, if you 
have ever seen anyone do that kind of work--and they cannot even buy a 
health care premium.
  As I said, the salary for full-time minimum wage workers is $10,712; 
the average cost of a health care premium, $10,880. They could not even 
afford to buy health care, let alone pay rent, buy food, pay for 
heating, buy gas for the car to get back and forth to work.
  As I said, there is a lot of misperception about who gets the minimum 
wage. We hear it is teenagers, part-time workers flipping hamburgers. 
Here are the facts: 35 percent earning the minimum wage are the sole 
breadwinners of their families; 61 percent are women; almost a third of 
those women are raising children; 76 percent of the women who would 
directly benefit from an increase are over the age of 20. Among 
families with children, and a low-wage worker who would be affected by 
an increase, the affected worker contributes half of the family's 
earnings. Those are the facts.
  A decent minimum wage is critical to moving people from welfare to 
work. I thought that is what we wanted to do. Since the Clinton 
Welfare-to-Work Program in 1996, we reduced the number of welfare cases 
by half. But so many of the people who moved off of welfare did not 
move out of poverty. Why? Because at the current minimum wage, it is 
not a living wage, it is a poverty wage.
  An increase to $7.25 would make a dramatic difference. It would add 
$4,370 in income. That is real value to a family living in poverty. 
Nearly 7.5 million workers would benefit from a minimum wage increase. 
In my home State of Iowa, 87,500 workers would benefit from the 
increase, more than 6 percent of our workforce.
  In urging the passage of the first minimum wage legislation, 
President Franklin Roosevelt once said:

       No business which depends for existence on paying less than 
     living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this 
     country.

  Imagine that. He went on to say:

       By living wages, I mean more than bare subsistence levels. 
     I mean the wages of a decent living.

  He had it right. We can do it better. Gas prices are up 70 percent, 
health insurance is up 33 percent, college tuition is up 35 percent, 
housing is up 36 percent, and wages are up 1 percent. Minimum wage is 
up nothing, not even 1 percent.
  During the same period, private sector executive salaries have risen 
dramatically. Right now, the average CEO in America makes $11.8 million 
a year--the average worker is earning $27,460 a year--431 times what 
the average worker makes. Imagine being a minimum wage worker making 
$10,000.
  Mr. REID. Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?
  Mr. HARKIN. As long as I get the floor back.
  Mr. REID. I ask that the Senator, when we finish, be permitted to 
resume the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would like to ask the unanimous consent 
request made by the Senator from Virginia a few minutes ago be agreed 
to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I presume that the request is as read and 
that there have been no changes, and we will then have the sequence of 
recognition of Senators Levin and Kerry; and I add to it that 
thereafter the Senator from Virginia would be recognized for the 
purpose of submitting whatever amendment.
  I ask for recognition for the purpose of offering the amendment from 
our side on whatever subject that comes up at that time at the 
conclusion of these two.
  Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, I assume there would be 
adequate time that we would be allowed to consider an amendment of the 
Senator from Virginia? As I understand, the Senator was talking about a 
possible amendment on Iraq.
  Mr. WARNER. I said it could be on anything.
  Mr. LEVIN. Could be on Iraq.
  Mr. WARNER. We have been going back and forth.
  Mr. LEVIN. Is the Senator offering the amendment he is referring to 
postcloture?

[[Page 11818]]


  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, if I could inquire, I agree with the 
minority manager of the bill, there is a question about what the 
amendment might be about. If it comes precloture or postcloture, 
postcloture it makes no difference. If it is precloture and it is about 
Iraq, I think the Senator from Michigan and others would then have an 
interest in being able to respond to whatever that amendment is.
  I say to the distinguished manager, the Senator from Virginia--and it 
is his right, and we are very happy to have him acknowledge that right 
to put that amendment in--we would want to have time, obviously, to 
debate it and respond to it, conceivably.
  The question is whether it is precloture or postcloture. I ask the 
Presiding Officer if the Senator from Virginia intends to offer 
whatever amendment he does immediately after cloture or precloture?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I withdraw that and ask unanimous consent 
that we approve the request as read earlier.
  Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, when we were discussing 
this last, I asked whether or not the manager, the chairman, would make 
it clear that my amendment is not subject to amendment.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we are perfectly willing to make that 
eminently clear.
  Mr. LEVIN. And also if the Senator would agree that the Kerry 
amendment----
  Mr. WARNER. We have not seen his amendment.
  Mr. LEVIN. Then the request is that the unanimous consent request be 
amended so that my amendment which is on file will not be subject to 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modification of the 
unanimous consent request of the Senator from Virginia that the Levin 
amendment not be amendable? Without objection, the request is so 
modified.
  Mr. WARNER. Has the Chair ruled on the underlying UC request?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request as modified?
  Mr. DODD. Reserving the right to object, I know we have had a 
discussion with the distinguished chairman of the committee. Senator 
Bingaman and I are interested in offering amendments at the appropriate 
time precloture on the Guantanamo situation. I am wondering if we could 
allocate an hour before the cloture motion is filed to raise that 
amendment and then have a vote on it, either one or two of those 
amendments.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I have been trying to get the minimum wage 
put aside so that you could move. And you are going to argue tonight 
your amendment; is that correct?
  Mr. DODD. I say to my colleague----
  Mr. WARNER. And Senator Bingaman likewise. I think he has an 
amendment pending at the desk.
  Mr. LEVIN. It has not been filed.
  Mr. WARNER. But he has spoken to it.
  Mr. LEVIN. That is correct.
  Mr. WARNER. What is the desire? I have to ask my colleagues, we are 
trying as best we can to accommodate all interested parties. The 
amendments are coming from this side. It is really incumbent on you all 
to try and reconcile how you wish to proceed. We are about to lock up 
the two significant amendments of the Senator from Michigan and the 
Senator from Massachusetts. I recognize you have had that amendment. 
You asked to bring it up tonight. I have assembled a group of my 
colleagues to debate the amendment. What is the pleasure?
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if the Senator from Virginia would yield----
  Mr. WARNER. Yes.
  Mr. REID. The problem we have is, the Senator from Connecticut wants 
to have his amendment heard prior to cloture. The problem is, there has 
not been a motion for cloture filed yet. If the cloture motion is filed 
tonight, then under the rules, an hour after we come in on Thursday, 
cloture would be voted on. That being the case, under the proposed 
unanimous consent agreement we have here, there is going to be a lot of 
hours used up prior to Thursday morning at 9 or 10, whenever we come in 
here. I think there are a lot of people who want to offer amendments, 
but unless they are germane amendments, there would be no guarantee 
that there would be a vote on them, other than the two here. We have 
had assurances that the Levin and the Kerry amendment, even though 
there would be a problem with cloture, they would allow a vote on that. 
I think realistically, it would be hard for anyone to guarantee a vote 
prior to cloture to the Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we had understood that the debate would be 
held tonight. We were willing to have a vote on Gitmo tomorrow right 
after the minimum wage. There it is.
  Mr. REID. That would certainly be long before cloture and the debate 
would be finished tonight, and we could slow up Senators Levin and 
Kerry by more than 20 minutes.
  Mr. DODD. If we could agree to a vote on one or two amendments on the 
Gitmo situation and allow us the opportunity to debate this evening or 
possibly an hour tomorrow morning before the vote, that would 
accommodate us completely. If we could accommodate that request, then 
we can go forward. That is the request we would like to make.
  Mr. REID. I respectfully request, I have spent nearly all of the day 
trying to work something out on these two amendments. Senator Levin and 
Senator Kerry can speak for themselves. I am not sure they want another 
hour. We can finish the debate on yours tonight and vote on it in the 
morning with 15 or 20 minutes evenly divided. Maybe something like that 
could be worked out, but I don't think there is an hour left. If these 
two men debate tomorrow night, we aren't going to finish this thing 
until some time late tomorrow night at best.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request of the 
Senator from Virginia?
  Mr. REID. I would simply say this--and I appreciate very much the 
Senator from Iowa being so courteous--everyone is in agreement that we 
are going to try to work something out so that you and Senator Bingaman 
can get a vote on your amendment tomorrow morning. It is just a 
question of how we do it timewise.
  Mr. DODD. Is that the understanding, that that would be the case?
  Mr. WARNER. We will try and do our very best.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request, as 
modified?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Iowa has the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. If the Senator would yield just for a moment, I would 
like to ask my two colleagues, for the knowledge of my two colleagues 
on this side, how soon may we start the debate on the Guantanamo 
amendments?
  Mr. DODD. Why don't we say around 7 o'clock. Say at 7 o'clock.
  Mr. WARNER. We will certainly accommodate the Senator from Iowa. I 
have two colleagues who withdrew from their schedules to come over here 
tonight because we were told that we would start this debate.
  Mr. DODD. I would say at 7 p.m.
  Mr. WARNER. All right, 7 p.m.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the average CEO in America today makes 
$11.8 million a year. The average salaried worker makes $27,460 a year. 
That is 431 times what the average worker makes. That is the average 
worker. Take a minimum wage worker at $10,600 a year. The average CEO 
makes a thousand times more a year, a thousand times more than a 
minimum wage worker. So you can see the disparity has gotten out of 
hand.
  In the wake of Katrina, in a speech in New Orleans, President Bush 
proclaimed:

       We should confront poverty with bold action.

  We are just trying to raise the minimum wage for the first time in 9 
years, and we can't even do that. We can have tax reductions for the 
wealthy on and on and on; they seem to be sacrosanct, untouchable; but 
we can't raise the minimum wage. The working poor have to do with $5.15 
an hour. This is unconscionable. We have to do something about it.
  Have Members of the Senate all joined the Neiman Marcus crowd? Have

[[Page 11819]]

we become so totally insulated from the realities of real life for the 
people who work and shop at Wal-Mart and K-Mart, Dollar stores, who 
pinch their pennies, who go to the grocery store and spend the time 
looking for the best bargains, have we become so insulated from them 
that we can't see the need to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an 
hour?
  Poverty has doubled since the late 1970s among full-time, year-round 
workers from about 1.3 million to more than 2.6 million. Every day the 
minimum wage is not increased, it continues to lose value and workers 
fall further and further behind.
  Here is what is happening today. That is why I say there is a misery 
index out there, a working class misery index. This shows it. 
Productivity keeps going up. People are working longer, working harder. 
They are producing more. Productivity is up 166 percent since 1960. 
Look what has happened to the real minimum wage. It is down 23 percent.
  This is what the average person feels: My gas prices have gone up. My 
rent has gone up. I can never afford to send my kid to college. College 
tuition has gone up. Health care premiums are skyrocketing. I am 
working harder, longer. I am producing more, and I am getting less. 
That is what I call a working class misery index in America. And what 
have we done? We raised our salaries 7 times in the last 9 years. We 
have tax break after tax break after tax break for the privileged few 
in America.
  Just a couple weeks ago there was an attempt on the floor to 
completely wipe out the estate tax, estate taxes paid by only 3 
families out of every 1,000 in America. Three out of every 1,000 
families pay any estate taxes. They are the wealthiest in our country. 
We had an amendment to the bill by the other side to completely 
eliminate it. Thankfully, we didn't do that.
  But now when we want to raise the minimum wage just a paltry two 
dollars and something cents an hour, we can't do that? Where is the 
fairness? Where is the fairness for the American worker? No wonder the 
average American's esteem of Congress has gone down--along, I might 
add, with the President's, because the President is not up here asking 
for a minimum wage increase either.
  No wonder people don't think we are doing anything. We raise our 
salaries 7 times in 9 years. We have tax breaks for the wealthy. We 
have tax breaks for big business. We want to do away with estate taxes 
for the wealthiest few. But we won't raise the minimum wage.
  It all leads us to conclude that when it comes to the issues of 
poverty and the working poor, the American public should watch what we 
do, not what we say.
  I will bet every Senator here can give wonderful talks about work, 
the value of work and more jobs and creating jobs and the economy is up 
and isn't everything wonderful. Yes, if you are a CEO, it is wonderful. 
If you are a CEO, it is pretty darn nice. If you are making $150,000, 
$160,000 a year, $170,000, as we are here, things are pretty nice. But 
if you are a minimum wage worker, things aren't very pretty. Things 
aren't pretty at all. You are not saving anything. You are barely able 
to scrape by. Your kids are probably not getting the best food and 
nutrition. They are probably not going to be able to manage to go to 
college. You don't have health care so you go to the emergency room 
when you get sick so you don't have any preventative care. Your kids 
are probably not getting the vaccinations and the checkups they need. 
They are probably not getting the dental care they need.
  I am not talking about ``poor people living in poverty who aren't 
working.'' I am talking about poor people who go to work every single 
day. You see them. We all see them. We all see them. You go into stores 
and see the people working behind the counters. Check on the people who 
are working in day-care centers, people in Head Start centers, people 
cleaning houses, cleaning our office buildings. Yes, and a lot of 
people are working, flipping burgers and stuff like that, making the 
minimum wage. But they are the sole breadwinner of their family.
  We see them every day and yet we pass by, we just pass on by. Let's 
not pass on by here. Let's stop and think, act accordingly, and reach 
down and say to those people who are working hard every day that it is 
time to give you a raise, too--not just corporate CEOs or Members of 
Congress, but let's give at least a $2.10 increase to the people who 
make the minimum wage. It will be good for American workers and for our 
economy. It is long overdue, and it is the right thing to do.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 4376

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I send my amendment to the desk for the 
debate to be done in the morning.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk:

       The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Enzi] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 4376.

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, my understanding is that we will have two 
amendments introduced by the other side with regard to Guantanamo. They 
will be debated tonight. We are going to work toward making certain 
they get a vote on those amendments. I ask my ranking member.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia. We thank 
the Senator for his unvaried hospitality and good nature on these kinds 
of difficulties. We appreciate his determination to try to find the 
opportunity for a Guantanamo amendment or amendments. They are trying 
now, I believe, to figure out--I think it is going to be offered at 7 
p.m. I guess they will be here to offer that amendment at 7 o'clock.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in the interim, seeing no Senator desiring 
to address the Senate, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. 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. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I want to speak, if I may, regarding a 
proposal by Senator Bingaman concerning Guantanamo Bay and the 
disposition of detainees. I understand he introduced an amendment 
yesterday. I have the summary of it. If I mischaracterize it or if it 
is changed in any way, I apologize. I will try to give an overview 
based on what I know, with the understanding that if it changed, I 
stand corrected.
  Senator Bingaman, from what I understand, has an amendment that would 
require the United States to either charge, repatriate or release 
individuals held at Guantanamo Bay within 180 days of the enactment of 
the Defense authorization bill, and if for some reason the Government 
fails to comply within that timeframe, the Department of Defense would 
have to report back to Congress to tell us why. It provides further 
that charges could be filed in U.S. District Court, a military tribunal 
court or military commission or an international tribunal against 
detainees.
  If I may, I will express my concerns about this amendment. No. 1, the 
detainees at Guantanamo Bay are being held as enemy combatants. That is 
a concept that has been part of our law for quite a while. The Supreme 
Court has several enemy combatant case holdings. That is someone who is 
involved in hostilities but not in the normal course of combat. They 
don't wear uniforms. They are not supported by a particular State. They 
are fighting, in this case, for a terrorism cause that doesn't have a 
country of origin. They are irregular combatants.
  For many years in the military law, a regular combatant or enemy 
combatant has been considered a person outside of the protection of the 
Geneva

[[Page 11820]]

