[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24547-24561]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  2010

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 2847, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2847) making appropriations for the 
     Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related 
     Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and 
     for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Vitter-Bennett amendment No. 2644, to provide that none of 
     the funds made available in this Act may be used for 
     collection of census data that does not include a question 
     regarding status of U.S. citizenship.
       Johanns amendment No. 2393, prohibiting the use of funds to 
     fund the Association of Community Organizations for Reform 
     Now (ACORN).
       Levin-Coburn amendment No. 2627, to ensure adequate 
     resources for resolving thousands of offshore tax cases 
     involving hidden accounts at offshore financial institutions.
       Durbin modified amendment No. 2647, to require the 
     Comptroller General to review and audit Federal funds 
     received by ACORN.
       Begich-Murkowski amendment No. 2646, to allow tribes 
     located inside certain boroughs in Alaska to receive Federal 
     funds for their activities.
       Ensign modified amendment No. 2648, to provide additional 
     funds for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program by 
     reducing corporate welfare programs.
       Shelby-Feinstein amendment No. 2625, to provide danger pay 
     to Federal agents stationed in dangerous foreign field 
     offices.
       Leahy amendment No. 2642, to include nonprofit and 
     volunteer ground and air ambulance crew members and first 
     responders for certain benefits.
       Graham amendment No. 2669, to prohibit the use of funds for 
     the prosecution in Article III courts of the United States of 
     individuals involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist 
     attacks.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.


                    Energy and Water Appropriations

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I plan on spending some time on the CJS 
appropriations bill, but I want to delay a moment. We are going to have 
a cloture vote, whether that is today or tomorrow or sometime, on the 
Energy and Water Conference Report. I was the one who objected to 
bringing that to the floor and for some very serious reasons. 
Unanimously, the Senate body agreed to an amendment that would create 
transparency in that appropriations bill. There were no objections; it 
was a unanimous vote. What we attempted to do was to bring to light, to 
the American people, not just the 30 Senators who were going to get the 
reports--70 percent of the Senate cannot see the reports--to the rest 
of the Senators and to the rest of the American people, the reports 
that are requested by Congress on the operation of this appropriation 
authority.
  We put in there a very specific exclusion for anything that would 
affect security so those items would not be exposed.
  There were no significant efforts to hold this in conference. So I 
wanted to explain for a few minutes to the American people and to my 
colleagues why it is important. What we have here are the following 
reports. The question you have to ask is, why does the Appropriations 
Committee not want the American people to see this information? What in 
the world could be a good reason for American citizens and 70 Senators 
to not be able to see this? There is not any good reason.
  I will go through and list what some of the reports are in this bill. 
Then I will raise the question: Why are we not letting the American 
people see it? Why are we not letting 70 of our colleagues see it?
  An annual report on the Department of Energy, on their financial 
balances, is important information to me. It should be to every Member 
of this body. But it also should be important to every citizen out 
there who is paying for the $1.6 trillion deficit we have this year. 
Actually, they are not paying, their kids are.
  A report by Chief of Engineers on Water Resources, but the way it is 
phrased, it is on a ``water resource matter.'' In other words, someone 
very specifically tied that so they would have information others do 
not have. This is government in the dark; this is not transparent 
government.
  A report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission identifying barriers to 
and its recommendations for streamlining construction of new nuclear 
reactors. If we want to get to clean energy, that is one way to do it. 
Yet the barriers for that construction, we are not going to know what 
they are. The American people are not going to find out and 70 Senators 
are not going to find out. We are not going to have that made available 
to us.
  Two reports to report on the transfer of funds within the Department 
of the Army, and a report on the transfer of funds within the Bureau of 
Reclamation for oversight activities--in other words, a report on the 
funds that are transferring for oversight, only appropriators get to 
see that. The American people do not get to see it. I do not get to see 
it. The President pro tempore right now does not get to see it. Only 
the appropriators. Why would we not want to share that with the 
American people? Is there some reason?
  A report by the administration on detailed accounting of receipts 
into and obligations and expenditures from the inland waterways trust 
fund. Well, what most people do not realize is when we put out a number 
that is our budget deficit every year, that number does not recognize 
what we have stolen from multitudes of trust funds, including the 
inland waterway trust fund, which is very important to all of the 
things that go on along the Mississippi River, the McClellan-Kerr 
Navigation System, the Upper Mississippi River, the Great Lakes. All of 
those are funded by the inland waterways trust fund--except we steal 
all of the money out of it so there is no money in it. Here is the 
report on it, and they do not want the American people to see it. Why 
would you not want the American people to see that we are stealing from 
the funds we have set up that were supposed to be dedicated to do 
certain things? Because you really do not want a transparent Congress 
so the American people can see what is going on.
  A report on remediation efforts by the Corps of Engineers through the 
formerly utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. Most of us do not even 
know what that is. But the fact is, if we have former sites that 
required remedial action, why shouldn't we all get to see that? Why 
should we not be able to make a value judgment on whether the Corps did 
a good job and what they are doing with the money? But yet we cannot.
  A report detailing the implementation and progress of the measurement 
plans for each funded energy innovation hub. We have these hubs out 
there to create alternative and renewable energy, except we are not 
going to see what they are doing. It is not going to be available to 
us. It is not going to be available to the American people, and they 
are paying for it. What happens if there is an idea and somebody reads 
about it and it gives them another idea?
  A report by the Secretary of Energy to the Committee on 
Appropriations of the House and the Senate on the state of defined 
benefit pension liabilities in the Department for the preceding year. 
That is something we should all be aware of, not just a couple of staff 
members on the Appropriations Committee. The American people should 
know that, in fact, they do not have the money in the bank to fund 
their pension liabilities. Yet we are going to suppress that 
information. We are going to keep it from the sunshine. We are going to 
keep it from the light of day so the American people cannot see

[[Page 24548]]

how miserably the government runs its own business. We do not want that 
out. We do not want you to see it.
  I could go on and on. I have three pages of reports. Notably, some of 
them are security related and should not be released to the American 
public, which this amendment protected.
  What this means is that 88 percent of the Members of the House and 70 
percent of the Members of the Senate do not have available to them the 
tools with which to make decisions. But, more importantly than that, 
the American people do not have transparency in their government. They 
are never going to be made available for taxpayers to read. They are 
never going to see how sloppily the money is spent, how we borrow money 
from funds that are supposed to be dedicated and spend them on things 
that are pet political projects. We do not want them to see that. This 
is not controversial. The only place it is controversial is to those 
who are working in the dark. And the very fact that this did not come 
out of conference with transparency--every other appropriations bill we 
have passed so far has had this transparency for report language. So 
why would we bring it to the floor? We should be very concerned that 
was excluded from this conference report, for a republic cannot 
function, it cannot survive unless it is truly transparent to the 
people it represents.
  Our President was elected on the promise of bringing greater 
transparency to Washington, not only just to the workings of the 
Federal Government but to our daily workings as we tend to government. 
Congress should have supported this effort.
  I serve notice on the Senate that any conference report that does not 
have transparency, which I will offer and have offered to every bill, 
that comes back from a conference, I will do everything I can to block 
it until that is put back in it. The American people deserve no less 
than that. It is, in fact, their government, not 30 appropriators' 
government. It is not just the 30 appropriators who get to govern this 
country. The fact that this piece of good government, of transparency, 
of putting out for everybody to see what we are doing has been 
precluded sends exactly the wrong message to the American people. So it 
will be that I will come here again, and I will not give up until such 
time as the American people truly get to see a transparent government.
  The President and I passed a bill called the Transparency and 
Accountability Act. You can go to usgovernmentspending.gov and you can 
see where we are spending money. Sometime this spring you are going to 
see it all of the way down to the subcontractor, subgrantees level. You 
are going to be able to go online and see where every penny, except for 
national security purposes, is spent and who got the money. That is 
real open government. That is real democracy. That is real freedom. 
That is real liberty.
  Without that, based on the demonstration that we make here today by 
bringing up a bill that keeps us cloaked in secrecy, that keeps the 
American people in the dark, what we will have and continue to have is 
less and less confidence of the American people as we try to lead this 
country back to the greatness it once had.


                           CJS Appropriations

  I am now going to spend a few minutes, if I may, talking about the 
Commerce-Justice appropriations bill. This is another in a long line of 
bills that has a double-digit increase in the size of the government, 
on the back of a double-digit increase last year, and on the back of a 
$16.2 billion shot in the arm from the stimulus.
  We were at $60 billion, essentially, last year, and we are going to 
increase it by $7.59 billion. That is a 12.6-percent, 12.7-percent 
increase. I brought a chart out here last week. I will bring it back 
again today as we debate the amendments I have. But not counting the 
stimulus, if we keep passing appropriations bills at the rate at which 
this body has passed this year, the size of the Federal Government will 
double in 3.5 years.
  I think that is probably just exactly the opposite mood of the 
American people today. Yet we turn a deaf ear to the fact that 43 cents 
out of this $67 billion that we are going to spend--43 percent of it we 
are going to directly borrow from our kids.
  We do not have the money in the bank to pay for this. We are going to 
finance it through a lower standard of living for our children. There 
is no question a portion of this increase is related to the census. The 
Census Bureau is in a mess. We have a good new Director. It was 
completely mismanaged by the Bush administration, there is no question 
about it, by the Secretary of Commerce, and also the Director of the 
Census.
  We had a great caretaker who replaced the previous Census Director, 
and he did what he could. Now we have a new, very experienced Director 
of the Census by the name of Dr. Groves, who is handling a very 
difficult problem.
  But it is going to come out that it is going to take $60 a person--
hear this--to count the people in the United States.
  Please give me that contract for 10 cents a person. Please let me do 
it for 10 cents a person. We are going to spend 60 cents a person--
pardon me, $60 a person, $60 a person to count the people in the United 
States.
  Go figure. Let's outline what happened to the Census. The Census 
routinely uses no-bid, cost-plus contracts. Whatever it costs, do it. 
Well, it just so happens their plan went awry. They paid bonuses to a 
company that failed to deliver what was ordered. The Census failed to 
be clear about what they wanted in terms of the electronic devices. So 
we have $750 million worth of junk we cannot use. Somebody ought to be 
held accountable for that.
  Do you know who that is? That is us. How dare we waste almost $1 
billion on one contract, because it was a cost-plus, was not overseen. 
We did not know what we were asking for, and yet the people who 
supplied it did not lose a thing. That is a very profitable contract.
  That is why we have problems in the Federal Government. That is why 
we have $50 billion worth of waste a year in the Pentagon: because we 
do not know what we want, and there is no capital at risk for the 
people who are bidding these contracts. So, consequently, they just do 
whatever because it is cost-plus. They just send a bill at the end of 
the month, and we pay it. So we are going to have an $18 billion census 
that has a high likelihood of being the least accurate census we have 
ever had. There are probably going to be numerous lawsuits over this 
census.
  My hope is that Director Groves can, in fact, salvage the census. But 
when we get it, it is not going to be accurate. It is going to displace 
six House seats because it is going to count illegal aliens who should 
not be counted in terms of the apportionment for the seats in Congress.
  There are 561 earmarks in this bill. Two-thirds of them--hear me 
clearly--go to members of the Appropriations Committee. Is that not a 
coincidence? One-third goes to the other 70 Members of the body, but 
two-thirds goes to the 30 members sitting on the Appropriations 
Committee.
  The President proposed that two programs be absolutely terminated 
because they have zero worth, value, and contribution to the Federal 
Government. They are both funded in the bill. The bill is one of many 
we will pass that will have double-digit increases. I wonder how many 
families right now are seeing a double-digit increase in their income. 
That is a rarity today in our economy. Yet we put on the floor almost a 
13-percent increase which is about the average of everything else we 
have been putting out here, in spite of the fact we just spent $800 
billion of our kids' money on a stimulus package, and this agency 
received a significant portion of that.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page 24549]]


