[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 25]
[Senate]
[Pages 33781-33792]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    DISCONTINUING BUSINESS AS USUAL

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this morning we have heard about a lot of 
good causes and a lot of good bills. But what we have been asked to do 
is to pass bills without any debate, without the opportunity to amend, 
and we just heard a Senator say we could agree to a UC and not have to 
vote on it. Agreeing to a UC is the same as voting yes. The fact is, we 
have had plenty of time to bring up all these bills, put them on the 
floor, debate them and have great debates so the American people become 
informed, and offer amendments.
  I will say for many of these bills, I am the Senator objecting. 
Senator Harkin knows I am objecting to the two bills he just raised.
  The point is, our debt is rising $1 million a minute. When you 
authorize $100 million for the Realtime Writers Act, what you are 
saying is, I intend to get the money out of the appropriations process 
to develop training for something that the market should already be 
inducing through increased wages. If in fact there is a shortage, why 
is the market not taking care of it? Is it because the pay is too low? 
Maybe the pay ought to be higher. Maybe people ought to go into it. 
Instead we are going to inject $100 million of American taxpayers' 
money into something that will be solved through the market. If it is 
not, then the pay is entirely too low and the market will eventually 
adjust to it. But to say we are going to authorize something with no 
intent to ever spend, that is not the intent of an authorization. The 
intent of an authorization is to spend more money.
  At $1.3 billion a day, we are going into debt, and it is not our 
debt. We are transferring it to our children and our grandchildren. To 
come down here and want to authorize and spend and pass without debate 
and pass without amendment multitudes of bills with no debate is to 
say, in other words, take it or leave it. And if you want to amend it 
or you want to have a chance to vote on it, tough luck; we are going to 
do it without you. It is called ``UC.''
  The fact is, we find ourselves $9 trillion in debt now. The fact is, 
our children are facing $79 trillion worth of unfunded mandates. It is 
time that we change the business in the Senate. To come down and claim 
you want to just authorize but not spend is a hoax because you would 
not be authorizing unless you do spend.
  The other thing the American people ought to know is, out of the over 
$1 trillion in discretionary budget that we spend right now, $280 
billion of it is not authorized. The appropriators totally ignore the 
authorizers. When it comes to appropriations, they appropriate whatever 
they want. So it doesn't have to be authorized to get it done. They 
will appropriate it if they want to do it. They don't pay any attention 
to authorization.
  When we have $8 trillion worth of authorized programs now, to say we 
cannot eliminate some program that is not being funded to be able to 
make room for one that should be funded, and to say we should not have 
to do that, that doesn't pass the commonsense test with the American 
public.
  I understand that is irritating and bristling to the way we have done 
things in the past. I apologize if at times I am irritable and 
irritating, but I think the future generations are worth it. I do not 
think we can continue doing business as usual. So we have seen an ALS 
bill come down. The CDC doesn't want the ALS bill, the registry, and 
the reason is they can already do it. If we are going to do an ALS 
bill, we ought to do it for all neurologic diseases in terms of a 
registry, not just one. What we have decided is a celebrity or an 
interest group can come and we will place a priority there. Regardless 
of what the science says, regardless of what the basic science and the 
pure science says in terms of guiding us where to go on diseases, we 
will just respond. We will create a new program, and we will tell NIH 
where they have to go, or CDC where they have to go when science 
doesn't guide them there.
  If we are going to do that, if we really think as a body we ought to 
be going the disease-specific direction, then why don't we do it all? 
Why don't we say we will do the peer-reviewed science on all the 
programs at NIH? Since we are going to pick the ones that have a cause 
behind them, why don't we do them all. Why don't we let the lobbyists 
tell us which ones should be first? Of course, we wouldn't do that 
because we know the scientists at CDC and the scientists at NIH make 
decisions, not on popularity, not on politics, but on the raw science 
that will give us the best benefit for the most people.
  We look good when we do those things. We do satisfy a yearning for 
those who are handicapped or paralyzed or have breast cancer or have 
colon cancer. But if we are going to do a registry for ALS, why aren't 
we doing one for diabetes? We aren't we doing one for multiple myeloma? 
Why? Why aren't we doing those things? If we are going to pick one, if 
we are going to do a neurological disease, let's do it for all of them. 
It shows the shallowness of what we are trying to do. Our hearts are 
big, but we are not looking at the big picture.
  The FHA we discussed. The component in the FHA that I object to is, 
we have a study in the FHA bill that the GAO is mandated to do on 
reverse mortgages. But at the same time, regardless of what the study 
shows, we lift the cap. All I have asked for from the authors of the 
bill is to keep the cap where it is until we get the GAO study back so 
we know what we are doing, rather than responding to a clamoring which 
we have no basis, in fact, to know is the accurate thing to do; 
otherwise, we wouldn't be asking for the study in the first place. It 
is a simple request.
  Instead, we come to the Senate floor and try to make us, those who 
object, seem unreasonable when we say common sense would say if we have 
a study in the bill to tell us where to go, but we are already ignoring 
what the results of that study may or may not be, to question that we 
should not have a debate about that, that we should not have an ability 
to amend that, we should just blindly say yes, that is not what the 
Senate tradition is. This is a body that is supposed to be about 
debate.
  In the past 31 days the Senate has been in session 15 days. We have 
had 10 votes in 15 days, and we have had 8 days without any votes at 
all. All these bills could have been on the floor and had accurate 
debate. I would have lost most of my amendments, based on the 
historical record of my amendments, but the American people would have 
benefited from the debate about those bills. Instead, we are made to 
look as if we don't care if we want to try to improve a bill because we 
will not agree

[[Page 33782]]

to blindly accept a bill to go through. We are made to say we don't 
care about people who are losing their mortgages because we think there 
are some commonsense changes to a bill? That isn't quite right.
  You hear the reference that people vote or the committee voted or 
that there wasn't an amendment. The fact is, on voice votes if you do 
not vote, you are not recorded because there is not a recorded vote. 
But that doesn't mean you agree to bring the bill to the floor. We all 
know that.
  The fact is, and you have heard me say it many times in this body, if 
you are born today you inherit $400,000 worth of unfunded liabilities. 
There is a lot of things we do wrong on our side of the aisle, I will 
admit that, and have done wrong on our side of the aisle, both in the 
tenor of how we approach things and in how we characterize things. But 
the best way to right what we are doing wrong is start doing it right. 
The fact is, it is no legacy that we should leave to the next two 
generations that they are born into the world with a stone around their 
neck. The culture and methodology the Senate--I asked the President of 
the Senate a moment ago: What does unanimous consent mean when we bring 
up these bills? It is the rules of the Senate, I was told. The rules of 
the Senate are, you get no opportunity to amend.
  I ask unanimous consent for an additional 3 minutes for me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. You get no opportunity to debate, you get no opportunity 
to amend, you have no opportunity to vote. So, if you truly object to a 
bill or a component of a bill you are told: Stuff it. What you think 
about it doesn't matter, let alone the very real loss of the American 
people not hearing a full debate about these issues.
  We have plenty of time to debate them. We have quorum calls much too 
much. We should have two or three bills on the floor at the same time. 
I am willing to debate and lose, but I am not willing to give consent I 
disagree with and imply to the people I represent, in my oath to the 
Constitution, that it doesn't matter. It does matter. It matters 
immensely.
  The future is at risk. We are on an unsustainable course, and we are 
seeing some of that played out in the mortgage market today. We are 
seeing some of that played out with the value of the dollar today. We 
are seeing some of that played out in the confidence of the American 
people, not only in the future and what they see, but in how they view 
us. We do, in fact, have an obligation to secure the future, and we do, 
in fact, have an obligation to make tough choices, priorities. Those 
priorities ought to be framed in the light of what the everyday 
American family has to do to frame their priorities.
  Instead, what we have the habit of is not making any priorities at 
all because we take it all. We don't choose. We choose to do it all, 
knowing that the consequences of that choice bear on two generations 
from us. We will long be gone, but the legacy we leave will deny the 
very essence of this country. The essence of this country is one 
generation sacrificing for the future, for the next. The legacy we are 
leaving is exactly the opposite.
  So I beg some patience on the part of my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle that, in fact, if we disagree on a bill going by UC, it 
doesn't necessarily mean we disagree with the intent. It does mean that 
we think it can be improved or we think it can be held more accountable 
or, as the case of the SBA bills I am holding now, one of them is 
atrocious in terms of the money it is losing for the American people. 
Yet we are supposed to agree with those bills without amending or 
voting or debating.
  I will be back to talk later in our time, and at the present time I 
yield.
  Mr. CORNYN. If the Senator will yield for a quick question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. I wanted to ask the distinguished Senator, earlier before 
he was able to come to the floor, there was a unanimous consent request 
offered with regard to the ALS registry, and I, on his behalf, lodged 
an objection, although I have no personal objection. I just want to ask 
the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma if it is his understanding it 
was on his behalf?
  Mr. COBURN. Absolutely. There is no question. I thank you for 
covering for me in that regard.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I understand why we find ourselves in this 
terrible posture today and why some people are calling this Congress 
the broken Congress, the dysfunctional Congress. If you look at the 
chart that was alluded to a moment ago about the last 31 days of the 
Senate, we have had 15 days of the last 31 days actually in session. We 
have had 10 rollcall votes. We have had 10 rollcall votes in the last 
31 days. As a matter of fact, we should be having rollcall votes now on 
the farm bill, which is the bill I thought was before the Senate. But, 
instead, our colleagues from the other side of the aisle decided to put 
on this show for the American people to try to portray themselves as 
passing legislation, although they knew it could not be done in the 
manner in which they proposed--while we should be passing the farm 
bill.
  Let me talk for a moment about the opportunities that they have 
squandered by their mismanagement of the calendar over this last year. 
I asked the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, if he would agree to a 
unanimous consent request, and also the majority leader, to help fund 
our troops who are in harm's way during a time of war. They objected to 
that.
  As a matter of fact, Republicans attempted to call up the Veterans 
appropriations bill before the Veterans Day holiday, and the Democrats 
objected to bringing up that bill. Just to be clear, this is the 
appropriations bill that funds veterans affairs and military 
construction and is important not only to keeping our commitments to 
our veterans but to maintaining a decent quality of life for the 
families who are left behind while their loved one is in harm's way in 
Iraq or Afghanistan and other dangerous places across the world.
  Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle blocked that 
appropriations bill like they blocked the emergency funding for the 
troops that is needed in order to avoid the 100,000 notices to civilian 
employees of the Department of Defense that they are going to be laid 
off. They are going to get those notices before Christmas that they are 
going to be laid off by mid-February unless Congress does the job it 
should have done a long time ago. That is not even to mention--which I 
will mention--the funding necessary for the Department of Defense to 
operate in Iraq and Afghanistan to root out al-Qaida and other foreign 
fighters, Islamic extremists who are trying to kill American soldiers 
and who, if given an opportunity to reorganize themselves in Iraq, 
would use that as another launching pad to carry out murderous attacks 
against Americans and our allies.
  Just to be clear, the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, asked me 
about a meeting where the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State 
were present. I explained, as I have just explained here today, what 
the situation would be like if we failed to act, and as a result of 
their objection, we are not acting on a timely basis.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from 
the Deputy Secretary of Defense to the Republican leader that is dated 
December 7, 2007, signed by Gordon England to the Honorable Mitch 
McConnell.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                  Deputy Secretary of Defense,