Convention because that is an international treaty designed to protect 
lawful combatants and have procedures that every signatory country will 
abide by. A lawful combatant is someone who represents a State, wears a 
uniform, and operates within the rules of international military law.
  Al-Qaida, by their very definition, because they don't wear uniforms 
and represent a particular country, are irregular enemy combatants. The 
people at Guantanamo Bay have been captured in various parts of the 
world by the U.S. military or were turned over to them as being 
suspected of being involved in the war on terror. There are 500-
something people down there now; over 200 have been released. Senator 
Bingaman's amendment would require the Government to release them all 
or charge them.
  The reason I believe that is not good public policy is because enemy 
combatants--you don't have to choose between trying them and letting 
them go. A prisoner of war is not required to be released until the 
hostilities are over. We have had Members of the Congress who were 
enemy prisoners during Vietnam and were incarcerated 5, 6 or 7 years, 
until the Vietnam war came to an end.
  This amendment, in an odd way, would allow enemy combatants to be 
released before hostilities are over, which is something not afforded 
to a prisoner of war. But a traditional prisoner of war is not subject 
to being tried as a war criminal for the mere status of being involved 
with the opposing force.
  I believe strongly that it is not advisable for this country to say 
as a matter of policy that every enemy combatant or unlawful combatant 
per se is a war criminal. Military trials or commissions should be 
conducted for people who are part of the enemy force who have violated 
the law of armed conflict. There are about 20-something people, I 
believe, facing military commission charges at Guantanamo Bay and 
haven't been tried yet because of Federal court proceedings affecting 
the outcome of the military commission status. This amendment would 
require the United States to make a choice that no other country has 
ever had to make: try them or let them go.
  The truth is that some of them deserve to be tried as war criminals. 
Some of them deserve to be taken off the battlefield until they are no 
longer a threat to our country and our coalition forces. And to have to 
let them go or try them is a choice the country should not have to 
make.
  Who is at Guantanamo Bay? There have been some high-profile stories 
about individuals who were sent there who may not have been involved in 
enemy combatant activities. Unfortunately, those things happen. You can 
get someone in your custody based on some bad information and, over 
time, find out you made a mistake. And 200-something people have been 
released under the current procedure. What is that procedure? The 
Geneva Convention says if there is a question as to whether a person is 
a POW, a prisoner of war, or an unlawful enemy combatant, the host 
country, the country in custody of that individual, must have a 
competent tribunal to make that decision.
  As far as I know--and correct me if I am wrong--the decision as to 
whether a person is an enemy combatant is a military decision. We don't 
have civilian trials. The Geneva Convention doesn't require a civilian 
judicial determination to be made. The determination of whether you are 
a POW who is entitled to the Geneva Convention protection, an enemy 
combatant or an innocent individual, is left up to the military. I 
argue that that is the way it should be, with due process rights.
  The problem with this war is that we don't know when it is going to 
be over because there will be no surrender ceremony. I am sensitive to 
that. I understand the Senator's concerns, and that is legitimate. The 
process at Guantanamo Bay now, as I understand it, is when somebody is 
sent there, a combat status review tribunal will review their case, a 
military intelligence officer, and a military lawyer will look at the 
case and determine if the individual before them is an enemy combatant 
or meets the definition of an unlawful irregular enemy combatant. The 
host country where the person comes from can intervene on their behalf. 
Evidence is collected. They don't have a lawyer, but they have a 
representative. Every year, that person's status is reviewed. An annual 
review looks at whether the person still has intelligence value, 
whether they are a threat to the United States or has anything changed 
about their initial status determination.
  Under an amendment passed that was authored by Senator Levin and 
myself, every Guantanamo Bay detainee now will have a chance to appeal 
their case to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and a 
Federal court of appeals at the District of Columbia will review the 
combat status review tribunal's action in that case to see if it was 
proper. So now we have civilian courts looking over the initial 
military determination. When it comes to military commissions and 
people being tried as war criminals, we have the presumption of 
innocence and the right to a lawyer, which is a very similar tribunal 
to international tribunals, very similar to the UCMJ but different in 
some regards.
  So the idea that we need to let the prisoners go or try them all, I 
think it would be a very bad policy decision to make because some of 
them can be dangerous, can be a threat to our country if released or 
they could have intelligence value but don't fall within the definition 
of war criminal. To say that every enemy combatant is going to be tried 
as a war criminal is not good policy because you are beginning to 
change the way the rules have worked for a very long time.
  We have had 200-something people released. About a dozen of them have 
gone back to the fight, unfortunately. So there have been mistakes at 
Guantanamo Bay by putting people in prison that were not properly 
classified. There have been mistakes about releasing people that we 
thought were not dangerous but turned out to be so.
  I have a summary of statements made by individuals who have been 
released from Guantanamo Bay but went back to the fight. I ask 
unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


                   SELECTED STATEMENTS FROM DETAINEES

       Statements made by detainees provide valuable insights into 
     the mindset of these terrorists and the continuing threat 
     they pose to the United States and the rest of the world.
       A detainee who has assaulted GTMO guards on numerous 
     occasions and crafted a weapon in his cell, stated that he 
     can either go back home and kill as many Americans as he 
     possibly can, or he can leave here in a box; either way it's 
     the same to him.
       A detainee with ties to UBL, the Taliban, and Chechen 
     mujahideen leadership figures told another detainee, ``Their 
     day is coming. One day I will enjoy sucking their blood, 
     although their blood is bitter, undrinkable . . .''
       During an interview with U.S. military interrogators this 
     same detainee then stated that he would lead his tribe in 
     exacting revenge against the Saudi Arabian and U.S. 
     governments. ``I will arrange for the kidnapping and 
     execution of U.S. citizens living in Saudi Arabia. Small 
     groups of four or five U.S. citizens will be kidnapped, held, 
     and executed. They will have their heads cut off.''
       After being informed of the Tribunal process, the detainee 
     replied, ``Not only am I thinking about threatening the 
     American public, but the whole world.''
       A detainee who has been identified as a UBL bodyguard, 
     stated, ``It would be okay for UBL to kill Jewish persons. 
     There is no need to ask for forgiveness for killing a Jew. 
     The Jewish people kill Muslims in Palestine so it's okay to 
     kill Jews. Israel should not exist and be removed from 
     Palestine.''
       A detainee who has been identified as UBL's ``spiritual 
     advisor'' and a relative of a fighter who attacked U.S. 
     Marines on Failaka Island, Kuwait on October 8, 2002, stated, 
     ``I pray everyday against the United States.'' This detainee 
     repeatedly stated, ``The United States government is 
     criminals.''
       A detainee and self-confessed al Qaida member who produced 
     an al Qaida recruitment video stated, ``. . . the people who 
     died on 9/11/2001 were not innocent because they paid taxes 
     and participated in the government that fosters repression of 
     Palestinians.'' He also stated, ``. . . his group will shake 
     up the U.S. and countries who follow the U.S.'' and that, 
     ``it is not the quantity of

[[Page 11821]]

     power, but the quality of power, that will win in the end.''
       A detainee who has assaulted GTMO guards on over 30 
     occasions, has made gestures of killing a guard and 
     threatened to break a guard's arm.

