[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18655-18664]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      MINERALS MANAGEMENT SERVICE

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, 2 days ago I came to the floor of the 
Senate to describe specifically the horror story of misconduct and 
mismanagement at the Minerals Management Service. Today, this morning, 
in coffee shops across the country, in addition to talking about the 
pain at getting clobbered by these gasoline prices at the pump, a lot 
of Americans are wondering how can it possibly be that in these Federal 
energy development programs, the tax money of the American people is 
being used to prop up sweetheart contracting, flagrant conflict of 
interest violations, drug abuse, apparently all kinds of sexual 
escapades, and lots more.
  I have been trying to clean up these royalty programs for more than 5 
years. I stood right in this spot 2 years ago and spent almost 5 hours 
trying to force a vote here in the Senate to clean up these royalty 
programs.
  Some of these royalty problems, of course, began when the price of 
oil was $19 a barrel. The day that I spoke at length to try to force a 
vote, the price of oil was $70 a barrel. Of course, for quite some time 
the price of oil has been $110, $120, $130--of course 8, 10, 12 times 
what it was when this program began.
  The Bush administration has repeatedly indicated that they would take 
care of these problems. We have had Secretary Kempthorne, for example, 
in the Energy Committee even 19 months ago essentially saying they 
would get on top of the program.
  I came to the floor today because I would like to describe how it 
looks as though once again the Department of Interior is especially 
interested in trying to keep the Congress from stepping in and taking 
bold action to try to drain the swamp. For example, the statement the 
Secretary of Interior made--I brought it to the floor--came out 
yesterday. It states, for example:

       The conduct of a few has cast a shadow on an entire agency.

  That is not what the inspector general said about this program. The 
inspector general didn't talk, as Secretary Kempthorne did, about the 
conduct of a few. What the inspector general said--I will just read it:

       We discovered that, between 2002 and 2006, nearly one-third 
     of the entire royalty-in-kind staff socialized with and 
     received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from oil and 
     gas companies with whom the royalty-in-kind program was 
     conducting official business.

  Let's unpack that for a minute. Secretary Kempthorne has said 
repeatedly that we are only talking about the conduct of a few people 
and offered up once again, just in the last 24 hours, an argument 
clearly designed to keep the Congress from stepping in next week and 
finally draining the swamp at the Royalty-in-Kind Program. The 
inspector general found that there were gifts and gratuities on at 
least 135 occasions from major oil and gas companies. The inspector 
general called it a textbook example of improperly receiving gifts from 
prohibited sources. And then the inspector general said:

       When confronted by our investigators, none of the employees 
     involved displayed remorse.

  They found a culture at this program of ethical disregard--substance 
abuse, promiscuity. They go on and on to talk about an entire program. 
They certainly do not talk about how these problems took place in the 
past. They talk about how this is an ongoing problem that certainly is 
not going to be taken care of, in my view, as Secretary Kempthorne has 
suggested in the past, with one of his kind of ethics training 
programs. There are going to have to be substantial changes. I am very 
hopeful that finally, after the Congress has gotten report after report 
about the problems at this agency, the Senate will not accept the 
argument from Secretary Kempthorne that once again the Congress ought 
to just trust the agency to take care of things on its own.
  Let me outline just a few of the areas that I hope the Senate would 
consider in changing these flagrant abuses at Minerals Management.
  It seems to me, first, that this program, the Royalty-in-Kind 
Program, should be suspended until the Secretary certifies that each of 
the inspector general's ethical and business recommendations is 
implemented.
  That strikes me as pretty obvious. You have all of these problems. It 
has been documented in report after report after report. The Secretary 
has come to the committee, and said he would take care of it. It has 
not been done. It would seem to me that you suspend

[[Page 18656]]

this program until the Secretary certifies that the recommendations 
from the inspector general are implemented.
  Second, I am sure people listening to this say, ``hello,'' when you 
make this particular recommendation. It is time to get rigorous audits 
back in the Minerals Management Royalty Program. You think to yourself, 
how can it be that millions of dollars go in and out the door in these 
programs? There have been problems documented again and again in these 
inspector general reports and they still do not have rigorous audits. 
So that is the second thing the Senate ought to require with respect to 
this program.
  I personally would favor a limited continuation of the Royalty-in-
Kind Program to a fixed term, choose 1 year, 2 years, and then it would 
be sunset unless it would be reauthorized. This would be a process that 
would make sure the program either gets fixed and the Senate comes away 
convinced that it works or the program goes away. So I would hope the 
Senate would look at that.
  Finally, I think it is worth noting that the Minerals Management 
Service is the only major bureau within the Interior that does not have 
a Senate-confirmed director. It is my view that the head of the 
Minerals Management Service, particularly at a time such as this, when 
the very programs in its charge, and the programs the Congress is 
looking to expand next week, that the head of the Minerals Management 
Service should be a Senate-confirmed position. This way it would be 
possible for the Senate Energy Committee--and I know Senator Nelson has 
a great interest in this as well--would have a say in who the next 
director of that office is, and the Energy Committee would be in a 
position to hold that individual accountable.
  As I have indicated, the Minerals Management Service is the only 
major bureau within Interior that does not have a Senate-confirmed 
director. It is obvious you cannot wave your wand and legislatively fix 
every ethical consideration imaginable. But it would seem to me, given 
the blockbuster nature of this inspector general's report, and the 
tenacious work that has been done by Earl Devaney there, that Congress 
would be negligent, that Congress would be more than remiss, that 
Congress would be negligent to not step in next week when we are 
working on these very programs--there is discussion of expanding them 
dramatically--to not step in and make sure the taxpayers' interests are 
protected.
  This is not a question of whether you are for drilling or against 
drilling here. Senators will have differences of opinion surely on 
that. But as Senator Nelson has said over a period of years, and I have 
said over a period of years, this ought to be something every Member of 
the Senate would agree on.
  I think back to 2 years ago, and I got up in the morning and did not 
expect to be on this floor for 5 hours trying to force a vote to change 
these programs. It was clear that if we had gotten the votes, we would 
have won. That was when the price of oil was $70 a barrel, not $100 a 
barrel; $100 often seems reasonable these days to people given the 
shellacking they are taking.
  But the Congress will have a vigorous debate next week on a host of 
issues with respect to energy policy. What I would hope is that 100 
Members of the Senate would say, given what the inspector general has 
said, No. 1, given the fact that Secretary Kempthorne has again in his 
statement yesterday--and I read this specifically--suggested that we 
are talking about a few individuals:

       The conduct of a few has cast a shadow on an entire agency.

