[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 592-601]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   DESIGNATING CERTAIN LAND AS COMPONENTS OF THE NATIONAL WILDERNESS 
                     PRESERVATION SYSTEM--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            israel and gaza

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am here today to speak about the 
growing violence in Gaza. I support the United Nations Security Council 
resolution calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire. In my view, 
both the Israeli airstrikes and the Palestinian rocket attacks must 
stop immediately, and Israeli ground forces should withdraw from Gaza. 
I regret that President Bush chose to have the United States be the 
only Security Council member not to support this U.N. resolution.
  I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the U.N. resolution be 
printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)

[[Page 593]]


  Mr. BINGAMAN. Last week, the Senate responded to the hostilities by 
passing S. Res. 10, a resolution that I do not support. While I agree 
with some parts of the resolution, I believe it left out important 
provisions. The resolution called for Hamas to end the rocket and 
mortar attacks but it did not call on Israel to stop its airstrikes and 
ground assault. Nor did the resolution call on Israel to withdraw from 
Gaza. Moreover, I believe the resolution downplayed the humanitarian 
situation in Gaza. Thousands of people in Gaza do not have access to 
food, clean water, or medical care. The U.K. Foreign Minister, David 
Miliband, speaking about humanitarian conditions in Gaza said, ``the 
word `crisis', which is sometimes overused, is wholly appropriate'' to 
describe how bad things are. He made that statement to describe how bad 
he saw that things are at this time.
  I support Israel's right to defend itself. Israel has no stronger 
ally than the United States, and we have no better friend in the region 
than Israel. But friends can make mistakes.
  The rocket attacks that Israel has suffered are unacceptable. But I 
believe Israel's use of force has been excessive and I do not believe 
it will help Israel achieve its long-term goals. Instead of weakening 
Hamas, the incursion is boosting support for Hamas both among 
Palestinians and the Arabic world and it is undermining support for 
moderates in the region. Instead of making Israel's enemies fear its 
military power, I believe this conflict shows its enemies that they can 
taunt Israel into reacting so strongly that it undermines its 
international support. Instead of rebutting the accusations that Israel 
has ignored the long-deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the growing 
death toll and worsening living conditions will fuel similar 
accusations long into the future.
  This violence is but another chapter of violence in the long history 
of the Middle East. What is needed is an international effort to broker 
an immediate truce and to build that into a lasting peace.
  A lasting peace requires a two-state solution. It is hard to see how 
such an agreement can be achieved without the deep involvement and 
leadership of the United States. I have been disappointed that the Bush 
administration has failed to lead the peace process for the past 8 
years. President Obama should not repeat that mistake after he takes 
office next week. He should appoint a special envoy to the region soon 
after his Secretary of State is confirmed by the Senate. President 
Obama should commit his administration to a steady and persistent 
effort to engage both Israelis and Palestinians in finding a political 
solution to the conflict that has long plagued this region.

                               Exhibit 1

                         Resolution 1860 (2009)

  Adopted by the Security Council at its 6063rd meeting, on 8 January 
                                  2009

       The Security Council, 
       Recalling all of its relevant resolutions, including 
     resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003) 
     and 1850 (2008),
       Stressing that the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part 
     of the territory occupied in 1967 and will be a part of the 
     Palestinian state,
       Emphasizing the importance of the safety and well-being of 
     all civilians,
       Expressing grave concern at the escalation of violence and 
     the deterioration of the situation, in particular the 
     resulting heavy civilian casualties since the refusal to 
     extend the period of calm; and emphasizing that the 
     Palestinian and Israeli civilian populations must be 
     protected,
       Expressing grave concern also at the deepening humanitarian 
     crisis in Gaza,
       Emphasizing the need to ensure sustained and regular flow 
     of goods and people through the Gaza crossings,
       Recognizing the vital role played by UNRWA in providing 
     humanitarian and economic assistance within Gaza,
       Recalling that a lasting solution to the Israeli-
     Palestinian conflict can only be achieved by peaceful means,
       Reaffirming the right of all States in the region to live 
     in peace within secure and internationally recognized 
     borders,
       1. Stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, 
     durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full 
     withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza;
       2. Calls for the unimpeded provision and distribution 
     throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of 
     food, fuel and medical treatment;
       3. Welcomes the initiatives aimed at creating and opening 
     humanitarian corridors and other mechanisms for the sustained 
     delivery of humanitarian aid;
       4. Calls on Member States to support international efforts 
     to alleviate the humanitarian and economic situation in Gaza, 
     including through urgently needed additional contributions to 
     UNRWA and through the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee;
       5. Condemns all violence and hostilities directed against 
     civilians and all acts of terrorism;
       6. Calls upon Member States to intensify efforts to provide 
     arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a 
     durable ceasefire and calm, including to prevent illicit 
     trafficking in arms and ammunition and to ensure the 
     sustained reopening of the crossing points on the basis of 
     the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access between the 
     Palestinian Authority and Israel; and in this regard, 
     welcomes the Egyptian initiative, and other regional and 
     international efforts that are under way;
       7. Encourages tangible steps towards intra-Palestinian 
     reconciliation including in support of mediation efforts of 
     Egypt and the League of Arab States as expressed in the 26 
     November 2008 resolution, and consistent with Security 
     Council resolution 1850 (2008) and other relevant 
     resolutions;
       8. Calls for renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and 
     the international community to achieve a comprehensive peace 
     based on the vision of a region where two democratic States, 
     Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace with secure 
     and recognized borders, as envisaged in Security Council 
     resolution 1850 (2008), and recalls also the importance of 
     the Arab Peace Initiative;
       9. Welcomes the Quartet's consideration, in consultation 
     with the parties, of an international meeting in Moscow in 
     2009;
       10. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill.) Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


               Tribute to Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter

  Mr. MARTINEZ. Madam President, today it gives me great pleasure to 
pay tribute to an outstanding leader and tremendous public servant, 
Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter.
  When Donald Winter was sworn in as Secretary of the Navy on January 
3, 2006, he was charged with training, equipping, and organizing our 
sailors and marines in a time of war. He assumed these responsibilities 
at a time when the U.S. Navy was in the midst of an ambitious 
modernization program across the board. A new class of destroyers, 
aircraft carriers, submarines, cruisers, and others was in the 
production pipeline. It would take an extraordinarily talented, 
knowledgeable, and energetic leader to navigate the Department of the 
Navy through these transitions. We were fortunate to find such a person 
in Donald Winter. He was that kind of a leader. He immediately outlined 
his priorities and then set to work on implementing them: Prosecute the 
global war on terror; build the future fleet; take care of our wounded 
and their families. Those were his priorities, and each day he drove 
the Department to focus on these areas.
  With 25,000 marines and 36,000 sailors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and 
elsewhere in the Central Command's area of responsibility, the Navy and 
Marine Corps have been playing a critical role in fighting this war. 
From providing maritime security in the Northern Arabian Gulf, to 
turning around a seemingly hopeless situation in al-Anbar Province, to 
providing individual augmentees on the ground in Iraq, our sailors and 
marines have been on the front lines and have been performing superbly. 
These sailors and marines have always been foremost in Secretary 
Winter's mind, and they are the ones he has worked tirelessly to 
support in every way possible on Capitol Hill, within the Pentagon, and 
throughout the Department of the Navy.
  While supporting our brave warriors in harm's way, Secretary Winter 
also focused on building the future fleet by instituting the most far-
reaching acquisition reforms in decades.
  I had the pleasure of traveling with Secretary Winter to Guantanamo 
Bay in Cuba in May 2007. It was my second

[[Page 594]]

time returning to this island since my arrival here in 1962. What I saw 
was the tremendous leadership ability he possesses and his firm 
commitment to the men and women of the U.S. Navy.
  I would also commend Secretary Winter for his tireless efforts to 
ensure that our Nation is doing everything in our power to take care of 
our wounded. Secretary Winter has been an outspoken and relentless 
advocate for our wounded warriors, insisting on the highest possible 
standards for every sailor and every marine.
  So on behalf of the men and women serving under him in my home State 
of Florida, I salute Secretary Winter for his superior performance in 
leading the Navy and Marine Corps over the past 3 years. We wish him 
Godspeed in his future endeavors, and we thank him for his service to 
our Nation.