                           *   *   *   *   *

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, one of them is Mullah Shazada who was 
released from Guantanamo Bay on May 8, 2003. He assumed control of 
Taliban operations in southern Afghanistan. His activities reported 
including the organization and execution of a jail break in Kandahar.
  Abdullah Mahsud was released in 2004. He became the militant leader 
of the Mahsud tribe in southern Waziristan. We learned he had been 
associated with the Taliban since his teens and has been described as 
an al-Qaida facilitator. In mid-October 2004, he directed the 
kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan. During a Pakistani 
rescue attempt, the kidnappers shot one of the hostages.
  Mohammed Ismail was one of two juveniles held at Guantanamo Bay. He 
was released in 2004. During a press interview after his release, he 
thanked the United States for providing him education opportunities in 
Guantanamo Bay and stated he would look for work after visiting his 
relatives. He was recaptured 4 months later in May 2004 participating 
in an attack on U.S. forces near Kandahar. At the time of his 
recapture, Ismail carried a letter confirming his status as a Taliban 
member in good standing.
  Abdul Rahman Noor, after being released in July 2003, has 
participated in hostile actions against U.S. forces near Kandahar. He 
was later identified as the person in a 2001 al-Jazerra interview 
described a mujhadeen defensive position claiming to have downed an 
airplane.
  The reason I mention these individuals is that mistakes have been 
made in letting people go. Once the military tribunal reviewed these 
individual cases, they made a determination the person was no longer a 
danger to the United States and possessed no additional intelligence 
value. They were wrong.
  These people and several others went back to the fight, and at least 
one of the people involved killed an American medic.
  The process we have at Guantanamo Bay is reform in a manner that I 
think is consistent with American values. This body, in an overwhelming 
vote, indicated to the Department of Defense that their interrogation 
techniques needed to be standardized and put in the Army Field Manual. 
That is a work in process.
  This body, in an overwhelming vote, gave every detainee at Guantanamo 
Bay a right to petition their status to Federal court for Federal court 
review.
  We have due process rights in place for detainees at Guantanamo Bay 
that I think are unprecedented in the rules of armed conflict and are 
based on the fact that this is a war without a definable end.
  But the amendment before us by my good friend from New Mexico would 
require this country to release the detainees en masse or repatriate 
them or charge them. The problem with repatriation is that one of the 
problems with closing Guantanamo Bay is, where do we put these people?
  We have had case after case where the detainee was eligible to be 
released but did not want to go back to their host country for fear of 
reprisal. The idea that we can take the 460 prisoners and open the 
gates of the prison and say, Go back, is going to be a problem because 
a lot of them have no place to go or won't be taken back.
  Another problem is that if we release these people en masse, some of 
them will become our worst nightmare. Information about statements made 
by detainees--I have another document here, where they openly avow a 
desire to get back into the fight and to kill Americans and to continue 
the war on terrorism.
  Simply stated, the people at Guantanamo Bay, in my opinion, are 
people who need to be looked at every year in terms of their status and 
whether they have intelligence value and whether they present a danger. 
And that decision can be reviewed by civilian authorities.
  They are not people for whom we should open the door and say, Leave 
or be charged, because the truth of the matter is that there are people 
down there who are enemy combatants who have not engaged in conduct 
that would fit a traditional definition of a war crime.
  I just don't think we need to make that choice. We need to make sure 
that every detainee has adequately been processed, that our country is 
accountable for their treatment, that our country is accountable for 
their legal status, and that we have a way to prove to the world and to 
our own public that the detainees are being confined within the rules 
of armed conflict and treated properly.
  This amendment would set in motion, I believe, forces that would come 
back to haunt us. Mr. President, I say to my good friend from New 
Mexico, I understand his concerns about Guantanamo Bay and the image 
problems that it has created, but I would argue that the reforms in 
which we have engaged have been real. We are not getting much credit 
for those reforms, but we are just going to have to understand as a 
nation that every critic of this country's policy doesn't have to make 
the decisions we do.
  The criticism coming from abroad about Guantanamo Bay is part of 
democracies being able to speak openly, but they are not coming to 
South Carolina. If we let them go, they are not coming to South 
Carolina. I will do everything I can to keep these people from coming 
into my home State. And I doubt we want them to go to Mexico, and I 
doubt they are going to go to Connecticut.
  I do not want to intermingle them with our military prison population 
because these people represent the hardest of the hard.
  I hope we can reform Guantanamo Bay and that one day it will be 
closed because the needs of the war on terrorism have been met. And I 
do hope that those who are war criminals in the truest fashion will be 
tried at Guantanamo Bay by military commission and those who are not 
war criminals will be held until they are no longer a danger. I do not 
believe it is advisable for this country to make a choice as a nation 
that no other nation has ever had to make before, and that is turning 
loose someone who is caught on a battlefield engaged in hostilities 
against our own people or try them all as war criminals. That has never 
happened before, and it shouldn't happen here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thune). The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we now have an agreement for a couple 
of votes in the morning relative to the minimum wage amendments which 
have been discussed this afternoon. Tomorrow we will also proceed to 
debate the Iraq-related amendments offered by Senator Levin and Senator 
Kerry.
  Mr. President, at this point, on behalf of the leader, I am prepared 
to send a cloture motion to the desk, but I do want to make the 
following point before sending the cloture motion to the desk. This 
does not--I repeat, does not--preclude us from working toward further 
agreement to set up votes on these amendments prior to cloture. In 
fact, we anticipate having votes on both of those amendments prior to 
cloture. We are looking forward to the debate on both amendments.
  Almost everyone on this side is interested in speaking to the 
appropriateness of adopting those amendments, and, as I said, we do not 
intend for cloture to shut out in any way votes on the Kerry and Levin 
amendments.


                             Cloture Motion

  Having said that, Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on S. 2766, the 
     National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007.

[[Page 11822]]

         Bill Frist, John Warner, John E. Sununu, Jim Bunning, 
           George Allen, Lamar Alexander, Craig Thomas, Kay Bailey 
           Hutchison, Chuck Hagel, Ted Stevens,
         Judd Gregg, Robert F. Bennett, Thad Cochran, Pat Roberts, 
           Pete Domenici, Jim Inhofe, Jeff Sessions.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly in response to 
the comments of my colleague and friend from South Carolina, Senator 
Graham, about the amendment which I intend to offer at an appropriate 
time on the Defense authorization bill.
  I say, in all respect to the Senator from South Carolina, he has 
totally misread the amendment. He has totally mischaracterized it. This 
amendment does not, as he said, require the Government to either 
release everyone at Guantanamo or charge those individuals.
  It is very clear in the amendment. It starts out by saying, ``Except 
as provided in subsection (b),'' and then it goes on to say:

       Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of the 
     law, an alien who is detained by the Secretary of Defense 
     shall, consistent with applicable law, be charged or 
     repatriated or released.