  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want the American people to know where 
we stand financially. The war on terror will not defeat us. We will 
defeat ourselves. Every known republic to the world collapsed through 
fiscal mismanagement. We can read the history, Alexander Tyler on the 
Athenian empire, several other scholarly works throughout the last two 
to three centuries.
  What we are really talking about is our kids. They are not my kids. 
My kids are grown. They are all in their 30s. We are talking about 
youngsters this age. She makes a great point. She is already $38,375 in 
debt, and all she owns is a dollhouse. The sad thing is, she totally 
underestimates, because her obligation for things we have promised 
ourselves for which she will have to pay above and beyond income tax 
rates we have today, Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes, is just 
a mere $400,000. So by the time she becomes 20, she will owe $800,000, 
if we count the interest which is coming. It is not long before we will 
be spending a trillion dollars a year on interest. And this number, by 
that time, will be $118,000. So now we will have her at $918,000 that 
she is going to have to pay off for us.
  Think about that as a moral question. Should we in fact cut the legs 
off our grandchildren so that politicians and political leaders today 
can spin things and avoid making the most difficult choices that we now 
need to make? If one follows the news, especially the financial news, 
the problem the United States faces today is the fact that the world is 
losing confidence in the dollar. There is a reason for that. What is 
the reason? The world is starting to sense that as we continue to 
borrow more and more billions and trillions of dollars that we will not 
be able to pay it back. Therefore, the world's valuation of our 
currency becomes less confident. Therefore, the cost to borrow in the 
future becomes higher. The figure I just quoted, the $918,000 per child 
who is born over the next 30 years, is based on today's interest rates 
of 3.4 percent on a 10-year note that the Government offers. What 
happens when the interest rates are 10 or 11 percent? We are talking 
about a fiscal collapse that has never before been seen in the history 
of the world. Yet we continue to put spending bills on the floor and 
laud the fact that we are only borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar 
we spend this year.
  There will come a time when we can't borrow 43 cents out of every 
dollar we spend. What will we do then? What will happen then? What will 
happen is the following: We will either see a totally debased currency 
which means everything we worked for our entire life will be markedly 
decreased in value or we will see 15, 20, 30 percent inflation. There 
is no other exit for this other than for us to do the following: We 
have to start making the hard choices now.
  This bill doesn't do it. From 2008 to 2009, the fiscal year ended 
September 30, we increased CJS by 15.5 percent. This bill comes back 
and increases it another 12.6 percent. Compound that out and we find, 
without the stimulus money they also got, that we will double the size 
of this agency in less than 4 years. I am not sure that is what we 
want.
  Here is what we have done so far. If we look at the bottom corner, 
inflation is expected to be less than 1.6 percent. Yet we see the 
following percentage increases: 5.7; 7.2; Energy and Water, 1.4--the 
only reason it was 1.4 is because they got $45 billion from the 
stimulus--Agriculture, 12.6; Treasury-HUD, 22.5; Interior, 16.2; and 
now CJS, 12.6.
  Most families--and I know almost every business--are making hard 
choices right now about what they spend money on and what they do not. 
They are in tough times. Somehow that hasn't reverberated to this body. 
If it has, it has not reverberated to the appropriations committees of 
the House or Senate. That will be an amendment to freeze spending at 
last year's level, which could easily be done, but we don't have the 
courage to do that. There will be several other amendments offered. 
They are working on an agreement at this time.
  I will be offering three amendments. I will wait until the Senator 
from Maryland comes before offering them. I understand they don't want 
me to call them up at this time. So I will not. One of the amendments 
limits funding to the National Science Foundation. It has created quite 
an uproar with political scientists that we would dare decrease the 
amount of money we spend on figuring out why politicians are vague or 
why certain people vote a certain way or the other way. What happens 
when we spend money on obvious answers is that money for the National 
Science Foundation doesn't go to cure a disease. It doesn't go to make 
an absolute impact on some child who is suffering from a chronic 
disease that unless the research dollars are there, they will never 
have a normal life or lifestyle. In fact, everybody screams when some 
of their money gets attacked.
  So the political scientists in the country, those who get this money, 
$91.3 million over the last 10 years that we have doled out to 
political scientists, that $91 million could have gone to the study of 
biology or chemistry or pharmaceutical science or fields of endeavor 
such as micronutrients or cellular metabolism or genetic manipulation 
so we can cure a disease. Instead, where do they spend the money? 
Campaigns and elections, electoral choice systems, political change, 
domestic conflict, party activism, political psychology, and political 
tolerance.
  What are some of the good things NSF does? NSF scientists have 
developed new computer-generated robotics to help people with severe 
disabilities. They can do what we can do, those of us who don't have a 
physical disability, except they can now do it with a robot. They 
become independent again and get their life back. NSF supported 
engineers that created a bone substitute that blends in tendon tissues 
which mimics natural bone and provides better integration so that 
people with lost movement in their joints have it returned. NSF created 
technology with their grants to engineer the next generation of 
biofuels. We are seeing the science. They created a new type of fiber 
reinforced concrete that bends without cracking. It is 300 to 500 times 
more resistant to cracking and 40 percent lighter in weight which means 
we can build bridges that will never fall down. We won't have a 
Minnesota tragedy again. That is the real science from the National 
Science Foundation.
  Let me give a little hint of what the National Science Foundation 
projects for political science have been.
  There is $188,206 to ask the question: Why do political candidates 
make vague statements, and what are the consequences? We all know the 
answer to that. They make vague statements because they want to get 
reelected. They do not want to get pinned down. It is not hard to 
figure out, but we blew a lot of money on it.
  How about a grant for political discussion in the workplace? That has 
to be an important priority for the country now that we are running a 
$1.6 trillion deficit.
  Here is one: television news and the visual framing of war. I am 
certain that is an important research topic that we should sacrifice 
our children's future for, and I know it must be a priority for her, 
this little girl, whose daddy or mama was smart enough to recognize 
what the real consequences of our behavior are.
  Or how about another study: Why people are for or against military 
conflicts? Nobody is for military conflicts. They are for the defense 
of our country. But to spend money to study why people are for or 
against? Tell me what that contributes to her future?
  I am accused of being a flatlander. I do come from Oklahoma. I was 
born in Wyoming. But there is one difference with us flatlanders: we 
actually have worked in our lives, we understand common sense, and we 
have had to make hard choices before.
  How about this study, the impact of Medicare reform on senior 
citizens' political views. I can tell you what it is. We take away a 
benefit, they are not going to like it; we add a benefit, they are 
going to like it. Send me the check. I will do it for free. It is 
plain, old common sense. It may be nice to have the statistics behind 
that, but we all know the answer to those questions.

[[Page 24550]]

  Here is another one: Evaluate whip counts. Let me tell you what a 
whip count is. Every party has a whip so they can count the votes 
before they happen so they think they know what is going to happen on 
the vote, so they know what votes to bring up and what votes not to. We 
are going to have a study by Congress: How do whip counts impact party 
leaders in the legislative process? Who cares. Nobody should care about 
that. What we should care about is her future. We have our priorities 
totally upside down and turned on their ear.
  How about a conference on the effect of YouTube on the 2008 election. 
Now, the people who are interested in that are politicians because 
``how do we use YouTube to get reelected?'' Should we be paying for 
that with your tax dollars? ``How do we keep incumbents incumbents?'' I 
would think a better study of political science is, how do you throw us 
all out. That is a better use of the funds. How do you get rid of us 
since we are doing such a terrible job managing the finances of this 
country?
  Or how about the ``NewsHour'' with Jim Lehrer--to pay for complete, 
live, prime-time gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Democratic and GOP 
National Conventions. Guess what. They were covered by three other 
networks free. We did not pay them a penny. Yet we pay this.
  We are going to increase NSF's budget in this bill 8 percent, the 
National Science Foundation. It is the one we ought to be increasing 12 
or 15 percent, but it ought to be on real science, on pure science, on 
science that has an outcome we can measure that is not related to the 
observation of common fact but is new research that will derive great 
benefits for the people of this country.
  So I will be offering an amendment to limit the amount of money. We 
are going to hear all sorts of claims. What we have heard already on 
the blogs is that National Science Foundation political science 
research contributes to our understanding of democracy. I think we have 
pretty well figured what democracy is. ``Our ability to have a free and 
open democratic process would be significantly harmed without this 
research.''
  You know what is being harmed is her generation, as we foolishly 
spend dollar after dollar on things that are not a priority--hundreds 
of millions of dollars on program after program after program that 90 
percent of Americans could say: That might be fine if we were in a 
cash-rich position, but at a time when the Federal Government is about 
to double every 4 years and the debt is about to double every 5 years, 
wouldn't it be smart to not spend money we don't have on things we 
don't need? So that is what this amendment is.
  There is another claim: The loss of National Science Foundation 
funding will significantly harm political science research in this 
country. Let me give you a few facts about that. The University of 
Michigan--they are the receiver of the largest grant under the NSF--has 
a $7.5 billion endowment. That is just one of the universities--$7.5 
billion--and we are supposed to keep sending, every 10 years, $100 
million for political science research.
  Here is the political science--here it is: The heritage of this 
Nation is that one generation creates opportunity for the next by 
sacrificing, making the hard choices they need to make to make sure 
what has worked in the past will provide them opportunities in the 
future. This does not do any of that. What it says is, the ones who are 
on the ins, the people who are well connected now, the people who are 
dependent on millions of dollars of funding--when they are sitting with 
billions of dollars in their endowments--are worth more than she is. 
That is exactly the problem.
  Until we figure out we are going to have to make some tough 
sacrifices, her future is at risk. Unless we do this fairly soon, we 
could very well be on an irreversible course. Two or three more years 
of spending the way we are spending and borrowing the way we are 
borrowing will doom her to a standard of living 40 percent below what 
we see today. Those are not my words, the economists agree. The 
governments are going to end up consuming 45 or 50 percent of our total 
GDP. We are at 10 percent this year--the highest in our history with 
the exception of being in the midst of World War II. Never have we been 
in such shape as we are in today.
  I think we have a lot of things wrong. But the No. 1 thing we have 
wrong is we have forgotten that service is about sacrifice. Service is 
about giving up something of you so somebody else gets ahead. We cannot 
expect the American people to model that behavior if we are not willing 
to do it. If everything we do is about protecting our own vested 
political interests and protecting our campaign contributors and 
protecting the well connected and not excluding and divorcing ourselves 
from all of that and making great commonsense judgments, we are history 
as a nation.
  I wonder when it started. I wonder when it started that we decided we 
were more important than the country. I wonder when it started when we 
decided we would push our hand and say: Stop the heritage of this 
country. When did it start that we decided we were worth more than the 
generations that follow us? When did it start that we decided we were 
not brave enough to take the hits to make the hard choices so the 
Republic can be preserved? When did it start? When did that cowardice 
start because it is ever present now as we go through the 
appropriations process.
  I ran a business for 9 years, and I learned a lot doing that. I 
learned a lot about people. But I also learned a lot about making tough 
choices. We, in fact, can make tough choices and preserve what is good 
and best and brightest in all of us. As a matter of fact, hope comes 
from that, when people make those tough decisions that, in fact, 
consider the very personal nature of how individuals are affected and 
they are at work for the common good for the long run.
  You see, there is not a business out there today that is surviving 
just thinking only in the short run. If they are, they will not be here 
2 years from now. They are all thinking in the long run. They are all 
positioning, planning, managing, developing. The same with families. 
They are doing that right now at the dinner table--positioning, 
planning, developing what is going to come next: How we are going to 
get where we want to go. We are in a rough period now. What do we cut 
back? What is the thing that we sacrifice today to secure the future 
for our family tomorrow?
  Ashamedly, not much of that exists in Washington. What does exist is 
a willingness to say yes to everybody, and then wink and nod and try to 
have it both ways. I am not a both ways kind of guy, and neither is 
America. The great sheet is about to be lifted over the, I would use, 
imbecilic methods of Washington. When transparency gets its full view, 
America is going to make some major changes, and I am not talking 
Republican-Democrat. I am talking both.
  This is a problem of elitism. This is a problem of short-term 
thinking by the political leaders of this country on: How do I manage 
my political career and to heck with the rest of the country. Nobody in 
their right mind would bring appropriations bills to the floor that 
have these types of increases at a time when we are stealing $1.4 
trillion from our grandkids. How do we justify it? How do we justify 
growing the Federal Government at a time when families are struggling 
like they have never struggled except during World War II and the Great 
Depression? How do we justify that?
  We do not justify it. We cannot justify it. What we can do, and what 
will happen in the debate on the amendments I bring forward--they will 
be ignored. They just will not debate it. It will go away. That is what 
happens when we bring critical amendments to the floor and question the 
wisdom of growing the Federal Government larger and larger without 
developing a way to pay for it and without taking a critical look at 
all of those programs out there.
  There is $350 billion worth of waste, fraud, and duplication in the 
Federal Government right now. The American people ought to be clamoring 
that we freeze spending everywhere until we

