To require comprehensive study and support for criminal investigations and prosecutions by State and local law enforcement officials.

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 1390, which the clerk will
report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 1390) to authorize appropriations for fiscal
year 2010 for military activities of the Department of
Defense, for military construction, and for defense
activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military
personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other
purposes.

Pending:

Levin/McCain amendment No. 1469, to strike $1,750,000,000
in procurement, Air Force funding for F-22A aircraft
procurement, and to restore operation and maintenance,
military personnel, and other funding in divisions A and B
that was reduced in order to authorize such appropriation.

Amendment No. 1469 Withdrawn

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I withdraw Senate amendment No. 1469.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has that right.

Amendment No. 1511

(Purpose: To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions,
and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes)

Mr. REID. On behalf of Senator Leahy, myself, and others, I call up
amendment No. 1511, which is at the desk.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the
amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid], for Mr. Leahy, Ms.
Collins, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Levin, Mrs. Feinstein,
Mr. Schumer, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Whitehouse, Ms.
Klobuchar, Mr. Specter, Mr. Franken, Ms. Mikulski, Mr.
Merkley, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Menendez, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr.
Kerry, Mr. Udall of Colorado, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Harkin, Mr.
Wyden, Mr. Casey, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr.
Lieberman, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Brown, Mr. Akaka, Mr. Sanders,
Mrs. Murray, and Mr. Reed, proposes an amendment numbered
1511.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
Mr. REID. I now ask for the yeas and nays.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there a sufficient second? There
appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays are ordered.

[[Page S7510]]

Amendment No. 1539 to Amendment No. 1511

Mr. REID. I now call up a second-degree amendment which is at the
desk.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid], for Mr. Kennedy,
proposes an amendment numbered 1539 to amendment No. 1511.

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment
be dispensed with.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To require comprehensive study and support for criminal
investigations and prosecutions by State and local law enforcement
officials)

At the end of the amendment, insert the following:

SEC. __. COMPREHENSIVE STUDY AND SUPPORT FOR CRIMINAL
INVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS BY STATE AND
LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS.

(a) Studies.--
(1) Collection of data.--
(A) Definition of relevant offense.--In this paragraph, the
term ``relevant offense'' means a crime described in
subsection (b)(1) of the first section of Public Law 101-275
(28 U.S.C. 534 note) and a crime that manifests evidence of
prejudice based on gender or age.
(B) Collection from cross-section of states.--Not later
than 120 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the
Comptroller General of the United States, in consultation
with the National Governors' Association, shall, if possible,
select 10 jurisdictions with laws classifying certain types
of offenses as relevant offenses and 10 jurisdictions without
such laws from which to collect the data described in
subparagraph (C) over a 12-month period.
(C) Data to be collected.--The data described in this
paragraph are--
(i) the number of relevant offenses that are reported and
investigated in the jurisdiction;
(ii) the percentage of relevant offenses that are
prosecuted and the percentage that result in conviction;
(iii) the duration of the sentences imposed for crimes
classified as relevant offenses in the jurisdiction, compared
with the length of sentences imposed for similar crimes
committed in jurisdictions with no laws relating to relevant
offenses; and
(iv) references to and descriptions of the laws under which
the offenders were punished.
(D) Costs.--Participating jurisdictions shall be reimbursed
for the reasonable and necessary costs of compiling data
collected under this paragraph.
(2) Study of relevant offense activity.--
(A) In general.--Not later than 18 months after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United
States shall complete a study and submit to Congress a report
that analyzes the data collected under paragraph (1) and
under section 534 of title 28, United States Code, to
determine the extent of relevant offense activity throughout
the United States and the success of State and local
officials in combating that activity.
(B) Identification of trends.--In the study conducted under
subparagraph (A), the Comptroller General of the United
States shall identify any trends in the commission of
relevant offenses specifically by--
(i) geographic region;
(ii) type of crime committed; and
(iii) the number and percentage of relevant offenses that
are prosecuted and the number for which convictions are
obtained.
(b) Assistance Other Than Financial Assistance.--At the
request of a law enforcement official of a State or a
political subdivision of a State, the Attorney General,
acting through the Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and in cases where the Attorney General
determines special circumstances exist, may provide
technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or any other assistance
in the criminal investigation or prosecution of any crime
that--
(1) constitutes a crime of violence (as defined in section
16 of title 18, United States Code);
(2) constitutes a felony under the laws of the State; and
(3) is motivated by animus against the victim by reason of
the membership of the victim in a particular class or group.
(c) Grants.--
(1) In general.--The Attorney General may, in cases where
the Attorney General determines special circumstances exist,
make grants to States and local subdivisions of States to
assist those entities in the investigation and prosecution of
crimes motivated by animus against the victim by reason of
the membership of the victim in a particular class or group.
(2) Eligibility.--A State or political subdivision of a
State applying for assistance under this subsection shall--
(A) describe the purposes for which the grant is needed;
and
(B) certify that the State or political subdivision lacks
the resources necessary to investigate or prosecute a crime
motivated by animus against the victim by reason of the
membership of the victim in a particular class or group.
(3) Deadline.--An application for a grant under this
subsection shall be approved or disapproved by the Attorney
General not later than 10 days after the application is
submitted.
(4) Grant amount.--A grant under this subsection shall not
exceed $100,000 for any single case.
(5) Report and audit.--Not later than December 31, 2008,
the Attorney General, in consultation with the National
Governors' Association, shall--
(A) submit to Congress a report describing the applications
made for grants under this subsection, the award of such
grants, and the effectiveness of the grant funds awarded; and
(B) conduct an audit of the grants awarded under this
subsection to ensure that such grants are used for the
purposes provided in this subsection.
(6) Authorization of appropriations.--There is authorized
to be appropriated $5,000,000 for each of the fiscal years
2008 and 2009 to carry out this section.