                                 Washington, DC, December 7, 2007.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Republican Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Leader, 10 U.S.C. 1597(e) provides that the 
     Department of Defense ``. . . may not implement any 
     involuntary reduction or furlough of civilian positions . . . 
     until the expiration of the 45-day period beginning on the 
     date on which the Secretary submits to Congress a report 
     setting forth the reasons why such reduction or furloughs are 
     required . . .''. In accordance with this statutory 
     requirement, I am providing a report on potential furloughs 
     within the Department of the Army, the Marine Corps, and the 
     Combatant Commands.

[[Page 33783]]

       As you are aware, the FY 08 DoD Appropriations Act did not 
     provide funds to the Department for the Global War on Terror 
     (GWOT). In my November 8, 2007 letter to the Senate and House 
     Appropriations Committee leadership, I emphasized that 
     without this critical funding, the Department would have no 
     choice but to deplete key appropriations accounts in order to 
     sustain essential military operations around the world.
       Without GWOT funding, only operations and maintenance (O&M) 
     funds in the base budget are available to cover war-related 
     costs. O&M funds also cover salary costs for a large number 
     of Army and Marine Corps civilian employees.
       The Army and Marine Corps currently estimate that the 
     fiscal demand on O&M funds to cover both normal operating and 
     GWOT costs will result in depletion of the Army's O&M funds 
     by about mid-February and the Marine Corps O&M funds by about 
     mid-March 2008. As a result, Army civilian employees, who are 
     paid from Army O&M accounts and Marine Corps civilian 
     employees, paid from Marine Corp O&M accounts, will at those 
     times be subject to furlough. Affected employees are located 
     throughout the United States and overseas.
       The furlough will negatively affect our ability to execute 
     base operations and training activities. More importantly. it 
     will affect the critical support our civilian employees 
     provide to our warfighters--support which is key to our 
     current operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
       Accordingly, the Department will issue potential furlough 
     information to about 100,000 affected civilian employees next 
     week. Specific furlough notices will be issued in mid-
     January. The Department will also be notifying appropriate 
     labor organizations.
       While these actions will be detrimental to the nation, 
     there are no other viable alternatives without additional 
     Congressional funding. Your support in providing these needed 
     funds would be greatly appreciated.

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as the letter makes clear, while the 
Department of Defense has the ability to fund the troops in the field 
until mid-February--around March for the Marine Corps--this comes at 
great expense to those in the Department of Defense, both in and out of 
uniform. The only reason the Department of Defense can basically rob 
Peter to pay Paul in terms of paying its bills is because other 
activities will not be funded, to include training, repair of 
equipment, and salaries. This letter makes clear that under the current 
law, furlough notices must soon be issued, potentially right around the 
time Christmas hits.
  This is not any way to run the business of our Nation. Unfortunately, 
because of the way our colleagues have led the Senate, we have 
squandered a tremendous opportunity to solve the problems the American 
people sent us here to solve.
  We have had 66 votes on cloture motions--in other words, efforts to 
force legislation down the throat of the minority without an 
opportunity for debate or amendment. That is a guaranteed recipe for 
failure. As everyone in this body knows, under the rules of the Senate, 
neither the majority nor the minority can have their own way without 
bipartisan cooperation. That is the way to get things done. But, rather 
than get things done for the American people, what we have seen is a 
``my way or the highway'' approach on the part of the leadership on the 
other side of the aisle. That is the reason we have had 63 votes, 63 
votes so far this session, on the war in Iraq, with various attempts on 
the other side of the aisle either to attach strings to that money or 
to impose arbitrary deadlines on our commanders in the field or what I 
would submit is basically to insist on surrender dates.
  These are the same folks who called the surge a failure before it 
even started. They have said they supported the troops but yet, when it 
comes time to show their support by making sure they have the funding 
for the equipment and the training, to pay salaries, and to maintain a 
decent quality of life for their loved ones who are left behind, 
instead of acting on that stated support for the troops, have failed to 
act.
  I know the other side of the aisle has given us a copy of various 
unanimous consent requests to give us fair notice of their intention to 
ask for unanimous consent, and we have done the same.
  On behalf of this side of the aisle, I would ask unanimous consent 
that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2363, 
which is funding for military construction and veterans affairs.
  I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time 
and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table and that 
any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am disappointed to hear the objection. 
This is the same Veterans appropriations bill and Military Construction 
bill that was passed this summer by the Senate and this summer as well 
by the House. Why is it that it has been delayed all this time? This is 
funding for the very veterans who have sacrificed so much and given so 
much in the service to this country who are being told: No, we are 
going to hold that money back because essentially you are part of our 
political plans to put together a huge Omnibus appropriations at the 
end of the year and try to force the President and the minority to 
accept bloated Washington spending, when, in fact, there is no 
objection to passage of that Veterans bill or Military Construction 
bill, and it should be passed today by unanimous consent without 
further delay.
  Mr. President, I have one other unanimous consent request I would 
like to offer. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of H.R. 3997, a bill to provide tax relief for 
our troops. I further ask that the amendment at the desk, which is the 
text of S. 2340 and provides for full funding of our troops, emergency 
funding for our troops, be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, be 
read a third time and passed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I regret the obstruction on the part of 
the majority. This provision, the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Tax 
Relief Act, would ensure that our military members are treated fairly 
under our own tax laws. It would make clear that combat pay can be 
treated as income for purposes of qualifying for the earned-income tax 
credit. It would also make improvements to the rules for mortgage bonds 
for veterans, clarify rules regarding survivor and disability payments, 
and continue to provide pay and benefits to National Guard and Reserve 
members called to Active Duty. I have already mentioned the component 
of it that would provide full funding on an emergency basis to our 
troops who are currently fighting and, unfortunately, some being 
wounded and dying in service to their country and protection of our 
freedoms, which has now been objected to once again.
  I will finish my remarks for this period where I started and say that 
we have squandered our opportunities to govern. The only way you can 
govern in the Congress is by building a governing coalition, Democrats 
working with Republicans to try to solve the Nation's problems. When 
one side or the other tries to jam their agenda down the throat of the 
other side, it does not work, and exhibit A is the dismal record of 
this broken Congress during this last year.
  I see why our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are getting 
nervous, why their desperation to pass legislation is beginning to 
show, because they realize they had the opportunity to lead, they 
realize they had the opportunity to govern, but they have squandered 
that opportunity. So now, in the last week and a half before the 
Christmas recess, they are out here trying to act as if the minority 
has obstructed them, when, in fact, if they had only met us halfway and 
worked with us to solve some of the big issues that confront our 
country in a bipartisan and constructive way, we would have met them 
halfway and we would have solved many of those problems.
  Mr. GREGG. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CORNYN. I will.
  Mr. GREGG. I was wondering, is it not true that in this Congress, 
none of