[[Page 24551]]

have done a review of every government program that is out there--just 
like they are doing with their own families, just like they are doing 
with their own businesses, just like every organization in America 
today is having to do, except governments.
  How is it this can happen? How is it we can go down the sewer drain 
just like other republics, knowing what history says will happen to us 
if, in fact, we abandon fiscal sanity? That is what this appropriations 
bill does, and all the rest of them we have passed because, in fact, we 
will double the size of the Federal Government in the next 4 years, 
based on 2008, 2009, not counting the stimulus.
  If we are running a $1.4 trillion deficit--actually $1.8 trillion 
when we count everything we have stolen from Social Security and 
everything we have stolen from, for example, the inland waterways trust 
fund and the other trust funds; and we have not funded any Federal 
pensions; and, by the way, we have not funded anything else we have an 
obligation for, such as VA health care or military retirement--none of 
those things are funded--what happens when we get in the crunch?
  What happens when nobody loans to us anymore? Wouldn't it be prudent 
to prepare for that? Wouldn't it be prudent for us to dig in as a 
nation--Democrats and Republicans and Independents--and say: Time out. 
Let's look where we are. Let's quit wasting $350 billion a year. Let's 
eliminate the duplication. There are 800 programs outside the 
Department of Education that are run by the Federal Government for 
education--outside the Department of Education. How about eliminating 
them or at least putting them in the Department of Education and 
consolidating them. And oh, by the way, education has done a wonderful 
job at the Federal Government level. As soon as the Federal Government 
got into our educational system, our scores started declining, our 
graduation rates started declining, and our college graduation rates 
started declining. That is the record of the Federal Government's 
involvement in education in this country.
  There is a lot we can fix, not just my ideas. The question I am 
asking is, Why aren't we asking the question? Why aren't the American 
people challenging their elected Members to the Senate and the House? 
Where are your priorities? Does she not matter? Does their future not 
matter? Answer the question: With $918,000 worth of unfunded liability 
and debt for which at 20 years of age she will be paying--we will be 
paying the interest, which means the taxes for that interest will come 
back to her eventually--how will she get a college education? How will 
she own a home besides a dollhouse? How will it happen? Will Tinker 
Bell just come down and give it to her? That isn't going to happen. So 
as we think outyears, we ought to be thinking about what our actions 
today are going to cost. Yet we don't.
  These are disturbing times. These are not just disturbing times 
because we face a war on terror, and they are not disturbing times 
because we have an economic downturn. What is disturbing is that we 
absolutely have avoided leadership in bringing this country back to its 
commonsense basics of spending money we have for things that are an 
ultimate priority, not spending money we don't have on things we don't 
need. A large portion of these appropriations bills spends money we 
don't have on things we don't need. We may want them. There is no 
question that politicians want them. There is no question that the 
National Science Foundation political science grantees want them. Do we 
need them? That is the question. And we have no leadership that will 
discern, at a crucial juncture in our history, a path that will bring 
us to not only a recovery from this recession but a recovery for an 
opportunity for every child her age.
  It is deeply personal with me. I have five grandchildren. I look in 
their eyes, and I see the potential of their lives and all of these 
other children who are out there. There is tremendous potential in 
them. You know what, we are going to waterboard them. That is what we 
are going to do. We are going to waterboard them. We are going to flood 
them with debt. We are going to shackle their opportunities. We are 
going to limit their possibilities because we don't have the courage to 
make the difference for their future.
  Mr. President, I will yield the floor, and I will come back and offer 
my amendments when the Senator from Maryland arrives.
  With that, I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2631.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. In my capacity as a Senator from Nebraska, I 
object.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2631

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up 
amendment No. 2631.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is 
set aside.
  Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending 
amendment and to call up amendment No. 2631.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will report.
  The assistant bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2631.

  Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To redirect funding of the National Science Foundation toward 
                     practical scientific research)

       At the appropriate place in title III, insert the 
     following:
       Sec. __.  None of the funds appropriated under this Act may 
     be used to carry out the functions of the Political Science 
     Program in the Division of Social and Economic Sciences of 
     the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences 
     of the National Science Foundation.


                           Amendment No. 2632

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the 
pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2632.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2632.

  Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       (Purpose: To require public disclosure of certain reports)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:
       Sec. ___. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of this 
     Act and except as provided in subsection (b), any report 
     required to be submitted by a Federal agency or department to 
     the Committee on Appropriations of either the Senate or the 
     House of Representatives in this Act shall be posted on the 
     public website of that agency upon receipt by the committee.
       (b) Subsection (a) shall not apply to a report if--
       (1) the public posting of the report compromises national 
     security; or
       (2) the report contains proprietary information.


                           Amendment No. 2667

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside that 
amendment in order to call up amendment No. 2667.

[[Page 24552]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will report.
  The assistant bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2667.

  Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

   (Purpose: To reduce waste and abuse at the Department of Commerce)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:
       Sec. ___. (a) Additional Amount for Office of Inspector 
     General.--The amount appropriated by title I under the 
     heading ``office of inspector general'' under the heading 
     ``Departmental Management'' under the heading ``DEPARTMENT OF 
     COMMERCE'' is increased by $4,499,000.
       (b) Offset.--The amount appropriated by title I under the 
     heading ``herbert c. hoover building renovation and 
     modernization'' under the heading ``Departmental Management'' 
     under the heading ``DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE'' is decreased by 
     $5,000,000.

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about amendment No. 2667. 
This is a fairly straightforward amendment.
  The House has $5 million for renovation of the Hoover Building. There 
is no question that we need to have a continuing ongoing project of 
renovating that. However, in the Senate, we have $17.5 million.
  If we look at the Commerce Department and what is going wrong, what 
we see is that because we are limited by funds, we don't have an active 
enough oversight of what is going on inside; otherwise, we could never 
account for the billions of dollars of waste on the census.
  This is a straightforward amendment. It just says: Of that $17.5 
million, we are going to take $5 million, which still puts us at 2\1/2\ 
times what the House has, and direct it toward the Inspector General's 
Office of the Commerce Department. What that does is it enhances 
oversight, enhances transparency, and enhances communication back to 
the Commerce Department so we can see what is going on with an agency 
that is obviously troubled.
  The inspector general's department, and agency-wide, is fielded by 
tough, great people who probably would pretty much agree with 
everything I spent the last hour talking about. The fact is, they are 
limited in what they can do. They are limited by the funds we give 
them. So we now come down again to priorities. Do we build bicycle 
racks out in front of the Herbert C. Hoover Building or do we spend 
money making sure the inspectors general and the auditors can actually 
see what is going on in this agency?
  It is very straightforward. It is going to be a fun vote. I 
understand how amendments go on the Senate floor when we are in the 
mood to spend money and not act responsibly. But do we really want 
transparency, do we really want to know what is going on, do we really 
want to discover the reason we are in such big trouble, and do we 
really want to fund the inspector general at a level that will give us 
the information upon which we can make better decisions? That leaves 
alone the question of whether we will make better decisions. I have a 
lack of confidence on that, but at least with the right information, we 
will be able to, in fact, see what is going on.
  We continue not to prioritize funds. The Department of Commerce is 
going to get a 52-percent increase in funding in our version of this 
bill. It receives $7.9 billion in additional stimulus funds. That was 
85 percent of what they received entirely in 2009, which means in a 
matter of 2 years we will have given them on average three times what 
they receive normally in a year. So we are talking about taking a small 
portion--$5 million--and directing it to the Inspector General's Office 
so they can do what is needed to be done in terms of carrying out their 
responsibilities.
  There is no question in my mind that the Department of Commerce is 
suffering from mismanagement. I am not directing this to the present 
Secretary; I am directing this backwards through the Bush 
administration. Here are some statements that were made in the Senate 
report accompanying this bill:

       The committee is extremely concerned about the persistent 
     pattern of cost overruns and schedule slippages on major 
     projects and missions carried out by the agencies in this 
     bill.
       The committee remains apprehensive about the management of 
     the census.
       Reports have exposed a culture within many agencies that 
     exhibits a lack of accountability in oversight of grant 
     funding.
       The committee is concerned that the Census Bureau has 
     failed to implement three recommendations by the IG.
       NOAA's satellite programs have undergone extensive 
     independent reviews after experiencing cost overruns, delays, 
     and setbacks.
       The National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental 
     Satellite system has struggled for years with cost overruns 
     and schedule delays and a high risk of gaps occurring to the 
     Nation's weather and climate satellites.
       The committee remains concerned by the lack of progress in 
     reducing patent pendency and the overall patent backlog.

  I note the committee routinely takes money away from patent fees to 
use on other funds. As such, the committee has provided bill language 
to transfer funding to the Office of the Inspector General for the 
express purpose of conducting all audit engagements in the oversight of 
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
  Despite these concerns--and I didn't list them all--with the Commerce 
Department, and a 52-percent increase in spending in the bill, if you 
were concerned, why would you increase spending that much? That is No. 
1. The account for the inspector general is increased only by 4.4 
percent. So this is a measly little $5 million out of a $17.5 million 
increase. The House only has $5 million for the Herbert C. Hoover 
Building. So we put 2\1/2\ times what the House does in the building, 
and we actually give the IG the money he needs to do his job. There 
isn't an agency that needs more oversight and more work by an inspector 
general than the Commerce Department.
  I will limit my comments on this at the present time, and I will 
defer to the chairman, if she wishes to speak; Otherwise, I will 
discuss one of the other amendments.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, first, we acknowledge the need for the 
Commerce Department to clean up its act in terms of its spending. The 
Senator from Oklahoma has indeed identified the very programs that give 
me heartburn as well: the NOAA satellite program, which continually has 
cost overruns; the decennial census, until we intervened with Secretary 
Gutierrez, had become a techno boondoggle; the backlog at the Patent 
and Trademark Office is well known.
  However, he proposes to increase funds for the IG, even though the 
bill already meets the request for this office. This amendment is 
unnecessary because we provide $27 million for the Commerce inspector 
general. This matches what President Obama said he wanted to put in the 
Federal budget, and he thought it would do the job. In fiscal year 
2009, the IG of Commerce received 25.8. So we puffed it up 1.2 million 
already. In addition to the stimulus package, just to be sure that 
money was going in the right direction, we in the subcommittee, working 
on a bipartisan basis with Senator Shelby, put in an additional $6 
million to make sure we did have oversight and accountability. We have 
not received any indication from the IG that that IG needs more money. 
Unnecessary funding will not make those problems go away. What we want 
to do is be able to push them, advocate them, and stand sentry.
  The building restoration which this amendment proposes to do will 
only add to the Commerce Department's problems. It is called the 
Herbert C. Hoover Building. The building is in substandard condition. 
It really is in substandard condition. It is the only building over 
there that has not been upgraded in several years. Funding in this bill 
would begin to modernize it, particularly in much needed health and 
safety codes--heating, air conditioning, electricity, and plumbing. 
Funding in this covers the long partnership with GSA. I want the 
Senator from Oklahoma to know I agree that we have to stand sentry on 
Commerce. If you go

[[Page 24553]]

over the bill, I have added some tough provisions with Senator Shelby 
on oversight--particularly on this NOAA satellite program. But taking 
from much needed repairs at Commerce to fund the much needed repairs in 
oversight I don't think cuts it. I will oppose the amendment of the 
Senator from Oklahoma, though I think he and I are on the same 
broadband about necessary stewardship.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. COBURN. We have communication from the GSA that says this 
amendment will not inhibit any of the plans, upgrades, or improvements 
to the Herbert C. Hoover Building. No. 2, we all admit there are 
problems at the Commerce Department. We have a 12.6-percent increase in 
spending but we increase the IG by 4.4 percent. We are going to 
increase spending three times faster than the ability to track it and 
oversee it. We did increase it 4.4 percent, but we increased the agency 
12.6 percent. We have our priorities backward. We should be increasing 
the IG by 12.6 percent and the agency 4 percent, or 1.6 percent to 
match inflation.
  This amendment will not, in any way, according to GSA, impede their 
ability to make the corrections that they need to make in terms of 
health and safety at the Herbert C. Hoover Building.
  I thank the chairman for her recognition of the problems at this 
agency. The answer to solve it is to let the dogs run. Let them find 
it. Let them go after it. Let them bring to light transparency, and let 
them bring the reports that we need so we can make the changes we need.