                          situation in israel

  Mr. President, the first and most sacred duty of any government is 
providing for the safety and security of its citizens.
  Hamas's repeated rocket attacks on the Israeli people created a 
situation that required an Israeli response.
  I was pleased to join my colleagues in cosponsoring S. Res. 10, which 
recognizes Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza.
  While diplomacy is always a preferable alternative, at some point any 
legitimate government must take the necessary actions to safeguard its 
people from acts of terrorism against an unarmed civilian population.
  With more than 6,000 rocket attacks launched into Israel from Gaza, 
the Israeli government acted reasonably in an effort to end the attacks 
against civilian targets.
  These attacks are Hamas' latest attempts to advance their cruel and 
murderous agenda.
  Hamas first began as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a 
terrorist group responsible for the assassination of Egypt's President 
Anwar Sadat.
  As you might recall, Sadat was the first Arab President willing to 
make peace with Israel.
  Hamas has since claimed the lives of countless others throughout the 
region.
  In 2002, a Hamas suicide bomber killed five Americans and four 
Israelis who were eating lunch in the cafeteria at Hebrew University in 
Jerusalem. The bomb was smuggled in a backpack loaded with shrapnel, 
which maximized damage to the cafeteria and inflicted severe injuries 
on more than 80 students.
  Since coming to power politically in 2006, the terrorist organization 
has hijacked the Palestinian people's agenda.
  They have cynically used their own people as civilian shields and 
brought harm to those who do not share their radical views. During the 
June 2007 coup in Gaza, Hamas operatives killed a cook of Palestinian 
National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas by throwing him from the 
roof of a 15-story building with his hands and feet tied. In the 
current conflict, they have fired rockets at their own people. On 
December 26, two Palestinian girls aged 5 and 13 were killed when a 
rocket fell short of reaching an Israeli target.
  Hamas openly admits it uses women and children as human shields. One 
Hamas leader described this appalling practice by saying, ``For the 
Palestinian people, death has become an industry. . . . This is why 
they have formed human shields of the women, the children, [and] the 
elderly.''
  Instead of investing in their own people's well-being, in roads, 
schools, and hospitals, they have instead invested in the cache of 
weapons they are using to cause death and destruction in Israel.
  As a result, Palestinians are suffering. They have limited access to 
basic needs such as food and medicine. Their free speech has been 
suppressed through violence. And their right to freely practice 
religion has been replaced by a strong-armed enforcement of a radical 
brand of Islam.
  The largest beneficiary of Hamas's weapons purchases has been Iran, 
which has aided Hamas by training terrorists and offering advice in 
making deadly explosives and long-range rockets. Throughout the 
conflict, Hamas has turned into a Hezbollah-like Iranian proxy by 
threatening Israel from the south. Iran's willingness to embolden 
terrorist organizations like Hamas poses a serious threat not only to 
Israel, but also the United States.
  While Iran's influence has been plainly apparent across the Middle 
East, they have surreptitiously worked to advance their anti-American 
agenda in our own hemisphere. In recent years, Iran has aggressively 
increased its Latin American presence by working with the leaders who 
have found a commonality in the Iranian President's radical ways.
  Iran and the regimes of nations like Venezuela and Cuba may not share 
a common border, but they share an anti-American agenda that poses a 
tremendous risk to our Nation's security.
  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first visited Venezuela in 2006 
and has since returned to visit the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua, and 
Bolivia. He has also hosted Latin American leaders in Tehran.
  As a result of these meetings, Iran has entered into several economic 
and political agreements, including plans to finance new progovernment 
television and radio stations in Bolivia and countries throughout the 
region. These agreements help to fan the flames of anti-Americanism, 
which persists throughout the region.
  The government of Argentina recently revealed they received $1 
million from the Cuban regime to pay for anti-American protests during 
President Bush's visit there in 2005. Cuban families could have used 
that money for food, but instead it was wasted on furthering the 
regime's anti-American agenda.
  What has been lost on these Latin American leaders is the larger 
conflict at hand.
  Iran is heavily invested in a conflict that has claimed the lives of 
countless innocent civilians, and they will stop at no cost, continuing 
to aid in the destruction of American allies.
  For our Nation, the next few weeks will be historic, but critical.
  I am anxious to hear about President-elect Obama's plan to address 
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I am hopeful his administration 
will continue to reaffirm the U.S.'s historic commitment to the people 
of Israel.
  I am also hopeful the administration will continue efforts to 
persuade Syria to stop yielding to Iran's devious demands. Syria must 
understand that Iran's interests do not serve the interests of the 
people of the Middle East.
  Egypt has taken significant measures in trying to stop Hamas's 
smuggling of weapons and militants from Egypt into Gaza, but they must 
do more.
  One proposal I support deploys an international force of military 
engineers to monitor and destroy the tunnels along the Egyptian border 
near Gaza.
  I would also encourage the new administration to continue working 
vigorously with the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations on 
the U.N.-sanctioned ``Annapolis Process'' to achieve a final status 
agreement between Arabs and Israelis that includes a viable, democratic 
Palestinian state living in peace with Israel and its neighbors.
  And finally, I hope to see further progress in our efforts to train 
the Palestinian Presidential Guard led by U.S. General Keith Dayton.
  Although the recent outbreak of violence in Israel is troubling, I am 
hopeful a new cease-fire agreement can be reached very soon.
  A true cease-fire with Hamas should include a guarantee for no more 
rockets and safeguards against rearming.
  Both sides will soon realize that further loss of innocent life is 
too great a cost, and peace and security is the only viable way 
forward.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Armed Services 
Committee and the new administration to find a way forward in Israel 
and ensure a plan for peace in the future.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant 
legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page 595]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as 
in morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        Guantanamo Bay Detainees