[[Page 33784]]

the appropriations bills, which is the business of actually operating 
the Government--appropriations bills being the bills which fund things 
like education, things like health care, things like taking care of 
roads--none of the appropriations bills have passed the Congress in 
time to meet the fiscal year?
  Mr. CORNYN. The distinguished Senator from New Hampshire is exactly 
correct. My recollection is only 1 out of the 12 appropriations bills 
has actually been signed by the President, and that was after the 
fiscal year ended, meaning that essentially Congress is doing what no 
business, what no family could get away with; that is, basically to pay 
the bills on a timely basis. So it is another example of this broken 
Congress and squandered opportunity to work together to do our basic 
duty.
  Unfortunately, I think what we have seen now is an unfortunate game 
being played out where, rather than pass those bills on an individual 
basis, there is going to be an attempt to roll them into a giant 
Omnibus appropriations bill, which someone observed the other day is 
Latin for ``hold on to your wallet.'' The President has insisted that 
he is going to hold the line, as he well should, on wasteful Washington 
spending which would require tax increases on the American people at a 
time when the economy is entering into a flat period. It is exactly the 
wrong time--if there is ever a right time--to raise taxes.
  Mr. GREGG. Would the Senator yield for an additional question through 
the chair.
  Mr. CORNYN. I would.
  Mr. GREGG. The Senator has pointed out that we passed none of the 
obligations for operating the Government prior to the beginning of the 
fiscal year. As the Senator pointed out, we have only passed 1 of those 
bills out of the 12. We are now almost 3 months into the fiscal year. 
That happens to be the worst record in the history of the Congress, I 
believe.
  That dysfunction of this Congress was not necessary, was it? Did we 
not vote I think almost 60 times on issues involving Iraq, on 
repetitive issues involving Iraq, to the point where the Democratic 
leaders have essentially said: We are going to ignore the operation of 
the day-to-day business of the Government in order to call up 60 votes, 
many of which were simply political votes, and use up the entire 
calendar of the Congress in order to make political points, when they 
knew they were not going to be able to do a great deal in this area 
other than what they should do, which is fund the troops in the field?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire is 
absolutely correct.
  I would further say in response to his question, you know there is a 
marked contrast to the tone that was set at the very beginning of this 
Congress with the new majority in charge. The Senator from Illinois, 
Mr. Durbin, who was on the floor earlier, said:

       I think the people across America said to us in this last 
     election, we want you to compromise, we want you to find 
     solutions, we do not want you to play to a draw with nothing 
     to show for it.

  Well, that is in the Congressional Record on January 4, 2007. I 
agreed with that statement then. But, as I say, it stands in marked 
contrast to what we have seem demonstrated this last year.
  The Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, who was on the floor earlier, 
on that same date said:

       All too often we in Washington get lost in the world of 
     Washington, the focus on getting something done, something 
     done for the American people gets lost.

  Well, I wish they had heeded their own advice because what we have to 
show for this last year is very little, indeed. Failing to take care of 
our most basic responsibilities, as the Senator from New Hampshire has 
pointed out, to fund the Government on a timely basis--the fact is, we 
find ourselves in a terrible position now, with just a few days 
remaining until the Christmas break to get that work done.
  Mr. GREGG. If the Senator would yield further for a question?
  Mr. CORNYN. I would.
  Mr. GREGG. My first two questions were sort of to lay the predicate 
for this question, which is that the other side of the aisle has spent 
a lot of time saying the minority is obstructing, the Republicans are 
obstructing. Yet was it not by conscious choice that they decided to 
create a legislative calendar which was totally dominated by their 
desire to make political points over the issue of how the war in Iraq 
was proceeding rather than to take up the appropriations bills, which 
are the proper order of the Congress, one of the first responsibilities 
of the Congress? The Republican side of the aisle has not resisted 
going to appropriations bills; it has been the other side of the aisle 
which has refused to bring them up.
  So this allegation of obstruction is really a bit of a straw dog, is 
it not? Are they not in the position of basically having created the 
problem and then trying to claim the problem is created by us when, in 
fact, the problem was created by the fact that they refused to take up 
the business of the Government, and now, in the 11th hour 49th minute, 
they have decided to turn to the business of the Government and they 
have chaos on their hands as a result of their own management?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I agree again with the statement made and 
respond in the affirmative to the question propounded by the Senator 
from New Hampshire. This Congress has spent 11 months holding Iraq 
political votes that have had no chance of becoming law.
  We have had 63 votes thus far this session. In the meantime, while 
the majority has been fiddling, the business of the American people has 
not been done. I think about the issues besides those of national 
security that cry out for solutions, things such as border security and 
immigration reform. Couldn't we have used some of this time more 
constructively to solve one of the biggest domestic issues confronting 
the country today? How about energy policy? We have an energy bill that 
raises taxes on domestic producers and encourages our dependence on 
foreign oil, when we could have worked together to pass an energy 
policy that would have prepared us for the future. We have not done 
that. Health care, which is a tremendous concern of my constituents in 
Texas and elsewhere, we could have acted to deal with the health care 
access cost and quality crisis in this country, but we have not.
  I know there are other colleagues who wish to speak.
  I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I wish to follow up on the exchange 
between the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Texas in a 
different context. I am sure the theatrics of this morning are 
entertaining for a few. But for me, they are illustrative of how a 
broken Congress has real ramifications for the people of the State of 
Georgia. I hold this seat in the Senate because a majority of Georgians 
sent me here to vote on their behalf and act on their behalf. But the 
way in which this session has been managed, the way in which certain 
pieces of legislation have been managed, the way in which we even are 
debating this morning in 3 hours of morning business when we should be 
on the farm bill is causing pain and suffering to the people I 
represent. I wish to put meat on those bones.
  First, I wish to talk about the veterans bill mentioned by the 
distinguished Senator from Texas, a bill nobody here really objected to 
but some objected to and kept it from coming to the floor. It still has 
not come. It has been objected to this morning. What is the 
ramification of that on Georgians? The VA hospital in Atlanta, GA, on 
Claremont Road is a great VA hospital that has been there for years. It 
has been in terrible need of repair. Three years ago, the Congress 
authorized and appropriated the money to remodel all the floors of the 
VA hospital in Atlanta, where today hundreds of veterans of Operation 
Iraqi Freedom, all the way back to the Korean war, are being attended 
to. In the last 3 years, three of those floors were redone, but they 
didn't get the other three done, and they are waiting to be done.

[[Page 33785]]