  But then obviously the exception is what we start out with there. It 
says the exception under paragraph (b) is that with respect to an alien 
described in the first section, subsection (a), who is not charged or 
repatriated or released within this 180 days, the Secretary of Defense 
shall submit to the appropriate committees of the Congress a detailed 
report as to each such alien that includes, and then it specifies the 
information that needs to be included.
  Essentially, it says the Department of Defense shall go ahead and 
charge these individuals with criminal activity or it shall repatriate 
them to their home country, an appropriate country, or it shall release 
them, or it shall give us a report and explain what its plans are with 
regard to these individuals and why it is not taking one of the 
previous actions. That is not the characterization or the description 
that the Senator from South Carolina just went through.
  This amendment does not require that any enemy combatant be released. 
It is clear in its language that it does not require that. It does not 
require the release of people ``en masse,'' which was the language the 
Senator from South Carolina used. It does not require us to release 
people who are then believed to have the motivation of getting, as the 
Senator from South Carolina said, back into the fight.
  This does not in any way restrict what the Department of Defense 
does. It just says the Department of Defense has various options, but 
we are going to begin to understand what action the Department of 
Defense is taking with these individuals.
  It can charge them with a crime, it can repatriate them to their home 
country, it can release them, or it can tell us, the Congress, the 
appropriate committees of the Congress, what it intends to do and what 
action and what factors cause it to not want to take one of those 
previous actions. That is a very straightforward amendment.
  I think anyone who is opposed to that amendment basically says we, 
the Congress, have no responsibility for oversight, the appropriate 
committees of the Congress have no responsibility to concern themselves 
with what is being done with these prisoners at Guantanamo, and I think 
that is a very unfortunate message for us to send.
  The amendment goes on to provide that in the report to the 
appropriate committees of the Congress, if the Department of Defense 
wishes to submit part or all of that in classified form, it can do so. 
To the extent it is not required to be in classified form, it would, of 
course, be a public report.
  This is a very modest amendment. In fact, the criticism I have heard 
from people who have generally been aware that I might offer this 
amendment is: Why does this amendment give the Department of Defense an 
out? It says with regard to each of these individuals, either charge 
them with a crime, repatriate them, release them, or tell us what your 
other plan is, if you have some other plan that you believe is required 
under the circumstance. That is the very least that this Congress 
should be doing with regard to these individuals.
  I, frankly, do not want to ask this Congress to resolve the question 
of the legality of what is going on at Guantanamo. Some of that is 
being determined in the courts, as it should be determined in the 
courts. But, clearly, this Congress has some oversight responsibility. 
This Congress should be insisting that the Department of Defense 
specify what action it intends to take, go ahead with whatever action 
it intends to take in the next 180 days, and at the end of that time 
report to the Congress as to any detainee for whom it does not intend 
to go ahead or for whom it has not gone ahead and brought charges 
against or decided to repatriate or decided to release.
  So let me just stop with that. I am glad to discuss the amendment 
further, but I know that my colleague from Connecticut who has a 
separate amendment dealing with Guantanamo wishes to speak and describe 
his amendment, and I also see that my colleague from Alabama is on the 
Senate floor and wishes to speak perhaps on the same issue as well.
  So, Mr. President, at this point I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have been to Guantanamo twice, and I 
have seen the work of our military personnel, the good morale they have 
under difficult conditions, their determination to provide every decent 
and right request and treatment to the prisoners who are there. I have 
seen areas where they are detained, the religious freedom that they 
give them, including a Koran and prayer rugs and things that they have 
requested, the exercise that they obtain. It is, I believe, in all 
respects a very fine prison that treats people in a decent way.
  But as the Senator from South Carolina noted, these individuals are 
prisoners of war, and prisoners of war are not given trials. In the 
history of the United States of America, we do not give prisoners of 
war trials. They are detained until the conflict is over.
  What about those who have gone beyond just being a combatant against 
the United States but have become an unlawful combatant, violating all 
the rules of warfare and are therefore apprehended and detained? Should 
they be given more rights than a properly uniformed and properly lawful 
combatant is given who is detained by an enemy? I think not. I would 
suggest these are matters that are within the parameters of the U.S. 
military to handle. They have no desire to maintain a single prisoner 
any longer than they have to. They have released several hundred 
already, and 15 of those have been rearrested on the battlefield where 
they are presumably attempting to fight the United States of America 
and our soldiers and our allies around the world.
  So I would say to my colleagues, these are not academic questions. 
They are matters of real life and death and must be carefully thought 
through. Under the circumstances we are now dealing with regarding 
prisoners in Guantanamo, we don't need to micro-manage the military. I 
would agree with Senator Bingaman that his amendment at first glance 
says that they must be charged with a crime, filed in an appropriate 
Federal district court of the United States or a military tribunal or 
an international criminal tribunal or repatriated to the country of 
origin or some other country. That is a mandate. The amendment goes on 
to say: But with respect to those who are not so charged, the 
Department of Defense must submit a report saying why they haven't been 
charged and when they will be handled in this matter. So I think in 
conflict, as Senator Graham has detailed, it goes to the historic 
manner by which any nation, and in particular the United States, 
handles prisoners of war.
  Again, I have seen the conduct at Guantanamo. I think it is an 
appropriate facility considering the danger that these individuals 
pose. It is an appropriate location. It makes it very

[[Page 11823]]

difficult for them to break free and kill other people. The Department 
of Defense actually is continuing to improve it. They give the 
prisoners first-rate meals, first-rate medical care. Until the three 
suicides we saw recently, not a single prisoner had died in Guantanamo 
of any kind of causes, natural or otherwise.
  So I believe this amendment is not necessary. I think it would have 
the effect of restricting the power of the executive branch to carry 
out this war on terrorism and manage the military's treatment of 
prisoners. The Department of Defense wants to get rid of them. They 
have tried to repatriate numbers of them. But some of them are just 
dangerous and must be detained.
  I would ask, how would a prosecutor prove a case? Some would say we 
will just give them a trial. What if they were captured in the 
mountains of Afghanistan and maybe the soldier who captured them was 
later killed, or maybe he was reassigned to Korea or some other place? 
It is not so easy to have trials of prisoners of war, and that is why 
it has never been done and why I think the amendment, which is 
carefully drafted and attempts to avoid some of the worst criticisms 
that might be made of it, is, nevertheless, a step too far, and I 
believe we should reject it.
  I just want to point out a number of things that are important about 
how careful our military is, unlike what happens when American military 
prisoners are captured, apparently, as we saw today, the horror of 
being captured, tortured and killed by the al-Qaida forces in Iraq, who 
are just brutal in their treatment of American prisoners. We give the 
prisoners at Guantanamo a combatant status review tribunal--a tribunal 
consisting of three people, the Department of Defense Combatant Status 
Review Tribunal process pursuant to a Supreme Court plurality opinion 
in Hamdi. Hamdi dealt with due process for American citizens. The 
process created was applied to all foreign nationals detained at 
Guantanamo and went beyond the process referred to by the Supreme Court 
of the United States. It went beyond that.
  The Combatant Status Review Tribunal provides a venue for detainees 
to personally challenge their status as enemy combatants. They were 
given that opportunity. As of January 22, 2005, the Department of 
Defense had completed 558 CSRTs. Of the 558 hearings that were 
conducted, the enemy combatant status of 520 detainees was confirmed, 
and 38 detainees were found to be no longer meeting the criteria to be 
designated as enemy combatants.
  The Administrative Review Board is another process the Department of 
Defense has implemented. This administrative review process makes an 
annual assessment of whether there is continued reason to believe that 
the enemy combatant poses a threat to the United States or its allies, 
or whether there are factors bearing upon the need or the continued 
detention, including the enemy combatant's intelligence value, in the 
global war on terror. That is what this board does every year for every 
prisoner.
  Based on this assessment, the Administrative Review Board can 
recommend that individuals should be released or should be transferred 
with conditions or should continue to be detained. Allowing detained 
enemy fighters to be heard and potentially released or transferred 
while hostilities are ongoing, as they are this very minute in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, is a historic and unprecedented step. We have never done 
that before in war.
  The first year, the Administrative Review Board resulted in 330 
continue-to-detain decisions, 119 transfer decisions, and 14 release 
decisions. So these are not rubber stamps. The Department of Defense is 
attempting to move people out, to transfer them, or release the people 
they can justify releasing. But remember, 15 of those former prisoners 
at Guantanamo, who have been released, have later been detained and 
captured on the battlefield seeking to fight America.
  The second year of the Administrative Review Board process, in this 
annual process, resulted thus far in 12 continue-to-detain decisions, 6 
transfer decisions, and no release decisions. That is as of June 20 of 
this year.
  So the Department of Defense has created a system that goes beyond 
what this Nation has ever utilized in time of war to deal with an 
attempt to release persons who have been captured as prisoners of war 
fighting the United States of America. They didn't do that for German 
prisoners. They didn't do it for Japanese prisoners. They didn't do it 
for North Korean prisoners. They didn't do it for Vietnamese prisoners. 
These are unprecedented steps. I think it is more than is required, but 
it is a generous step for the United States to take, and I certainly 
support that.
  Mr. President, as of May of 2006, 287 detainees have departed 
Guantanamo, 192 have been released, 95 have been transferred to other 
governments, including Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, 
Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, 
Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, and Uganda. We would like to 
release them all, if we could.
  But the President of the United States took an oath to protect the 
people of the United States from attack by enemies. If he releases 
prisoners who we believe will have any reasonable basis to continue to 
attempt to kill American citizens or American soldiers, he is derelict 
in his duty. This is not some game he is playing. This is not some 
academic process that the generals who are supervising this are 
involved in or the Administrative Review Board members or the Combatant 
Status Review Tribunals are dealing with. They can't make a mistake. If 
they make a mistake, somebody could die.
  I know the operations at Guantanamo have raised complaints from some 
of our allies, specifically a complaint from one British official. I am 
so proud of the support the British government and population has shown 
to the United States, but I have to tell you, I don't know what the man 
expected us to do. Did he want us to release all 500 of them? Is that 
what he would want? Is that what the other people on our editorial 
boards like to write about? We should just release them? Well, maybe 
Great Britain would like to take them. Maybe the United Kingdom would 
like to take them and house them in their jails. Would they really? 
Would they release them? Would they want to release them on their 
subways or on their buses or on their trains in London?
  Three prisoners just committed suicide last week at Guantanamo, and 
amazingly, we had newspapers in this great Nation that purport to be 
wise and thoughtful pandering to those seeking to close Guantanamo by 
suggesting that they are somehow killing themselves because they are 
depressed.
  One of these was an active member of the Taliban forces who fought 
against the United States. One was a recognized leader in al-Qaida--
they are from Yemen and Saudi Arabia and other places. I believe two 
were from Saudi Arabia and one was from Yemen. Do we want to release 
prisoners like these?
  They hanged themselves. I suggest, with all sincerity, that these 
three prisoners did not commit suicide together, the same day, because 
they got depressed over mistreatment. Most of them have gained weight 
and have been well treated, well fed, and given superb medical care. 
That is not why they committed suicide. They committed suicide as a 
continuation of their commitment to jihad and to prepare to commit 
suicide to further jihad.
  If they had a bomb with which they could have blown themselves up and 
others, Americans or other people, they would have done that. They 
absolutely would have done that. But because they were in our custody 
and couldn't get hold of a bomb and wrap it around their body and kill 
men, women and children on buses or trains or something like that. The 
only thing they could do was kill themselves in hopes they would have 
editorials around the world, editorials in New York City and 
Washington, DC, have Senators and Congressmen on the floor of the House 
and the Senate saying how badly we are treating these prisoners of war, 
these unlawful combatants, and suggesting they all ought to