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I rise to speak today about a topic 
that is in the news, is important, and has to do with an area of 
Leavenworth, KS, very near the Presiding Officer's State, and in my 
home State, about the issue of the Guantanamo Bay detainees.
  My simple point on this issue is, there is a very strong push--and I 
understand that push, and it is one that has been going on for some 
period of time--to close Guantanamo Bay. I would simply make the point 
we should not attempt to force-fit detainees where they do not belong 
and where it does not fit. I do not believe the new administration can 
look my constituents in the eye and say to them they are going to be 
safe with detainees at Fort Leavenworth as they are with military 
prisoners at Fort Leavenworth, and particularly not with what we are 
talking about from Guantanamo Bay.
  I have invited President-elect Obama and his team to come to 
Leavenworth to look at this facility, to see if this is something that 
could fit and work. I do not believe it does at all. But I have invited 
them there to come and to look and to make their own assessment.
  I further call on the incoming administration to conduct a thorough 
study--a thorough study--of all possible locations where detainees 
could be transferred. The study must seriously assess the legal and 
security requirements for detainees, as well as the impact on the areas 
surrounding a proposed detainee location.
  In the end, I believe the detainees will probably need to go to one 
of three types of places: overseas, either in the custody of foreign 
nations or at U.S. military facilities abroad set up for these types of 
detainees we have at Guantanamo Bay or on military land or at 
facilities previously closed or scheduled to be closed under the BRAC 
process, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, or into a new 
facility specifically designed for these detainees.
  The administration is projecting they are going to sign an order 
right off when coming into office that is going to close Guantanamo 
Bay. I am asking them, in looking at my State, in looking at the 
Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth, that they consider the nature of 
the facility, the nature of the detainee, and make a careful assessment 
as to whether this fits in this situation.
  Let me describe for you a little bit the situation of the 
Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, KS. Fort Leavenworth is a 
small facility. It is roughly 8 miles by 8 miles. It is a primary 
mission facility for education in the military. It is the Command and 
General Staff College for the military, for the Army. They do an 
outstanding job of that. They do an outstanding job not only for the 
U.S. military--particularly for the Army--they have all branches of the 
services that come there to be trained, but they also have, at any one 
time, students from 90 different countries at this facility.
  I recently spoke at a graduation exercise there with a number of 
students who were coming out of a program, and the President of Uganda 
was there because his son was graduating from this program. One of the 
key problems with relocating the detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Fort 
Leavenworth is that a number of Islamic countries will not send 
students now to Fort Leavenworth if detainees are being held there who 
they don't believe should be detained in the first place. Then you 
start to break these military-to-military ties that have been so 
important for us to be able to work in concert with--places such as 
Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or the good work we have been able to do in some 
cases back and forth in Pakistan, although not nearly enough. We need 
to do a lot more--and better. But if you break that tie, where you are 
training these military officers side by side and then building 
relationships that work back and forth and then you start moving 
toward: Well, the Saudis aren't going to send anybody to the Command 
and General Staff College in the United States because detainees who 
they believe in their countries shouldn't be held are being held in the 
same facility that is an 8-square-mile facility. Then the Kuwaitis 
don't do it and the Pakistanis don't do it and you start breaking these 
types of ties.
  The major purpose of Fort Leavenworth is education, not discipline. 
Then there is the problem with the nature of the Disciplinary Barracks 
itself. It is primarily a medium disciplinary facility at Fort 
Leavenworth, not maximum. We do not have the space to be able to 
contain all the detainees from Guantanamo Bay. We don't even have 
enough space to contain what would be referred to as the worst of the 
worst from the Guantanamo Bay facility at the Disciplinary Barracks at 
Fort Leavenworth. Plus, it is against the law to mix a U.S. military 
population, where we have had people from the U.S. military who have 
committed a crime and they are being held at the Disciplinary 
Barracks--you cannot mix that population under law with a population of 
foreign detainees. That is against the law. It is against conventions 
we have entered into. So there is that legal hurdle that is there as 
well.
  Now let me further describe the facility. It has a major railroad 
that runs through it. It has a train coming through on a regular basis 
10 to 15 times a day. The security concern that raises of moving 
detainees from Guantanamo Bay--very high visibility--to the middle of 
the country but a place where people could try to spring them, are they 
going to use the railroad track? Are they going to try to bomb or put 
bombs in the railroad coming through? It is a real problem. We don't 
have an exterior fence. We have the Missouri River, but that is fairly 
navigable to be able to move across for a terrorist population or 
somebody who is trying to get into the perimeter of the facility to 
make it through. So we are not set up that way. It is within a major 
urban area of Kansas City. Kansas City straddles both the Kansas and 
the Missouri side. Leavenworth is on the edge of that, on the northern 
edge of that Kansas City complex. So you are moving the detainees from 
Guantanamo Bay in a confined facility away from major urban areas and 
right into a major urban area in the United States. That doesn't make 
much sense. It is going to be very difficult to do. It is going to be 
impossible to do. And then to look my constituents in the eye and look 
the constituents of the Presiding Officer in the eye and say: You are 
going to be as safe as if you have military detainees.
  We are used to handling the prison population at Leavenworth. We have 
a multiple set of facilities. We have a Federal penitentiary, we have a 
State penitentiary, we have a private penitentiary, and we have a 
military penitentiary. The community is very well adapted to be able to 
handle prison populations. It does it very well. But the community does 
not want this population because they say we are not set up to be able 
to handle this population. I think this is a community that does not 
say not in my back yard because they have been willing to take 
prisoners for some period of time. They are just saying they are not 
set up for this prison population in our back yard. We can't handle 
this.
  For all these reasons, I would urge the administration--the incoming 
Obama administration--to take a very hard, serious scholarly view of 
what it is you can do with the Guantanamo Bay detainees. I would ask 
them to take a very serious look at the logistical problems of 
Leavenworth.
  I know a number of the people who are involved at Fort Leavenworth 
are deeply concerned about the fact that they have a number of 
schoolchildren who are educated on the Fort Leavenworth military base, 
because at the Command and General Staff College, we get people 
assigned there for a year, 2 years, sometimes longer periods of time 
and families move there. We have schools we operate on the military 
base. We are deeply concerned about somebody coming in, wanting to make

[[Page 596]]