  The money, $20.552 million, is in the bank, but the authorization 
that was passed 3 years ago has expired. As the Chair knows, we don't 
appropriate without an authorization. We are not supposed to. And if we 
don't have an authorization, the money is frozen. The ramifications of 
holding the veterans bill to real Americans, real Georgians, real 
heroes who served this country in uniform is that those floors set to 
be remodeled in a hospital for veterans sit there unremodeled. The new 
equipment, new technology, everything that is in there for veterans is 
held. The money is in the bank, already appropriated. All we to have do 
is the authorization. It is in a bill nobody objects to when you talk 
to them. But continuously it is objected to on the floor of the Senate.
  I wish to talk about the ramifications of messaging. There is a new 
technique we are using now. Instead of sending back a conference report 
to which a point of order can be raised--I know that is technical 
jargon--you send a message. You either have to vote up or down. You 
don't have a chance to amend or to make a point of order. Let's take 
the Energy bill going back and forth akin to a ping-pong ball. Most 
recently it came to us as a message, unamendable and no point of order, 
and we can't debate the dirty little secret that the renewable 
portfolio standard in the Energy bill benefits certain parts of the 
United States and is punitive to others. I happen to represent one of 
those States to which it is punitive. How punitive is it? It is so 
punitive that by 2020 it will have cost the ratepayers in the State of 
Georgia to the Southern Company and to the EMCs in our State $8.2 
billion. So the tactic being used does not allow me to make that point 
on the floor or make a point of order or bring it to debate but asks 
all of us to agree to a proposition that would impose that much damage 
on the people I represent. That is the ramification of a broken 
Congress on real people, real Georgians.
  I understand the omnibus bill is coming to us as a message as well. 
There is an amendment in the omnibus bill which is punitive to the 
State of Georgia. It has been put in outside the process of the 
committee system and outside the process of debate. I am not going to 
have a chance to even raise a point of order on that particular 
amendment. In fact, as the Senator from New Hampshire observed, we 
didn't pass but one appropriations bill by the time the new fiscal year 
took place. We have been going back and forth because, instead, we 
spent most of the year debating 62 separate votes on whether to 
withdraw our troops from Iraq. In fact, I find it sad that in the 6 
months that debate has been going on, the surge has worked by 
everybody's definition. Progress in Iraq has been of a tremendous 
advantage. The men and women who have sacrificed and accomplished it 
and are fighting there today are looking at us playing games with the 
money to fund the military. It is not only wrong, it is sad. It is time 
we had an appropriations process that worked in the Senate, not one 
that is broken.
  It is time we looked at ideas such as Senator Domenici's biennial 
budget, where you appropriate in odd-numbered years and you do 
oversight in even-numbered years. Wouldn't it be fun to see an even-
numbered year election for Congress or President where the debate 
wasn't on what I was going to appropriate to make you happy but instead 
the savings I was going to find to make our country run better? Senator 
Domenici, who is leaving us at the end of next year, has a great 
proposition. It ought to go. We ought to be appropriating money by the 
time the fiscal year starts.
  The real effect on real Georgians with the process now is that in 
December of 2007, in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2008, we have 
Government appropriations policy based on an appropriations bill passed 
in 2006. The body of knowledge doubles every 7 years. We are still 2 
years behind on our appropriations process. Why? Because of the 
dilatory tactics, because of thematic debates, and all because one side 
wants to leverage against another, to the detriment of real people.
  Lastly, I wish to talk about the real damage of a broken Congress on 
the appointment process. In today's Executive Calendar, there is a list 
of any number of appointees to any number of positions in the 
Government--judicial appointees, Department of Homeland Security 
appointees, Tennessee Valley Authority appointees, hazardous and 
chemical waste oversight board appointees. All those appointees have 
come out of committee; some of them from the committee I am on, 
Environment and Public Works. They have testified before the committee. 
They have been subjected to questions. They have been thoroughly 
vetted, and they have been voted out of committee; in the case of EPW, 
voted out unanimously.
  Last Thursday, there was a move to pass this list, still on the 
calendar, by unanimous consent. Remember, all these appointees have 
gone through the committee process. They have been vetted. They have 
been voted on. They have testified. They have subjected themselves to 
all the questions we could possibly ask. Yet there was an objection 
last week. So what is the pain and suffering to the American people? In 
those four States where judges were asked to be approved, they continue 
to have a backlog of criminal cases, a backlog of critical cases.
  To me and the Members of this body who represent areas that are 
served by the Tennessee Valley Authority, Congress finally fixed the 
TVA 2 years ago, got it under new management, into a good system, ran 
it like a business, appointed a significant board, and now it is time 
to reappoint three of those members or reappoint two and add one new 
one from Georgia, I might add. What happens? Somebody says: I object. 
We are objecting to the American people's business, are objecting to 
the progress of what this Government was set up to do.
  The broken Congress of 2008 has real consequences, not for me but for 
the people of my State. I will stay until Christmas or New Year's and 
repeat what I have said until somebody throws the light switch and 
understands the games we are playing don't affect us; they affect the 
people who sent us. In the case of the four examples I have given, they 
affect them negatively.
  To that point, I would like to make two unanimous consent requests. 
The first one is going to be with regard to the TVA board. I wish to 
repeat one thing I said. They all were approved unanimously. Two of 
them are reappointments. They are all fine people. TVA has reduced its 
debt under new management. Congress worked hard to pass this 2 years 
ago. It is time to have these people seated and working.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session 
to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 404, 405, and 406; 
these are three nominations to be members of the board of directors of 
the Tennessee Valley Authority. I ask consent that these pending 
nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid 
upon the table, and that the President be immediately notified of the 
Senate's action. I finally ask consent that the Senate then resume 
legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, on behalf of majority leader, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations to 
the judiciary: No. 373, John Tinder to the U.S. Circuit Court for the 
7th Circuit; No. 392, Amul Thapar, to be U.S. district judge for the 
Eastern District of Kentucky; No. 395, Joseph Laplante, to be U.S. 
district judge for the District of New Hampshire; and No. 396, Thomas 
Schroeder, to be U.S. district judge for the Middle District of North 
Carolina.
  I ask consent that these pending nominations be confirmed en bloc, 
the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and the President be 
immediately notified of the Senate's action. I further ask that the 
Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

[[Page 33786]]


  Mrs. MURRAY. On behalf of the majority leader, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. ISAKSON. I understand the Senator from Washington is acting on 
behalf of her leader. I respect that. But the point I have tried to 
make in my speech I want to end with. These are seven individuals, four 
of whom in the judiciary in four States could be processing criminal 
cases, taking appeals, making the justice system of the United States 
work. We all know the backlog in the courts. The Presiding Officer is a 
distinguished attorney. I have heard him talk about that very question. 
Then the three that were objected to on the Tennessee Valley Authority 
were approved unanimously. All we are saying to one of the biggest 
providers of electrical energy in the United States of America that was 
reformed by this Senate less than 18 months ago is: You are not 
important enough for us to approve what has already been passed by 
unanimous consent in committee.
  I submit that a broken Congress has real consequences. This Congress 
is broken, and the consequences are negative on the people of my State 
of Georgia and the people of the United States.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia and the 
Senator from Texas for their leadership. With that leadership comes a 
very clear voice about the problems this current Congress is facing. 
They are problems that are historic in character. I was once in the 
majority. It was the minority who said: We can do better and, 
therefore, we should run the Congress. In the last election, the 
American people listened and they changed the Congress. While I was 
chairing the Veterans' Affairs Committee at that time, we lost the 
Congress--we, the Republicans--by a reality of dropping to 32 percent 
in the minds of Americans as to an effective and responsible Congress. 
The minority played on that. They became the majority. They took over 
the leadership. They made a great deal of promises. Here we are in the 
eleventh and a half hour headed toward the twelfth hour of this session 
of Congress. They have not accomplished it. They have dropped below 11 
percent in favorable rating among the American people.
  The American people do want to see us get along. At the same time, 
they want their Government to function in a timely and responsible way. 
That is exactly what this Congress has failed to do.
  I come to the floor to speak about two issues specifically. The 
assistant majority leader came to the floor earlier today and asked 
unanimous consent that S. 1233 and S. 1315 be allowed to come to the 
floor under unanimous consent or to come to the floor with debate and 
final passage. The reason he had to do that was before the Thanksgiving 
recess, I came to the floor and objected to the movement of those 
bills. The Senator from Oklahoma also now objects to the movement of 
those bills. I think it is very important that not only does the record 
bear why we objected but the American people clearly understand why we 
are objecting, because these are veterans bills.
  These are bills that deal with critical needs of America's veterans. 
I was once chairman and ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs 
Committee, and I am not going to suggest that I need to add credentials 
to my record as supporting America's veterans. My responsibility is to 
make sure the services to our veterans get delivered in a responsible 
and timely way, that the truly needy service-connected and poor veteran 
gets served, and that the needs of those coming in out of Afghanistan 
and Iraq, who then become veterans out of our active service, are met 
in an immediate way. That is the responsibility of this Congress. It is 
not to keep adding and adding and adding new programs that may or may 
not be necessary and adding and adding and adding billions of dollars 
that anyone in service to veterans can say is at best questionable. It 
is for those reasons that I objected to those bills.
  Now, let me break down why because there are some very real issues 
here.
  S. 1233 is an important piece of legislation that a majority of those 
of us who supported the legislation to begin with agreed to. It is 
called the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury and Health Programs 
Improvement Act of 2007. Any bill with that title would capture your 
imagination. One of the great concerns we have today is the traumatic 
brain injuries our men and women in service are coming out of Iraq 
with, especially because of the types of bombs that are being used over 
there. Oftentimes, this kind of injury does not show up in a veteran 
until he or she becomes a veteran.
  If you look down through the priorities of that bill, you look at 
increased veterans' travel benefits--yes, rural veterans coming to 
veterans centers to be served; a major medical facilities project; 
adding to the expanded services of veterans health care; professional 
scholarship programs; extended time for preferred care; help for low-
income veterans; traumatic brain injury program enhancement; assisted-
living pilot program enhancement--all of those very valuable and very 
meaningful, strongly supported by the Veterans' Affairs Committee and 
strongly supported by this Senate.
  But what happened at the last minute was that a Senator on the other 
side added a new program. They said: We are going to allow Priority 8 
veterans to become eligible for the full service of health care under 
the veterans health care system. What is a Priority 8 veteran? A 
Priority 8 veteran is one who has no service-connected disability or 
injury or health care concern. Did they serve? Yes, they served. Did 
they sustain any injury or physical needs as a result of their service? 
No. Are they at the poverty level or below? No. They are above it. And 
in most instances--in fact, in a high percentage of them--through their 
own employment, they have health care.
  So for a good number of years, because of costs, we who watch the 
veterans issues and Presidents and Secretaries of the VA have said we 
will not serve them. They will not be eligible for the full benefits. 
This President, President Bush, said: I will make them eligible, but 
they need to pay a small fee, a couple hundred bucks a year, to have 
access to the greatest health care program in the world. The minority 
at that time, the Democrats, said: No. They get it free of charge or 
they don't get it.
  Well, all of a sudden into this very valuable bill they parachuted 
Priority 8 veterans. What does that do? Well, if you go talk to the 
Secretary of the Veterans' Administration, they are going to tell you 
that it might cause a substantial problem. Why? Because all of a sudden 
in this health care system there could be 1.3 million more Americans 
eligible for health care--not planned for, not anticipated, not 
budgeted for, but parachuted in, I have to believe all in the name of 
trying to show a concern for veterans and to demonstrate that maybe we 
are a little more sensitive than the other side.
  What does that mean? Well, it also means the potential of between 
$1.2 billion more expended in 2008 and up to $8.8 billion more by 2012. 
Did they fund it? No. Have they stuck it in the bill? Yes. Are they 
trying to create a priority? Yes. Are they trying to create a new 
expenditure? Yes. And I said: No. Let's serve our poor and our needy 
and our disabled first and our traumatically brain injured and our 
post-traumatic stress syndrome veterans. Let's serve them now. Let's 
put money into the bill to do that.
  So the Senator from Texas talked about the VA-MILCON bill that is 
right at the desk right now, sent out by the ranking minority member of 
the VA-MILCON Subcommittee, on which I serve, of Appropriations, 
Senator Hutchison. We are trying to get a vote on it. That bill--that 
bill alone--has nearly $8 billion worth of new spending in it for 
veterans. That is a near 17.5- to 18-percent increase over last year. I 
believe it can be said, other than defense, to be the largest increase 
in a budget of all of Government for this year. But the money I am 
talking about, the new money for Priority 8, is not even in that one. 
All of this new