  That is not what the inspector general said. One-third of the 
employees in this program, one-third, colleagues, were involved in 
this. Given what the inspector general has said, given the facts that 
the agency has repeatedly said it would clean up these programs, and it 
has not done it, that under the leadership of Chairman Bingaman of the 
Energy Committee, he always works closely with the ranking minority 
member, our colleague from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, that finally 
next week the Congress, on a bipartisan basis, end these disgraceful 
practices that have been documented repeatedly in these independent 
reports.
  If the Congress does not step in and finally adopt specific measures 
to hold this agency accountable, I believe when the headlines are no 
longer the topic of kitchen table conversation, I believe what will 
happen, certainly regrettably in this administration, we will not see 
the changes needed to protect the American people.
  I do not see how you can make a case for playing down this set of 
problems that has been so well documented. I hope all Members of the 
Senate, all 100 Senators, will back our efforts next week to clean up 
this program.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The senior Senator from Florida is 
recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to say a word of 
appreciation to the Senator from Oregon for his leadership on this, and 
his courage. He had the courage of his convictions 2 years ago to stand 
up and to not relinquish the floor in the midst of all kinds of 
pressure to get on with the legislation in order to get his point 
across.
  From time to time, each of us, when we feel passionately and very 
strongly about an issue that we do not think is right, has a right here 
to do that. I thank him for that. I thank him for his courage. I second 
what he has said about the skullduggery that is going on.
  Is it not interesting that there is no consequence as a result of 
what the inspector general has found, all of this skullduggery--it is 
his words, not ours--all kinds of sexual liaisons going on, all kinds 
of drugs, all kinds of gifts, some of this supplied by the oil 
companies over which this administrative executive department agency is 
a watchdog, and it is going to be in an inspector general's report. The 
Department of Justice, the Attorney General's Office, has said they are 
not going to prosecute the two main people in the office who carried on 
all of this scandalous activity; they have resigned. So where is the 
accountability?
  When I served in the military a long time ago, I was taught clearly 
that the commanding officer was accountable for what happened to that 
commanding officer's troops or ship.
  Where is the accountability? What about the head of the Minerals 
Management Service? The head of the Minerals Management Service is 
there. Where is the accountability? Why should not the head of the 
Minerals Management Service, on something that went on for one-third of 
the employees of this office for some period of time, say: I am 
responsible, I am accountable, and face the music, and face the 
consequences?
  But, no, it is always dodge, weave, deflect. It is always somebody 
else's fault. How much of a pattern have we seen of that over the last 
8 years? The American people are getting tired of it. And they are 
getting tired of it especially when those same kinds of interests, in 
this case the oil companies influencing an executive branch department 
to get what they want by using illegal gifts, the offer of sexual 
favors and drug use.
  This is the same group that wants to come in, as I was pointing out 
on that map, and drill all the way up through and cut out the heart and 
the lungs of the U.S. military testing and training area.
  No, there is too much that is not in sync here. I thank the Senator 
for his very prescient and courageous and consistent stance he has had.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


    Journalists M. Charles Bakst, Scott Mac Kay, and Mark Arsenault

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, today the largest daily newspaper in 
my home State of Rhode Island, the Providence Journal, is losing three 
extraordinary journalists. Columnists M.

[[Page 18657]]

Charles Bakst, better known as Charlie; reporter Scott MacKay; and Mark 
Arsenault have covered politics in Rhode Island and around the country 
for a combined total of about 70 years, and they are retiring from the 
paper as of today. There is a larger story about what is happening to 
America's newspapers, but my purpose is not to talk about that but 
about them.
  All of them are gifted writers, and all have brought to the Journal 
sharp eyes for detail, long memories, and distinctive voices. They will 
be sorely missed.
  Scott is a particular friend, and I am sorry I will no longer have 
the pleasure of reading Scott's colorful political takes on the State 
we both love. I hope he will return to the Providence Newspaper Guild 
``Follies'' to continue his traditional role emceeing that evening of 
alleged music, wit, and humor.
  I wish well to Mark Arsenault, whose talent supports a bright future 
in whatever new endeavors he chooses to pursue.
  But the remainder of my remarks will be about Charlie Bakst. If you 
are from Rhode Island and involved in politics, you know Charlie Bakst. 
You see him in the statehouse, at city hall. You see him at fundraisers 
and roasts and meatball dinners and clambakes, and you see him at lunch 
at Angelo's on Federal hill.
  Everywhere there is politics--and in Rhode Island, that is 
everywhere--Charlie is there, soaking in the scene, talking to people, 
and commenting on the food.
  Everything is grist for what Charlie is pleased to call his 
``excellent columns.'' Charlie's memory for history and for detail is 
legendary, as is his miraculous success at landing interviews that are 
either totally forbidden or extraordinarily difficult to get. He has 
jumped into limousines and lain in wait by backdoors. He has talked 
with United States Presidents, past and future. He has questioned 
Senators, Governors, party leaders, political operatives, even world 
leaders. If you have ever been involved in politics in Rhode Island, 
chances are you have been confronted by Charlie Bakst's red suspenders, 
unkempt hair, and ever-present tape recorder, and chances are that 
afterwards, you found something in what he wrote to be annoyed about. 
But in the end, that is the way we in politics are supposed to feel.
  As the saying goes: If a politician doesn't feel a little twinge of 
anxiety when he hears that newspaper thump on the front porch in the 
morning, the paper is not doing its job.
  Charlie always did his job. Journalism is in Charlie's blood. At 
summer camp in Hampstead, NH, in the 1950s, he announced baseball 
scores at the camp's daily flags ceremonies. ``In retrospect,'' he 
wrote, ``an early dangerous sign of: Journalist Ahead.''
  At Brown, he became editor in chief of the Brown Daily Herald. He 
went on to earn his masters from the Columbia Graduate School of 
Journalism and later returned to Rhode Island to join the Providence 
Journal, eventually becoming statehouse bureau chief and political 
columnist. Politics, too, was a lifelong passion.
  In another formative summer camp experience, he listened to radio 
broadcasts of the 1956 Democratic Convention. I will confess that I was 
probably not 1 year old then and not listening very closely. At the 
time, then-Senator John F. Kennedy narrowly missed winning his party's 
Vice Presidential nomination.
  ``Believe it or not, that helped hook me on politics,'' Charlie wrote 
decades later.
  Well, it is not that difficult to believe. Charlie's writing betrays 
a sense of wonder at the pageantry of politics and a fierce belief in 
government's obligation to the people that it serves. Charlie told it 
like he saw it, and when he saw a public servant abusing the public 
trust, he said so.
  ``I must say I've never lacked for copy,'' Charlie told the New York 
Times in 2001. His columns have ripped into public figures for 
corruption, dishonesty, and for incompetence.
  In a column written as New Orleans staggered in the violent wake of 
Hurricane Katrina, his outrage is visceral:

       America has become a laughingstock. To think that people 
     could suffer here for days on rooftops or terraces or in a 
     sports arena or convention center without rudimentary help 
     like food or water, amid lawlessness and stench, surrounded 
     by death.

  He ended with an invocation of Jimmy Carter:

       Wouldn't it be nice to have a government as good and decent 
     as the American people?