a statement and going into one of those schools and taking the children 
hostage.
  I have seen situations where a number of people are put in harm's way 
for no good reason whatsoever, and seeing that this facility is not set 
up to be able to do this is one of them.
  I have visited with people locally. I have a call scheduled with 
Secretary Gates. We have been putting this forward in legislative form 
in prior legislative sessions, and I will be in this legislative 
session as well to make this point. If it had been easy to close 
Guantanamo Bay previously, I am certain the current administration 
would have done it. It is a difficult task. But that doesn't mean that 
because it is a difficult task, then you do it fast. It means because 
it is a difficult task, you take your time and you do it right or you 
are going to create a lot more problems down the road. This is one 
where I think the loss in this situation is far greater--far greater--
than any gain we would get in closing the Guantanamo Bay facility, 
particularly in our relationship to Islamic countries.
  I would plead with the new administration to look at this in a very 
serious and in a very clear and in a very analytical way, to make a 
wise decision that will stand for the future and not just create a huge 
set of problems for the future.
  With that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Pryor). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have been interested for some long while 
about new technology and the Internet and all those related issues.
  I recall reading a couple of years ago a statement by the former 
president of IBM in which he described the unbelievable leapfrog in 
technology and capability--most of it breathtaking. Most of us 
understand that because we use the Internet we can go anywhere in the 
world at our fingertips on the keyboard, but he described something 
breathtaking to me. He described the issue of storage density and the 
new capability of storage density. He said that we are on the cusp now 
of being able to reduce in storage density all of the works that exist 
in the Library of Congress--I think it is somewhere around 14 or 16 
million volumes of work--which is the largest repository of human 
knowledge that exists anywhere on Earth; to be able to store that on a 
very small wafer the size of a penny.
  Think of that: a wafer the size of a penny representing the storage 
device that contains the largest repository of human knowledge in 
history. Pretty remarkable.
  Assume that you are able to walk around with a storage device the 
size of a penny in your jacket pocket which you can put into a computer 
and peruse all that human knowledge that has been gained since the 
start of human history. On that storage device would be a lot of 
information, but what wouldn't be on that storage device--of all the 
human knowledge accumulated since the beginning of time--would be how 
we get out of this financial mess that the country is now in. There is 
no formula, there is no rule, there is no experience that would give us 
a roadmap of how we get from here to where we need to be to get out of 
this financial wreck.
  We are indeed in a financial crisis. And the one thing that unites 
the smartest economists in the country or the deepest thinkers or the 
latest self-proclaimed greatest sage and all the rest of us, the thing 
that connects us all, is none of us has ever been here before. We are 
all walking in the woods for which there is no map and all we have is a 
guess as to how we are to try to put this economy back together.
  Now, some people say: Well, what does all that mean, this financial 
crisis? How do we understand that there is this wreckage occurring in 
the economy? Well, you can look at it a number of ways. You can look at 
the people who have been saving for a long period of time, investing 
their 401(k) in a mutual fund or in the stock market. After 30 years of 
work, they had a nest egg for retirement, but they have lost 40 or 50 
percent of it, just like that. Half a lifetime of savings gone, like 
that. That is one piece of evidence. It is pretty dramatic for every 
family in this country.
  But there is other evidence as well. And that evidence especially, it 
seems to me, describes the crisis in our families in this country. If 
you look at last month's unemployment report, it says, in a kind of a 
sanitary way, that 524,000 people lost their jobs. Well, what if you 
just say 523,999 and then focus on the one, just one person who had to 
come home, in most cases, and tell a spouse: You know what, I have lost 
my job today. No, I am not a bad employee. I have worked hard for that 
company for 10 or 15 years, but they laid employees off today. To that 
one family, that is 100 percent unemployment, and that is a disaster 
for that family. Think of it. Last month, over half a million Americans 
had that discussion some night around the supper table: What are we 
going to do?
  And it is not just the half million people who lost their jobs last 
month or 2.6 million people who have lost their jobs since this 
recession started, and which has grown deeper; it is the hundreds of 
thousands and millions more who have not only had to say I have lost my 
job but who have had to say I have lost my house as well. It is pretty 
unbelievable.
  This is an extraordinary country, with great strength, and an 
economic engine that has been the wonder of the world. No one in the 
world has done what we have done to expand the middle class and give 
everyone a feeling of opportunity. No one has done that. I have 
described before the unbelievable accomplishments of our country. We 
have survived the Civil War, survived a Great Depression, and we have 
been through two World Wars. We represent the beacon of freedom around 
the world. We have always been a country that represents hope.
  I have been in so many parts of this world and asked people: What do 
you desire for your life? I remember being on a helicopter that ran out 
of gas between Nicaragua and Honduras in a mountainous area. We landed 
under power but we landed because we had no fuel, and campesinos from 
around the region came to see who had landed in this helicopter. We 
were stranded for about 4 hours until we were found. We had an 
interpreter, and so during a discussion, through an interpreter, I 
asked a young woman, who walked up with others--she had about three or 
four children with her, probably in her early 20s--what do you aspire 
to do for you and your family? Oh, I want to come to the United States, 
she said. Why? Because the United States is where there is opportunity 
and freedom, she said. So in a discussion up in the mountains between 
Honduras and Nicaragua someone who had never seen an American 
understood America as a place for her and her family, a place of 
opportunity and freedom.
  It is unbelievable what this place has represented to the rest of the 
world. We split the atom, we have spliced genes. As I have said before, 
we have cloned animals. We invent things--the silicone chip, plastic, 
and the radar. We cured smallpox and polio. We built the telephone, the 
television, the Internet, and the computer. We built airplanes and 
learned to fly them; built rockets to fly to the Moon. It is 
unbelievable what we have done. Our country is just that resourceful.
  But we have found ourselves in recent months in a very deep hole. We 
find ourselves right now perched on the edge of a cliff, and the 
question is: What do we do to try to restore economic health to this 
country so that next month the news is not another half million 
Americans have lost their jobs; so that perhaps next month, or some 
month in the future the news will be that more Americans are working, 
more Americans have found jobs, more Americans are owning homes. How do 
we do all that?

[[Page 597]]

  The fact is, there is not anything in recorded human history that 
replicates this and there is not anyone who knows what is the menu to 
use to restore economic health. This country is in some very severe 
difficulty.
  I wish to talk about what all this means and what I think we have to 
do. President-elect Obama came to the Senate today and spent time with 
the Democratic caucus. He spent the lunch hour with us and spoke for 
nearly an hour. It was an extraordinary exchange of views. He is a very 
gifted person who I think has great promise and, I think, hope that we 
can restore economic health to this country. He is going to need a lot 
of help. He is going to need a lot of us, Republican and Democrat. He 
is going to need the American people to join in an effort to restore 
economic health to this country.
  In the Thomas Wolfe book ``You Can't Go Home Again,'' he describes 
the kind of unique character of the American people. He describes it as 
a quenchless hope, boundless optimism, indestructible belief. I think 
these qualities exist in this country and it has gotten us through many 
difficult periods and will again and will this time. But this will take 
some effort. This will not be easy.
  I have described before what has caused much of this. It is not 
rocket science to describe it. We have seen what I think is an 
unbelievable carnival of greed, creating and trading exotic financial 
instruments that had dramatic risks, attaching that risk to some of 
America's biggest financial institutions and some of America's biggest 
banks. To go right to the origin of it--I have said it before and I 
will say it again and again, as long as I have an opportunity to speak 
about this because you have to close the gate. You cannot restore 
confidence in this country until you close the gate. Here is the house 
of cards that was built. We know what happens to house of cards in a 
high wind and all that, it has come down.
  I described the other day, and I am going to once again, what is 
called a subprime mortgage scandal. They were advertising mortgages. We 
have all seen it. We have seen these advertisements. Here is the 
Countrywide ad. It was the biggest mortgage bank in the country. It now 
doesn't exist. It was subsumed into another company. By the way, the 
CEO of Countrywide, I am told--at least reading the newspaper--got away 
with a couple hundred million dollars for himself so he is not exactly 
shedding tears about all this. But here is what they were advertising 
for the American people: Do you have less than perfect credit? Do you 
have late mortgage payments? Have you been denied by other lenders? 
Call us. We would like to give you a loan.
  Does that sound like sound business practices? It doesn't to me. What 
does it mean? The broker was able to get $10,000, $20,000 in bonuses 
for the loan. The mortgage company took their cut. Then they 
securitized it. They sold the security and rolled it into others--like 
they used to in the old days pack sawdust in sausage and roll it all 
together--they rolled these loans into a securities instrument, sold it 
up to hedge funds, sold it to investment banks. And they put prepayment 
penalties into it so borrowers were locked in, 3 years from the teaser 
rate, to interest rates that the borrower couldn't possibility repay 
and everybody was fat and happy and everybody was making a fortune--
millions of dollars. Everybody was making a fortune.
  The problem is it was a lot of air. It was not just Countrywide. Zoom 
Credit Company--here is what they said in their advertisements:

       Credit approval is just seconds away. Get on the fast track 
     at Zoom Credit. At the speed of light, Zoom Credit will 
     preapprove you for a car loan.
       Even if your credit's in the tank, Zoom Credit's like money 
     in the bank. Zoom Credit specializes in credit repair and 
     debt consolidation.