[[Page 33787]]

money for veterans needs that is in the bill that we are being told 
cannot be passed, that we keep trying to get a vote on, does not even 
include the $1.5 billion to $8 billion necessary to fund this new 
program for veterans who are not needy, who are not service connected, 
and who have not been eligible for a good number of years.
  That is why we are saying no. You take Priority 8 out of this, and 
the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury and Health Programs Improvement 
Act, S. 1233, could pass, and it would pass on a voice vote because the 
Senate--Democrats and Republicans--have always supported our veterans. 
But we will not nor will I allow us to get caught in the game of first 
you argue on the other side that we have a war nobody likes and a 
President who is not managing it well, and then on the other side you 
are saying we are not taking care of our veterans. I reject that, and I 
reject it totally for these reasons.
  While I was chair and ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs 
Committee, and throughout the Bush administration, we have increased 
the funding for veterans on an annualized basis anywhere from 10 to 12 
percent. When I talk about the appropriations bill that is at the desk 
for veterans being a historically large increase, well, the one the 
year before was a historically large increase. We have never ducked our 
responsibility to veterans. But we must prioritize, and we must focus 
on the truly needy, and we must focus on those who are coming out of 
Iraq and Afghanistan and traumatic brain injury and all of those who 
continue to suffer today. That is the first bill, and it will continue 
to be objected to until they take out those kinds of add-ons.
  Let's talk about the second bill. The second bill is S. 1315. Now, 
that is an interesting bill because if you look at it on its face 
value, you say: Yes, that makes some sense. We are going to give a 
veterans' benefit enhancement to a certain class of veteran. Let me 
tell you who that veteran is.
  The bill includes roughly $900 million in new entitlement spending on 
an array of veterans' benefits, but what is interesting is, it is 
moving money away from poor, elderly, disabled and wartime U.S. 
veterans. It is taking effectively $2,000 annually from our veterans 
and moving it over to a veteran who does not even live in the United 
States and is not a citizen of the United States--a Filipino veteran.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 10 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CRAIG. Why I object to this--and I call this bill the ``Robin 
Hood in reverse'' bill--is quite simple. If any of you have watched the 
Ken Burns PBS series ``The War,'' there is one whole segment of that 
about the war in the Philippines and the Filipinos who came forward to 
fight with Americans and even serve in American uniforms in defense of 
their land and ours during World War II. They did not become American 
citizens. They were Filipinos, and they have always received benefits. 
But this bill now reaches in and takes money away from our veterans, 
our poor veterans, because of a court case and is giving it to them.
  Here is my problem. First of all, they do not live in this country, 
and they are not U.S. citizens. They are currently receiving benefits. 
But for the average U.S. veteran, their benefits, right now under law, 
cannot exceed $10,929 a year. That is roughly 24 percent of the average 
U.S. household income. But this benefit which is in this bill gives to 
a veteran--a non-U.S. citizen, living in the Philippines--100 percent 
of the average household income in the Philippines. They are taking 
that money away from our veterans to do it. That is the ``Robin Hood in 
reverse'' effect. At least Robin Hood, when he took money, left it in 
Nottingham. He spread it out amongst his own. Here we are taking money 
from our own and sending it all the way to the Philippines.
  Now, let me say, and let me be very clear, Americans have treated 
Filipino veterans fairly. After the war, the United States provided 
$620 million--or $6.7 billion in today's dollars--to repair the 
Philippines. The United States provided $22.5 million--$196 million in 
today's dollars--for equipment and construction. We have a hospital in 
the Philippines, and Filipino veterans legally residing in the United 
States--in the United States--are fully eligible for all VA veterans' 
benefits based on their level of service. Survivors of Filipino 
veterans who died as a result of their service are eligible for 
educational assistance and all kinds of programs.
  That is why I object. First of all, because we are taking money away 
from ours, but also because we have been more than generous since that 
war ended to our comrades, the Filipinos, who fought side by side with 
American men and women, who were in the Philippines at the time, after 
we were able to reclaim the Philippine Islands. So we have done 
wonderfully by them, and we have been very supportive of providing them 
with programs.
  Remember, the average U.S. veterans' benefit--24 percent of U.S. 
average household income--is limited. Yet we are taking that money away 
from them now, giving it to Filipino veterans who are non-U.S. 
citizens, and increasing their benefit to over 100 percent of the 
average household income in the Philippines. U.S. dollars spent in the 
Philippines at that amount lifts--there is no question about it--lifts 
that Filipino dramatically. The question is, Is it fair? Is it 
equitable? My answer is, It is not. I offered to say, yes, we can bump 
them a little bit, but let's take the rest of this money and put it 
into educational benefits for our veterans coming out of Iraq and 
Afghanistan. The answer in the committee was no.
  So that is why these bills are in trouble on the floor. They have 
loaded them up. They are too heavy. The tires are blowing out from 
under the trucks of these bills simply because too much is too much. In 
the instance of this, Disabled American Veterans--that great 
organization which is a loud spokesperson for our veterans--is saying: 
Whoa, wait a moment here. Enough is enough, and this is too much. They 
themselves oppose this legislation as it is currently written.
  So here we have a funding bill on the floor with a 17.5- to 18-
percent increase over last year's funding for veterans, and we are not 
allowed to vote on it. We have funding at the highest level ever for 
America's veterans, as we should and as we must, but these bills take 
us well beyond it in an unfunded environment or in one instance 
reaching in the pocket of our poor and disabled veteran and taking that 
money out and putting it into the pocket of a veteran living in the 
Philippines, who never became an American citizen, and who never came 
to this country, who has chosen to stay in his homeland. We now give 
them benefits, but this is a benefit well beyond what is even currently 
being offered to our own. Those are the fundamental reasons why we have 
objected.
  I was pleased when the Senator from Texas said to the Senator from 
Illinois, the assistant majority leader: No. Yes, we will object, and 
we are not embarrassed about doing it, because there have to be 
priorities to our funding, especially at a time when the VA budget that 
is at the desk is the largest increase of a veterans' budget, to my 
knowledge, ever. We are proud of that, but there is a point when enough 
is, in fact, enough.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, how much time remains in morning business 
on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty-three minutes.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, in a moment I am going to yield and ask 
unanimous consent that the Senator from Alabama be recognized for up to 
10 minutes, followed by the Senator from Wyoming, Dr. Barrasso, for up 
to 10 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request 
for material to be inserted in the Record?
  Mr. CORNYN. I would.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that minority

[[Page 33788]]

views on S. 1233 and minority views on S. 1315 be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             Minority Views