Cloture Motion

Mr. REID. I send a cloture motion to the desk.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The cloture motion having been
presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the
motion.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the Leahy amendment
No. 1511 to S. 1390, the National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2010.
Evan Bayh, Roland W. Burris, Benjamin L. Cardin, Patrick
J. Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Bingaman, Bernard
Sanders, John F. Kerry, Carl Levin, Frank R.
Lautenberg, Dianne Feinstein, Tom Harkin, Robert
Menendez, Richard J. Durbin, Christopher J. Dodd,
Charles E. Schumer, Harry Reid.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, Senator Levin will give an explanation as to
why the amendment was withdrawn. But my friend, the Republican leader,
has the first right of recognition.

Health Care Week VI, Day III

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as Republicans and Democrats debate the
best way to reform health care, Americans are increasingly concerned
about the price tag and about who gets stuck with the bill. The Federal
deficit suddenly stands at more than $1 trillion for the first time in
history, and so far this year we are spending about $500 million a day
in interest alone on the national debt. It is as if every single
American gets up in the morning, walks over to the window, and tosses
$2 out into the wind every day for the next 10 years. It is not a bad
analogy, but that is what we are doing. And now the advocates of a
government takeover of health care are talking about spending trillions
more.
So Americans are worried about cost--and they have good reason to be.
Not only are we in a tough situation fiscally, we have no idea how
much this reform will really cost. We know from experience with
government-run programs like Medicare and Medicaid that early estimates
often grossly underestimate what they end up costing. We know that some
of the estimates we are hearing about health care reform are
misleading. And we also know that the administration is building up a
substantial track record of its own of dubious predictions that it has
used to sell its ideas to the public.
We saw it with the stimulus. In selling one of the most expensive
pieces of legislation in history, the administration said it had to be
passed right away, with almost no scrutiny. If we did not pass it right
away, they said, the economy would collapse.
Here is what the President said about the importance of passing the
stimulus bill as quickly as possible: ``If we don't act immediately,
then millions more jobs will disappear, the national unemployment rates
will approach double digits, more people will lose their homes and
their health care, and our nation will sink into a crisis that at some
point is going to be that much tougher to reverse.''
As it turns out, the administration overpromised.
They predicted the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate from
approaching double digits. We passed the stimulus, and unemployment is
now approaching double digits. It was supposed to keep millions of jobs
from disappearing. We passed it, and since then we have lost more than
2 million jobs. It was supposed to save or create between 3 and 4
million jobs. We passed it, and now the administration is backpedaling
on that prediction too. Now it

[[Page S7511]]