                           Amendment No. 2632

  I want to spend a few moments on my next amendment, No. 2632. This is 
a very similar amendment. I spoke about it earlier. This amendment says 
that whatever reports we ask for, whatever answers we want from these 
agencies, in fact, unless it has to do with national security or 
defense, should be reported to every Senator, not just the Senators on 
the Appropriations Committee. And more importantly, it should be 
reported to everybody in America. This is a great open government 
amendment which says we will be transparent.
  We are requesting numerous reports in this bill. Why should the 
American people not get to see what those reports show? Why should we 
not get to see how we are spending our money, why we are spending our 
money, and whether the effect of spending the money is having the 
desired outcome? H.R. 2847 requires reports, audits, and evaluates all 
decision documents and expenditures by the Bureau of the Census. We all 
know that has been a problem. And I dispute that Secretary Gutierrez 
did anything about the problem, other than talk the former leader of 
the census into leaving. Secretary Gutierrez should have been following 
the census to know before it ever got in that kind of shape. We have a 
wonderful leader there now, and I fully support him. I supported his 
nomination, and I supported his approval by the Senate.
  This would also require a quarterly report by the Attorney General 
regarding the costs and contracting procedures related to each 
conference held by the Department of Justice. Why should not everybody 
get to see that? Why should not Americans, who are actually paying for 
that, and their grandkids, such as this young lady in the photo, get to 
see it? Why should she not get to see that? This is straightforward. We 
will have a vote on this amendment. I have learned my lesson on not 
getting them accepted. When they go to conference, we still hide it 
from the American people. So we will have a vote on this amendment and 
see whether people want to hide what we are doing or want it exposed 
fully to the American people. It is a good government amendment.
  We also have a request for a report that the Secretary, within 120 
days of enactment of this act, shall report to the Committee on 
Appropriations that audits and evaluates all decision documents and 
expenditures by the Bureau of Census as it relates to the 2010 census. 
Why just the Senators on the Appropriations Committee? Why not the 
American people? Why should they not see that?
  The other thing it will do is allow us to conduct better oversight. 
The committee chairman--I have great regard for the Senator from 
Maryland, because I think she does care about oversight. I cannot say 
that about all of our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee. We 
would have done a lot of oversight on the Census Bureau in the 
Government Affairs Subcommittee. I can tell you that we have great 
employees there. We have had terrible leadership until now. At $60 a 
person to count people in the United States, people ought to ask why. 
How did we allow this to happen?
  This amendment is one that the vast majority of Americans concur with 
and the vast majority of my colleagues, I hope, will concur with.
  I yield to the chairman of the committee.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I want to make a comment about the status of the 
Commerce Department building. I will be very clear that the 
subcommittee, on a bipartisan basis, supports vigorous oversight. The 
Commerce Building has not been renovated in more than 20 years.
  Let me quote to you from the Washington Post in an article called 
``NOAA's Ark.'' It says:

       When the Marine ecologist Jane Lubchenko was finally 
     confirmed in March as the Under Secretary of Commerce in 
     charge of NOAA, she went to check into her new digs on the 
     fifth floor at the Commerce Department. It was a fine corner 
     on 15th and Constitution, nothing fancy, but it overlooked 
     the Washington Monument. But when she opened the door and she 
     went to powder her nose, she found a massive Norwegian rat. 
     The critter had come in through the derelict plumbing that 
     was in her office. Now, she, with her typical good humor, 
     laughed it off and said, as an ecologist, she found it 
     biologically fascinating that sewer rats were able to come 
     into the Commerce Department.

  We told her she couldn't have a grant to study it, but we wanted to 
do something about the renovation. That is what we are--we want the 
best and the brightest to work in our government agencies, and to come 
up with new ideas such as in NOAA, to save the planet, to do the 
necessary scientific research to save fisheries. In that case, it would 
have influenced the economy of my State tremendously. We cannot 
minimize the need to refurbish that building. Air pockets have been 
developing in the plumbing at the Department of Commerce, and in order 
to get rid of the rats, you have to have regular flushes. This is not a 
laughing matter. It sounds like a laughing matter, but I want to be 
able to go forward to modernize the Commerce Department, working with 
the Secretary, and continue our vigorous oversight. Let's modernize the 
building. I hope we can defeat that amendment.
  There is an amendment that the Senator from Oklahoma has offered that 
requires more transparency in our reports to Congress. I think that is 
a good idea. Again, discussing this with my colleague, Senator Shelby, 
we both think it is a good idea. If the Senator from Oklahoma will 
concur--because I am for transparency and I believe we cannot have 
enough of it so that the American people can see things and make up 
their own minds--in the interest of time, I would accept the amendment. 
If the Senator would be willing to do a voice vote, I would be more 
than willing to accommodate that. I think the amendment is excellent 
and I believe it improves the bill. I am happy to accept it, or have it 
voice voted, or have a recorded vote, whatever the Senator wants.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for her words on this 
amendment. I have learned a very critical lesson. We have an Energy and 
Water Appropriations bill that we did the same thing on. For some 
reason, it didn't come out of conference. Transparency didn't come out. 
I don't doubt the veracity of the senior Senator from Maryland, but I 
would just as soon have a recorded vote, if she would not mind.
  I also want to answer the story of the rat, which is a great example 
of the

[[Page 24554]]

mismanagement at the Department of Commerce. It does not relate to the 
present Secretary at all. If, in fact, you have plumbing problems in 
the building, the management is supposed to raise that issue. In fact, 
the Department of Commerce received a large sum of money with the 
stimulus. The House has only $5 million for the Herbert C. Hoover 
Building. GSA says this amendment will not limit at all their ability 
to accomplish what they want to accomplish there.
  So if, in fact, $17.5 million is enough to get it done, why would we 
object to having more than that--if GSA says it is only going to pay 
$17.5 million, why are we putting $22.5 million in it in the first 
place?
  The example proves my point: Management is lacking. With vigorous 
leadership and a vigorous, strong inspector general force that is 
funded at the same level of increase that we fund the government, as 
far as percentage of increases, we could hope to accomplish that.


                           Amendment No. 2631

  I will move to my other amendment No. 2631. I spent a lot of time 
talking about this amendment before the chairman came to the floor. I 
will not repeat everything I said, but I will discuss the question of 
priorities.
  I have a great respect for a lot of what the National Science 
Foundation does. I have very little respect for their grants for 
political science as a science. Part of that is because I think it is 
low on the priority of where they should be spending money when we can 
create things through NSF to save lives and also because of some of the 
grants that have been spent and put out there.
  I will review a few of those over a short period of time and then 
will yield the floor to my colleague, the chairman of this 
subcommittee.
  How do you back up the fact that the National Science Foundation 
gives a grant for political science--here is the question asked: Why do 
political candidates make vague statements and what are the 
consequences? In the realm of science, being a physician, being trained 
in the sciences, first of all, it is a question to which we already 
know the answer. We know why politicians make vague statements. Because 
they don't want to get pinned down. But most important, they want to 
get reelected or elected. For us to send money to study something that 
stupid, that low on priorities is beyond me.
  Or why are people for or against military conflicts? Do we need that 
science to tell us so that the next time we are in a military conflict 
we go out and manipulate the American people or do we have military 
conflicts based on the national defense and security interests of this 
country, even when there are political consequences to it?
  The real world would never fund such stupidness. They would never 
allow millions and millions of dollars every year to be spent on silly 
things to help politicians understand why they spin or why they do not 
answer questions or why people might be for or against war. It is 
pretty easy to figure out.
  Or studying how Medicare reform affects seniors' political views. 
That is pretty easy: If it hurts me, I am ``agin'' it; if it helps me, 
I am for it. Yet we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars paying for 
grants, through the National Science Foundation, to universities that 
have billions and billions of dollars in endowments. As a matter of 
fact, Tufts University has billions in endowments. They charge their 
students $40,000 a year in tuition alone. They are the recipients of 
some of this grant work, and they are the ones squawking the loudest.
  So here we have an entitled class of professors in political science 
who now don't want their gravy train taken away when I say right now 
there is no way this can be a priority for this country with the debt 
we have and the economic situation we have. It cannot be as important 
as a multitude of other things for this young lady. It cannot be.
  I do not have any illusions about what is going to happen to this 
amendment. I know the appropriators reign supreme. What I am hoping is 
that the American people ultimately reign supreme. So as we vote to 
vote down this amendment or they vote to table this amendment so they 
do not have to directly vote on the amendment, one has to walk back and 
say: What is going on in Washington that you will not clean up the 
excesses in a time of great national distress? We will not and we 
haven't, and that is why we have a giant increase from last year and 
this year. We entered the recession in 2007, remember? That is why we 
borrowed 43 cents out of every $1 we spent this year because we will 
not make these hard, tough choices about why politicians are vague, 
while we continue to spend millions and millions of dollars so somebody 
can sit in an office and pontificate and you can see the same answer--
all you have to do is look at the news shows and you get the same 
answers.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. COBURN. I make an inquiry of the Chair. Do we have a limit on 
time for debate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. is evenly 
divided.
  Mr. COBURN. I understand. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, for a point of clarification, the time 
of the Senator from Oklahoma has expired and how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 22\1/2\ minutes.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I would like to speak on these 
amendments for as much time as I may consume, and then if there is some 
remaining time, perhaps we could, in the interest of comity, share some 
time. As I understand it, there is a vote scheduled at 5:30.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, before the Senator leaves, I wish to 
give him two punch lines. First of all, I know he doesn't think much of 
political science. He made that clear. But I wish to bring to his 
attention that Dr. Elinor Ostrom, who just won the Nobel Prize for 
Economics, is a political scientist. She received most of her funding 
through the National Science Foundation--28 grant awards since 1974. 
Those grants helped her lay the groundwork for winning the Nobel Prize. 
She is a political scientist, but she used that talent to win the 
prize. I will elaborate on that. I am a big fan of her work.
  The other point I wish to bring to the Senator's attention is that 
the National Science Foundation has an $8 million agreement with DOD in 
their Social Science Department on the social science dimensions of 
national security, conflicts, and cooperation. DOD, under its Minerva 
initiative, has joined with the National Science Foundation because 
they want academic researchers involved in studying authoritarian 
regimes, the strategic impact of religious and cultural change, 
terrorist organizations, and other new dimensions in social security. I 
will describe those grants in detail.
  Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Ms. MIKULSKI. In a minute. What I wish to make clear is that the 
National Science Foundation has helped fund the work that laid the 
groundwork for a talented person to win not only the Nobel Prize but to 
come up with the kind of ideas where maybe we could win markets and 
jobs. The Department of Defense thought enough of the National Science 
Foundation's Social Science Department to come up with an $8 million--
and it is not a lot of money--but an $8 million agreement to fund 17 
projects, where they are going to be studying things such as 
authoritarian regimes, terrorist organizations, the impact on religious 
and cultural change, and how maybe they could avoid us being blown up. 
If one of those studies helps one policymaker make one decision to save 
one marine, I think it is worth the 8 million bucks, and I am willing 
to put it in the Federal budget.
  I will be happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, will the Senator agree that the Defense 
Department funds all sorts of research in all sorts of scientific 
areas, and they don't necessarily do that on the predicate--