                                S. 1233

       The underlying legislation provides many important 
     provisions that will improve the health care services and 
     benefits available to America's veterans. I am particularly 
     pleased that Title I takes many important steps towards 
     improving the care provided to those veterans suffering with 
     a traumatic brain injury.
       However, in a few areas, I believe the legislation not only 
     fails to improve the current benefits and health care system 
     available for veterans, it in fact dilutes certain benefits 
     available for service-connected veterans and may undermine 
     the access and quality of care provided to the current users 
     of VA's health care system.
       Let me explain my concerns.
     Repeal of the Regulation Concerning the Enrollment of 
         Priority 8 Veterans
       The underlying legislation repeals a regulation issued by 
     former Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Anthony J. Principi 
     concerning enrollment priorities. That regulation prohibited 
     enrollment into VA's health care system by any veteran in 
     Priority 8 status who had not enrolled prior to January 17, 
     2003. At the time Secretary Principi announced the new 
     regulation, a VA news release stated:
       VA has been unable to provide all enrolled veterans with 
     timely access to health care services because of the 
     tremendous growth in the number of veterans seeking VA health 
     care. . . .
       In order to ensure VA has capacity to care for veterans for 
     whom our Nation has the greatest obligation--[those with] 
     military-related disabilities, lower-income veterans or those 
     needing specialized care like veterans who are blind or have 
     spinal cord injuries--Principi has suspended additional 
     enrollments for veterans with the lowest statutory priority. 
     This category includes veterans who are not being compensated 
     for a military-related disability and who have higher 
     incomes.
       Since that decision was rendered, many Veterans Service 
     Organizations and individual veterans have advocated re-
     opening the health care system to all veterans. However, none 
     has advocated abolishing the priority system developed under 
     the Eligibility Reform Act of 1996, which was the basis for 
     Principi's decision in 2003. Continuing that trend, the 
     underlying bill does not repeal the eligibility 
     prioritization structure created under the 1996 law.
       Given that the statutory priorities for health care 
     enrollment still exist, it would be reasonable to presume 
     that the majority had made a determination that VA was now 
     providing all currently enrolled veterans with timely access 
     to quality health care. And therefore the conditions which 
     drove Secretary Principi's earlier decision (an inability to 
     provide enrolled veterans with timely access to health care 
     services) no longer existed. The record, however, does not 
     suggest that such a conclusion has been reached by the 
     majority.
       Instead, the record shows many Senators expressing concerns 
     about service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan 
     facing--what are often described as--lengthy waiting times 
     for care. In the face of such assessments, I do not 
     understand how the majority could suggest that opening up the 
     health care system to hundreds-of-thousands--if not 
     millions--of new patients is wise policy.
       Moreover, it appears that the provision in this bill would 
     open VA to new enrollees on the day the legislation is signed 
     into law. There is no plan required to ensure that the 
     enrollment process would be orderly and executed in a way 
     that would minimize its effect on current patients. Nor is 
     there any requirement that the necessary funding be available 
     prior to its implementation. Instead, VA would simply open 
     the doors and wait to see who arrives. I believe that is 
     irresponsible and unfair to the current enrollees.
       That is not just my view. Rather, my opinion echoes that of 
     the Disabled American Veterans who, while commenting on the 
     issue of re-opening VA to priority 8's, stated that ``without 
     a major infusion of new funding, enactment of this bill [S. 
     1147] would worsen VA's financial situation, not improve it, 
     and would likely have a negative impact on the system as a 
     whole.''
       To address my concerns, I offered an amendment during the 
     Committee's consideration of the legislation. My amendment 
     would have required Secretarial certification of three facts 
     prior to enrollment being deemed ``open.''
       First, the Secretary would have had to certify that quality 
     of care and access thereto for enrolled veterans in Priority 
     groups 1-6 would not be adversely affected by the newer 
     patients. Because current law treats those veterans as a 
     higher priority, I believe that VA must demonstrate 
     conclusively that it is already offering high quality, timely 
     care to our service-connected and lower income veterans. As 
     I've already stated, recent observations and statements by 
     some Senators suggest otherwise.
       Second, the Secretary would have had to certify that troops 
     returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were provided timely, 
     high quality health care already and that such timeliness and 
     quality would not suffer because of newer enrollees. In my 
     view, VA's health care system was created primary for the 
     purpose of caring for ``he who shall have borne the battle.'' 
     Congress should ensure that this unique group of veterans is 
     not unduly burdened by any new influx of higher income 
     veterans with no military-related disabilities.
       Finally, my amendment would have required that the 
     Secretary certify to Congress that VA had the capability to 
     see a large influx of new patients. My amendment asked for an 
     assessment as to whether VA had the physical infrastructure, 
     human resources, and medical equipment to treat any new 
     influx of veterans.
       I recognize that many Senators believe that money is the 
     only obstacle to providing all veterans with health care 
     through VA. However, any money provided for new patients 
     would be used to buy new staff, new equipment, and new space. 
     Therefore, I felt it was important to know whether each of 
     those three goods or services was possible to obtain.
       The issue of whether VA has the capability to hire new 
     staff alone should give any Senator pause in supporting the 
     expansion in this legislation. It is widely known that the 
     nation is struggling to provide a stable supply of primary 
     care physicians and nurses to provide basic health care 
     services in non-VA facilities. This issue was made clear in a 
     July 2007 report from the Health Research Institute of 
     PricewaterhouseCoopers which showed that the United States 
     will be short nearly one million nurses and 24,000 physicians 
     by 2020. In that environment, simply finding new staff to 
     hire will be a challenge for any health care system, 
     including VA.
       Further, assuming the requisite staff can be found, I 
     remain skeptical that VA has the necessary clinical space in 
     which to provide more primary and specialty care services. I 
     am also equally skeptical that many VA facilities could open 
     the additional operating rooms, post-surgical recovery units, 
     and intensive care units that would be required with a large 
     increase in patients.
       My amendment failed in Committee. Still, while the answers 
     to the questions may not be required by law prior to opening 
     the health care system to all veterans, I continue to believe 
     it would be a mistake to proceed without the knowledge set 
     forth in my amendment. As such, I oppose Section 301 of the 
     bill.


                                S. 1315

       In view of these findings, I introduced S. 1290 to overhaul 
     the statutory scheme regarding SAAs to help eliminate 
     redundant administrative procedures, increase VA's 
     flexibility in determining the nature and extent of services 
     that should be performed by SAAs, and improve accountability 
     for any activities they undertake. I am pleased that S. 1315 
     includes provisions that would require VA to coordinate with 
     other entities in order to reduce overlapping activities and 
     to report to Congress on its efforts to establish appropriate 
     performance measures and tracking systems for SAA activities. 
     However, I remain concerned that S. 1315 would leave in place 
     the inflexible statutory provisions that mandate what 
     activities SAAs must perform, how those functions must be 
     carried out, and how VA must pay for them. As VA stated in 
     response to-GAO's findings, ``amending the agency's 
     administrative and regulatory authority to streamline the 
     approval process may be difficult due to the specific 
     approval requirements of the law.'' Thus, I believe that, in 
     order to effectively update and streamline this process, VA 
     should be provided with the authority to contract with SAAs 
     for services that it deems valuable and to determine how 
     those services should be performed, evaluated, and 
     compensated.
       Finally, I wish to draw attention to the funding provision 
     in section 302 of the Committee bill, which would provide $19 
     million in mandatory funding to pay for SAA services for each 
     fiscal year hereafter. To the contrary, my bill (S. 1290) 
     included a funding provision--similar to legislation that the 
     Senate passed in 2006--that would provide a $19 million 
     spending authorization for SAAs. This funding mechanism 
     would, for now, continue to allow some funding to be drawn 
     from mandatory spending accounts and would begin to 
     transition SAA funding to a discretionary funding model. By 
     relying on discretionary--rather than mandatory--funding, VA 
     and the SAAs would have to justify budgeting and funding 
     decisions based on need and performance outcomes, as with any 
     private-sector business or good-government business model.
     Section 401
       Section 401 of S. 1315 would expand benefits to certain 
     Filipino veterans residing both in the United States and 
     abroad. I support improving benefits for Filipino veterans 
     who fought under U.S. command during World War II. However, I 
     believe the approach taken in this bill with respect to 
     special pension benefits for non-U.S. citizen and non- U.S. 
     resident Filipino veterans and surviving

[[Page 33789]]

     spouses is overly generous and does not reflect wide 
     discrepancies in U.S. and Philippine standards of living.
       Pension benefits for veterans residing in the United States 
     are paid at a maximum annual rate of $10,929 for a veteran 
     without dependents, $14,313 for a veteran with one dependent, 
     and $7,329 for a surviving spouse. When viewing these amounts 
     in relation to U.S. average-household income of $46,000, we 
     find that the maximum VA pension represents anywhere from 16 
     to 31 percent of U.S. household income. In contrast, when 
     measured against the Philippine average household income of 
     $2,800, the special pension for Filipino veterans in S. 1315 
     represents anywhere from 86 to 161 percent of Philippine 
     household income.
       I think it is a mistake, and grossly unfair to U.S.-based 
     pension recipients, to pay a benefit to veterans in the 
     Philippines that far exceeds the relative value of the same 
     benefit provided in the United States. Providing benefits for 
     Filipino veterans in the name of equity should not be done in 
     a manner that, in my opinion, creates a dramatic inequity for 
     our U.S. veterans.
       Furthermore, the offset that S. 1315 uses to ensure that 
     the bill is in compliance with Congressional budget rules 
     would have the effect of reducing pension amounts to elderly, 
     poor, and disabled veterans predominantly residing in the 
     U.S. The extra pension amounts were established as a result 
     of a 2006 decision of the Court of Appeals for Veterans 
     Claims in Hartness v. Nicholson. In my opinion, these extra 
     payments for certain categories of veterans were never 
     contemplated by Congress and, therefore, are not justified. 
     However, if presented with the choice of whether to provide 
     extra pension assistance to low-income veterans in the U.S. 
     or to provide extra pension assistance in the amounts 
     contemplated in section 401 of S. 1315, I would recommend to 
     my colleagues that they choose the former.
     Sections 205, 701, 702, and 802
       I also wish to comment on four additional provisions that 
     were adopted as amendments at the Committee's June 27, 2007, 
     markup. In doing so I want to make it clear that my comments 
     have nothing at all to do with the substance of the proposed 
     policy changes contained in these provisions. Rather, my 
     comments will focus on the manner in which the policy changes 
     in each provision are proposed to be financed; whether the 
     proposed financing method is in consort with the spirit of 
     sound budgeting principles; and whether the financing method 
     may potentially result in an unwieldy and inequitable outcome 
     for veterans.
       Each of the four provisions proposes to authorize the 
     expenditure of discretionary appropriations as an ``overlay'' 
     for the purpose of supplementing entitlement programs for 
     veterans. Thus, beneficiaries of certain housing and auto 
     grant programs, and burial-related programs, would be 
     ``entitled'' to the amounts specified in the provisions, but 
     only to the extent that annual appropriations bills provided 
     the necessary discretionary funding that was in addition to 
     the funding provided in regular mandatory entitlement 
     spending.
       The problem with creating ``hybrid entitlement'' programs--
     one part funded on a mandatory basis, the other funded 
     through an annual discretionary appropriation--is both the 
     ensuing problems that would exist in administering the 
     programs and the implications such a model would have on how 
     Congress controls spending of taxpayer dollars. We have 
     budget rules referred to as Pay-As-You-Go or ``PAYGO'' that 
     require the Congress to pay for new entitlement spending 
     through a decrease in other entitlement spending, an increase 
     in revenue, or a combination of both. Such a construct was 
     created in order to keep-budget deficits from growing. Yet 
     the four provisions in question adopt none of these 
     approaches.