  This is Charlie Bakst's dream for America and his dream for our Ocean 
State, and his columns have always prodded us toward that dream.
  He is particularly outspoken when he sees injustice and oppression. 
He sought out leaders in the civil rights movement, interviewing 
Representative John Lewis and Cesar Chavez, among others.
  He found unsung Rhode Island heroes, who worked on behalf of the 
homeless or the poor or the disadvantaged, and told their stories. He 
showed special courage in his unwavering advocacy for the rights of 
gays and lesbians, particularly the long struggle for equal marriage, 
even when some readers took vocal offense.
  Charlie is also obsessed with baseball and with his beloved Red Sox 
in particular. The team was a family affair in the Bakst household. 
Charlie writes of many trips to Fenway Park with his late father Lester 
and his brother Arthur.
  His first game at Fenway--at age 8--happened to be on April 30, 1952, 
the last game Ted Williams played before he shipped out to Korea.
  Ted Williams was a particular hero, and years after that first game, 
Charlie's colleagues at the Journal gave him, as a 50th birthday gift, 
a lifetime membership to the Ted Williams Museum in St. Petersburg, FL. 
Charlie visited the museum and immediately collared his tour guide to 
suggest corrections to the exhibit.
  Charlie followed baseball all over the country, and maintained a love 
affair with food, from buffet table fare at local fundraisers to 
historic restaurants such as Angelo's, where his personal bottle of 
olive oil, stashed in the kitchen, has ``BAKST'' written across the top 
in black ink.
  These interests--baseball and food--came together in columns 
disclosing that at Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, you can 
eat everything from sushi and pad thai to chowder and deep-fried 
mushrooms, not to mention a half-pound Home Run Dog just outside the 
ballpark.
  At Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, Charlie reported on 
shrimp avocado salad, barbequed ribs, fish tacos, garlic fries, veggie 
dogs, Oreo cookie cheesecake, and cappuccino.
  I was glad when Charlie was able to stop by one of my regular 
community dinners in East Providence last year. Our M&M cookies made it 
into his Sunday column.
  Finally, we have seen Charlie's deep and abiding love for his family: 
his wife Elizabeth, and his daughters Maggie, Diane, and their 
families. I hope in his retirement he will get to see more of them, and 
to spend more time with Diane and her family in Italy, as he once wrote 
he would like to do.
  But no matter what he chooses to do next, I hope Rhode Island will 
find a way not to lose Charlie's unique voice, his rich memory, after, 
I believe, 36 years of journalism in Rhode Island, and the impassioned 
commitment that he brought to his profession.
  Of his friend, WJAR investigative reporter Jim Taricani, Charlie once 
wrote this:

       [B]eing a journalist is more than a job. It is a burden, a 
     pleasure, and an honor.

  Well, Charlie, working with you for the past 20 years has been a 
burden, a pleasure, and an honor. I look forward to talking with you 
for many years to come, and I wish you and Mark and Scott well in your 
retirement.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

[[Page 18658]]


  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my 
remarks, the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan, be given time to 
speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. President.


                   Fighting for Middle-Class Families

  Mr. President, last week, our Nation celebrated Labor Day for the 
114th year. We have come a long way since 1894.
  On my lapel, I wear a pendent that is a depiction of a canary in a 
bird cage. Some 100 years ago, around the time Labor Day began, mine 
workers used to take a canary down into the mines. If the canary died 
from toxic gas or a lack of oxygen, the mine worker knew he had to 
immediately get out of the mine. He had no union in those days strong 
enough to protect him and no government in those days that cared enough 
to protect him.
  In those days, a child born around that time in our country--100 or 
so years ago--had a life expectancy of 46, 47, 48 years. A child born 
today in our great country has a life expectancy about three decades 
longer than that. Much of that is not just high-tech medicine and 
chemotherapy and heart transplants, that kind of thing; most of the 
increased life expectancy in this country is about Medicare and 
Medicaid and Social Security and workers' compensation, protections for 
workers, a prohibition on child labor, safe drinking laws, clean air 
and pure food and drug laws--that kind of progress that has been made 
in this country that helps people live longer, happier, healthier 
lives.
  Thanks to the workers' rights movement, employees today, especially, 
enjoy better wages, better working conditions, better protections 
against discrimination.
  But as I travel around my State--I have held almost 120 community 
roundtables, inviting a cross section of 15, 20, 25 people, to listen 
to their concerns and to tell me of their dreams, and what we can do in 
my office, and to help them locally in their communities--it is clear 
our Nation's recent economic policies have not adequately benefited 
workers.
  The American dream--the promise that if you work hard and play by the 
rules, your economic future will be bright--should be the rule, but too 
often it is the exception.
  As I travel the State, I hear about widespread economic anxiety and a 
betrayed middle class. I hear from Ohioans worried about record high 
gas prices and food prices. I hear from people from Galion to 
Gallipolis worried about good-paying jobs continuing to move overseas. 
I hear people from Ashtabula to Lima worried about health insurance 
that costs more and covers less.
  I hear from food bank administrators from Hocking County and from 
Lucas County struggling to keep up with demand, like Mike from the 
Warren County United Way, who estimates that some 90 percent of local 
food bank patrons are working people, many holding more than one job.
  I hear from Ohioans who have, without complaint, dedicated their 
lives to hard work, only to see their financial security pulled out 
from under them, like Richard Wyers of Lorain in northern Ohio, a 
steelworker whose pension was slashed because his now-bankrupt employer 
had simply not set enough money aside for payouts to that pension.
  The Government agency administering the defunct firm's assets has 
told Richard he cannot even keep the money he has already received. In 
all, he owes more than $50,000. It is not a mistake he made but a 
mistake they made. Unfortunately, Richard is not alone. Nearly 2,500 
former employees of the same bankrupt steel company have been notified 
by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation that they have received 
overpayments this year.
  In other parts of the State, workers are facing more bad news. Bruce 
of Wilmington has worked for ABX--the air cargo provider for DHL--for 
24 years. He is married with five children, two of whom are in college. 
So you can imagine Bruce's anger when, earlier this year, DHL announced 
it will pull its business from ABX and that more than 8,000 workers at 
Bruce's Wilmington Air Park will lose their jobs. Bruce is not looking 
for a Government handout. He wants to work so he can support his family 
and send his kids to college.
  In Norwalk last week, 20 miles from where I grew up, in Mansfield, 
500 employees were sent home from their jobs at Norwalk Furniture when 
executives had to halt operations. That is 500 more people who want to 
work but can't.
  In Tiffin, more than 100 workers are looking for jobs after the 
American Standard plant there--a local institution for almost 125 
years--closed its doors in December.
  In Van Wert, auto workers such as Sarah Sargent have seen their lives 
turned upside down since management locked them out of their plant 
earlier this year. The reason for the lockout: Sarah and her 330 
coworkers simply would not accept a substantial wage cut and a benefits 
freeze, so the company is contemplating a move to Mexico.
  General Motors is closing its plant in Moraine, a decision that will 
cost 1,200 Ohioans their livelihoods.
  This string of bad news in Ohio can be blamed in part on our current 
recession. But that misses the larger point. For the last 7 years, the 
labor force has worked harder than ever, leading to huge gains in 
productivity. Yet CEO salaries and bonuses, as we know, went through 
the roof, middle-class Americans' wages stagnated, and more families 
slipped below the poverty line.
  While China manipulated its currency and ignored labor and 
environmental standards, corporations took the bait and abandoned 
American communities. And while hedge fund managers irresponsibly 
leveraged real estate holdings, millions of Americans lost their homes 
to foreclosure. In other words, while Wall Street enjoyed an inflated 
stock market and a so-called economic expansion, most Americans 
actually became worse off.
  Despite these struggles wrought by 7 years of wrongheaded economic 
policies, American workers are standing strong and fighting for a 
better future. At my roundtables in Ohio, I still hear the hope and the 
determination that defines my State and defines this great Nation. I 
hear from community leaders and entrepreneurs with exciting plans for 
the future, such as George Ward of Kirtland, in northeast Ohio, the 
president of his local firefighters' union and a small business owner. 
George's grandfather was a coal miner and his father was a United Auto 
worker. It is this working class background that has motivated him to 
fight for expanded health care access--not just for his fellow 
firefighters but for his employees and their families.
  He is, in his own words, ``trying to live the American Dream,'' 
``trying to make a difference'' in his community.
  I hear from loyal workers who take pride in their work and are valued 
by their employers, such as Richard Ade, a security guard in Cleveland, 
who, after more than 5 years of stagnant wages, worked with his 
employer and outside groups to ensure that he and his coworkers got the 
raises they deserved--which, ultimately, they did. Or there is the 
story I heard about four long-serving employees of Miba Bearings in 
McConnelsville. These four employees have been with the company for 55 
years. They have worked everywhere in the plant: from the production 
line, to final inspection, to shipping. When I asked if they were still 
productive, the company's human capital manager answered with obvious 
pride: ``All of our employees are productive.''
  We need a government that similarly values loyalty and work ethic. 
For too long, those in power have ignored hard-working Americans, have 
ignored the needs and dreams of the middle class, and have instead 
catered to the wealthiest Americans, and this is in a country where 
always in the past we rewarded work.
  But it does not have to be that way. In Ohio, Governor Ted 
Strickland--elected 2 short years ago--already is doing great work to 
attract new business, to improve educational opportunities, and to 
revitalize the economy.