[[Page 11824]]

be turned loose and how this is America's fault.
  The fact that these three prisoners, clearly terrorists, committed 
suicide the same day is absolute proof that they were threats to 
innocent people and to the United States of America. It is proof that 
they had that threat capability. If they had been released, do you 
think they would have just gone nicely back home to work a job in Yemen 
or work on a pipeline in Saudi Arabia? No, they are committed 
jihadists. They are terrorists. That is why they were in Guantanamo. I 
am glad they hadn't been released like some of the others and I am glad 
that those like them are still being detained there. They are not 
entitled to trial.
  I don't know what we will do with Guantanamo. The President said he 
would like to close it. I guess it would make some people happy around 
the world. Maybe they would get off his back. But somebody has to do 
something with them. I will tell you one thing, we can't release them 
all. Do we release them any better if they are brought back to the 
United States? Do we release them any better if we take them over to 
London or Madrid? I submit not. We have them in a safe place. They are 
being well taken care of. We have invested a lot of the taxpayers' 
money in making that facility at Guantanamo a good facility, a safe 
facility. I don't know why we would want to move them, other than just 
to make people feel better and stop fussing.
  But we are going to continue to apprehend people. When we went out 
after the bombing of Zarqawi and did these raids in 17 different spots 
and they arrested quite a number of people, what are they going to do 
with them? Turn them loose?
  When I was in Iraq recently, I heard about two brothers who were 
known bomb makers. Can you imagine someone a greater target of the 
United States military than a skilled bomb maker who is making bombs 
that kill American soldiers on a regular basis? They caught them and 
they thought they had enough proof. But the military decided they 
didn't. Or the court or somebody did, and they turned them loose.
  I am telling you, those military personnel and the civilians that 
worked with them to help build that case and to identify these bombers 
were really heartbroken. It was very painful for them to have to 
release somebody whom they believed had been responsible for killing 
innocent civilians in Iraq and American soldiers. But we didn't have 
enough proof, apparently, and we let them go.
  We don't need to keep pushing the military, pushing that you have to 
have proof beyond a reasonable doubt like you have to before you can 
lock up an American citizen--let's not put that kind of burden on our 
military.
  I think this Guantanamo matter is greatly overblown. We fail to 
realize just how dangerous some of the prisoners are. Hopefully, we can 
sift through them and find some more who are not dangerous and they can 
be released. Hopefully, we can send them back to foreign countries. But 
you know, when you send them back to a foreign country, things don't 
always work out right. You turn around and 6 months later, 2 years 
later, they are released. Or sometimes we have Members of the Senate 
who have made speeches and complained because, if we send them back to 
their home countries, the home countries realize they are terrorists, 
maybe even applied those tactics against their country, and they 
mistreat them. Now we are blamed for some treatment by a foreign 
government where we sent these prisoners.
  We were aggressive in interviewing prisoners at the outset of opening 
Guantanamo. We had a very good briefing last time I was there where the 
people said they really reduced the intensity of interrogations. In the 
weeks and days following September 11 when we thought and had every 
reason to believe that there were cells probably operating all over 
this country, the military and our intelligence people were aggressive 
in asking questions of them and pursuing interrogations. They did not 
torture them. I do not believe there has been a single allegation that 
has been substantiated of any torture at Guantanamo. But people took it 
farther and said the military was too harsh with these prisoners. So 
for a whole lot of reasons we don't pursue those tactics as strongly 
today.
  The standards are very lax in that regard--or strong in the sense 
that prisoners are not stressed and not abused in any way as they are 
being interrogated. In fact, just the opposite is the case. 
Occasionally, it is odd, after time goes by, somebody begins to talk. 
Some people never talk.
  I appreciate the interest of my colleagues in wanting to run the 
cleanest prison system we possibly can, to comply with the highest 
ideals of the United States. I believe if they went there and examined 
what was going on they would conclude, with me, that the prisoners are 
being treated well, that they are being given every help and dietary 
and religious values that they need. We should continue to do that.
  Sometime in the future we will have to wrestle with how we are going 
to handle them and maybe we can continue to repatriate them to the 
countries of origin. Maybe some actually ought to be tried and 
executed. Others simply need to be detained until the war is over. That 
is just the way it is, and that is the way it has always been.
  Mr. President, 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.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DODD. I appreciate the comments of others about Guantanamo Bay 
and the individuals who are being held here. I listened to the 
discussion earlier between the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Graham, 
and my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman, and Senator 
Sessions from Alabama, who discussed the issue of those who are being 
detained in Guantanamo and the very facility itself.
  I had thought about offering an amendment on this matter, but it is 
getting confusing, with the number of amendments being offered tomorrow 
and the length of debate. Senator Bingaman is offering an amendment 
which I think is worthy of consideration. I may withhold the amendment 
I intended to offer until a later time, on another matter, when there 
is more of an opportunity to have debate. There is at best only a 
limited amount of time we may get tomorrow for discussion. I have been 
told I might have only a few minutes.
  I regret that. I wish we had more time to offer this amendment. But I 
think in the interests of my colleagues here, given the seriousness of 
the issue, it probably deserves more time. So, I will reserve offering 
that amendment until another time when we have more of an opportunity 
to discuss it.
  Let me, if I can, discuss some issues that have been raised here this 
evening that I think are important. I have listened to my colleagues 
talk about, first of all, the individuals being held in Guantanamo. We 
talk about people here, some of whom clearly have the very worst 
intentions for the United States. Some of these individuals have 
attacked our soldiers, attacked innocent citizens, and pose serious 
threats. There is no debate about that. We are not arguing about 
whether or not that is true for many of these people.
  There may, obviously, be some exceptions that fall out of that 
category--individuals who have been improperly retained or restrained 
and sent to Guantanamo or elsewhere. That certainly may be the case. 
But there is no question that many of these individuals are people to 
worry about. That is not the issue.
  The issue is: We are a nation of laws. We say this all the time. It 
is something about which we take great pride. We have celebrated it 
over and over again. It is one of the distinguishing features of this 
great country of ours. We proved that we are a nation of laws 
categorically 60 years ago this very year when, in a different set of 
circumstances, the United States, along with our allies, some of whom 
reluctantly joined us in this effort, held a