  And then they finished with this:

       Bankruptcy, slow credit, no credit--who cares?

  Does that look like a good business practice to you? It looks like a 
Ponzi scheme to me.
  This morning the judge in New York said Mr. Madoff, who had a $50 
billion alleged Ponzi scheme, was not going to be incarcerated. He 
apparently bilked people out of $50 billion, but he is spending today 
in a $7 million penthouse apartment in New York City because the judge 
says: No, no, he should not be incarcerated. That was a Ponzi scheme, 
apparently. People thought they had money invested with him. They, in 
fact, did not. It turns out there was not the money they thought was in 
their accounts.
  But it is not just Mr. Madoff who had a Ponzi scheme. Do you think 
this is not a Ponzi scheme, a company such as this says: If you are 
bankrupt, you cannot pay your bills, you have slow credit, you have no 
credit, come to us; do you think that is not a Ponzi scheme? Because 
what do you think they did with that when they roped this customer into 
coming to them for a mortgage? They said: Tell you what, we have a 
sweet little deal for you. We will give you a mortgage called no-doc, 
that means you don't even have to demonstrate your income to us that 
will demonstrate you can repay it--no-doc loans. By the way, we will 
give you a mortgage, no documentation of your income, and we will give 
you a mortgage in which you don't have to pay any principal at all, 
just interest. Or, if that is not good enough, you don't have to pay 
all the interest for the first year. If that is not good enough, we 
give you a mortgage where we make the first 12 months' payments for 
you. But wait, we will give you a teaser rate. You can pay 2 percent 
interest rate. You can cut your home mortgage in half.
  We don't tell you about the fine lines that say we are going to reset 
the interest rate to a much higher level in 3 years and you are not 
going to be able to repay it. And, by the way, we are going to put a 
prepayment penalty in so you can't get out of this because--do you know 
what we are going to do with this mortgage? We are going to package it 
up with others, called securitizing it, and we are going to sell it so 
we don't have any responsibility for it anymore and a hedge fund is 
going to buy it. Do you know why a hedge fund is going to buy it? We 
have a prepayment penalty in there with high interest rates and it will 
reset in 3 years and we are going to make a lot of money. They were all 
fat and happy when they built this huge bubble and the bubble burst and 
it helped cause a collapse in this economy.
  I say all of that just to say it is not over. Go to the Internet 
right now, and see if you can find what I found--no-documentation 
loans. We still have shysters out there advertising this kind of 
nonsense: We will give you a loan. You don't even have to document it.
  What happened as a result of this? Some of the biggest financial 
names in our country, it turns out, were investing deeply in what we 
now understand is toxic assets. We all understand the word ``toxic.'' 
It always used to be associated with a waste dump, toxic waste dump. 
Maybe toxic is an appropriate term. When the Treasury Secretary says 
toxic assets, it seems to me the bowels of some of the biggest 
financial institutions represent toxic waste dumps because that is 
where these bad assets exist.
  So the Treasury Secretary came to us when it looked like everything 
was going to collapse and said I need $700 billion from the American 
taxpayers and I need it in 3 days and I have a three-page bill I want 
you to pass. Why? What I am going to do, I am going to buy these assets 
from the biggest financial companies in the country and relieve them 
from this toxicity deep in the bowels of the banks. I did not vote for 
it, but sufficient numbers of my colleagues voted for it to authorize 
$700 billion.
  Now $350 billion has either been spent or committed. The scandal is 
we cannot find out how the taxpayers' money has been used. To whom? For 
what purpose? Under what conditions?
  We know in total there is about $8.5 trillion that has so far been 
committed by the Federal Government. That means the taxpayer is on the 
hook for about $8.5 trillion--the Federal Reserve programs, $5.5 
trillion; FDIC, $1.5 trillion; Treasury Department, $1.1. Do

[[Page 598]]

you know what? The Bloomberg News Corporation had to sue the Federal 
Government to get information about this. Isn't that unbelievable? They 
should not have had to sue anybody.
  Let me show you the statements that were made by the Treasury 
Secretary and others. Here is what the Treasury Secretary said on the 
23rd of October:

       We need oversight, we need protection. We need 
     transparency. I want it, we all want it.