[[Page 18659]]

  Here in Washington we can adopt measures right now--in honor of Labor 
Day--that would make a difference in working people's lives, like 
extending unemployment insurance. If Congress does not act before early 
October, 800,000 unemployed Americans will stop getting their much-
needed checks, including 330,000 from high unemployment States such as 
Ohio. We must expand insurance for those vulnerable citizens.
  We should make sick leave a right of employment, not a privilege. 
Employees should not have to choose between attending to their health 
and losing their job. We should pass the Employee Free Choice Act, 
which would allow more workers to bargain collectively. We know that 
means higher wages, better benefits, a stronger middle class, a more 
prosperous America.
  We should provide tax credits for alternative energy investment, 
which would help wean us off foreign oil and create new green collar 
jobs. In my State, the Governor and I talk about making Ohio the 
``Silicon Valley'' of alternative energy. We can do that with some help 
from the Federal Government. We can do what we need to do in our State.
  Simply put, we need to celebrate Labor Day by turning our attention 
to revamping our economic policies and changing the direction of this 
country. The best way we can honor our Nation's workers is to set our 
Nation on that new path--a path that fights for middle-class families 
everywhere and strengthens our country.
  Mr. President, I yield back.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are on the Defense authorization bill, 
so I wanted to make a couple of comments, not about an amendment, but 
about two issues that I hope those at the Pentagon will take note of. 
Sometimes things don't change very quickly and sometimes they don't 
change at all with respect to the way things are done at the Pentagon.
  When I came to Congress, I joined a military reform caucus to try to 
reform the way things are done at the Pentagon, but some folks there 
still believe there is an inexhaustible amount of money in pursuit of 
their desires. An example of that is the unmanned aerial vehicles, or 
UAVs--airplanes without pilots. It is a growing part of a number of 
services. But what is happening in both the Army and the Air Force is 
that both services are building and buying unmanned aerial vehicles in 
what I think are duplicative programs. One calls their airplane the 
Predator. The other calls it the Warrior. The folks over at the 
Pentagon can't determine who should be the executive agency that 
oversees the unmanned aerial vehicles. So you have two services doing 
essentially the same thing.
  Who wants to fly at 12,000 or 20,000 feet above the battlefield with 
an unmanned aerial vehicle? Well, the Air Force does, but the Army 
would like to as well. So one builds a plane called the Predator and 
one builds a plane called the Warrior. They both have missions that 
appear to me to be duplicative. You have duplicate spending on research 
and development, duplicate spending on the airplanes themselves, 
duplicate spending on the missions inside the Pentagon. Who pays the 
cost? The American taxpayer. This is not new, but the competition 
inside the Pentagon shouldn't cause the American taxpayer to have to 
pay for inefficiency and duplication.
  We have had discussions about this at hearings. It appears nothing is 
happening to describe what ought to happen. In this case it ought to be 
the Air Force who has the executive agency for UAVs. Former chief of 
the Air Force, Buzz Moseley, who I think was an extraordinary Air Force 
chief of staff, tried to resolve this and could not because he ran into 
the competition inside the Pentagon on this issue. My hope is the 
American taxpayer will not have to continue to pay for duplication of 
effort inside the Pentagon.
  We all support this mission because it greatly helps our soldiers, 
but I don't support the kind of spending that unnecessarily duplicates 
efforts between the services. That certainly has been the case with 
respect to unmanned aerial vehicles.
  I understand the Army wants to have--and should have--unmanned aerial 
vehicles above the battlefield at 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet. But if they 
are flying unmanned aerial vehicles at 12,000 and 20,000 feet with 
sensors, it seems to me that this is an Air Force mission. Yet we now 
have two branches of the service duplicating the effort and the 
American taxpayer pays the bill. I hope they will get this straight at 
the Pentagon so that we begin to avoid some of these duplicative costs.
  One other issue I might mention is the issue of privatizing housing 
on our military bases. This started in the Clinton administration and 
continues through the Bush administration. The proposition is to take 
housing inside a military base that already exists and turn it over to 
a private contractor and say to the private contractor: We will give 
you this free of charge. You can own all of this housing. You sign a 
contract with us saying that you will maintain these houses for 50 
years. Then we will pay soldiers a monthly housing allowance, they in 
turn will pay that to the private contractor, and everybody is happy.
  The question is: What does this cost the American taxpayer? The 
military says: Well, it gets housing built more quickly because they 
will not only turn over existing housing stock free of charge to a 
contractor, but they will have the contractor build new housing and 
then fund it through the monthly housing allowances that soldiers hand 
over to the independent contractor.
  It is interesting to me that we now have some foreign companies that 
own military housing on American military bases, and they get it by 
signing a contract saying we promise to maintain this housing for 50 
years. Two of North Dakota's bases are now in a contract that 
presumably may get done next year.
  I have raised a lot of questions about it because the way the 
Pentagon has calculated this, they say it is better for the Pentagon. 
What about the taxpayer? Is it better for the American taxpayer? How is 
it that we decide to turn over housing stock--much of which is almost 
brand-new--free of charge with a contract to a private company in 
exchange for a signature that they will maintain it for the next 50 
years? It seems to me as though there are a lot of questions that have 
been unanswered, going back to the Clinton administration and through 
the Bush administration, that the American taxpayers ought to have 
answered. There ought to be a fundamental review of what is the total 
cost here, including depreciation taken by the private contractor and 
others. What is the total cost of this privatization of housing on our 
military bases? What is the total cost to the taxpayer?
  I wanted to mention that in the context of the Defense authorization 
bill, because I think these are a couple of things that ought to be 
considered.