  Mr. CORNYN. To be clear, we have had objections from the majority, 
from our Democratic friends, to legislation that is vitally important 
to our veterans and to our active-duty military: the Veterans' 
Administration and military construction funding bill that was passed 
by both Houses of the Congress last summer and which has been held up 
and held hostage to the political games here in Washington, as well as 
the emergency troop funding that is needed to fund ongoing operations 
in Afghanistan and Iraq, which we have discussed as well. This is a 
personal issue, as 1.7 million veterans live in my State in Texas. We 
have 15 major military bases where military families live and work. One 
out of every 10 active-duty military members who wears the uniform of 
the United States calls Texas home, and we have guards and reservists 
who are also serving valiantly in Iraq and elsewhere.
  The bill which has been blocked by the majority would provide $20 
billion in military construction funds important for our troops and 
quality of life for our military families, and it is important to my 
State of Texas because of our support for the troops and military 
families. It contains almost $90 billion for our veterans, which 
includes their health care, upgrading facilities, money to hire 
additional claims processors so veterans don't have to wait so long to 
get the benefits to which they are entitled. As I said, there are about 
1.7 million veterans in Texas and they need these funds, and they 
shouldn't be held hostage to the political games here in Washington 
with regard to an omnibus appropriations bill.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we should be frank as to where we are 
today. The situation is not good. Yes, we do have too much partisanship 
in this body, and we need to move beyond it. But I wish to ask a couple 
of questions. I think we might as well talk about it directly and 
honestly: Has this Congress performed well this year? I say we have 
not. We passed only one appropriations bill, and it is almost 
Christmas. They all should have been passed before the end of the 
fiscal year, September 30. Only one has been passed. No wonder the 
polling data shows Congress has the lowest respect of the public in our 
history. I know that in this last election, my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle campaigned strenuously: Elect us and we will do 
better. Elect us and we will balance the budget and we will be fiscally 
responsible; the Republicans aren't fiscally responsible. We will do 
things in a better way, and we will run the Senate in a better way. For 
the majority, I have to say it is incontrovertible that that has not 
occurred. In fact, we are about to vote--perhaps, because who knows 
what may happen in the last hours--but the momentum is in place and the 
goal is to bring forward an omnibus bill that has all but one 
appropriations bill in it, no telling what other legislation in it. It 
is going to be hundreds, perhaps 1,000-plus pages. It is going to be 
dropped here. It is going to make this Agriculture bill look like a 
dime novel. They are going to say: Vote for it. It is going to be over 
budget and it is going to try to put constraints on our military 
commanders in Iraq, telling them how to deploy our troops. It is not 
going to be accepted by the President. It is not going to be accepted 
by the American people.
  So we are in a big deal. We are heading to a real collision course, 
and my colleagues on the other side are trying to blame people on this 
side for it. I don't think that is legitimate; I really don't.
  Senator Cornyn has shown at great length how little has been done 
this last month. We have only had 10 votes. Is that right, Senator 
Cornyn? In the last 31 days, 10 votes. Why is that? Is this hard to do? 
It is not hard to have votes. You can have 10 votes a day. We have had 
days where we have had 40 votes or more a day. We are not having votes 
because the majority party, led by the majority leader, Senator Reid, 
doesn't want to vote. Senator Reid is a good friend and a person I like 
and respect, but he has a group of people there and they don't want to 
vote, because votes define you. You can talk all kinds of platitudes, 
but when a vote comes up, are you going to vote for money for our 
soldiers or not? Are you going to vote to tell General Petraeus how to 
deploy his troops or not? Are you going to vote to fund Defense? Are 
you going to vote to crack down on illegal immigration or not? So they 
don't want to vote. That puts them on record.
  They are trying to move all of this pork, all this funding, all of 
those appropriations bills in one colossal package, and they want to 
have the absolute minimum number of votes to avoid being on record on 
important issues--issues that Americans care about; issues that are 
important to America.
  But I will tell my colleagues the big deal. The big deal in this--and 
we might as well be honest about it--what are we going to do about our 
troops who are right there on the eve of Christmas serving us in harm's 
way?
  Let me read an e-mail given to me by a father-in-law of a soldier in 
Iraq. It

[[Page 33790]]

was sent in October. You know, we have had a tremendous reduction in 
violence in the last several months. Things have gone better than I 
would have thought possible in June. I believe General Petraeus's 
strategy is working in a way that I didn't think would be so positive. 
There is a long way to go, though, and this e-mail indicates that it is 
still tough.
  He talks about his staff sergeant, a man of the highest character, 
who was killed by a sniper:

       The loss affected us all significantly. He was a ranger and 
     a jump master that constantly led his men from the front. The 
     men performed heroically and magnificently. After he was hit, 
     myself and our medic were attending to him within seconds. We 
     were receiving fire from multiple locations and the boys were 
     hitting them back hard. We did get the sniper and he is no 
     longer a threat to any of our forces. Still, more are out 
     there, unfortunately. Four days later we had another one of 
     our leaders hit by an IED.

  He goes on to say this:

       I have been reading in the newspapers and trying to figure 
     out why some political powers are openly encouraging the 
     enemy to embolden themselves and display the disdain to 
     attack us daily. If all these presidential candidates would 
     admit to the public what they already know, this would be 
     easier. They voted for us to be here. They authorized the 
     President to use force.

  And so forth.
  I want to say our men and women are there. They are serving us. We 
have seen tremendous progress, and we don't need to tell General 
Petraeus, who is doing a fabulous job, how to deploy his troops. The 
President cannot and will not accept that. We need to fund them. 
General Petraeus promised that in March he would be back before this 
Congress and hopefully, he implied, to announce further reductions in 
our troops. Let's do this. Let's don't have this gimmick in which all 
the appropriations bills are put into one, the supplemental for our 
troops is put into it, and try to put the President in a position where 
he is forced to veto legislation that ought not to be. We ought to take 
care of our soldiers first, get that done, and we can fight over these 
other matters at some time.
  I know other people are here who wish to speak. I will offer this 
unanimous consent request for S. 2400.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed 
Services be discharged from further consideration of S. 2400, the 
Wounded Warrior Bonus Equity Act, and that the Senate proceed to its 
immediate consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read 
the third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the 
table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would 
simply indicate that the wounded warriors legislation has already 
passed the Senate once. I am wondering, since it is included in the 
Department of Defense reauthorization legislation that will be coming 
to us--the conference report will be coming to us shortly--I am 
wondering if my friend will amend his unanimous consent request to 
indicate that when we receive the conference report on the Department 
of Defense reauthorization, that it will be agreed to by unanimous 
consent.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I probably misspoke a little bit. This 
is not the wounded warrior legislation you are talking about; it is the 
Wounded Warrior Bonus Equity Act that has been filed. It is S. 2400. It 
deals with a situation in which persons who have been promised bonuses 
to enlist and reenlist and then have been discharged due to injuries 
sustained in the line of duty, the Dole-Shalala Commission raised the 
question of whether those promises were being honored because these 
bonuses are dispensed over a number of years. They have been injured, 
some have been in combat, and they have not received their full bonus. 
This would move that bill forward. It is different than the bill which 
the Senator referred to. It has bipartisan support. Senator Casey, the 
Presiding Officer, Senators Clinton, Dorgan, Lautenberg, Martinez, 
Murkowski, Sanders, Wyden, Webb, Lieberman, Ensign, Collins, and McCain 
are in support of it. For some reason, there is a hold on it. I renew 
my unanimous consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, again reserving the right to object, I 
would indicate we certainly will work together with the Senator from 
Alabama. We have placed our troops and veterans as our highest 
priority. But given the time at the moment, I would, on behalf of the 
majority leader, object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will yield the floor in 1 second, but 
first I need to say we are not in a good position today. This Congress 
has not performed well. We have passed only one appropriations bill. We 
have had only 10 votes in the last 31 days. That is not a good 
performance. I have been prepared to move forward on this legislation 
and I hope others will. I am disappointed that we have continual 
objections to that end.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, may I ask how much time remains on this 
side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Fourteen minutes.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time 
remaining be evenly split between the Senator from Wyoming and the 
Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I will ask for unanimous consent today 
to call up legislation that I introduced last month and seek debate and 
a vote on that bill today.
  Before I make that request, I wish to make a brief comment about what 
I have seen during this morning's debate.
  Prior to joining the Senate, I served as a member of the Wyoming 
State senate. I served as the transportation committee chairman. I 
served on the health committee and the minerals committee.
  Legislation in the Wyoming legislature needs to be on a single 
subject. We are prohibited from considering legislation that includes 
more than one subject. As a result of the procedural requirements 
there, amendments to bills are narrowly targeted and need to be on the 
single issue of that bill. The system works well there and we get our 
work done.
  The Senate, of course, works very differently. Comprehensive 
legislation often contains multiple topics. They are packaged together 
and brought to the floor for a single vote. Under the rules of the 
Senate, Members are allowed, and it is their right, to offer amendments 
to these large bills, such as the ones on the desk today that contain, 
clearly, more than one topic.
  The process is challenging, but this body has agreed to do it that 
way. Regrettably, the majority party has tried repeatedly to alter that 
process and deny Members the right to offer amendments. Whether it is 
filling the tree, objecting to the consideration of amendments, 
refusing to bring bills to the floor or filing cloture motions, the 
majority party has abused its rights and is attempting to muzzle 
debate.
  Fortunately, the Senate doesn't give unfettered power to any one 
party or any one individual. The Senate has learned over history that 
attempting to deny the minority their rights is not democratic and will 
not be supported by Members.
  I was sent to be a voice for the people of Wyoming, and I take that 
responsibility very seriously. I encourage the majority leadership of 
the Senate to develop a process that allows Members to call up bills, 
have them debated, amended, and voted on by this body. The Senate would 
benefit from this and this is exactly what the public expects us to be 
doing.
  I now turn to legislation that discourages States from issuing 
driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. I introduced the bill November 
13, 2007. It is S. 2334. This bill requires States to