says it is ``very hard to say'' how many jobs have been saved or
created. The stimulus was supposed to have an immediate impact. We
passed it, and it has not. Despite all the predictions about its effect
on the economy, the administration now says it expects unemployment to
continue to rise in the months ahead.
Now, in an attempt to pass an even costlier and far-reaching
government action, a government takeover of health care, the
administration is making similarly aggressive claims about the dangers
of not approving its plan.
The administration says that if we do not pass its health care
proposal then the economy will get even worse. It says that if we do
not approve its health care proposal then the quality of everyone's
health care will be jeopardized. It says that if we do not pass this
trillion dollar bill now, then we will miss out on a chance to save
money on health care down the road.
I do not know if these claims are accurate, and I do not believe the
administration is making these claims in bad faith. But I do know that
Americans got burned on the stimulus, and I know that some in the
administration have said that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. So
at the very least, Americans have a right to be skeptical about the
administration's latest effort to rush through a major piece of
legislation without allowing us to evaluate it. It is a worthwhile
question: Why does the administration say we have to send them a bill
that would essentially nationalize one-sixth of the U.S. economy when
many parts of the legislation itself would not even go into effect for
another 4 years?
Americans are right to be skeptical when administration officials say
we cannot fix the economy without fixing health care, or that the
Democrat plan for health care will not cause people to lose their
current insurance when the CBO says it will, or that a government-run
takeover of health care will not add to the ballooning national debt.
After the stimulus, Americans have a right to be skeptical about all
these claims, especially when they are told these reforms have to
happen quickly, and especially when our experience with Medicare and
Medicaid and government health care at the State level shows us that
initial estimates and predictions can be way off the mark.
Senator Collins, for example, has discussed the problems they have
had in Maine as a result of its attempt to create a government-run
health plan, of what a disappointment that has been. Six years ago,
Maine instituted Dirigo Health as a government option after advocates
made the same promises about what it would do to bring down costs and
increase access that the advocates of a nationwide government health
plan are making right now in Washington.
Yet 6 years later, the Dirigo experiment has turned out to be a
colossal, and extremely costly, failure. Despite initial promises, it
has not covered most of the uninsured. And yet it has led to higher
taxes on thousands of Maine residents who were already struggling to
pay for private coverage. In short: Dirigo turned out to cause the same
problems in Maine that some of us are predicting for all Americans if
Congress rushes to approve a national government plan.
Americans want us to take the time necessary to make health care less
expensive and more accessible, while preserving what they like about
our system. Americans want health care reform, but they do not want to
give a green light to a reform that only ends up costing them more for
worse care than they currently have. The fact that Americans are
increasingly concerned about how much health care reform is going to
cost should not be a reason to rush. It should be a reason for us to
take the time to get it right.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, to explain where we are, let me take a few
minutes, first of all, on the procedures. Then I want to go back and
make some comments about the Levin-McCain amendment, which will come
back. This is temporarily withdrawn because we could not get to a vote.
The bottom line is we were here all day yesterday. We attempted
repeatedly to obtain an agreement as to when we could vote on the
Levin-McCain amendment.
We had a lot of time yesterday for people to make speeches. We had
time the day before. We have time anytime. But we have to get to a vote
on that amendment.
The reason we were not able to get to a vote is because of the next
amendment, which the majority leader indicated is going to be taken up
on this bill, the so-called hate crimes amendment. We have a law
relative to hate crimes. This had been an important amendment to the
law to add a group who had been left out, two groups previously left
out of the existing hate crimes law. It would have also had an
important definition of Federal interest in this hate crimes
legislation.
Hate crimes legislation is not new. This body had approved hate
crimes legislation a couple years ago on the Defense authorization
bill. The argument was made at that time that the hate crimes bill
should not be offered on a Defense authorization bill. Senator Kennedy
offered hate crimes legislation a couple years ago on the Defense
authorization bill. The debate was extensive at that time as to why on
this bill.
The reason it was offered on this bill is obvious. This is
legislation. The Senate rules allow for amendments such as hate crimes
or any other amendment to be offered on legislation that is pending
before the Senate. The minority has offered many nonrelevant amendments
this year on legislation. On the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act, there was an amendment relative to ACORN. On the DC voting rights
bill, there were amendments relative to guns and to the fairness
doctrine. On and on and on. The Senate rules permit nongermane,
nonrelevant amendments to be offered to pending legislation. It is not
at all new. The opportunity to do that has been taken by many of us
this year, last year, the year before and, I am sure, next year. First,
it is not new. It is common in the Senate to offer amendments which are
not relevant to a bill that is pending. That is allowed under our
rules.
The hate crimes amendment is an important amendment. I don't think
anybody would deny the importance of this amendment. With hate crimes
going up in the United States, it is critically important we strengthen
our hate crimes law. There are Senators who oppose the amendment. That
is the reason we are here, to debate, to argue for or to argue against.
But I don't think one can argue it is uncommon, unusual or improper to
offer nonrelevant amendments to legislation which is pending.
Regardless of one's position on hate crimes, it is very difficult to
argue it is not significant legislation.
Thirdly, as Senator Kennedy so powerfully argued--and those of us who
joined with him a few years ago on this amendment surely agreed--the
values that are involved in this legislation, the effort to make
America a better place, a place freer of hate crimes, surely is one of
the values our men and women put their uniforms on and fight for. The
closer we can come to a society which is freer of hate crimes, the
better off we are internally, the closer we will live up to what we
stand for in our basic fundamental documents and our history. It is
what men and women who fight for the United States and carry out their
missions are fighting for--not just physical threats to this country
but for the values for which we stand, for freedom from hate, for
diversity, for freedom from intimidation and violence based on one's
religion, ethnicity or the other attributes listed in the hate crimes
legislation.
It is important legislation. It relates to the values of this
country, values which our men and women take such risks for when they
go into harm's way. The rules of this body allow for it.
Somehow or other, the fact that we were going to proceed to a hate
crimes amendment on this bill, even whether it was next in line or
whether it was down the line in terms of amendments, the fact that it
was made clear that, again, on a Defense authorization bill, as we have
in the past, in the past with 60 Members of this body supporting it,
the fact that that was made known in an open and honest way to Members
of this body apparently precipitated a determination on the part of
some that they not allow us to get to a vote on the pending Levin-
McCain amendment. That prospect, that open statement