                              The Economy

  Mr. President, the presentation the Presiding Officer just gave on 
the floor of the Senate reminded me that--I believe it was yesterday, 
or perhaps the day before--when it was announced that our trade deficit 
for the month was, I think, $62 billion, and nearly $25 billion of that 
was with the country of China. My colleague who just spoke is from 
Ohio. I was thinking about the continued growth of exports from China 
into our country, building up a very large trade deficit that we have 
with the rest of the world and especially with China. The State of Ohio 
has been especially hard hit. That is where they used to make Huffy 
bicycles and don't anymore because all of those Huffy bicycles are now 
made in China. All the Ohio workers were fired because they made $11 an 
hour plus benefits and that is way too much money, the company thought, 
to pay people working in a factory to make bicycles. So they all got 
fired. These bicycles are now made in China by people who work 12 hours 
a day, 7 days a week, for 30 cents, 40 cents an hour. By the way, I 
have described many times for my colleagues the last day of work with 
those Ohio workers after they were fired. On their last day of work 
they put a pair of shoes in the parking space where their car used to 
sit. So as they drove away, all that was left was

[[Page 18660]]

a pair of shoes, and it was their plaintive way to say to that company: 
You can move our jobs to China, but you are not going to fill our 
shoes.
  Many workers across this country are discovering the same fate. I 
have described--I won't today--but Fig Newton cookies. Apparently it 
costs too much to have people shovel fig paste in New Jersey, so now 
when you buy them, you are buying Mexican food because it is made in 
Monterey, Mexico. Why? You can hire people for a whole lot less money 
in Mexico than you have to pay for workers in New Jersey. The list goes 
on and on and on. The unbelievable part of this is we actually, as a 
country--and this Congress, yes, provided a tax break to a company that 
says: I am going to fire my American workers and move the jobs 
overseas.
  I have tried, I believe, four times on the floor of the Senate to 
offer amendments and get votes on amendments that would shut down the 
tax break for shipping jobs overseas. On each occasion, we have lost 
that vote. It is unbelievable to me. I mean, it is not as if I have 
colleagues who will stand up and say: Count me in for wanting to ship 
American jobs overseas, but that is exactly their position when they 
vote to continue tax incentives for companies who fire their American 
workers and go in search of 10-cent-an-hour labor. And yes, that 
exists. Yes, it exists, that workers in Ohio and elsewhere are told: If 
you can't compete with 12-year-olds who work 12 hours a day and get 12 
cents an hour, tough luck, you are out of a job.
  This country has not yet come to grips with the question of whether 
that is what we spent 100 years creating a competitive, international 
environment to compete with. Does that make sense, that we should ask 
American workers to compete with that standard? I don't think so. But I 
was reminded of it by my colleague from Ohio discussing what is 
happening.
  Just this week, again, we see the unbelievable trade deficit for one 
single month, over $60 billion again, and that is money that has to be 
repaid. That is money that has to be repaid from our country and our 
taxpayers to a foreign government. It is one part of a whole series of 
things that reflect a very urgent situation for this economy.
  You wake up this morning and you see another major investment bank is 
going to be sold. The prices for its stock have collapsed. You wake up 
last weekend and you hear the Treasury Secretary is preparing to take 
over, effectively, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. A couple of weeks ago, 
Bear Stearns goes belly up. The largest mortgage banks go belly up. We 
see the largest trade deficits in history, the largest budget deficits 
in history, and a fiscal policy that is completely off the rail. We 
have a Presidential campaign, and we wake up every single day and we 
see these unbelievable attacks: Lipstick on a pig. Who are you 
offending? It is unbelievable to me.
  Ours is a country that I think is being threatened to lose its 
dominance in the world on critical issues, including trade, fiscal 
policy, energy, and a whole series of issues. Yet, somehow, if you want 
to speak seriously about policy, you get interrupted by a bunch of 
shysters who have decided that they want to hijack the political system 
to talk about irrelevancies. It is unbelievable to me.
  I came from a forum that we are holding on energy. Energy is a very 
important issue, and it appears to me the tipping point was finally $4 
a gallon for a gallon of gasoline. It ran up double in a year, from 
July to July. The price of oil and gas doubled in a year. There is no 
visible way for anyone to take a look at the numbers on supply and 
demand and say: Oh, that was justified. We understand why the price 
doubled in a year. That evidence doesn't exist, by the way. There is no 
one who can come to the floor of the Senate and say: Well, I know why 
the price of oil doubled in a year and the price of gasoline doubled in 
a year; because nothing happened in that year with respect to supply 
and demand that justified it.
  What I think happened is what has happened in so many years of our 
Government. Regulators who are brain dead, flat out asleep like Rip Van 
Winkle, while everything is happening around them, decided we are not 
going to watch, so speculators took over the oil market and drove it 
straight up. Recently it has come back down because some of that same 
speculative money, just like a hurricane, came right back out of it.
  It is not only in this area. It is in the subprime mortgage area. 
Regulators--again, completely brain dead--and I am sure they watched 
television in the morning, perhaps while they ate some Grape Nuts at 
the kitchen table, and they saw some advertisements by the mortgage 
bankers and others that said: Hey, have you been bankrupt? Do you have 
bad credit? You can't pay your bills? Come to us, we have a mortgage 
for you. We have all seen those ads over and over and over again. Guess 
what. Those ads were a reflection of what was going on in an industry, 
right under the noses of regulators who didn't seem to care, in which 
they built an unbelievable system of bad mortgages and paired them with 
some decent mortgages, slicing them up into securities. It is like when 
they used to pack sawdust into sausage and then sliced and diced them, 
and then, by the way, because they had this carnival going on, they 
securitize all of these mortgages, move them up the line into hedge 
funds all over the world, and then somebody decided one day: You know 
what? These are bad mortgages. We don't even know who has them. We 
don't know where they are in these securities.
  Why were they bad mortgages? Well, because regulators didn't seem to 
care and there were advertised mortgages that said: If you have bad 
credit, come to us. By the way, here is the mortgage we will give you. 
We will give you a mortgage where you don't have to pay any principal 
for a long time; just pay interest only. You may not want that. We will 
give you a better mortgage than that. We will give you a mortgage where 
you don't have to pay any principal and you don't have to pay all of 
the interest. You can put the principal and some of the interest on the 
back side of your loan. In fact, if that doesn't satisfy you, to get a 
mortgage from us at a teaser rate where you don't have to pay any 
principal and you don't have to pay all of the interest, we have even a 
better deal for you. You can get what we call a no documentation loan. 
We won't require that you document income. Or, you can get a partial 
doc--no doc, partial doc--no interest, no principal. In fact, one 
company said: You know what? You don't have to pay any principal or any 
interest. We will make the first 12 payments for you.
  Now, is it surprising that an industry that was built on a foundation 
of greed, by brokers making big fees, putting mortgages in the hands of 
people with teaser rates who could not possibly afford to make the 
payments 3 years later when the interest rates were reset--is it 
surprising that the tent collapsed when mortgages began to reset and 
people couldn't possibly afford to make the payments? We have people 
walking around here scratching their head in this town wondering what 
on Earth happened. Where were the smartest guys in the room on Wall 
Street? Where were the smartest guys in the room who were securitizing 
these securities and sending them up the road so everybody could make 
money on the way, understanding that even as they locked in these 
mortgages with no documentation, no principal payments, perhaps no 
interest payments, or at least only partial interest payments, the 
little key on the bottom of the contract was: Prepayment penalties. 
Sign this line and you can't get out of it. Then, when the interest 
rates reset to triple or quadruple what they were and you can't make 
the payment, we are sorry, you can't get out of it.
  That is what allowed the big shots to price these mortgages with 
respect to their expectation of future income in the way they did. But 
is it a surprise that this whole thing collapsed? That is just one more 
example, and it has happened in energy with speculation and in 
virtually every area with regulators who decided they have no interest 
in regulating. Now we bear the cost of an economy that almost seems, to 
some, in free fall.