  That is just words. It didn't mean a thing. There is no transparency. 
You cannot find out what is going on. The Treasury Secretary took $125 
billion and shoved it at nine banks and said: I am going to invest in 
capital. I changed my mind, I am not going to buy any assets. So the 
TARP program, which got its named for troubled assets--there are no 
troubled assets purchased by the Secretary. He said: I changed my mind, 
now I want to give capital to banks.
  That is not necessarily a bad idea, except he took $125 billion and 
plugged it into nine banks, some of which didn't want it, and there 
were no strings attached. He said: I am doing this because I want you 
to expand lending. There was no requirement they expand lending, no 
requirement they not use it for bonuses or dividends.
  If you ask the Treasury Secretary: Did they expand lending with the 
$125 billion of taxpayers' money you sunk into capital, his answer is: 
I don't know. Ask the banks. They tell you money is fungible, we are 
not going to tell you that answer. We know don't know. But ask people 
wanting to get money from the banks. They will tell you there is no 
additional lending or expansion of credit. It was just a commitment on 
behalf of the American taxpayers of $125 billion in search of a 
solution that didn't exist because he didn't put strings on it or 
attach some conditions to it, so that is where we are.
  Ben Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve Board, said on the 24th of 
October, ``Transparency is a big issue.'' I guess so. It is certainly a 
much bigger issue, given what he has done. He has moved massive 
quantities of money through the Fed--by the way the Fed opened its 
window to direct lending to investment banks for the first time in the 
history of this country. They used to only do direct lending to FDIC-
insured banks. They opened the window to direct lending to investment 
banks. The question is, Who got the money? Under what conditions? How 
much? The answer is, We don't know. We are not telling you.
  That is unbelievable to me. There is nothing in the Constitution 
about this. The Constitution is a short little document that talks 
about powers, the powers of the executive branch, the powers of the 
legislative branch, and judicial branch. You go read the Constitution 
and try to figure out whether you think the opportunity exists for 
somebody, even in a crisis, to commit $8.5 trillion, $8.6 trillion on 
behalf of the American taxpayer and then tell us you will not to get 
information about this? Go to court. That is unbelievably arrogant, in 
my judgment.
  Having said all that--which is, in some ways, therapeutic for me to 
go through what has caused so much of this and to talk about the folly 
of the pursuit of a solution. That we cannot possibly succeed unless 
you have conditions and attachments to those moneys that are being 
used--all of this, it seems to me, is wrapped in a circumstance where 
we now find ourselves with a new President. He will be sworn in on the 
west front of this building next Tuesday. He inherits the most 
significant set of economic problems I think of any President since 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I don't think there is much question about 
that.
  The question is, Where does this go from here? You know the law of 
holes: When you are in a hole, stop digging. The question is, How do 
you stop digging? How do you find a way to put this back on track to 
some sort of growth? Where is the bottom? How do you stop this from 
falling off a cliff? There are all these folks, the so-called smartest 
people in the room, who share with me and with my colleague from 
Arkansas, who is the Presiding Officer--share the fact that none of us 
understand the answer. Nobody understands exactly what to do.
  But I wish to say this: I think at the root of this is always, and 
will always be, with this economy of ours, the issue of confidence. Do 
people have confidence about the future? If they are living in a place, 
in a country and at a time when they can be confident about the 
future--confident for themselves and their kids, confident that they 
will have a job, retain their jobs, have job security, have a decent 
payroll, have benefits in the future--then they are confident and do 
things that manifest that confidence: buy clothes, take a trip, buy a 
car, buy a house; they do the things that expand this economy. But when 
they do not have confidence--and the American people at this point do 
not--they do exactly the opposite, which contracts this economy. They 
defer all those purchases and decide, you know what, we don't have 
confidence that we are going to keep this job, have this income, 
provide for our kids. We need to cut back, and that contracts the 
economy.
  So the question is this: It is not, as I have said often, about how 
do you tune the engine on the ship of state. How do you go down to the 
engine room and take a look at every dial, gauge, lever, knob, and just 
adjust it just right?
  In fiscal policy or in monetary policy, how do you adjust it? Tax 
credits? M1B? Fiscal stimulus? It is not that at all, in my judgment, 
because there is not a perfect menu to provide confidence to the 
American people. And it does not matter how you adjust those issues if 
you do not find a way to instill confidence, the economy is going to 
contract. So I have introduced legislation with a number of pieces that 
I think are essential to try to provide that kind of confidence. Let me 
describe them.
  First and foremost, I do not think you can do this and give the 
American people confidence unless you look back and look forward. That 
means accountability, and accountability means looking back and looking 
ahead, it seems to me. I described the absurdity of Mr. Madoff running 
a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, living in his $7 million apartment in New 
York City, and the judge saying: That is okay. It seems to me there is 
an equal absurdity here of having the equivalent type of Ponzi schemes 
in which you loaded some of the biggest American financial institutions 
with dramatic amounts of risk and debt and say: Well, now that is past, 
no one is accountable. It seems to me someone is accountable for that. 
Are they still around? Were they getting $20 and $30 million a year? 
Some of them were. There was a recent investigative piece by the 
Washington Post describing the person in charge of risk management and 
describing a trader at the same firm, both making somewhere in the 
neighborhood of $20 million a year. Who is accountable for that, for 
the collapse as a result of the loading up of dramatic risk in an 
investment bank and then having the American taxpayers bail it out?
  Here are some of the so-called biggest institutions that were deemed 
``too big to fail.'' Until this point, they have not only been ``too 
big to fail,'' they have been ``too small to regulate'' apparently 
because we have a lot of folks in this town who do not want to regulate 
anything. They want to be willfully blind, including those we pay to 
regulate these entities. They are the ones who helped us decide long 
ago, as a country: We are not going to look at derivatives, we will not 
regulate derivatives, and we are not going to regulate hedge funds. We 
are willing to countenance a lot of dark money out there because we do 
not need to see it. You know, the high priest of that thought was, of 
course, Alan Greenspan, whose notion of how you handle all of this is 
self-regulation. Self-regulation will work just fine, he said. Well, it 
turns out that was a miscalculation to the tune of some trillions of 
dollars. It did not work fine.
  Here is what we need to do--accountability going back. I have just 
described Alan Greenspan. He came and testified. He said: ``I made a 
mistake in presuming the self-interests of organizations, specifically 
banks and others, were best capable of protecting their own 
shareholders and their own equity in the firms.''

[[Page 599]]

  You know the old saying that there is no education in the second kick 
of a mule. We know this. We knew this. We have been through this in the 
Great Depression. We were through the Gay Nineties and the Roaring 
Twenties. None of us lived then, but we learned the lessons and put in 
place the protections to make sure it never happened again.
  About 10 years ago, the Congress took apart most of those 
protections. I voted against it. I thought it was a terrible decision. 
But here we are paying the price for that.
  Those protections, it seems to me, at this point need to be 
reconnected. So what should we do? Well, first of all, I think, in 
addition to a rescue plan of some type, or a stimulus plan, as it is 
being called, it seems to me you need some type of taxpayer protection. 
Nobody is looking out for the taxpayer here, and the taxpayer is having 
to make the commitment through the Treasury Secretary, through the 
Federal Reserve, and through the Congress. Let's have a taxpayer 
protection plan or a Taxpayer Protection Act.
  One, I think we ought to extend the oversight, accountability, audit, 
and all the reporting provisions that were imposed originally by the 
Treasury Department under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act to 
cover any financial entity that provides emergency economic assistance 
to private firms. There ought to be complete transparency, no secrecy, 
nobody saying: We will not tell you, we will not show you, we will not 
disclose to you.
  Second, all private firms receiving emergency financial assistance 
should be subject to the same set of rules and restrictions relating to 
executive compensation, golden parachutes, dividend payments, to name a 
few.
  You know, we had the auto industry executives come down here, and 
they were widely pilloried for flying Gulfstream IVs wing tip to wing 
tip from Detroit to Washington, DC. It turns out that there were over 
20 commercial flights that day from here to Detroit and back. One could 
have sat them in first class and provided them Dr. Pepper in a paper 
cup, or whatever it is they do in first class, between Detroit and 
Washington, DC, and they would have been fine. But they flew down wing 
tip to wing tip in Gulfstreams and, you know, making $2 million, $2.5 
million a month, whatever it was. There was a lot of criticism about 
it--justifiable, in my judgment. I want the auto industry to succeed, 
but that was not a very smart thing that day.
  But the question is, Why it is just the auto industry? Where are all 
of those folks who ran some of those big investment banks into the 
ditch? Where are the folks who caused that wreckage? How about the 
people who ran these big mortgage companies that were selling these 
unbelievable mortgages to people with bad credit and getting big 
bonuses as a result? When are they going to be brought here under 
subpoena and asked the same questions and subject to the same 
requirements?
  I think we ought to create a taxpayer protection prosecution task 
force. I believe there is a lot of illegal activity that has not been 
uncovered. And I do not think it ought to be laid at the feet of some 
attorney general someplace in some State. There ought to be a Federal 
prosecution tasks force empaneled, and that task force must make it a 
top priority to investigate and prosecute financial fraud cases and 
seek to recover any ill-gotten gains. The task force shall make 
recommendations to the Congress, within 60 days, about extending the 
statute of limitation in complicated financial crimes, if necessary.
  There ought to be a reform commission on the financial system that 
determines the causes of this financial nightmare. And the commission 
would report its findings, conclusions and make recommendations for 
preventing a similar debacle in the future. I do not think it is just a 
matter of jump-starting the economic engine; I think you have to rewire 
the system here. You have to rewire the financial system. This does not 
work.
  Securitizing instruments for which there was never any decent 
underwriting because you did not have to underwrite if you were going 
to send the risk upstairs--that does not work. And you cannot have dark 
money out there beyond the gaze of regulators.
  You do have to regulate. It seems to me you have to completely reform 
the financial system, and I do think the people who caused this wreck 
are going to be the ones who are going to help us reform the system.
  So those are four areas that I think we have to do on behalf of the 
American taxpayer.
  You know, my sense is that everyone in this country wants this new 
Government to succeed. President-elect Barack Obama campaigned across 
this country on the subject of change. We all understand the need for 
that change. The fact is, there is plenty of blame to go around. Lots 
of folks, Republicans, Democrats, one administration, another--there is 
a lot of blame. But it seems to me there are special obligations laid 
at the feet of those who in the last 8 years have decided to be 
willfully blind and decided that self-regulation was more important 
than having people do their jobs who were supposed to be regulating. 
And the result was the creation of a house of cards or a Ponzi scheme 
sort of thing that has caused dramatic damage to this country.
  Now, it is a mess, but I think this country can get out of it. I 
think it would be hard for anybody in this Chamber to decide to get up 
and go to work if they did not have an abiding hope about the future of 
this country. And I do. But that hope is joined, it seems to me, by 
requirements to find out what happened, take action based on what 
happened, and make sure it never happens again. That is not rocket 
science; that is what we are obligated to do.
  This is, as I said, a great country with a wonderful history of 
overcoming the odds. We have people who came to this country from 
different parts of the planet searching for opportunity. Most of us 
come from immigrants who came from one part of the planet or another, 
one part of this globe, and came to this country because they believed 
this is the place where opportunity existed.
  There was a man named Stanley Newberg who died, and there was a tiny 
little piece written in the New York Times about him some years ago. It 
was a piece that intrigued me, so I looked into it to find out what was 
this about, Stanley Newberg. It said, in this one-paragraph piece, 
something that I discovered more about. A man came to this country with 
his parents to flee the persecution by the Nazis of the Jews, and they 
came here and landed in this country, with nothing, in New York City. 
His dad had a job peddling fish on the Lower East Side of New York, and 
Stanley Newberg trailed along, this little tyke with his dad every day 
peddling fish. Then he went to school, and his parents struggled 
because they had nothing, and he did well in school. They struggled to 
get him some loans and try to help him get to college. He went to 
college, graduated from college, and went to work for an aluminum 
company. He did very well with the company and rose up to management in 
the company and then purchased the company.
  Later, he died. When they opened his will, Stanley Newberg, in his 
will, left $5.7 million to the United States of America. In his will, 
he said: For the privilege of living in that great country. Is that not 
remarkable? Here is a man who came here with nothing, was enormously 
successful, then at the end of his life left his inheritance to the 
United States of America. I am not suggesting everyone do that. I am 
suggesting it inspires me when people--in this case, coming here as a 
boy with nothing--understand the magic of what this country of ours 
offers in terms of opportunity and freedom. And I think, with all of 
the hand-wringing that exists in our country about these very serious 
troubles we face, I am absolutely convinced, if we work together, with 
a new President, a new Government, if we call the American people to be 
part of something bigger than themselves, to say this is a moment to 
try to put this country back on track and build better opportunity and 
greater opportunity for all Americans, I have great hope then for this 
country.