[[Page S7512]]

that there would be a hate crimes amendment offered on this bill became
the impediment, apparently, from all we can determine, to our getting
agreement for a time for a vote on Levin-McCain.
The question is, How to remove that impediment. There were two
choices: Either agree not to offer the hate crimes amendment or remove
the impediment. We have to now remove the impediment. There is not a
willingness on the part of a significant number of Senators--and I
believe a majority--not to offer a hate crimes amendment. It is pending
legislation that is before us.
The amendment is an important amendment. It has been offered before.
There is precedent for offering it on the Defense authorization bill.
The rules allow for it, so we don't need a precedent, but there is a
precedent for doing so. There are dozens of precedents for offering
nonrelevant amendments to legislation which is pending before the
Senate.
We will come back, obviously, to the Levin-McCain amendment. The
Levin-McCain amendment is a very important amendment on this bill. We
have to deal with the decision of the Armed Services Committee, on a
close vote, to add F-22 planes, which uniformed and civilian leaders of
the military indicate they do not want and do not need and we cannot
afford. We have had some debate. We had plenty of time for others to
debate it. Everyone who wanted to speak on the subject, I believe, had
more than enough opportunity to do so. Last night we heard from the
Senator from Georgia as to his reasons for offering the amendment in
committee to add the additional F-22s. I compliment the Senator from
Georgia for all the hard work he has done on our committee. It is
another example of how the Armed Services Committee works together. Our
Presiding Officer is a distinguished member of the committee so he
knows this firsthand, how we work together, guided by one basic
principle: for the good of the Nation, for the good of the men and
women in the armed services. We disagree, obviously, on the Levin-
McCain amendment. There is surely, however, agreement that our
intentions are always to adhere to that principle--what is best for our
Nation, what is best for the men and women who put on the uniform of
the Nation.
So while there was committee disagreement and disagreement on this
floor on the question of whether additional F-22s should be produced,
the disagreement is not along party lines and rarely, if ever, is along
party lines on the Armed Services Committee. I wish to, again,
compliment not only the Senator from Georgia but also other members of
the committee for sticking to that very important principle.
I also agree with something the Senator from Georgia said last night
relative to another of our operating principles. We have the right and
the duty to challenge assumptions made in the bill sent to us by any
administration and to act in accordance with our best judgment about
what is right and what is in the best interests of the Nation. We are
not a rubberstamp to every proposal offered by the executive branch.
The Congress, hopefully, never will be.
The Senator from Georgia pointed out a number of cases where we have
acted as anything but a rubberstamp to a budget request. We added
funds, for instance, in this bill for a larger pay raise than the
executive branch requested to honor the service of the men and women in
the military who have been bearing an extraordinarily heavy burden for
the country fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We added $1.2 billion for
a more mobile variant of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle,
called the MRAP. This MRAP variant is called the MRAP all-terrain
vehicle. The reason we did this is because we knew there was an
emerging requirement for these new vehicles to support our forces in
Afghanistan that had not been reflected in the budget request. I don't
believe any member of the Armed Services Committee or any Member of
this body should act as a rubberstamp for any budget request, and the
evidence will show over and over again, year after year, that our
committee does not act as a rubberstamp.
The question on the Levin-McCain amendment is whether we are right,
that the leadership of our military, both civilian and uniformed, made
a sound judgment when they, similar to their predecessors in the Bush
administration, determined that we should end production of the F-22.
The debate is not about whether we will have the capability of the F-
22. It is a debate about how many F-22 aircraft we should have and at
what cost.

We are talking about whether we will accept the recommendation of two
Commanders in Chief, two Secretaries of Defense, plus the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and their chairmen, that 187 F-22s is all we need, all we can
afford, and all we should buy. Senator McCain and I have made a number
of arguments about why we believe stopping the F-22 program at 187 is
the right thing to do. I will not repeat all those arguments now,
particularly since we have temporarily withdrawn the amendment. But it
is important that I clarify promptly a number of points made by the
Senator from Georgia during the debate yesterday so they do not remain
uncontested.
First, the Senator said that the Air Force had not been involved in
any of the studies that led to determining that 187 F-22s was the
correct number of aircraft to buy. A few days ago, the committee heard
contrary testimony from the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
that there are at least two studies that support the department's plans
for tactical aviation, including stopping F-22 production, including a
recently completed study.
This is what he said:

There is a study in the Joint Staff that we just completed
and partnered with the Air Force on that, number one, said
that proliferating within the United States military fifth-
generation fighters to all three services was going to be
more significant than having them based solidly in just one
service, because of the way we deploy and because of the
diversity of our deployments.