[[Page 18661]]

  We have massive problems with a trade policy that doesn't work. It 
continues to ship jobs overseas and to load the American people with 
massive quantities of debt that must be repaid. We have a fiscal policy 
that the President says is only about $400 billion, $450 billion 
offtrack. But, of course, that is not true. He knows that.
  The question is, How much do you have to borrow in the coming fiscal 
year? That is closer to $700 billion. So you have a total of over 10 
percent of the country's GDP that represents red ink for this year 
alone, trade and fiscal policy debt. We can add to that the massive 
problem in energy. I will talk about that for a moment.
  I have talked about speculation and the role of the speculators and 
of the regulators who didn't want to watch. Now we are having summit 
meetings and substantial angst about what we do to put this back on 
track. My interest is in doing a lot of everything. In my judgment, we 
should drill, and drill more. I have had a bill introduced for a year 
and a half that opens the eastern gulf to drilling. In fact, all the 
gangs and the folks who are talking about these things on the Senate 
floor don't want to open that. As you can see on this chart, this is 
water off of Cuba that will be leased. There are 500,000 barrels of oil 
a day in this water off Cuba that is being leased. The Canadians are 
leasing, Spain is leasing, and we cannot lease because our oil 
companies cannot do anything in this area because of the embargo 
against Cuba.
  That is absolutely absurd. We ought to drill. We ought to conserve. 
We ought to take everything we use every day--appliances and lights--
and we ought to make them all efficient. We are moving quickly in that 
area.
  Finally, we have to move dramatically in the area of renewable 
energy. Every 15 years, it ought not be a surprise that we huff and 
puff and thumb our suspenders and bloviate about what we are going to 
do next, about where we are going to drill next. How about something 
that is game changing? How about we change it so in 15 years from now 
we are not saying the same things and that we are moving toward 
hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? Seventy percent of the oil we use is in 
our vehicles. It is a huge part of our consumption of oil.
  To back up just a moment, we suck 85 million barrels a day out of 
this planet, and one-fourth of it is used in the United States. We have 
an appetite for one-fourth of the oil produced every day. Sixty-five 
percent of the oil comes from off of our shores, from Saudi Arabia, 
Kuwait, Venezuela, Iraq, and elsewhere. The fact is, we have to find a 
way to be less dependent upon foreign oil. We are always going to use 
oil and coal. We have to use it differently, in my judgment.
  But the question for us is, what do we do that is truly game 
changing? How about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and before that 
perhaps electric drive vehicles. Hydrogen is everywhere. You can take 
energy from the wind and produce electricity and use electricity in the 
process of electrolysis and generate hydrogen from water and use 
hydrogen for vehicle fuel. You will get twice the effective power to 
wheel and put water vapor out of the tailpipe. Wouldn't that be 
wonderful?
  We are not going to have game-changing strategies if every 15 years 
the next effort on energy is to figure out where we drill next. Let's 
drill next, but let's do something that makes us less dependent on the 
need for this oil, particularly oil coming from outside of our country.
  It is, I expect, pretty depressing for the American people who have 
the miracle in our Constitution of every second year, every even-
numbered year, being able to grab the American steering wheel and 
decide which way to nudge America.
  All the power in this country is in the power of one--one person 
casting one vote on one day. It must be pretty disappointing to them to 
take a look at the quality of the debate in our political system at a 
time when the economy of this country is at risk, when there is so much 
to do and an urgent need to make strong, good decisions, and see the 
irrelevancy come out every single morning, particularly from one 
campaign. This country deserves much better.
  I hope between now and this election we will begin to see the attack 
dogs that we saw at work in 2000 and 2004, which defined a new low in 
American politics. In 2004, one of our colleagues who earned three 
Purple Hearts in Vietnam, went to Vietnam and served his country, was 
defined by the attack dogs as someone who was less than patriotic. That 
was unbelievable. But that same effort is at work in this campaign. 
This country deserves a political system and campaigns that give them 
answers. Where would you take America? Where would you want to lead 
this country?
  I must say we only have less than 2 months remaining, and the long-
term future of this country depends on us making good, right decisions 
about energy, fiscal policy, health care, and education, and about so 
many different issues, including trade policy, which is the discussion 
I started with.
  Mr. President, I started by speaking of Ohio and trade policy because 
my colleague, Senator Brown from Ohio, has written a book about trade, 
and we talked a great bit about it. It is but one of a series of very 
serious challenges that he, I, and others should expect will be 
discussed in some detail in this campaign. So I hope in the next 60 
days we will begin to see some of that.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask the Chair what is the business of the 
Senate?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate is considering S. 3001.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I introduced an amendment earlier today to 
S. 3001. I would like to take some time to explain this amendment to 
the Senate. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered. The Senator may proceed.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, we are in an odd situation in the business 
of Government at the moment in that the international authority for the 
United States to be operating in Iraq will expire at the end of this 
year. The U.N. mandate, through the U.N. Security Council, expires at 
that time.
  Since last November, the administration has been negotiating what 
they call the Strategic Framework Agreement that is intended to replace 
the international authority of the U.N. mandate. There have been two 
questions that have come up with respect to what the administration is 
doing. The first is the timeline.
  There are indications from Iraq that the Iraqi Government negotiators 
have serious questions that weren't anticipated before. But the larger 
question is, what entity of the Federal Government has the authority to 
enter the United States into a long-term relationship with another 
government?
  These are serious issues. I submit the conditions under which we will 
continue to operate in Iraq militarily, diplomatically, economically, 
and even culturally are not the sole business of any administration. We 
have questions about the legal justification under domestic and 
international law for the United States to operate militarily--and 
quasi-militarily, by the way--given the hundreds of thousands of 
independent contractors that are now essentially performing military 
functions in that country. There are questions about the process by 
which the U.S. Government decides upon and enters into long-term 
relations with another nation--any nation. In that regard, we have 
serious questions here about the very workings of our constitutional 
system of Government.
  This administration has claimed repeatedly, since last November, that 
it has the right to negotiate and enter into an agreement that will set 
the future course of our relations with Iraq without the agreement or 
even the ratification of the U.S. Congress. The

[[Page 18662]]