[[Page 600]]


  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of S. 22, 
the public lands omnibus bill. This legislation contains several 
important provisions for the State of Florida that will protect its 
natural treasures and expand understanding of our rich history. These 
bills are bipartisan, and I am proud to have worked with my colleague 
Senator Bill Nelson in support of the Everglades provisions and the 
commission for the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine's founding. 
Congressman John Mica has introduced a companion version of this bill 
in the House of Representatives and I wanted to recognize his efforts 
as well. In addition, I thank the hard work of Senator Jeff Bingaman, 
the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and ranking 
member, Senator Murkowski, and their staff, for including these bills 
in S. 22 and bringing it to expected floor passage.
  The public lands package contains an authorization for the St. 
Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission, which is critical in 
assisting the National Park Service, the State of Florida, as well as 
all local stakeholders in organizing the historic celebration of the 
city's founding. St. Augustine's old and complex history mirrors much 
of the American experience. It was the birthplace of Christianity in 
the New World and it was truly the first blending-pot of cultures that 
included peoples of Spanish, English, French, Native American, and 
African descent. Many do not know that St. Augustine is the location of 
the first parish mass in the United States and it was the location of 
the first free black settlement in North America. Nearly a century 
before the founding of Jamestown, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon 
landed off the coast of St. Augustine looking for the fabled Fountain 
of Youth but instead founded a colony known as La Florida. He 
discovered very favorable currents that would later be known as the 
Gulf Stream, which would serve as trade routes for European explorers 
to discover other parts of the New World.
  Because of St. Augustine's location along strategic trade routes, 
Spain constructed the Castillo de San Marcos in 1672 to protect the 
capital of La Florida from French and British interests. The Castillo 
de San Marcos is built on the ruins of the original fort that was 
burned to the ground by British sailor and explorer Sir Francis Drake. 
The fort still stands today and has had six different flags fly above 
its ramparts. It is the oldest surviving European fortification in the 
United States.
  The St. Augustine Commemoration Commission is necessary to help 
organize the tremendous amount of historical and cultural events that 
will take place in the first coast area. The commission will encompass 
a broad array of members from Federal, State, local, and academic 
backgrounds to ensure that it has a diverse make-up of professionals to 
assist the city of St. Augustine in celebrating its founding. The 
intent of the St. Augustine commission bill is to assist the NPS and 
local stakeholders in building upon the experiences of the Jamestown 
celebration in 2007. In addition, the commission would provide the 
necessary framework to navigate the significant logistical challenges 
facing the city of St. Augustine, the State of Florida, and the 
National Park Service.
  Restoration of the Everglades, especially Everglades National Park, 
will be enhanced by enactment of the public lands bills package, S. 22. 
One such provision included is section 7107, which would expand the 
boundaries of Everglades National Park by nearly 600 acres and help 
protect a critical part of Florida's ecological heritage. I am proud to 
have cosponsored this legislation with my colleague Bill Nelson, and it 
is supported by a broad group. of stakeholders including the Monroe 
County government in the Florida Keys, the Nature Conservancy, and the 
National Park Service. The passage of this bill would protect coastal 
wetlands and habitat for a myriad of endangered species including the 
American crocodile, the West Indian manatee, the wood stork, the 
roseate spoonbill, and other migrating birds.
  The citizens of Florida have long treasured the Everglades, and the 
addition of this property within the park's boundaries will help 
preserve the unique beauty that makes the keys such a special place. 
The addition of the Tarpon Basin property will not place new management 
or administrative burdens on our park's staff, but instead would 
enhance and preserve a part of Old Florida for years to come.
  Another provision included in S. 22, which Senator Nelson and I 
support would facilitate an important land exchange to allow the 
National Park Service to acquire the last significant private inholding 
in the Everglades and clear the way to finally implement the federally 
approved Modified Waters Delivery Project or ``Mod Waters.'' Mod Waters 
will help restore natural water flows into Everglades National Park, 
and although authorized nearly 20 years ago in 1989, it has experienced 
substantial delays.
  The land trade provided for in the pending, measure enables the Park 
Service to acquire Florida Power and Light's, FPL, 7-mile long, utility 
corridor that now bisects the expanded Everglades National Park. This 
corridor runs north-south through the heart of the East Everglades and 
Shark River Slough, which provides the primary water flows into the 
park. Under the exchange, FPL would give this 320 acre inholding to the 
park and would receive roughly 260 acres on the eastern boundary of the 
park adjacent to the existing L 31 canal and levee. FPL would also 
receive a vegetative management easement to help control nonnative 
exotic plants. Public acquisition of the FPL inholding would eliminate 
the last significant private inholding delaying Mod Waters.
  No funds will be needed for this inholding acquisition and appraisals 
indicate that the park receives more value than FPL. Since so much 
preliminary work has been put into identifying the precise lands and 
interests involved in the exchange, the Park Service should be able to 
promptly complete the appraisal approval process. Expeditious review is 
critical to facilitate Mod Waters and ensure that the exchange is 
executed so taxpayers are spared the multimillion-dollar costs of 
purchasing the FPL corridor.
  Substantial work has already been completed and all evaluations 
indicate that relocating the utility corridor away from the Everglades 
National Park will provide a wide array of environmental benefits to 
the park. The exchange and relocation ensures that there will be no 
electric transmission lines constructed on the existing private right-
of-way. In addition, moving the utility corridor to the periphery of 
the park to developed property will lessen impacts on resources, 
endangered and threatened species, and other park-related values. The 
bill also provides the NPS with the authority to relocate the 
Everglades Park boundary to ensure that the lands conveyed to FPL are 
outside of the park. The intent is that the relocated utility corridor 
not be within Everglades Park.
  Since an environmental assessment needs to focus only on those 
factors arising from the land exchange itself, it is expected that the 
Park Service will move quickly to complete the assessment. Any effects 
that may arise from future proposed development of the relocated 
corridor would be subject to full environmental review at that time by 
appropriate Federal and State agencies. Because of these protections 
and oversight, there should be no undue regulatory delay in the 
completion of this important land exchange, which could further delay 
Mod Waters. Accordingly, the NPS should act in a timely manner to 
render a suitability finding for lands adjacent to the park used for 
transmission to meet the power needs of south Florida.
  I again thank Chairman Bingaman and Senator Murkowski for including 
these bills in S. 22. I also want to thank our outgoing ranking member, 
Pete Domenici, for his hard work in helping move these bills through 
the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year. We have a chance 
at the beginning of a new Congress to show the American people that 
Washington is not all about politics and gridlock. I urge my colleagues 
to vote for S. 22 to