So the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs referred to a recent study
that led to the conclusion that Senator McCain and I support. That
study was partnered with the Air Force, unlike what was stated last
night by the Senator from Georgia that these studies did not have Air
Force involvement.
There is a strong analytical underpinning for the decision of the
administration, including the Air Force. A letter from the Secretary of
the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force on this matter is
one underpinning, one of the strong evidences that that conclusion is
correct. The letter is already part of the record so I will quote
briefly from it. The Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff
of the Air Force concluded in part, as follows:

In summary, we assessed the F-22 decision from all angles,
taking into account competing strategic priorities and
complementary programs and alternatives, all balanced within
the context of available resources. We did not and do not
recommended that F-22s be included in the FY10 defense
budget. This is a difficult decision, but one with which we
are comfortable.

That is from the letter of the Secretary of the Air Force and the
Chief of Staff of the Air Force, so it should make very clear what the
Air Force's position is on the matter.
On another matter that was raised by the Senator from Georgia last
night, listening to his arguments, one might conclude that the F-22 is
the only aircraft we have or are planning to have that could operate
effectively in the presence of very capable enemy surface-to-air
missile systems. But the Department has provided contrary evidence. In
his letter to myself and Senator McCain on July 13, the Secretary of
Defense said the following:

. . . the F-35 is a half generation newer aircraft than the
F-22, and more capable in a number of areas such as
electronic warfare and combating enemy air defenses. To
sustain U.S. overall air dominance, the Department's plan is
to buy roughly 500 F-35s over the next five years and more
than 2,400 over the life of the program.

The key words in that sentence by the Secretary of the Defense in his
letter is that there will be a ``more capable'' aircraft in the F-35
than the F-22 ``in a number of areas such as . . . combating enemy air
defenses.''
I think we all agree our military needs to maintain air dominance.
But as the Secretary's letter points out, the F-22 aircraft is not the
only aircraft the Department is relying upon to contribute to making
that air dominance a reality. In fact, in certain areas, such as
electronic warfare and combating surface-to-air missiles, the
Department of Defense is counting on

[[Page S7513]]

the F-35 fleet to meet those missions with greater effectiveness even
than with the F-22.
The Senator from Georgia, last night, argued that proposing cuts in a
number of areas--just like the committee 13-to-11 vote indicated and
his proposal accomplished--that shifting funds to the F-22 program and
shifting money from other areas was not doing any harm to other
programs within the Defense Department.
I have previously talked about the specifics relative to this issue,
and I wish to summarize the difference on this point very briefly, as,
again, we will be coming back to this issue. It is withdrawn
temporarily, but, obviously, we will return to this issue and resolve
this issue prior to the determination of this bill.
First, we did not assume any first-year savings from acquisition
reform or business process reengineering. Both these initiatives will
yield savings. The Senator from Arizona and I, and with the support of
our colleagues on the Armed Services Committee, all unanimously
supported acquisition reform.
At the time we adopted that, and at the time the President signed our
bill, we indicated there will be significant savings from reforming the
acquisition system. But those savings do not occur in 2010. Nobody has
alleged, and there is no support for any conclusion, that savings from
acquisition reform are going to occur in the first year it is in
effect. As a matter of fact, its main thrust is to apply to new weapons
systems to make sure their technologies, for instance, are mature so we
do not end up producing equipment that has technologies incorporated in
it that have not been adequately tested.
So we are not going to see savings in fiscal year 2010, as the
Senator from Georgia assumed in his amendment that was adopted barely
by the committee to fund the F-22 add-on. The result is $500 million he
assumed from savings ends up as across-the-board real program cuts.
I also would point out that the cost estimate of S. 1390 that we just
received from the Congressional Budget Office did not assume any
savings from those initiatives. Those, again, were savings which helped
to fund the additional F-22s--alleged savings. They are phantom savings
in the first year.
Secondly, on the operation and maintenance reductions that were used
to fund the F-22 add, the original committee position on this matter--
O&M, operation and maintenance reductions--was developed consistent
with the Government Accountability Office analysis. The reductions,
however, that were taken in operation and maintenance by the Senator
from Georgia when he offered this amendment in committee to add the F-
22s go far beyond what was indicated by the Government Accountability
Office's analysis and far beyond what is prudent.
Finally, relative to the offsets that were taken, the $400 million
cut applied to the military personnel funding top line will greatly
complicate the Department's ability to manage the All-Volunteer Force
and to provide for bonuses and incentives that will be needed to
support the force. It might even be troublesome enough that the
Department of Defense would be forced to ask for a supplemental
appropriations--something we wanted to get away from this year and
finally have.
So one other thing is, there are some who suggest: Well, the F-35 is
just a paper airplane that is the future. We have the F-22 now. The F-
35 is not here yet. It is here. There are--in this budget alone, in the
fiscal year 2010 budget, which is the fourth year, by the way, of
production of the F-35--there are 30 F-35s being produced for the
military. So this is not a future deal when we talk about F-35s. This
is a here-and-now deal. We are already into low-rate initial
production. There are already at least five test aircraft flying, and
we have 30 F-35s funded in this bill which is before this body now.
Let me summarize the situation relative to the Levin-McCain amendment
that would strike the additional funding for the F-22s, the additional
planes that the military does not want, does not need, and says we
cannot afford.
First, the F-22 is a very capable aircraft. There should be no doubt
about it. We have them. We need them. And they are valuable.
Next, the Air Force has already bought, and will pay for, 187 F-22
aircraft. So the debate is not about whether we will have that
capability of the F-22 for the next 20 years. We will. We should, and
we will. The debate is over how many F-22s are enough to meet the
Nation's requirements. Two Presidents--President Obama and President
Bush--two Secretaries of Defense, three Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs,
current members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all agree that 187 F-22s
is all we need to buy and all we should buy.
The debate also concerns what damage will be done if we do not
reverse the cuts that were taken to pay for the additional F-22s--to
pay for the $1.75 billion in the F-22 add. Those cuts are $400 million
to military personnel accounts, $850 million to operations and
maintenance accounts, and $500 million across-the-board reductions to
the Department of Defense budget.
We received a letter from the President this week saying he will veto
the Defense authorization bill if it includes the F-22 production.
So our amendment is a critically important amendment. It involves a
lot of money, and there is a lot of principle involved as to whether we
should continue to be building weapons we no longer need and we have
enough of. We need the F-22. There is no doubt about that. But we have
enough of the F-22, according to all our military leaders--civilian and
uniformed leaders alike.
But we cannot get to a vote, and that is the fact of the matter. We
have waited for an agreement to get to a vote on the Levin-McCain
amendment. Repeatedly, I have asked whether we can set a time for a
vote, and the answer has come back: We cannot set a time for a vote. It
is clear that for some reason, which, frankly, I do not fully
understand--the reason we are not permitted to get to a vote on the
Levin-McCain amendment is because of the prospect, the fact that either
the next amendment or somehow down the line on this bill there is going
to be offered a hate crimes amendment.
How that and why that should result in a denial of an opportunity to
vote on the Levin-McCain amendment escapes me, I must say. Because we
are going to get to the hate crimes amendment whether we are allowed a
vote on the F-22 amendment. Not allowing us a vote, not agreeing to a
time for a vote on the Levin-McCain amendment does not obviate the fact
there is going to be a hate crimes amendment offered. As a matter of
fact, it is now the actual amendment before us. And everyone knew that.