[[Page 33791]]

prove lawful presence before granting a driver's license. It requires 
States to check the Social Security numbers against the registry before 
offering a driver's license. States that do not comply with this would 
lose 10 percent of their Federal transportation funds, and those funds 
would then not go back to the Federal Government but would be 
redistributed to the other States that are in compliance with the law.
  This is an issue that is vital to our national security. It is also 
an issue the Senate hasn't yet taken up. I believe issuing driver's 
licenses to illegal immigrants is an unacceptable and avoidable threat 
to our national security. We have a duty and the time is now to start 
this discussion.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of S. 2334, a bill to withhold 10 percent of 
the Federal funding apportioned for highway construction and 
maintenance from States that issue driver's licenses to individuals 
without verifying the legal status of such individuals.
  I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third time and 
passed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that 
any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this is a 
very important issue we need to have a thorough debate on. At this 
moment, on behalf of the majority leader, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I am disappointed with the objection.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, we are 2 days away from the expiration of 
the continuing resolution--our second one. We had difficulty as a party 
when we were in the majority with getting the bills done on time. It is 
difficult to move things through this body. That is not necessarily 
always the majority's fault, but it requires that we work together. One 
way to take the pressure--the crash pressure in coming up against a 
point where everybody ends up losing is to have an automatic CR so we 
don't have that problem. There has been a bill offered that says if we 
cannot get our work done, there is an automatic CR, that the Government 
continues to run at the rate it was, or at the lower of the Senate- or 
House-passed bills. It takes us away from the idea of playing chicken 
and protects the American people and those employed by the Federal 
Government. I think it is common sense. It is something we ought to do. 
It takes the pressure off both sides so we are not running down to the 
end and looking at bills that nobody knows what is in them, thereby 
doing a grave injustice to the rest of the American people. I think it 
is an idea whose time has come.
  On the basis of that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed 
to the immediate consideration of S. 2070, the Government shutdown 
prevention bill. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the 
third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, 
and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, that tells us something. That tells us we 
are going to get a bill that none of us knows what is in it because we 
are going to run it up against a deadline--the deadline was September 
30, we know that. We need a way to relieve the pressure. This bill 
relieves it; otherwise, we are going to do a great and harmful 
injustice to the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, it is obvious by now we are not going to be 
able to conclude some of our business through the process of getting 
concurrence from the other side. There are two emergency matters that 
do cry out for treatment quickly and, therefore, I will propound two 
emergency unanimous consent requests.
  The first has to do with border funding. Twice this year, the Senate 
overwhelmingly--in fact, in 1 day--unanimously approved $3 billion for 
increased border fencing, 23,000 additional Border Patrol agents, 300 
miles of vehicle barriers, 700 linear miles of fencing, 105 ground-
based radar and camera towers, 4 unmanned aerial vehicles, and 
increased the detention capacity to 45,000. Twice that was passed, but 
it is still not law. We are coming up to the end of the year. It has to 
be done.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of S. 2348, the Emergency Border Funding Act, 
and I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third time and 
passed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that any 
statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as my 
friend indicated, this has been included in the Department of Defense 
reauthorization and Homeland Security budget. I wonder if my friend 
would be willing to amend his unanimous consent request to indicate 
that--because it is included in the conference report we will be 
receiving shortly--we have unanimous consent to pass the conference 
report for the Department of Defense authorization when the Senate 
receives it.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, if that is a unanimous consent request, since 
we obviously have no idea what that conference report is, whether it 
includes anything else, obviously we cannot do that. If that is a 
unanimous consent request, obviously, we cannot agree and I will 
object.
  The question is, Is there objection to the unanimous consent I 
propounded?
  Ms. STABENOW. Reserving the right to object, because we will shortly 
be passing this legislation, at this time, I will object to this 
request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, it is certainly nice to have an assurance 
that we will soon be passing it, with only a few days remaining in the 
session. Obviously, we need to pass it. The reason for my request was 
in the event it is not done later. I think we are tempting fate.
  The other request I will make relates to another emergency matter. 
Last August, in a bipartisan fashion, we filled a very dangerous hole 
in our terrorist surveillance capabilities by passing the Protect 
America Act, which updated our Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by 
giving our law enforcement professionals the tools they need to keep up 
with modern technology to monitor terrorists overseas. That act expires 
in February. We are not here that many days between now and then. 
Obviously, the terrorist threat continues; it is not going to expire. 
We need to permanently extend this critical law enforcement tool to 
make sure our American telecommunications companies, which bravely 
answered the call to help their country when asked to do now, do not 
have to respond to frivolous lawsuits as a result of their patriotism.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in seeing to it that the Protect 
America Act can be passed and made permanent.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of a bill to make permanent the Protect America 
Act, the text of which is at the desk, and that the bill be read the 
third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the 
table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. Reserving the right to object, as our friend indicated, 
we are working together on that issue in a bipartisan way. It will be 
resolved before February. At this time, on behalf of the majority 
leader, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.

[[Page 33792]]


  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, again, I appreciate the assurance that this 
will be done by February 1, when it has to be done, or all of the 
authority to collect this intelligence expires. It has to be done. I 
think we are in session maybe 1 or 2 weeks, potentially, when we come 
back before that date. If we don't do it, our country is in grave 
jeopardy. I would have thought perhaps a better way to resolve that is 
to do it now so we don't have to wait again until the very last minute 
to accomplish something that is so important for the security of our 
country.
  I yield the remaining time to the Senator from Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, how much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two minutes.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2318, a bill that provides 
permanent relief from the alternative minimum tax, which extends the 
2001 tax cuts and the 2003 capital gains dividends tax relief, and that 
the bill be read the third time and passed.
  I further ask that the bill be held at the desk until the House 
companion arrives, and that all after the enacting clause be stricken 
and the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, 
as amended, be read the third time and passed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. Reserving the right to object, as my colleague knows, 
we all agree we need to stop the tax increases on middle America. We 
are committed to that. At this time, on behalf of the majority leader, 
I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am disappointed, and I think the 
American people are going to be disappointed if we don't deal with the 
alternative minimum tax, which, of course, was targeted at the ``rich'' 
when it was passed but which now affects 6 million taxpayers and which, 
if we don't act, will affect 23 million middle-class taxpayers next 
year.
  My distinguished colleague didn't mention the capital gains and 
dividends tax relief, which has been so important as a stimulus to the 
economy, which has resulted in 50 months of uninterrupted job growth 
since we passed that legislation. I hope we will continue to work on 
that.
  Unfortunately, given the compression of time due to the squandering 
of opportunities earlier this year to act on this important 
legislation, I am afraid we are not going to get it done before we 
break for Christmas. The IRS is going to have to send out notices to 
many new taxpayers of their increased tax bill under this AMT, unless 
we act promptly.
  I yield the floor and yield back the remainder of my time.

                          ____________________