[[Page 11825]]

series of trials in a place called Nuremberg. We made the decision at 
Nuremberg that the defendants in those trials--these thugs, these 
people who had murdered 11 million innocents, 6 million Jews because of 
their religion, not to mention the millions more who lost their lives 
as a result of the Nazi war effort--would be afforded a trial instead 
of just being summarily executed. Winston Churchill advocated summary 
execution, and many others did as well. Why would you possibly give 
these defendants, it was asked--these thugs that I have mentioned, who 
carried out the orders of Adolph Hitler--why would you give them a 
trial? Why would they get a lawyer? Why would they be allowed to 
present evidence in a court of law?
  It was the conclusion of the United States, under the leadership of 
people like Justice Robert Jackson, that the rule of law should be 
paramount. Justice Jackson and others argued very strongly that it was 
going to be critically important that the United States and others join 
in showing the world that there is a difference between these 
fascists--who had summarily executed people merely because of their 
ethnicity or religion--and this great country of ours.
  In fact, Nuremberg was an interesting choice for the venue of those 
trials. In a sense, the Nazis chose Nuremberg. The Nuremberg Laws 
created a legal justification for every atrocity they committed, and so 
having a trial at Nuremberg, trying the very people who perpetrated 
these crimes, was somehow a fitting coincidence.
  I speak about this because as a child growing up I heard night after 
night my father, who was the Executive Trial Counsel under Robert 
Jackson at Nuremberg, speak of these days. I was 1 year old in the 
summer of 1945 when my father left for a few short weeks merely to be 
an interrogator of these defendants at Nuremberg. He ended up replacing 
Judge Story as Executive Trial Counsel under Robert Jackson, and spent 
a year and a half trying a number of defendants at Nuremberg. He wrote 
my mother every single day 15 to 20-page letters describing in great 
detail his views and thoughts about the defendants and our allies in 
that effort, the Russians, the British, the French. He had some choice 
thoughts about a number of those people who were at Nuremberg. And he 
talked to his children growing up over the years about what happened at 
Nuremberg.
  There was a great debate. In fact, half of the Supreme Court argued 
against Robert Jackson even going. There were colleagues here who 
argued that it was ex post facto juris prudence--that we had no right 
to go back and create a body of law to try the defendants at Nuremberg.
  My father and others argued strenuously that the natural law should 
require that individuals who had committed such crimes--who had 
committed summary executions based on religion or ethnicity--that these 
people should be taken to task for what they had done, but also, 
critically, be afforded rights--the right to a fair trial, the right to 
have legal representation.
  Imagine--people like Goering and von Ribbentrop and Keitel and Speer 
and others--actually be given a lawyer to represent them in a trial, so 
that they could stand up and make a case for themselves, as Goering did 
for days on end at Nuremberg.
  Obviously, the facts are different here. At Nuremberg, the war was 
over. There was a different set of circumstances. I would be the first 
to acknowledge it.
  That is not the comparison I am trying to draw. The comparison I am 
trying to draw here is about the rule of law.
  We can characterize these individuals at Guantanamo in words that 
none of us are going to terribly argue about. But I come back to the 
point that those who were at Nuremberg, who made the case for the trial 
such as I described, need to be heard again today, 60 years later.
  We are a nation of laws. We are different. We are not like these 
people who are being held at Guantanamo. The rule of law is something 
we cherish in this country, even to the point where we are willing to 
stand up and defend the rights of people who do things we find 
abhorrent.
  Whenever I talk to students about the Bill of Rights and the first 
amendment, I tell them that it doesn't just protect their rights when 
they say something I agree with. It is important also to protect those 
individuals who stand up and say something I totally disagree with or 
find obnoxious, to put it mildly.
  That is the rule of law. That is what makes us different. That is 
what distinguishes us.
  What has happened already is that there is confusion. Are these 
prisoners of war? If they are, obviously the Geneva Conventions 
prevail. If they are not prisoners of war but enemy combatants, the 
Supreme Court has ruled already that they have certain rights, that 
they have a right to appeal that status. Yet, we find that a 
substantial number of these people are being held without any 
definition of who they are, what their status is legally, whether or 
not they are POWs, enemy combatants, or something else.
  When Senator Bingaman offers his language here to get some clarity, 
why is that important? I think it is important because we are, again, a 
nation of laws. We determine that people ought to be given one status 
or another. We need some clarity as to who these individuals are and 
how they are going to be dealt with.
  Why do I say that? First, because we ought to care, particularly in 
this a body, the U.S. Senate, that the rule of law is defended. But 
second, and not unimportant, is the question of how we are being 
perceived in the fight against terrorism--something that requires 
international cooperation. It is critically important that the United 
States not only lead on this issue but that other nations around the 
world and their citizenry following us, join us, if you will, in this 
effort.
  Today, as I speak about this issue--unfortunate symbols are 
important. Guantanamo has become a symbol of things that have gone 
wrong without clarity, without definition, and that lack of clarity is 
hurting our cause.
  As we try to build a coalition, it is crucial that we win support for 
what we are trying to achieve. Without allies in this effort, we will 
never ever win this war on terrorism. It is a transnational problem 
that insists upon a transnational response.
  It is critically important that we understand the necessity of 
building the kind of relationships that are going to be absolutely 
critical if we are going to succeed in this effort, as I believe we 
must. We have no choice but to succeed in this effort.
  But to disregard the feelings or sentiments of others on whom we must 
support and depend in the future, if we are going to succeed in this 
effort, is something that ought not to be lost on the membership of 
this institution.
  I am deeply concerned about the direction we are heading here, one 
that is lacking clarity, any clarity at all, in dealing with these 
individuals that are being held. What is their status? Is it one thing 
or do we need a determination of that.
  The administration I think bears the responsibility to come forward 
and say what the status is. Just saying we are going to hold people 
without some clarity is not good enough. If you want to hold them, 
fine. Decide what they are. Are they prisoners of war? If they are, 
then that is one set of circumstances. If they are not prisoners of war 
but enemy combatants, that is a different set of criteria that applies. 
But the rule of law must apply.
  The criticism we are receiving here is that again we just do not have 
any definition. This ought not be an issue that divides us and people 
trying to inflame the passions of others: Who cares more about 
terrorism or who is willing to stand up and fight against terrorism 
more than anyone else. That is not the issue. The issue is the rule of 
law which joins people of different political persuasions but of like 
mind about insisting that the rule of law be applied. That has never 
divided us. When we move that important criteria, that important 
definition of who we are as Americans--the rule of law--and engage in 
this sort of demagogic debate

[[Page 11826]]

about who cares more about terrorism, or you don't care about terrorism 
at all, if you are only willing to talk about the rule of law, that 
somehow makes you weak on this issue, that you lack the kind of 
conviction and spine when it comes to dealing with terrorists because 
you start talking about the rule of law, how strong an American are 
you, if you only get up and talk about the rule of law?
  We have all learned painfully when you begin to disregard the rule of 
law because you don't like the individuals that you want to apply it 
to, it comes back to hurt all of us.
  Those who made the case more than 50 years ago at another place in 
another set of circumstances but facing the same criticism--the 
emotional response was certainly warranted. The Nazis brutalized 
people, incinerated millions, and certainly lit passions that said, Why 
would you ever give that kind of individual a lawyer and a right to 
present a case? And you can understand the emotions that people felt at 
the time--to give them the right to present a case? Did they ever give 
any of their victims a right to present a case in the incinerators of 
Buchenwald or Dachau? They never did. Why should we do it now?
  Because people stood up and said we are different than they are. That 
is why we insist upon the rule of law.
  Today, we need to remind ourselves--conservative, liberals, 
centrists--who we are. The rule of law unites us. It ought not divide 
us when we have these debates and discussions.
  Guantanamo has unfortunately become a symbol of things that need to 
change.
  The President himself, to his credit, a week or so ago in a press 
conference on June 14, acknowledged that fact. He said:

       No question, Guantanamo sends . . . a signal to some of our 
     friends . . . provides an excuse, for example, to say, ``The 
     United States is not upholding the values that they're trying 
     to encourage other countries to adhere to.'' He also stated 
     clearly that he ``would like to close Guantanamo.''