So I do not understand the logic behind the refusal to permit a vote
on an amendment--the Levin-McCain amendment--because of objection to
going to a vote on hate crimes, when we are going to that hate crimes
amendment anyway and when we are going to have to come back to the
Levin-McCain amendment. Everybody knows it. We are going to have to
resolve both those amendments. So the decision some made to deny us an
opportunity to vote at this time on Levin-McCain simply stymies this
body from doing what it is going to do.
There are many people who disagree with the Levin amendment. Fine.
There are many people who disagree on the hate crimes amendment. That
is their right. But what is undeniable is, we are going to resolve
both, one way or the other. We are going to resolve both of those and
hopefully a lot of other material and a lot of other amendments. They
are both going to be resolved, one way or the other, on this bill.
Argue both sides, argue neither side, but you cannot argue, it seems to
me, that we should not allow a vote on the first amendment before us--
Levin-McCain--because of opposition to another amendment which is going
to be offered.
I know there is strong opposition to hate crimes. I understand it. I
understand why people say it should not be on this bill, despite the
rules which allow it. I respect the right to disagree with it. But I do
not understand the logic or the strategy which denies us the
opportunity to vote on an amendment which has been thoroughly debated--
the Levin-McCain amendment--because there is another amendment down the
line which is going to be offered which people object to, when they
know it is coming up. Despite strong feelings that it should not come
up, it is coming up. It is now before us. Everyone knew it was going to
come up.

[[Page S7514]]

So now we are stymied. We are stymied from resolving an amendment
which has to be resolved, one way or the other--Levin-McCain--because
of objection to another amendment being offered. I don't get the logic.
I don't understand the strategy. I understand the feelings and I
respect the feelings, although I disagree with people who oppose the
Levin-McCain amendment and I disagree with people who oppose the hate
crimes amendment. So I understand the feelings. I don't share the
feelings, but I respect them, and I respect their right to fight
against these amendments. But for the life of me, I do not understand
why we are denied an opportunity to vote on Levin-McCain because of an
objection to another amendment. All it does is slow down this body. It
stymies this body from resolving issues which are going to be resolved.
As certain as this body is here, this is going to be resolved. These
are going to be resolved like a lot of other amendments. I don't know
how they will be resolved. That is not certain; it never is. But they
will be resolved because that is the nature of the Senate, to resolve
these issues.