[[Page 24555]]

they do it on the basis of what their need is. There is a very big 
difference, does the Senator agree, between the social sciences and 
political science?
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Will the Senator from Oklahoma agree that political 
science is one of the branches of social science?
  Mr. COBURN. Sure, and I am only targeting with my amendment political 
science, not social sciences, if the Senator reads my amendment.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Within these DOD grants, I am not sure which ones are 
sociology, anthropology or political science because it is in that one 
directorate.
  Mr. COBURN. I thank the chairman for allowing me to ask a question.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I oppose, as you can see, the amendment 
of the Senator from Oklahoma. He wants to eliminate $9 million from the 
political science program at the National Science Foundation. I don't 
like targeting an individual science area. Today it might be political 
science. Another Senator might target biology. Remember how we stifled 
science under the gag rules and gag guidelines of stem cell research?
  Also, I don't like trivializing academic research and academics, that 
somehow or another there is worthwhile science and then there are 
others that can be minimized or trivialized.
  First, I remind everyone about the work of the National Science 
Foundation. The NSF has received bipartisan support, and in rising 
above the gathering storm, the National Academy of Sciences pointed out 
that the National Science Foundation is one of our lead agencies in 
promoting innovation through its research and its education programs.
  This bill also supports the funding for the Directorate for Social, 
Behavior and Economic Science. That is the one, which I talked about 
with the Senator from Oklahoma, which oversees the political science 
office. This directorate's mission is to use basic research to 
understand human and institutional behavior vital to rebuilding our 
national infrastructure and understanding how we operate as a society.
  This program began in 1962, and over the years, it has also included 
an open, transparent relationship with the Department of Defense. This 
is not black-box research. This is out-of-the-box research so maybe we 
could figure out our world better and deal with conflict resolution or 
when we are in a conflict, how we can work with other people around the 
world and build democratic societies and democratic institutions.
  In recent news, we also were awakened with great pride that two 
American women won the Nobel Prize. One is Dr. Greider, in my home 
State of Maryland at Johns Hopkins. I talked with Dr. Greider the other 
day. Wow, what a great American scientist. She answered her own phone. 
She was going to join her daughter at a soccer game right after she had 
gotten the call from Stockholm. As we talked about her groundbreaking 
research in microbiology, she said she was able to do her work because 
of the grants she had received through the National Institutes of 
Health. They had helped her get her education, and they had helped her 
do her research. They helped her to win the Nobel Prize. But for 
herself, she thought the prize would be a tribute to what her work was 
in microbiology that could lead to saving lives.
  We also had another woman win the Nobel Prize--Dr. Elinor Ostrom. Her 
training is in political science. She won the Nobel Prize for 
economics. She is the first woman ever to win the prize for economics--
an American woman. Although not in the Congress, she has received 
several political science grants from NSF because political science 
also looks at institutions which also have an impact on our economy. 
Since 1974, Dr. Ostrom has received over 20 grants, and these grants 
helped her do her fieldwork all over the world in relationship to the 
economic activity of people and communities. The Royal Swedish Academy 
of Sciences thought enough of her work to award her the Nobel Prize. 
But long before they heard of her in Stockholm, the National Science 
Foundation had heard of her and helped her with her award-winning 
research.
  We have to keep this going. Our National Science Foundation and our 
other scientific institutions must go where no thought has gone before. 
That is the point of discovery. Discovery has led to innovation. 
Innovation leads to the new ideas that lead to the new jobs in our 
society. A society that doesn't innovate stagnates. And innovation 
comes not only in engineering, though much needed; it doesn't only come 
in physics, though much desired; it doesn't come only in medicine, in 
the biological research, though much revered; a lot of this is the 
basic social sciences.
  As I said to the Senator from Oklahoma, for the last 8 years there 
has been a relationship between DOD and the National Science 
Foundation--again, in open, transparent research. And here, I am 
quoting from the ``Federal Technology Watch,'' October 6, 2009. 
``Federal Technology Watch'' is a weekly report on Federal technology, 
science, and policy areas.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
the article from which I am going to quote.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           [From the Federal Technology Watch, Oct. 9, 2009]


          NSF finds declining federal support of academic r&d

       US universities reported science and engineering r&d 
     expenditures of $51.9-billion in FY08, according to a new 
     National Science Foundation (NSF) report released Oct. 2. 
     However, the preliminary findings of NSF's Survey of Research 
     and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges are 
     that federal funding decreased as a share of the academic r&d 
     total, from 64% in FY05 to 60% in FY08. Despite this drop, 
     the federal government retains its traditional role as the 
     largest source of academic r&d funding.
       The FY08 survey data showed an increase in federally funded 
     expenditures of 2.5% in current dollars, reaching $31.2-
     billion. After adjusting for inflation, this is a 0.2% 
     increase from FY07 and follows two years of real declines 
     since FY05.
       Other statistical notes from the NSF report include:
       --Combined sources of non-federal funding grew 8.3% during 
     FY08;
       --State and local government funding of r&d expenditures 
     grew in FY08 8.8%, increasing to $3.4-billion from $3.1-
     billion in FY07;
       --Industry funding of academic r&d grew 7.1% to $2.9-
     billion in FY08;
       --Funding from academic institutions increased 7% to $10.4-
     billion in FY08.
       Also, r&d funds for joint projects that were passed through 
     primary university recipients to other university sub-
     recipients almost doubled from FY00 to FY08, growing from 
     $700-million to $1.4-billion in constant 2000 dollars. The 
     current dollar amount of $1.7-billion represents 3.3% of 
     total academic r&d expenditures in FY08, compared with 2.3% 
     of the total in FY00.
       InfoBrief 09-318, written by NSF analyst Ronda Britt of the 
     r&d statistics program, is available at: <www.nsf.gov/
statistics/infbrief/nsf09318/nsf09318.pdf>


                         Electric vehicle forum

       The first-ever US-China Electric Vehicle Forum was held 
     last week in Beijing, China.
       Attended by over 140 US and Chinese officials from 
     government, industry, academia and advocacy groups, the forum 
     discussed progress made in the electric vehicle industry and 
     opportunities for future collaboration.
       The event, co-hosted by Department of Energy (DOE) 
     assistant secretary for policy and international affairs 
     David Sandalow and Chinese Science & Technology Minister Wan 
     Gang, highlighted the rapidly growing electric vehicle 
     industry in both countries.
       ``The US and China share a strong common interest in 
     putting millions of electric vehicles on the road soon, which 
     will lessen our dependence on foreign oil and help address 
     the global climate challenge,'' Sandalow said Sept. 29. 
     ``Working together, we can accomplish more than acting 
     alone.''
       America and China are the two largest auto markets and 
     energy consumers, and together emit over 40% of the world's 
     greenhouse gases. The forum offered a venue for experts to 
     exchange views on recent electric vehicle developments and 
     identify promising opportunities for technical and policy 
     collaboration.
       This year is the 30th anniversary of the US-China Science & 
     Technology Agreement, which represented the first agreement 
     between the two countries following normalization of 
     relations in the 1970s.
       ``By working together, the US and China can leverage 
     technological breakthroughs, increase consumer acceptance and 
     grow market penetration of clean vehicles,'' said White House 
     counselor for energy and climate change Jody Freeman, who was 
     a speaker at the forum.


                        NSF-DOD projects funded

       $8-million has been awarded to 17 projects by the National 
     Science Foundation (NSF)

[[Page 24556]]

     under a joint NSF/Department of Defense (DOD) solicitation.
       The competition, Social and Behavioral Dimensions of 
     National Security, Conflict and Cooperation, is focused on 
     basic social and behavioral science of strategic importance 
     to US national security policy, as part of the DOD's Minerva 
     Initiative launched in 2008.
       Four topic areas that address the needs of national 
     security policymakers and the ideals of open academic basic 
     research were determined jointly by DOD and NSF for the 
     solicitation. They are: authoritarian regimes, the strategic 
     impact of religious and cultural change, terrorist 
     organizations and ideologies, and new dimensions in national 
     security.
       These proposals were funded under the 2009 competition:
       --Status, manipulating group threats, and conflict within 
     and between groups: Patrick Barclay (Univ. of Guelph) & 
     Stephen Bernard (Indiana Univ.);
       --Behavioral insights into national security issues: Rachel 
     Croson (UT Dallas) & Charles Holt (Univ. of Virginia);
       --Experimental analysis of alternative models of conflict 
     bargaining: Wiilliam Reed (William Marsh Rice Univ.), Charles 
     Holt (Univ. of Virginia), Timothy Nordstrom (Univ. of 
     Mississippi), and David Clark (State Univ. of New York--
     Binghamton);
       --Terror, conflict processes, organizations, and 
     ideologies: Completing the picture: Stephen Shellman (College 
     of William & Mary), Remco Chang (Univ. of North Carolina--
     Charlotte), Michael Covington (Univ. of Georgia), Joseph 
     Young (Southern Illinois Univ.--Carbondale), & Michael 
     Findley (Brigham Young Univ.);
       --How politics inside dictatorships affects regime 
     stability and international conflict: Barbara Geddes (UCLA) & 
     Joseph Wright (Pennsylvania State Univ.);
       --Mapping terrorist organizations: Martha Crenshaw 
     (Stanford Univ.);
       --People, power, and conflict in the Eurasian migration 
     system: Cynthia Buckley (UT Austin);
       --Strategies of violence, tools of peace, and changes in 
     war termination: Virginia Fortna (Columbia Univ.);
       --Avoiding water wars: Environmental security through river 
     treaty institutionalization: Jaroslav Tir (Univ. of Georgia);
       --Predicting the nature of conflict--an evolutionary 
     analysis of the tactical choice: Laura Razzolini (Virginia 
     Commonwealth Univ.) & Atin Basuchoudhary (Virginia Military 
     Institute);
       --Fighting and bargaining over political power in weak 
     states: Robert Powell (UC Berkeley);
       --Political economy of terrorism and insurgency (workshop): 
     Eli Berman (UC San Diego);
       --Substantive expertise, strategic analysis and behavioral 
     foundations of terrorism (workshop): Rachel Croson (UT 
     Dallas);
       --New armies from old: Merging competing military forces 
     after civil wars (workshop): Roy Licklider (Rutgers Univ.);
       --Engaging intensely adversarial states: The strategic 
     limits and potential of public diplomacy in US national 
     security policy: Geoffrey Wiseman (Univ. of Southern 
     California);
       --Deciphering civil conflict in the Middle East: J. Craig 
     Jenkins (Ohio State Univ.); and
       --Modeling discourse and social dynamics in authoritarian 
     regimes: Jeff Hancock (Cornell Univ.), Arthur Graesser (Univ. 
     of Memphis) & David Beaver (UT Austin).
       DOD partnered with NSF to reach the broadest range of 
     academic, social and behavioral science, and this 
     collaboration combines the insights of DOD with the peer 
     review expertise of NSF in support of the agencies' desire to 
     promote basic social and behavioral scientific research in 
     areas that will benefit the US.