administration claims that the justification for this authority is the 
2002 congressional authorization for the use of force in Iraq and, as a 
fallback position, the President's inherent authority, from the 
perspective of this administration, as Commander in Chief.
  Both of these justifications are patently wrong. The 2002 
congressional authorization to use force in Iraq has nothing to do with 
negotiation with a government, which replaced the Saddam Hussein 
government, as to the future relations culturally, economically, 
diplomatically, and militarily between our two countries. On the other 
hand, we are now faced with the reality that the U.N. mandate will 
expire at the end of this year, and that expiration will terminate the 
authority under international law for the United States to be operating 
in Iraq at a time when we have hundreds of thousands of Americans on 
the ground in that country.
  I and other colleagues have been warning of this serious disconnect 
for 10 months. Many of us were trying to say last November that the 
intention of this administration was to proceed purely with an 
executive agreement to drag this out until the Congress was going to go 
out of session, as we are about to do, and then to present essentially 
a fait accompli in the sense that with the expiration of the 
international mandate from the United Nations at the end of the year, 
something would have to be done, and that something would be an 
executive agreement that, to this point, Congress has not even been 
allowed to examine.
  We have not been able to see one word of this agreement. We tried to 
energize the Congress. We have met with all of the appropriate 
administration officials. There have been hearings. There have been 
assurances from the administration that they will consult at the 
appropriate time. We have not seen anything. So we are faced with this 
situation that is something of a constitutional coup d'etat by this 
administration. At risk is a further expansion of the powers of the 
Presidency, the result of which will be to affirm, in many minds, that 
the President--any President--no longer needs the approval of Congress 
to enter into long-term relations with another country, in effect, 
committing us to obligations that involve our national security, our 
economic well-being, our diplomatic posture around the world, without 
the direct involvement of the U.S. Congress.
  That is not what the Constitution intended. It is not in the best 
interest of our country. This amendment, which I filed today, is 
designed to prevent this sort of imbalance from occurring and, at the 
same time, it recognizes the realities of the timelines that are now 
involved with respect to the loss of international authority for our 
presence in Iraq at the end of this year.
  This amendment is a sense of the Congress. On the one hand, it is a 
sense of the Congress that we work with the United Nations to extend 
the U.N. mandate up to an additional year, giving us some additional 
international authority for being in Iraq, taking away the pressure of 
this timeline that could be used to justify an agreement that the 
Congress hasn't had the ability to examine, but also saying that an 
extension of the U.N. mandate would end at such time as a Strategic 
Framework Agreement and a Status of Forces Agreement between the United 
States and Iraq are mutually agreed upon.
  The amendment also makes the point that the Strategic Framework 
Agreement now being negotiated between the United States and Iraq poses 
significant, long-term national security implications for this country. 
That would be the sense of the Congress. We need to be saying that; the 
Iraqis need to hear it.
  The amendment also puts Congress and the administration on record to 
the reality that the Bush administration has fully agreed to consult 
with the Congress regarding all the details of the Strategic Framework 
Agreement and the Status of Forces Agreement and that there would be 
copies of the full text of these agreements provided to the chairman 
and ranking minority members of the appropriate committees in the House 
and the Senate prior to the entry into either of those agreements.
  Importantly, it also says any Strategic Framework Agreement that has 
been mutually agreed upon by the negotiators from our executive branch 
and Iraqi Government officials will cease to have effect unless it is 
approved by the Congress within 180 days of the entry into force of 
that agreement.
  On the one hand, this agreement recognizes the realities of where we 
are in terms of timelines, but on the other, it protects the 
constitutional processes by which we are entering into long-term 
relationships with other countries, whether it is Iraq or Cameroon or 
Burundi or pick a country. We need to preserve this process. It does it 
in a way which will not disrupt our operations in Iraq.
  I urge my colleagues to join me on this amendment and protect the 
prerogatives of the Congress under the Constitution of the United 
States.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is good that we are debating the Defense 
authorization bill. It is appropriate we are debating this bill at a 
time when certainly America's security is at risk.
  As I indicated, we are debating the Defense authorization bill, which 
ensures America's military capabilities are strong and focused on the 
major threats to our great country.
  We live in a dangerous and unpredictable world. It is a world where 
North Korea's leader has fallen ill. This illness could put a nuclear-
armed regime at risk of implosion because there is no successor named 
or thought of, to our knowledge, in North Korea.
  We live in a world where Latin American regimes throw out U.S. 
Ambassadors without notice, where an unchecked Russia can undermine 
young democracies from West to East.
  I was recently in Bolivia. I had not too long ago been in Georgia. I 
met with part of their Government today a few feet from this Chamber. 
So we have to be concerned about an unchecked Russia.
  Our dangerous world calls for leaders with sound judgment, not those 
with temperament prone to recklessness.
  As we debate the Defense bill this week, we must consider the most 
important national security question facing the Nation today: Will we 
stick with the same failed, out-of-touch foreign policy of George Bush, 
Dick Cheney, and John McCain, which military experts and historians 
call the worst foreign policy in our Nation's history or will we change 
course to a more tough, responsible foreign policy that will make us 
more secure?
  The choice could not be more important, but the answer could not be 
clearer. Senator Obama and Senate Democrats stand for responsible 
change. We believe we must end the war in Iraq and bring the war on 
terror to where the terrorists actually live and where they plot. We 
know our focus must return to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network 
in Afghanistan and Pakistan and wherever they might be.
  This approach stands on the right side of the American people and the 
right side of history. According to recent press reports, even the Bush 
administration has begun to align its actions with this policy.
  Take Pakistan, for example. For years, Senator Obama and Senate 
Democrats have been calling on the Bush administration to hunt down 
Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network, wherever they may be located. 
As it became clear that al-Qaida had made Pakistan the central focus of 
its operation, Democrats called on the President to make Pakistan a 
central focus of our war to defeat al-Qaida.
  Here is what Senator Obama said last year:

       . . . Let me be clear. There are terrorists holed up in 
     those mountains who murdered

[[Page 18663]]

     3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. . . .If 
     we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist 
     targets and [the Pakistani leadership] won't act, we will. I 
     will not hesitate to use military force to take out 
     terrorists who pose a direct threat to America.