Again, I thank my good friend from Arizona. I know there are
differences on the question of whether hate crimes ought to be offered
on this bill. I respect him deeply, and I respect his positions and his
right to hold them. While I surely disagree with the decision that has
been made to not permit us to move at this time to a resolution of
Levin-McCain, I nonetheless have a great understanding of the feelings
here. I appreciate them and I respect them.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona is
recognized.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I know there are a lot of other issues
that are consuming the interests of my colleagues and the American
people, such as the confirmation hearings of Judge Sotomayor; the HELP
Committee, of which I am a member, is reporting out one of the most
massive takeovers and expenditures of taxpayer dollars in history; and
we have this bill on the floor, and there are other issues. So it has
probably gone unnoticed that we have seen another really--if not
unprecedented, certainly highly unusual action on the part of the
majority.
Frankly, to my colleagues on this side of the aisle and the American
people, elections have consequences. What we have just seen is an
amendment before this body and a piece of legislation before this body
that I think one could argue is probably of more importance than any
other we consider because it authorizes the measures necessary to
preserve the security of this Nation, care for the men and women who
are serving in the military, and meet the future threats we will face
in the 21st century.
So what has happened here is that the majority leader, with the
agreement of my friend from Michigan, whom I highly respect and regard,
has made it clear that their highest priority is not that. Their
highest priority is a hate crimes bill--a hate crimes bill that has
nothing to do whatsoever with defending this Nation.
My friend from Michigan just complained that we haven't had a time
for the vote. Of course we haven't had a time for the vote on the
Levin-McCain amendment because we have been made aware that a hate
crimes bill--and by the way, not an ordinary, small, specific
amendment, but 17 pages, plus 6 additional pages, encompassing a piece
of legislation that is before this body that has never moved through
the Judiciary Committee. It has not moved through the Judiciary
Committee, the appropriate committee of oversight.
So the majority leader of the Senate comes to the floor, after
prevailing upon the distinguished chairman to withdraw his amendment--
an amendment of some consequence, a $1.75 billion expenditure, and, far
more important than even the money, a real confrontation between
special interests and the national interests--so that we can move to
the hate crimes bill.
The hate crimes bill is not without controversy, I say. In fact, it
is interesting that on June 16, 2009, the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights sent a letter to the Vice President and to the leaders of the
Congress opposing the hate crimes bill.
I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Commission on Civil Rights,

Washington, DC, June 16, 2009.
Re S. 909.

Hon. Joseph Biden, Jr.,
President, U.S. Senate,
Hon. Robert C. Byrd,
President Pro Tempore, U.S. Senate,
Hon. Harry Reid,
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Hon. Mitch McConnell,
Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Hon. Richard Durbin,
Majority Whip, U.S. Senate,
Hon. Jon Kyl,
Minority Whip, U.S. Senate,
Hon. Patrick Leahy,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
Hon. Jeff Sessions,
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee.
Hon. Russell Feingold,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Hon. Tom Coburn,
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the
Constitution.
Dear Mr. President and Distinguished Senators: We write
today to urge you to vote against the proposed Matthew
Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (S. 909) (``MSHCPA'').
We believe that MSHCPA will do little good and a great deal
of harm. Its most important effect will be to allow federal
authorities to re-prosecute a broad category of defendants
who have already been acquitted by state juries--as in the
Rodney King and Crown Heights cases more than a decade ago.
Due to the exception for prosecutions by ``dual sovereigns,''
such double prosecutions are technically not violations of
the Double Jeopardy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. But they
are very much a violation of the spirit that drove the
framers of the Bill of Rights, who never dreamed that federal
criminal jurisdiction would be expanded to the point where an
astonishing proportion of crimes are now both state and
federal offenses. We regard the broad federalization of crime
as a menace to civil liberties. There is no better place to
draw the line on that process than with a bill that purports
to protect civil rights.
While the title of MSHCPA suggests that it will apply only
to ``hate crimes,'' the actual criminal prohibitions
contained in it do not require that the defendant be inspired
by hatred or ill will in order to convict. It is sufficient
if he acts ``because of'' someone's actual or perceived race,
color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation,
gender identity or disability. Consider:
Rapists are seldom indifferent to the gender of their
victims. They are virtually always chosen ``because of''
their gender.
A robber might well steal only from women or the disabled
because, in general, they are less able to defend themselves.
Literally, they are chosen ``because of'' their gender or
disability.
While Senator Edward Kennedy has written that it was not
his intention to cover all rape with MSHCPA, some DOJ
officials have declined to disclaim such coverage. Moreover,
both the objective meaning of the language and considerable
legal scholarship would certainly include such coverage. If
all rape and many other crimes that do not rise to the level
of a ``hate crime'' in the minds of ordinary Americans are
covered by MSHCPA, then prosecutors will have ``two bites at
the apple'' for a very large number of crimes.
DOJ officials have argued that MSHCPA is needed because
state procedures sometimes make it difficult to obtain
convictions. They have cited a Texas case from over a decade
ago involving an attack on a black man by three white
hoodlums. Texas law required the three defendants to be tried
separately. By prosecuting them under federal law, however,
they could have been tried together. As a result, admissions
made by one could be introduced into evidence at the trial of
all three without falling foul of the hearsay rule.
Such an argument should send up red flags. It is just an
end-run around state procedures designed to ensure a fair
trial. The citizens of Texas evidently thought that separate
trials were necessary to ensure that innocent men and women
are not punished. No one was claiming that Texas applies this
rule only when the victim is black or female or gay. And
surely no one is arguing that Texans are soft on crime. Why
interfere with their judgment?
We are unimpressed with the arguments in favor of MSHCPA
and would be happy to discuss the matter further with you if
you so desire. Please do not hesitate to contact any of us
with your questions or comments. The Chairman's Counsel and
Special Assistant, Dominique Ludvigson, is also available to
further direct your inquiries.
Sincerely,
Gerald A. Reynolds,
Chairman.
Abigail Thernstrom,
Vice Chair.
Peter Kirsanow,
Commissioner.
Ashley Taylor, Jr.,
Commissioner.
Gail Heriot,
Commissioner.
Todd Gaziano,
Commissioner.