                        EPA's nanotech strategy

       A new research strategy to understand better how 
     manufactured nanomaterials may harm human health and the 
     environment was outlined by the Environmental Protection 
     Agency (EPA) on Sept. 29.
       The strategy describes what research EPA will support over 
     the next several years to generate information about safe use 
     of nanotechnology and products that contain nano-scale 
     materials. It also includes research into ways nanotechnology 
     can be used to clean up toxic chemicals in the environment.
       Nanomaterials are between one and 100 nanometers and used 
     in hundreds of consumer products, including sunscreen, 
     cosmetics and sports equipment. The unusual light-absorbing 
     properties of zinc or titanium nanoparticles make high-SPF 
     nano sunscreens clear rather than white and studies have 
     shown that they provide superior protection against UV 
     radiation.
       Part of EPA's role among federal agencies is to determine 
     the potential hazards of nanotechnology and develop 
     approaches to reduce or minimize any risks identified. As 
     part of the strategy, EPA researchers are investigating 
     widely-used nanomaterials, such as the carbon nanotubes used 
     in vehicles, sports equipment and electronics, and titanium 
     dioxide used in paints, cosmetics and sunscreens.
       The research, being conducted in EPA's own laboratories and 
     by grant recipients as part of a collaborative effort with 
     other federal agencies and the international community, uses 
     a multi-disciplinary approach that examines all aspects of 
     nanomaterials in the environment, from their manufacture and 
     use to their disposal or recycling.
       EPA's new nanotech web site offers details about the 
     research: <www.epa.gov/nanoscience>


                        President extends PCAST

       On Sept. 29, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 
     (E.O.) 13511, which extended terms of several federal 
     advisory committees including the President's Council of 
     Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), E.O. 13226, as 
     amended (Office of S&T Policy), until Sept. 30 2011.
       Other committees whose terms are extended include the 
     following: Committee for the Preservation of the White House, 
     E.O. 11145, as amended (Interior Dept.); National 
     Infrastructure Advisory Council; E.O. 13231, as amended 
     (Department of Homeland Security); Federal Advisory Council 
     on Occupational Safety and Health, E.O. 12196, as amended 
     (Labor Dept.), President's Board of Advisors on Historically 
     Black Colleges and Universities, E.O. 13256 (Education 
     Dept.), President's Board of Advisors on Tribal Colleges and 
     Universities, E.O. 13270 (Education Dept.), President's 
     Commission on White House Fellowships, E.O. 11183, as amended 
     (Office of Personnel Management), President's Committee on 
     the National Medal of Science, E.O. 11287, as amended 
     (National Science Foundation), President's Export Council, 
     E.O. 12131, as amended (Commerce Dept.), President's National 
     Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, E.O. 12382, 
     as amended (Department of Homeland Security), and the Trade 
     and Environment Policy Advisory Committee, E.O. 12905 (Office 
     of the US Trade Representative).
       E.O. 13511 took effect Sept. 30 2009.


                        US-Russian nuclear talks

       Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman and Russia's State 
     Atomic Energy
       Corporation's (Rosatom) director general Sergei Kiriyenko 
     held the first meetings of the joint US-Russian Nuclear 
     Energy and Nuclear Security Working Group last week.
       The Sept. 28-29 meetings opened with a session hosted by 
     Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who met with director general 
     Kiriyenko and deputy secretary Poneman to discuss a number of 
     issues, including the two countries' mutual work securing 
     vulnerable nuclear materials, efforts to increase cooperation 
     on civil nuclear technologies, and cooperation on other 
     nuclear security issues.
       ``The US and Russia have a long and successful track record 
     of cooperation in the area of nuclear security,'' said 
     Poneman. ``These meetings and our visits to Oak Ridge 
     National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex 
     demonstrate how seriously our countries take our shared 
     responsibility to promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy 
     while combating nuclear dangers. I look forward to continuing 
     this record by expanding our cooperation in fulfillment of 
     our presidents' joint statement.''
       The meetings, which ended with a plenary session co-chaired 
     by Poneman and Kiriyenko, were the first since the working 
     group was established under the US-Russia Bilateral 
     Presidential Commission during the July 2009 Presidential 
     Summit. The Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Security Working Group 
     is co-chaired by Poneman and Kiriyenko. In addition to talks 
     in Washington DC, the meetings included a visit by director 
     general Kiriyenko and Poneman to the National Nuclear 
     Security Administration's Y-12 National Security Complex and 
     Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
       ``This visit is devoted to an in-depth discussion of the 
     issues of nuclear energy and nuclear security as stipulated 
     by the mandate from the presidents of the Russian Federation 
     and the US,'' said Kiriyenko. ``We're looking forward to the 
     expansion of our bilateral cooperation on these issues.''
       After their meeting with Secretary Chu, Poneman and 
     Kiriyenko flew to Tennessee to visit ORNL and Y-12, where 
     they watched a joint nuclear security training exercise. At 
     Y-12, Poneman and Kiriyenko discussed nuclear materials 
     management issues and toured the recently completed Highly 
     Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. During their ORNL visit, 
     Kiriyenko and Poneman received a briefing at the 
     Radiochemical Engineering Development Center and the 
     Spallation Neutron Source.
       As a result of the meeting, a joint action plan was 
     formulated by the working group and will be forwarded to 
     President Obama and President Medvedev through Secretary of 
     State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey 
     Lavrov. Secretary Clinton and Foreign Minister Lavrov serve 
     as the Bilateral Commission Coordinators.


                       DHS cyber hires authority

       The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has received new 
     authority to recruit and hire cybersecurity professionals 
     over the next three years to help the agency meet its broad 
     mission to protect the nation's cyber infrastructure, systems 
     and networks.
       ``Effective cybersecurity requires all partners--
     individuals, communities, government entities and the private 
     sector--to work together to protect our networks and 
     strengthen our cyber resiliency,'' Homeland Security

[[Page 24557]]

     Secretary Janet Napolitano said Oct.1 at the launch of 
     National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. ``This new hiring 
     authority will enable [us] to recruit the best cyber 
     analysts, developers and engineers in the world to serve 
     their country by leading the nation's defenses against cyber 
     threats.''
       A collaboration between DHS, the Office of Personnel 
     Management (OPM) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 
     the new authority allows DHS to fill up to 1,000 critical 
     cybersecurity staff positions over three years across all of 
     its components. These roles include cyber risk & strategic 
     analysis, cyber incident response, vulnerability detection & 
     assessment, intelligence & investigation, and network & 
     systems engineering. But DHS doesn't anticipate needing to 
     fill all the posts.
       The announcement was made by Secretary Napolitano at a 
     National Cybersecurity Awareness Month ceremony with Deputy 
     Defense Secretary William Lynn III and White House national 
     security staff acting senior director for cybersecurity Chris 
     Painter.
       For National Cybersecurity Awareness Month details, visit: 
     <www.staysafeonline.org>


                        sba awards prime grants

       The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced Oct. 2 
     that 58 non-profit organizations from 32 states and the 
     District of Columbia are to receive grant funding under the 
     Program for Investment in Microentrepreneurs Act (PRIME) to 
     assist low-income and very low-income entrepreneurs with 
     training and technical assistance to start, operate, and grow 
     their businesses.
       ``SBA remains committed to helping small businesses start, 
     grow and succeed, and PRIME is one of our many tools for 
     doing this,'' SBA administrator Karen Mills said last week. 
     ``Thanks to larger funding this year, we were able to provide 
     grant dollars to more recipients across more states. These 
     grant recipients are on the front line of helping 
     entrepreneurs in particularly underserved communities with 
     critical tools to help them maximize the potential of their 
     businesses, create jobs and help strengthen the local 
     economy.''
       The competition for PRIME grants was open to applicants in 
     all 50 states and the US territories, and SBA received over 
     400 applications. SBA last year funded 35 grants in 12 states 
     on a non-competitive basis.
       SBA's PRIME grant funding is intended to establish 
     management and technical assistance, access to capital and 
     other forms of financial assistance, and business training 
     and counseling through qualified organizations to small 
     businesses with five or fewer employees who are economically 
     disadvantaged, and businesses owned by low-income 
     individuals, including those on Indian reservations and 
     tribal lands.
       The grant funding received will be used to provide training 
     and technical assistance to disadvantaged microentrepreneurs, 
     supply capacity building services to organizations that 
     assist with microenterprise training and services, and aid in 
     researching and developing best practices in the field of 
     microenterprise development and technical assistance programs 
     for disadvantaged micro-entrepreneurs.
       This year's total program funding amounts to $5 million 
     with grants ranging in size up to $250,000 with a 50% match 
     required of the recipient. PRIME grants are open to 
     microentrepreneur training and technical assistance providers 
     in all 50 states and US territories. They have a one-year 
     performance period, with four 12-month options.
       2009 PRIME grant recipients are at: <www.sba.gov/services/
financialassistance/sbapartners/prime/index.html>


                       US-Italy nuclear r&d pact

       Two important nuclear energy agreements that could lead to 
     construction of new nuclear power plants and improved 
     cooperation on advanced nuclear energy systems and fuel cycle 
     technologies in both countries were signed by Energy 
     Secretary Steven Chu and Italian Minister for Economic 
     Development Claudio Scajola on Sept. 30.
       The US-Italy Joint Declaration Concerning Industrial and 
     Commercial Cooperation in the Nuclear Energy Sector, which 
     was signed on behalf of the US by Energy Secretary Chu and 
     Commerce Deputy Secretary Dennis Hightower, affirms the 
     strong interest of the US and Italy to encourage their 
     respective nuclear industries to seek opportunities for 
     construction of new nuclear power plants.
       ``The agreements reached today reflect our vision for 
     strong partnerships with nations around the world to help 
     address our shared climate and energy challenges,'' said 
     Secretary Chu. ``Nuclear power will play a key role in the 
     production of low-carbon energy in the years and decades to 
     come, and we look forward to working with Italy and the US 
     private sector to advance these important technologies.''
       ``Clean and efficient energy technologies, including 
     nuclear power, will be a cornerstone of a vibrant and 
     prosperous 21st century economy,'' added deputy secretary 
     Hightower. ``American companies can offer Italy world-class 
     nuclear energy solutions while strengthening our own domestic 
     industry.''
       A bilateral Agreement on Cooperation in Civilian Nuclear 
     Energy Research and Development was also signed by Energy 
     Secretary Chu and Minister Scajola, which will facilitate 
     cooperation between DOE and Italy's Ministry for Economic 
     Development in advanced nuclear energy systems and associated 
     fuel cycle technologies. Both nations will collaborate in r&d 
     of advanced technologies to improve the cost, safety, and 
     proliferation-resistance of nuclear power.
       The agreement will also expand efforts to promote and 
     maintain nuclear science and engineering infrastructure and 
     expertise in each country.
       Italy will be a key partner in building international 
     consensus and momentum on shared nuclear energy and 
     nonproliferation agenda, and US energy officials look forward 
     to working with their Italian counterparts at the Nuclear 
     Security Summit in April 2010.


                         ARS food waste project

       Food scraps are collected every weekday from the Maryland 
     Food Distribution Authority in Jessup, Md., and from small 
     local food service and marketing establishments and trucked 
     to the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Henry Wallace 
     Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Beltsville, 
     Md.
       Items not containing metal, glass, or plastic are then are 
     mixed with woodchips, leaves and other organic residuals, and 
     several months later some of the finished compost is 
     delivered to the National Mall in Washington DC to be used in 
     gardens at the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Jamie 
     Whitten Federal Building.
       This unusual operation is part of research by ARS 
     microbiologist Patricia Millner with the BARC Environmental 
     Microbial and Food Safety Lab on ways to reduce the release 
     of methane from landfills by diverting food residuals and 
     other organic materials to composting. She conducts this 
     research with microbiologist Walter Mulbry of BARC's 
     Environmental Management and Byproduct Utilization Lab.
       This year they are also supplying compost to the inaugural 
     People's Garden, part of a new program for creating a 
     community garden at each USDA facility, as well as for 
     landscaping at the US Botanic Garden and the Capitol.
       Millner also makes compost available for other federal 
     `green' projects, including roof gardens, rain gardens and 
     other landscaping designs, to retain water and reduce runoff 
     at federal sites in the Washington DC metropolitan area.
       As part of her efforts to help the federal government model 
     ways to compost food scraps, Millner has a cooperative r&d 
     agreement (CRADA) with RCM LLC of Maryland to capture ammonia 
     in the final compost to boost its nitrogen content for 
     fertilizer use. She is now comparing several types of 
     insulated composting containers for greenhouse gas emission 
     reduction and other cost-benefit characteristics.
       About half of the carbon and nitrogen in composting 
     materials is lost to the air, rather than being captured in 
     the compost.