  While Senator Obama sounded the alarm about the al-Qaida threat in 
Pakistan and called for a forceful and comprehensive strategy to fight 
this threat, George Bush and John McCain chose, stunningly, to ignore 
it. The President kept the bulk of our ground troops and our special 
operations forces and our intelligence assets tied down in Iraq in a 
war that had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden and the terrorists who 
attacked.
  Republicans, led by John McCain, attacked Obama's approach to 
forcefully go after al-Qaida in Pakistan. Senator McCain even had the 
bad judgment on the campaign trail this past February to call the Obama 
approach naive.
  Here we stand a year later. The al-Qaida threat in Pakistan has grown 
far more dangerous. The need for tough action, as Senator Obama called 
for last year, is even more urgent. Barack Obama was right; George 
Bush, Dick Cheney, and John McCain were wrong.
  Then, yesterday, the newspapers reported that senior Bush 
administration officials had begun doing what Obama called for a long 
time ago: go after al-Qaida safe havens in Pakistan, reportedly 
including military operations against terrorist camps. That is 
precisely the Obama approach McCain called naive. But news reports 
indicate we are already starting to see results.
  Given the known history of Bush-McCain foreign policy mistakes that 
we have all suffered through for the past 8 years, I have concerns and 
questions about the Bush administration's actions. It is one thing to 
take Obama's playbook, but it is another thing to call the right plays.
  I think we should all ask tough questions and demand the White House 
explain their Pakistan strategy in greater detail to give us confidence 
that they will get the job done right.
  The Bush administration's adoption of the Obama plan came months too 
late but, nevertheless, better late than never. The shift is not just 
limited to Pakistan. Across the globe, the Bush administration is 
quietly acknowledging that Senator Obama's vision has been right all 
along.
  On Afghanistan, where for years Senator Obama and Senate Democrats 
have been demanding more resources and a new strategy, things are 
changing. Senator McCain, on the other hand, said: ``Afghanistan is not 
in trouble because of our diversion to Iraq.''
  Listen to that again. McCain said: ``Afghanistan is not in trouble 
because of our diversions to Iraq.''
  That is a direct quote.
  After years of resisting, Republicans in recent weeks have been 
inching toward the Obama plan for reinforcing Afghanistan. On Iran, 
where Bush and McCain criticized Obama's vision for tough and effective 
face-to-face diplomacy, even as they quietly agreed to face-to-face 
diplomacy and started sending State Department officials to 
negotiations with the Iranians. And on Iraq, where Bush has finally 
begun to slowly inch toward the Obama plan for holding the Iraqis more 
accountable by putting in place a timeline for change in the military 
mission and the redeployment of our troops. But, of course, not John 
McCain.
  Our country deserves more than token shifts and lipservice to change. 
It will take decisive leadership to reverse 8 long years of tragic 
foreign policy mistakes. That is exactly what Senator Obama and Senate 
Democrats offer: real responsible change.
  Senator McCain and his supporters are dead set against changing the 
Bush administration's failed policies. They have no plan for ending 
conflict, no plan for securing our country, no plan for bringing our 
troops home.
  Republicans talk a lot about experience. But when you are the author, 
architect, and enabler of 8 years of devastating foreign policy 
mistakes, that is not experience; it is very bad judgment.
  In the coming days, as we wrap up debate on the Defense authorization 
bill, Senators on both sides of the aisle will have ample opportunity 
to make their positions known on these critical national security 
issues that will chart our course in the world for years to come.
  It will also give the American people the opportunity to see who 
stands with failed policies of the past and who is ready to lead us to 
the change we need.
  Senator Levin and Senator Warner announced yesterday that today they 
would be happy to listen to what anyone had to say about amendments 
they wish to offer on this bill. The same applies to Monday. We need to 
move beyond where we are. There are some who want us to get virtually 
nothing done on this Defense authorization bill.
  There are so many reasons why it is important we get this bill done. 
It would be the first time in five decades that this body has not 
passed a Defense authorization bill. This bill is loaded with 
provisions that are good for the security of our Nation, good for the 
maintenance of a military that is strong and vibrant, and make our 
troops happier--a 3.9-percent pay raise, among other items, they 
deserve and they need.
  I have informed the two managers of the bill I think it is 
appropriate at this time that we file a cloture motion in an effort to 
bring this matter to a conclusion. We are going to have a vote on 
cloture on this most important bill sometime on Tuesday. I am going to 
work with the managers of the bill and Senator McConnell to find out 
what their wishes are. But we must move on. It would be a shame if we 
do not pass this legislation.
  Having said all that--and I could a say a lot more--one of the 
reasons we should pass this bill is because of Senator Warner. I am 
sure the State of Virginia has had great legislators over the years. I 
don't know them all. I have served with a number of them. But I have to 
say that in my experience in Government, you don't run very often into 
somebody of the caliber of John Warner. The Commonwealth of Virginia 
has been so well served by this great American patriot, and he has 
devoted so much time--I was trying to come up in my mind on a 
percentage basis how much of his time has been spent on the defense 
duties he has.
  Mr. WARNER. Thirty years.
  Mr. REID. But the vast majority of his 30 years in the Senate, Mr. 
President, has been spent legislatively on securing the security of our 
Nation.
  There will be other opportunities, I am confident, to express my 
admiration and respect and affection for John Warner, but I hope people 
on his side of the aisle appreciate him as much as we do. He is truly a 
wonderful legislator and human being. We need to get this bill done for 
him. Every Democrat will vote for cloture on this piece of 
legislation--there are 51 of us--and we need 9 Republicans to join with 
us so that we can finish this piece of legislation. I hope we can do 
that. It is the right thing to do, and I think it would be a real slap 
in the face to one of America's great legislators not to complete this 
legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am deeply humbled by the comments of the 
distinguished leader and many other colleagues, but I am optimistic. 
Senator Levin and I--who have spent a good deal of time with Leader 
McConnell this morning--believe there is a momentum on both sides to 
move to a conclusion. Senator Levin and I are going to talk to some 
particulars pretty soon, but I am pleased to say that I think our 
staffs are going to finish an agreement over this weekend on 60 
amendments, just to give some idea of the magnitude of progress we have 
made thus far.
  But I thank the distinguished leader for his personal remarks. We 
have had a long working relationship. We started together on a 
subcommittee in the Environment Committee years and years ago--20-some-
odd years ago. That was the beginning of our long, marvelous 
friendship.
  I thank the leader.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I send to the desk a cloture motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented

[[Page 18664]]

under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on S. 3001, the 
     National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009.
         Carl Levin, Patrick J. Leahy, Bernard Sanders, Robert P. 
           Casey, Jr., Claire McCaskill, Sheldon Whitehouse, 
           Benjamin L. Cardin, Robert Menendez, Bill Nelson, 
           Charles E. Schumer, Richard Durbin, Thomas R. Carper, 
           Patty Murray, Amy Klobuchar, Jon Tester, Jeff Bingaman, 
           Harry Reid.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, let me thank the leader for his 
great support of this bill. I think the leadership on both sides really 
wants this bill to be adopted. We are going to have to move early next 
week to get it adopted if we are going to make it. We not only have 
other business to do in the Senate which is critical, but we have to 
get it to conference and get it back from conference and get a 
conference report voted on before we recess or adjourn. So we have a 
lot of work ahead of us.
  But we are here. Senator Warner and I and our staffs are here. We 
have met with a lot of Senators relative to their amendments. Our goal 
is the following: that on Monday, we enter into a unanimous consent 
agreement setting out what votes on what amendments would be held on 
Tuesday, both morning and afternoon. That is our goal.
  We have spoken with many Senators about their amendments. As Senator 
Warner just indicated, we hope to be able to clear perhaps 50 or 60 
amendments, 15 or 20 of which are already cleared. That is our goal, to 
get our cleared amendments passed and to set up, in a unanimous consent 
proposal for Monday, the way in which we would vote on various 
amendments, with time agreements and whether there are 50 votes or 60 
votes, and so forth, on Tuesday. That is our goal.
  I would hope, for the reasons the majority leader just gave, that 
because this bill is so critically important to the men and women in 
the Army and to the security of this Nation--not just the Army but the 
men and women of our Armed Forces and to the security of this Nation--
that we will get this bill passed. The only way we can get it passed is 
if sometime early next week we are able to pass it; otherwise, we 
cannot get the work done in conference and back here to the Senate and 
to the White House.
  So I thank my good friend from Virginia. I think the comments of the 
majority leader are comments which should be shared by every single 
Member of this body relative to the capability and the leadership and 
the patriotism of Senator Warner. It is always a pleasure to work with 
him. This may be one of our greatest challenges, but we have a long 
history of being able to work together on a bipartisan basis to address 
these kinds of challenges. He has led this committee. We have had many 
great members of the committee.
  Staff is working very hard, and I am optimistic going into the 
weekend that we will be able to get that unanimous consent agreement 
worked out on Monday.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague.
  We are working on a draft UC for Monday, and I wish to point out that 
those amendments which have been brought to our attention requiring 
votes, we are going to try to achieve that prior to the invoking of 
cloture; am I not correct?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. WARNER. And we are trying to protect, on both sides, an equal 
number of Senators who have come to us and sought that protection.
  Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank Senators DeMint and Coburn for working with us 
last night on an important issue not only to the underlying question of 
how this body is going to handle certain desires of individual Senators 
to get funds to their States, but it is the preservation of the 
jurisdiction of the authorizing committee, of our authorizing committee 
as well as other authorizing committees in the Senate. So that is 
fundamental to the resolution of that problem, and I think we have made 
progress there.
  Mr. LEVIN. We have. There is no more fundamental question to this 
institution than the role of our committees and this institution vis-a-
vis the executive branch and whether we are going to have a robust 
power of the purse or whether that is going to be diminished in any 
way. I think we are making great progress in showing to our colleagues 
the implications of some of the proposals, and we are going to continue 
to make progress in that regard.
  Mr. WARNER. Now, Mr. President, I would suggest the Senator should 
now move to morning business and get off this bill. We are cleared on 
this side.

                          ____________________