  That was the President of the United States. I am not making a case 
on my own. He recognizes what is happening with the symbol of 
Guantanamo, and how difficult it is to build the kind of relationships 
that are critical if we are going to succeed as we must in this war 
against terrorism.
  I am not going to be offering an amendment. I think there is not 
adequate time to debate and discuss these things at this late hour in 
the evening. But I will find an opportunity at the appropriate time to 
raise the issue.
  I hope we can build a broad, bipartisan consensus on these points. We 
ought not have division over the rule of law; to get clarification 
about how we talk about POWs, enemy combatants, and what the status of 
these people is because different sets of rules apply. Having no status 
at all and not fitting into one category or another is something that 
ought to be unacceptable to all of us.
  I think having a facility that has become the symbol of something 
which none of us believe we stand for--we know we stand for the rule of 
law, we know we believe in that, and we embrace it--is raising serious 
reservations and concerns among people who ought to be joining us in 
this effort. If that is the case, as General McCaffrey said in talking 
about Guantanamo, close it down. He said he would like to close it 
down, and others believe as well that we ought to find other venues to 
deal with these issues as well as, of course, determining the legal 
status of these individuals so we can move on and again build the kind 
of coalitions necessary to have a successful coalition to fight the war 
on terrorism.
  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.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the eloquent remarks of my 
colleague and his sharing of insight into Nuremberg and a number of 
thoughts that he shared with us about the rule of law, which I think is 
very important.
  I note that at Nuremberg they tried and executed quite a number of 
people who conducted their war unfairly, in an unlawful way and went 
beyond being prisoners of war. They were, in fact, tried for crimes 
that they had committed.
  I also say to my colleague with great sincerity that we are 
respecting the rule of law. These individuals that are caught and held 
at Guantanamo, some may qualify as a prisoner of war, many do not. They 
are what I have called--others used enemy combatants--unlawful 
combatants because they were carrying out combat in an unlawful way. 
They did not carry arms openly. They did not wear a uniform. They moved 
surreptitiously. They killed randomly women, children--actions that 
deny them the status of a lawful combatant and a prisoner of war. They 
are then held, if nothing else, certainly with legal protection because 
the Geneva Conventions cover people who are lawful combatants, who wage 
war for legitimate nations in a legitimate way.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, it is an 
interesting point. Going back, there was a body of law that had emerged 
prior to Nuremberg that, in fact, those who advocated that there should 
be a trial at Nuremberg relied on a point. But one of the great crimes 
that was argued against was crimes against humanity at Nuremberg. Many 
argued that this was sort of making it out of whole cloth. I don't 
think it was. But that was debated at the time.
  The people who my colleague described as committing crimes against 
humanity, it clearly seems that those who were not enemy combatants in 
the traditional definition of that word but engaged in the kind of 
brutality against humanity, today there is a codified body of laws that 
would certainly make those people subject to international law let 
alone our own kind of crimes.
  The point I am trying to make is, it just gives it some clarity. What 
are they? What is the legal status in that category? If you are a POW, 
there is one set of laws that apply. If you are an enemy combatant, 
there is a set of laws and regulations that apply. If you are a non-
enemy combatant and have engaged in the very activities my colleague 
described, what is the law that applies to those individuals under 
those circumstances? There is no status at all being attributed to 
these people. They are in limbo. That is what I am concerned about.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I certainly respect the Senator's 
thoughts about that. I must follow up a little bit.
  First, what happened at Nuremberg happened after the war was over.
  Mr. DODD. I agree.
  Mr. SESSIONS. We held German prisoners in the northern campus of the 
University of Alabama where I lived when I was in law school. They had 
German prisoners there during World War II.
  But what I want to try to reassure my colleague about is that we do 
have a proper procedure that is ongoing. For example, we have defined 
these as combatants. We give them a combatant status review tribunal 
when they come in. They are reviewed in that fashion. They have a 
three-judge panel. They actually go beyond the requirements that the 
U.S. Supreme Court said in the Hamdi case.
  In addition to that, they created an Administrative Review Board 
that, on an annual basis, must make an assessment of whether there is 
continued reason to believe that the enemy combatant poses a threat to 
the United States or its allies, or whether there are other factors 
bearing upon the need for the kind of detention, including its enemy 
combatant intelligence value in the gulf war on terrorism.
  For example, in the first year of those Administrative Review Board 
hearings, there were 330 decisions to continue to detain the prisoners, 
119 decisions to transfer them to other jurisdictions, other countries 
perhaps, or possibly other countries, and 14 release

[[Page 11827]]

decisions. This second year, to date, the review board had 12 findings 
of continued to detain, 6 transfers, and no release decisions.
  At least there is a procedure. In response to criticisms in the 
Congress, around the word, in response to the Supreme Court decision, 
they have taken it carefully because the military is proud of its 
standards. The military wants to do this right. But they have a 
responsibility not to release those who should not be released as they 
continue to pose a threat to the security of our Nation.
  Mr. DODD. If my friend will yield further, I am sure he is a good 
lawyer. In the Rasul v. Bush case in 2004, of course, the Supreme Court 
ruled ``a state of war is not a blank check for the President,'' and 
``enemy combatants have the right to challenge their detention before a 
judge or other neutral decisionmaker.''
  That took a court case basically going to the highest Court of our 
land--I don't know what the ruling was, 5 to 4 or 6 to 3--and they 
ruled in that case enemy that combatants have a judicial right to 
challenge their status.
  All I am saying, I am not trying to determine the outcome, just what 
is the status for the people to be detained or moved other places.
  Our highest Court has said it is not a blank check, that they have a 
right to make a case. I don't want to be seen as perceiving--because I 
am saying they have a right to make a case, do I like these people? Am 
I trying to befriend them? I am saying the rule of law has to apply.
  We are different. That is what makes us different from these people. 
These people would never give their victims a right to a judicial 
system proceeding as they engage in the kind of activity my colleague 
from Alabama properly described.
  What makes my colleague from Alabama, and I hope myself and our 
colleagues, different is this very point the Supreme Court made. Even 
these enemy combatants have the right to make a case before a judge or 
other ``neutral decisionmaker,'' that the state of war is not a blank 
check for the President. That is the point I am trying to make. I am 
not trying to characterize the people in any other way than what my 
colleague has described.
  The point the Senator and I need to come together on is the rule of 
law. That is all I am trying to suggest. I don't have an amendment to 
offer, but we have to find this common ground on this issue because it 
is who we are. It is what we want the world to know and appreciate what 
the United States is. That is really what did so much for us in the 
wake of World War II where we became this symbol of nations that rise 
above their passions and their emotions.
  He is absolutely right on Nuremberg. Several people got limited 
sentences, some got off, and many got executed, as they should have, 
but it went through a legal process. To read those transcripts, where 
people went on and talked as Goering--I am tempted to draw the 
comparison of Goering to Saddam Hussein, who talks endlessly. Goering 
did almost the same, and there was concern by some that he might have 
gotten away had it not been for a very aggressive prosecution.
  It was the rule of law, and how proud these people were that showed 
the world--and the United States led--we were different.
  The fact situations are very different between the end of a conflict 
and an ongoing conflict and how you deal with it, but the rule of law 
does deserve stronger support than I am afraid we are giving. That is 
my concern.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator.
  I believe care has been taken to comply with the Supreme Court cases. 
The Department of Defense has gotten the system in a way that has a 
combatant status review tribunal and an administrative review board, 
and there have been multiple hearings. The Department is giving these 
prisoners--whether they are prisoners of war, lawful or unlawful 
combatants who are being detained--the rights to which they are 
entitled. I really do believe they have.
  That is the only concern I have about the perception that might be 
out there, even around the world, that we are acting outside the rule 
of law. I do not believe that is so.

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