                        NIH 115 high-risk awards

       A total of 115 awards for $348-million to encourage 
     investigators to explore bold ideas with potential to 
     catapult fields forward and accelerate the translation of 
     research into improved health were announced by the National 
     Institutes of Health (NIH).
       ``The appeal of the Pioneer, New Innovator, and now the T-
     R01 programs, is that investigators are encouraged to 
     challenge the status quo with innovative ideas, while being 
     given the necessary resources to test them,'' NIH director Dr 
     Francis Collins said Sept. 24. ``The fact that we continue to 
     receive such strong proposals for funding through the 
     programs reflects the wealth of creative ideas in science 
     today.''
       The NIH High-Risk Research awards are granted under three 
     research programs supported by its Common Fund Roadmap for 
     Medical Research: the NIH director's Transformative RO1 (T-
     R01) awards, Pioneer awards, and New Innovator awards.
       Enacted by Congress through the 2006 NIH Reform Act, the 
     Common Fund supports cross-cutting, trans-NIH programs with a 
     special emphasis on innovation and risk taking. Part of the 
     New Innovator Awards ($23-million) is supported by American 
     Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.
       NIH this year is granting 42 T-R01 awards, 18 Pioneer 
     awards, and 55 New Innovator awards for early-stage 
     investigators, and expects to make competing awards of $30-
     million to T-R01 awardees, $13.5-million to Pioneer awardees, 
     and about $131-million to New Innovators in FY09. Total 
     funding provided to this effort over a five-year period is 
     estimated at $348-million.
       More details on the T-R01 award are at: <http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/T-R01>
       Details of the Pioneer award are at: <http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/pioneer>
       Information on the New Innovator award is at: <http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/newinnovator>


                           NHGRI, NIMH grants

       Grants expected to total $45-million were announced last 
     week by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) 
     and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to establish 
     new Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science in Wisconsin and 
     North

[[Page 24558]]

     Carolina, as well as to continue support of existing centers 
     in Maryland and California.
       ``Our aim is to foster the formation of innovative research 
     teams that will develop genomic tools and technologies that 
     help to advance human health,'' NHGRI acting director Dr Alan 
     Guttmacher said Sept. 28. ``Each of these centers is in a 
     position to tackle some of the most challenging questions 
     facing biology today.''
       ``NIMH is pleased to partner with NHGRI and to be able to 
     support this innovative study with funding through the 
     American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,'' said NIMH director 
     Dr Thomas Insel. ``These sophisticated genetic models will 
     provide new opportunities to accelerate the pace of 
     scientific discovery and to make progress toward 
     understanding how genes shape behavior.''
       NHGRI and NIMH are both part of the National Institutes of 
     Health (NIH). Launched in 2001 by NHGRI, the Centers of 
     Excellence in Genomic Science program assembles 
     interdisciplinary teams dedicated to making critical advances 
     in genomic research.
       The new center, to be co-led by Medical College of 
     Wisconsin and Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison will receive about 
     $8-million over three years. The new center at Univ. of North 
     Carolina, Chapel Hill will receive about $8.6-million over 
     five years. The existing center at Univ. of Southern 
     California, Los Angeles will receive about $12-million over 
     five years and the existing center at Johns Hopkins Univ. in 
     Baltimore will get about $16.8-million over five years.
       Funding to all four centers will be provided by NHGRI. The 
     first two years of the Univ. of North Carolina center will be 
     funded by NIMH, which will contribute about $6-million 
     through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In 
     addition, NIMH will provide about $1.7-million, in non-ARRA 
     funds, of the total funding awarded to the Johns Hopkins 
     center.
       More information about the program is at: <www.genome.gov/
 14514219>


                         NSF plans CPATH survey

       The National Science Foundation (NSF) plans a one-year data 
     collection for its Revitalizing Computing Pathways (CPATH) in 
     Undergraduate Education Program Evaluation.
       Established by NSF's Computer & Information Science & 
     Engineering (CISE) directorate, CPATH is aimed toward 
     preparing a US workforce with computing competencies and 
     skills imperative to the nation's health, security, and 
     prosperity in the 21st century. This workforce includes a 
     cadre of computing professionals prepared to contribute to 
     sustained US leadership in computing in a wide range of 
     application domains and career fields, and a broader 
     professional workforce with knowledge and understanding of 
     critical computing concepts, methodologies, and techniques.
       To achieve this vision, CPATH calls for colleges and 
     universities to work together and with other stakeholders 
     (industry, professional societies, and others) to formulate 
     and implement plans to revitalize undergraduate computing 
     education in the US. Full engagement of faculty and other 
     individuals in CISE disciplines will be critical to success.
       Successful CPATH projects will be systemic in nature, 
     address a broad range of issues, and have significant 
     potential to contribute to the transformation and 
     revitalization of undergraduate computing education on a 
     national-scale. Qualitative data collection of this program 
     evaluation will document CPATH program strategies used in 
     infusing computational thinking across different contexts and 
     disciplines, examine development of communities of 
     practitioners and dissemination of best practices around 
     computational thinking, and analyze preliminary evidence for 
     how the CPATH program is preparing students for career 
     options in the STEM workforce.
       Five major questions will guide this program evaluation: 
     How is CPATH infusing computational thinking in a range of 
     disciplines serving undergraduate education? What evidence is 
     there that university and community college departments and 
     faculty are integrating computational thinking into their 
     courses? How are undergraduate students benefitting from 
     their participation in CPATH projects? What evidence is there 
     that CPATH is developing communities of practitioners that 
     share best practices regularly across different contexts and 
     disciplinary boundaries? How is CPATH promoting sustainable 
     multi-sector partnerships that represent a broad range of 
     stakeholders (e.g., industry, higher education, K12) and 
     contribute to workforce development supporting continued US 
     leadership in innovation?
       NSF will seek answers to these questions through use of 
     mixed evaluation methods including document analyses, site 
     visit interviews, and telephone interviews with selected 
     CPATH grant participants including principal investigators, 
     staff, faculty, administrators, students, and external 
     partners. Participation in program evaluations is mandatory 
     for all CPATH awardees.
       After considering public continent, NSF will request that 
     OMB approve clearance of this one-time collection [OMB No. 
     3145-NEW] for no longer than one year.
       NSF estimates about 200 respondents (individuals) will take 
     part in the survey and take an average of 1\1/2\-hours per 
     response.
       For more details, contact Suzanne Plimpton at (703) 292-
     7556; [email protected].


                        CDC awards center grants

       Award of $4.37-million in competitive grants to enhance 
     health care information management and improve detection and 
     response to emerging public health threats was announced 
     Sept. 25 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
     (CDC).
       The CDC grants will fund four new Centers of Excellence in 
     Public Health Informatics at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, 
     Indiana Univ., Univ. of Pittsburgh, and Univ. of Utah.
       ``These centers will advance the study and practice of 
     public health informatics through collaborative efforts among 
     academic public health experts, local and state public health 
     departments, developing regional health information 
     organizations, and other health and informatics 
     professionals,'' said CDC's National Center for Public Health 
     Informatics acting director Dr Stephen Thacker.
       The overall purpose of the center of excellence initiative 
     is to find strategies and tools that increase the ability of 
     health departments, physicians and other health care 
     providers to promote health and prevent diseases, injuries or 
     disabilities. A common emphasis will be translation of 
     results into measurable public health impacts.
       Each center of excellence will conduct two new projects 
     that support national priorities in informatics; and support 
     real-time biosurveillance for potential health threats 
     through immediate access to data from hospitals and health 
     care systems in major metropolitan areas across the US.
       The principal investigators, projects, and overall goals of 
     the centers are:
       --Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, Mass. (Dr Richard 
     Platt & Dr Kenneth Mandl): Personally-controlled health 
     records and social networks; and electronic support for 
     public health: Diabetes Mellitus;
       --Indiana Univ., Indianapolis (Dr Shaun Grannis): Bringing 
     public health to the point of care: Overcoming digital 
     barriers; and enhancing basic infrastructure capabilities 
     that support public health practice;
       --Univ. of Pittsburgh (Dr Michael Wagner): Automatic case 
     detection using clinical data; and Bayesian outbreak 
     detection and characterization;
       --Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City (Dr Matthew Samore): Visual 
     analytics & decision support for core public health missions; 
     and just-in-time delivery of dynamically maintained public 
     health knowledge.
       Five previously-funded centers have become national leaders 
     in public health informatics. According to CDC officials, 
     their academic productivity has been impressive, generating 
     over 85 peer reviewed publications, 153 presentations at 
     national meetings, and more than 100 posters and abstracts. 
     They have also made contributions to strategic national 
     activities.


                       state r&d activity survey

       The US Census Bureau plans to continue to conduct the 
     Survey of State Research and Development Expenditures in 
     order to measure r&d supported and performed by state 
     governments in the US.
       This survey, a joint effort between Census Bureau and the 
     National Science Foundation (NSF), is sponsored by NSF, which 
     has a statutory charge to provide a central clearinghouse for 
     the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data on s&e 
     resources, and to provide a source of information for policy 
     formulation by other federal agencies.
       Under this legislative mandate, NSF has sponsored surveys 
     of r&d since 1953, including the Survey of Industrial 
     Research and Development and the Survey of State Research and 
     Development Expenditures.
       The survey form includes items on r&d expenditures by 
     source of funding, by performer (internal and external to 
     state agencies), and by character (basic, applied, or 
     developmental), and the final results produced by NSF contain 
     state and national estimates useful for a variety of data 
     users interested in r&d and development performance. These 
     include the National Science Board, the Office of Management 
     & Budget, and the Office of S&T Policy, as well as other 
     science policy makers, institutional researchers and private 
     organizations.
       All data are collected electronically via a web-based form, 
     and the 500 or so state government agencies surveyed will be 
     assisted during the collection period by central state 
     coordinators.
       An estimated 52 state coordinators and 500 state agencies 
     are expected to respond to the voluntary survey, with the 
     time per response being four hours for every state 
     coordinator and 1\1/2\ hours for every state agency.
       Comments on the proposed data collection [Form No. SRD-1] 
     must be submitted by Nov. 20 to Diana Hynek at 
     dH[email protected].
       For more information, contact Pamela Medwid at 
     [email protected].


                        army's top 10 inventions

       The US Army's Top Ten Greatest Inventions of 2008 were 
     recognized during a Sept. 21 awards ceremony, attended by top 
     Army s&t officials including Army Materiel Command (AMC) 
     Commander Gen. Ann Dunwoody and Army Research, Development & 
     Engineering Command (ARDEC) Commander Maj. Gen. Paul Izzo, in 
     Arlington, Va.

[[Page 24559]]

       The annual awards program, which gets nominations from 
     across the Army's s&t community, aims to recognize the best 
     technology solutions for soldiers. This year's awards 
     recognized the following inventions fielded by the Army 
     during 2008:
       --1. XM153 Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) 
     [Army Armament Research, Development & Engineering Center 
     (AARDEC)]: Able to be mounted on a variety of vehicles, this 
     system offers the ability to aim and fire remotely a suite of 
     crew-served weapons from a stationary platform or while 
     moving;
       --2. Projectile Detection Cueing (PDCue)--CROWS Lightning 
     [AARDEC]: This low-cost acoustic gunfire detection system is 
     able to detect and locate the origin of incoming gunfire;
       --3. Light machine gun & medium machine gun cradle 
     [AARDEC]: This cradle provides a more stable and accurate 
     firing platform and reliable, twist-free ammunition feeding 
     regardless of weapon orientation;
       --4. Overhead cover for objective gunner protection kit 
     [AARDEC]: An integrated armor/ballistic glass system mounted 
     onto the objective gunner protection kit of tactical and 
     armored vehicles, it provides an enhanced 360 degree 
     ballistic protection for gunners while retaining visibility 
     for situational awareness;
       --5. Enhanced mobile rapid aerostat initial deployment 
     vehicle [Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development & 
     Engineering Center]: This system combines multiple 
     intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities 
     onto a single, integrated platform;
       --6. Whisper [Army Communications--Electronics Research, 
     Development & Engineering Center]: The system's passive 
     detection capability can be used to detect enemy radio-
     controlled improvised explosive device (IED) threats;
       --7. Combat gauze for treating hemorrhage in injured 
     soldiers [Army Institute of Surgical Research]: Hemorrhages 
     account for 50% of deaths among combat casualties and many of 
     these deaths are potentially preventable with prompt and 
     effective treatment. This large-sized flexible roll of non-
     woven medical gauze, impregnated with kaolin, a clotting 
     agent, can be used to treat severe external bleeding, 
     especially where a tourniquet can't be applied. It has also 
     been proposed to treat deep bleeding at the end of a long 
     wound tract;
       --8. Mine-resistant ambush-protected armor weight reduction 
     spiral program [Army Research Lab]: This program enabled Army 
     to meet MRAP program protection requirements for a high 
     priority, anti-armor, IED threat, and its goal was to 
     introduce lightweight composites, new materials, and enhanced 
     ballistic mechanisms to reduce the added weight of final 
     armor packages.
       --9. Mine-resistant ambush-protected expedient armor 
     program add-on-armor kit [Army Tank Automotive Research, 
     Development & Engineering Center (TARDEC)]: Developed to 
     safeguard soldiers against lethal threats of IEDs and 
     explosively formed penetrators, the armor uses armor physics, 
     as opposed to armor mass, to defeat the threat. It has led to 
     a 50% cut in weight, while increasing the armor protection on 
     all MRAP vehicles without sacrificing vehicle performance or 
     payload;
       --10. One system remote video terminal A-kit [TARDEC]: An 
     innovative modular video and data system enabling soldiers to 
     receive remotely near-real-time surveillance image and 
     geospatial data direct from tactical unmanned aerial vehicles 
     and manned platforms.
       AMC is the Army's premier provider of materiel readiness in 
     the form of technology, acquisition support, materiel 
     development, logistics, power projection and sustainment . . 
     .