[[Page 601]]

help facilitate the completion of Mod Waters and enhance the protection 
of Florida's fragile ecosystem.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, restoration of America's 
Everglades is one of my top priorities in the Senate. Everglades 
National Park stands to be enhanced by enactment of the public lands 
bill package, S. 22.
  Section 7107 contains a measure--similar to a bill introduced by 
Senator Mel Martinez and me, to facilitate an important land exchange 
which will allow the National Park Service to acquire the last 
significant private inholding in the East Everglades and clear the way 
to finally implement the congressionally approved Modified Waters 
Delivery project or ``Mod Waters.'' Mod Waters will help restore 
natural water flows into Everglades Park. This project provides a 
critical foundation for many future restoration projects and although 
it was authorized in 1989, has been delayed for a variety of reasons 
including the need to acquire private lands that will be returned to a 
natural state by increased water flows.
  The Park Service has worked painstakingly since 1989 to acquire over 
100,000 acres in the East Everglades at a cost of more than $104 
million to clear the way for Mod Waters. Over 8000 individual parcels 
of land have been purchased and added to Everglades National Park. The 
land trade provided for in the pending measure will enable the park to 
acquire Florida Power and Light's--FPL--7-mile long, 330-foot wide 
inholding that now bisects the expanded park. This corridor of private 
lands runs north-south through the heart of the East Everglades and 
Shark River Slough, which provides the primary water flows into the 
park--the area where more natural water flows will be restored by Mod 
Waters. Under the exchange, FPL would surrender this 320-acre inholding 
to the park and receive approximately 260 acres on the eastern 
periphery of the park immediately adjacent to the existing L 31 canal 
and levee as well as a vegetative management easement to help control 
nonnative exotic plants among others. Public acquisition of the FPL 
inholding would eliminate the last significant private inholding 
delaying Mod Waters. In return, FPL would receive lands that would be 
outside the park, providing it with the opportunity to develop such 
lands into a viable utility corridor, if approved. This is a win-win 
for the people of south Florida who depend upon both a healthy 
environment and the availability of power.
  As I stated earlier, Mod Waters is the foundation for the broader 
Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, CERP, approved by Congress 
in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000. The congressionally 
mandated September 2008 National Academy of Sciences report on 
Everglades restoration called progress on Mod Waters ``dismal.'' The 
report emphasized that Mod Waters is critical to restoration, 
especially for Everglades Park, and urged the Federal Government to 
take action to move the project along. This exchange does precisely 
that.
  No funds will be needed for this inholding acquisition. Since so much 
work has already been done to identify the precise lands and interests 
in land to be exchanged and these lands have been subject to 
professional appraisals, we expect the park to be able to promptly 
complete the necessary administrative requirements to complete the 
exchange. Time is of the essence in order to facilitate Mod Waters and 
ensure that the exchange is executed so taxpayers are spared the multi-
million dollar costs of purchasing the FPL corridor.
  Prior to executing the land trade, the Park Service will prepare the 
appropriate National Environmental Policy Act document to fully 
understand the environmental impacts, if any. It is my hope that this 
exchange will provide a wide array of environmental benefits to the 
park. The exchange ensures that there will be no electric transmission 
lines constructed on the existing private right-of-way. The bill also 
provides the Service with the authority to relocate the Everglades Park 
boundary to ensure that the lands conveyed to FPL are outside of the 
park. It is intended that the utility corridor, if developed, not be 
within Everglades Park. Because many of the agreements have been worked 
out in advance between FPL and the park, I expect that the Park Service 
will move expeditiously to complete the land exchange authorized by 
this legislation.
  In a similar vein, the Park Service must also make a determination 
that the lands and interests along the L 31 canal and levee on the edge 
of the park are ``suitable'' for exchange and conveyance to FPL. This 
``suitability'' is already widely acknowledged and recognized by both 
the agency and the Congress as these peripheral lands are not in the 
heart of the park and not critical for Mod Waters and water flow 
restoration. Accordingly, I expect the Park Service to act in a timely 
manner to render the suitability finding.
  I received a letter from Florida Department of Environmental 
Protection Secretary, Mike Sole, expressing his support for the land 
transfer. The exchange is also supported by the Department of the 
Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers.
  I expect the Park Service and FPL to move promptly to complete the 
exchange. Again, the need for action on Mod Waters means that time is 
of the essence.
  I wish to thank Chairman Bingaman and Ranking Member Murkowski for 
their efforts to incorporate this important measure in the S. 22 
package. We must move expeditiously to compete Mod Waters and 
completion of this land exchange will help us achieve these objectives 
while ensuring that the taxpayers are spared the cost of purchasing a 
very expensive park inholding from FPL.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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