  Ms. MIKULSKI. The quote is as follows:

       $8 million has been awarded to 17 projects by the NSF under 
     a joint NSF/Department of Defense solicitation. The 
     competition, Social and Behavioral Dimensions of National 
     Security, Conflict and Cooperation, is focused on basic 
     social and behavioral science of strategic importance to US 
     national security policy.

  So again, the competition is in the social science directorate. And 
the four topic areas the DOD thought it was important to contract out, 
through the NSF, are in the following areas, according to this article:

       Authoritarian regimes, the strategic impact of religious 
     and cultural change, terrorist organizations and idealogies, 
     and new dimensions in national security.

  They awarded these 17 grants, and let me read what some of them are. 
One is experimental analysis of alternative models of conflict 
bargaining. Now, you might say: Ho-hum. But you know what, maybe some 
idea out of that will help us crack how we can bring peace to the 
Middle East. Another is mapping terrorist organizations. Well, that is 
a pretty good idea. Maybe some of that research will help us get out of 
Afghanistan. How about predicting the nature of conflict? Well, we kind 
of know what that is, but do we really? Because if we understand the 
nature of conflict, maybe we can learn to defang conflict.
  Let's look at another issue which I am very concerned about because 
of my worry about the planet--avoiding water wars: environmental 
security. These may be new threats to the United States.
  I could read every one of these, but what I want to say is that DOD 
has partnered with NSF--to quote from this article--``to reach the 
broadest range of academic, social and behavioral science, and this 
collaboration combines the insights of DOD with the peer review 
expertise of NSF in support of the agencies' desire to promote basic 
social and behavioral research in areas that will benefit the United 
States.''
  ``Federal Technology Watch'' said it best. To take out $9 million is 
really penny-wise and pound-foolish. I am going to oppose the amendment 
of the Senator on that issue. I will oppose the amendment of the 
Senator on taking money from much-needed Commerce Department 
renovations and putting it in IG because we do fund the President's 
request in IG.
  I do, however, like the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma on 
more transparency in government reports that are coming into the 
Commerce Department. I believe we could have passed that one by voice 
vote. I am sorry we have to go through the mechanics of a recorded 
vote. He is worried I would drop it in conference, but I could give him 
my word that we would maintain that amendment as best we could. But so 
be it, the Senator is entitled to that.
  So, Mr. President, as we conclude our conversation this afternoon, I 
want to be very clear. We oppose two of the Coburn amendments. I accept 
one that you will see down at the desk where I stand.
  I had hoped we could avoid a cloture vote. Senator Shelby and I have 
worked hard on a bipartisan bill, and I once again acknowledge the 
Senator from Alabama, my Republican colleague. We have an excellent 
bill that funds not only the Commerce Department but the Justice 
Department, and now we are facing the threat of a filibuster by 
amendment after amendment. I had hoped we could have reached some kind 
of agreement on a limited number of amendments, but since we can't, it 
looks as if we are going to have to go to cloture.
  I think we have had a good discussion, and I want to reiterate the 
three goals of the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee. No. 1, we 
want to promote the security of the American people. We want to do it 
over there and we want to do it here. That is why we fund the Justice 
Department. We also want to promote innovation, and we have vigorous 
funding for our science agencies and innovation from the government 
that will also be on the side of those innovators. No. 3, where we do 
agree with the Senator from Oklahoma is on increased oversight, 
accountability, stewardship, and transparency.
  Mr. President, I know we are about 5 minutes from the vote, so I will 
now reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lautenberg). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, pursuant to rule XXII, 
the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the 
clerk will report.
  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 the committee-
     reported substitute amendment to H.R. 2847, the Departments 
     of Commerce, Justice and Science and Related Agencies 
     Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2010.

[[Page 24560]]

         Harry Reid, Barbara A. Mikulski, Barbara Boxer, Robert 
           Menendez, Charles E. Schumer, Patty Murray, Tom Harkin, 
           Patrick J. Leahy, Roland W. Burris, Mark Begich, Ben 
           Nelson, Daniel K. Inouye, Debbie Stabenow, Bernard 
           Sanders, Dianne Feinstein, John F. Kerry, Edward E. 
           Kaufman.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call is waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
committee-reported substitute to H.R. 2847, the Departments of 
Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 
2010, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the 
Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. 
Inouye) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. 
Hutchison), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 56, nays 38, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 320 Leg.]

                                YEAS--56

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--38

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Begich
     Burr
     Byrd
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Wicker
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 56, the nays are 38. 
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider the vote by which 
cloture was not invoked is considered entered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, in years past, appropriations bills were 
finished in a reasonably short period of time. There was cooperation 
between both sides. That, of course, has ended. We are now in an era 
where the President of the United States goes to a foreign country 
trying to bring the Olympics to the United States. And when the 
Olympics do not go to Chicago, our Republican colleagues cheer. If you 
can imagine that, that is what happened.
  When the President is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, only the third 
time in the history of the country that a sitting President is awarded 
the Nobel Peace Prize, we get the same dissatisfaction of this 
tremendous honor given to our country from our Republican colleagues.
  As was written in the New York Times 1 week ago: The Republicans are 
legislating out of spite. Anything that slows things down, confuses, 
diverts from the business at hand, they are happy to do that. There 
were 100 filibusters last year. And the American people should 
understand filibusters are more than just a word. It takes days and 
weeks of the Senate's time to work through that process.
  We are going to get this bill passed, and we will complete the work 
on this appropriations bill--not because the Republicans deserve it, 
with their many earmarks in the bill. We are going to go ahead and do 
it anyway. We are going to do it because it is the right thing for the 
country.
  There are many amendments that are germane. There are a number of 
amendments that were not germane postcloture. They would be considered. 
I told everyone that.
  This is a game Republican Senators are playing. I think it is a very 
unfair game for the American people. I do hope the American people are 
watching, and they are. All you have to do is look at the LA Times. In 
Los Angeles this weekend, there was a front-page story indicating that 
the Republican Party, as a result of what is going on in the Senate, is 
at the lowest point in the history of the country for a political 
party. Why wouldn't they be?
  We do have one brave soul who voted to get the bill out of the 
Finance Committee, and I appreciate her work. No cooperation on one of 
the most important issues facing the country in generations, health 
care reform. Do they have a plan? Of course not. It is the party of no, 
as indicated in this vote tonight.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on the vote just cast, as my friend 
well knows, we had worked on an amendment list not only last week but 
earlier today. We were down to what I thought was a manageable list. 
There is no one on this side of whom I am aware trying to prevent the 
Commerce-Justice-State bill from passing. So far this year we have had 
a very good amendment process. Members have been able to offer their 
amendments and get votes. I thought until about 5:15 this afternoon we 
were going to be able to get an amendment list. It broke down somehow 
in the discussions. So I wouldn't make more out of this than it is. We 
were very close to being able to finish this bill.
  I suggest we continue to work on the amendment list, which was quite 
reasonable, and wrap up the bill in the very near future.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I appreciate the suggestion of my 
Republican counterpart. But we are going to get cloture on this bill, 
and we will handle the germane amendments. We have legislated on this 
bill for 5 days. That should be enough. The list they think is 
reasonable, someone should take a look at it and see how unreasonable 
it is. We will go ahead. We will do the regular order. We will get 
cloture on this bill, and we will handle the germane amendments--maybe. 
We don't have to handle the germane amendments. We don't have to deal 
with those. We might do that; we might not do it.
  I think what has happened in the Senate is outrageous. I want to make 
sure the record is clear. I appreciate very much John McCain saying 
nice things about President Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize. 
Another person who says he is running for President also said nice 
things about President Obama getting that. That was Governor Pawlenty. 
Obviously, Governor Pawlenty knows the American people think it is 
wrong for someone who receives this high honor, for people not to pat 
him on the back.
  What has gone on in the Senate is as indicated in the New York Times 
last month: they are legislating out of spite. We are going to continue 
to work for the betterment of this country and move forward on the 
agenda this country needs to work on. We have had a successful year 
legislating. It has been extremely difficult. We have had a lot of 
hurdles to go over.
  I appreciate the legislation we have passed. We only recently got 60 
votes. We have had 58, so we have always needed a couple Republicans. 
And we have been able to get those but just barely. I appreciate the 
scowls from the other side as they vote with us.
  We have a lot of important things to do. We are going to continue 
working on them. Health care has taken a lot longer than we had 
anticipated, but we will take that over the finish line. It will be 
hard, but we are going to do that. I hope we can do it with some 
support from the Republicans. It appears at this stage that we are not

[[Page 24561]]

going to get any, other than maybe a couple of courageous souls. Maybe 
we will get three if we are lucky.
  We have to do something about energy, an important issue. We are 
going to deal with that. We have to do something about regulation 
reform.
  It would be a lot better for the American people if Republican 
Senators worked with us. Take, for example, the health care bill from 
the HELP Committee. You would think, after having accepted scores and 
scores of Republican amendments, that some Republican would say a nice 
thing about that HELP bill. Not a word. Every single member of the 
Republican Party who is a member of the HELP Committee voted against 
the bill.
  It is pretty clear what is happening around here. As I indicated--for 
the third time--Republicans are legislating out of spite, and that is 
not good for this country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. With all due respect to my good friend, the majority 
leader, I don't know what the vote we just had had to do with the 
President winning a Nobel Peace Prize. I congratulate him for that. I 
think all Members are proud that he was able to achieve that. I don't 
know what it had to do with health care. What it had to do with is the 
Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill.
  We had agreed to all of the amendments on a list but one. We said to 
the majority that we would eliminate the one. So I don't know why they 
can't take yes for an answer. We basically had an agreement on our 
amendment list but for one amendment which they objected to, and we 
said we would take it off the list. It strikes me rather than having a 
spirited debate about health care and other matters, we ought to agree 
to the amendment list and finish the bill.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, Thursday we waited virtually all day--all 
day--for them to come up with a list. It was never quite right. Never 
quite right. I was here late Thursday night, very late Thursday night. 
Everyone else had gone home. But the Republicans refused to OK a list. 
So I had no alternative but to file a motion to invoke cloture. The 
agreement is in their minds only. We have been very generous in 
allowing amendments that have nothing to do with bills this whole year. 
We were still willing to do that with this piece of legislation. This 
is part of a stall that we have had all year long, the stall all day 
Thursday. We had problems on Wednesday trying to come up with a list, 
and Thursday. Just never quite right.
  Suddenly, today, we have a list. We are willing to drop an amendment. 
I don't know what amendment they are talking about dropping.
  I have made my statement very clear. We have a pattern in the Senate 
by the Republicans that is abusive to the system. It is preventing the 
American people from getting work done. An example is this very 
important bill dealing with law enforcement--Commerce-Justice-State--
FBI agents. Senator Mikulski has worked very hard. She is proud of this 
legislation. We are going to go ahead and get it done without the 
Republicans. We are going to go ahead and do it. Their earmarks are 
included. We are not going to take away any of their earmarks because 
we believe in fairness.

                          ____________________