[[Page S7515]]

Mr. McCAIN. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sends a letter
saying:

Dear Mr. President and distinguished Senators: We write
today to urge you to vote against the Matthew Shepard Hate
Crimes Prevention Act.

That is basically the bill the majority leader has just inserted into
the process of legislation designed to defend this Nation's national
security. Of course there are strong feelings on it. This is a complete
abdication of the responsibilities of the Judiciary Committee but, more
importantly, could hang up this bill for a long period of time. While
we have young Americans fighting and dying in two wars, we are going to
take up the hate crimes bill because the majority leader thinks that is
more important--more important--than legislation concerning the defense
of this Nation. I am sure the men and women in the military serving in
his home State would be interested to know about his priorities.
So here we are. Now we will go through--I am sure the majority leader
will file cloture, we will go through 30 hours of debate, and we will
have another vote. All of this is unnecessary. Why couldn't we move the
hate crimes bill--remember, this is not a single-shot amendment on a
specific small issue; this is a huge issue, the whole issue of hate
crimes. It is a huge issue. It deserves hearings and debate and
amendment in the Judiciary Committee. But what are we going to do? For
reasons that I guess the majority leader can make clear because I don't
get it, he wants to put it on the national defense authorization bill
and pass it that way. He will probably succeed, and he will call it
``bipartisan.'' The last time I checked, it has 44 Democratic
cosponsors and 2 Republicans. That is the definition, by the way,
around here of bipartisan bills. That is the way the stimulus package
was bipartisan. That is how the omnibus spending bill was bipartisan.
And I am pretty confident that if health care ``reform'' passes, it
will probably be in another ``bipartisan'' fashion.
So we will have some hours of debate. We will have more exacerbated
feelings between this side of the aisle and that side of the aisle. I
would imagine that the hate crimes bill, given the makeup of this body,
may even be put on a defense authorization bill--a huge issue. A huge
issue will now be placed on a defense authorization bill and passed
through the Congress and signed by the President. That is a great
disservice to the American people. The American people deserve debate
and discussion and hearings and witnesses on this legislation. They
deserve it. They don't deserve to have a hate crimes bill put on this
legislation which has no relation whatsoever to hate crimes.
I will probably have a lot more to say about this in the hours ahead.
I have been around this body a fair amount of time. I have watched the
Defense authorization bill wind its way through Congress, and
occasionally, including at other times, I have seen amendments put on
bills which are nongermane, but I haven't seen the majority leader of
the Senate--the majority leader of the Senate, whose responsibility is
to move legislation through the Senate--take a totally nonrelevant,
all-encompassing, controversial piece of legislation and put it on a
bill that is as important to the Nation's security as is this
legislation. We are breaking new ground here, let's have no doubt about
it. It is one thing to sometimes have one Member or two or others
propose amendments that happen to be their pet project or their pet
peeve. It is an entirely different thing--it is an entirely different
thing, and I have never seen it before--that the majority leader of the
Senate comes to the floor and introduces an irrelevant piece of
legislation that is controversial, that is fraught with implications
for this and future generations, to a bill that is totally nonrelevant.
After 30 hours of debate, we will have a vote on closing that debate
and including it in the legislation. I am deeply, deeply disappointed,
and I question anyone's priorities who puts this kind of legislation
ahead of the needs of the men and women who are serving our military
with bravery, courage, and distinction.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are currently on the Department of
Defense authorization bill and an amendment that has been offered by
the Democratic majority leader relative to the creation of a new
Federal crime of hate crimes.
Earlier, the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, came to the floor to
question the wisdom of adding that kind of legislation to a bill
related to the Department of Defense. Most people, when they hear that
argument, would say: Why don't they do these bills separately? It turns
out that under the Senate rules, oftentimes there are few opportunities
to move a bill forward. It is not at all unusual for Senators to come
forward and offer what appears to be, and may in fact be, an unrelated
amendment to a bill that is likely to pass and be signed by the
President. Too often, we pass bills that die in transit to the House or
once over in the House never see the light of day. They have the same
complaint about the Senate.
This is legislation, hate crimes legislation, which we believe is
timely, important, and which we want to make part of this debate and
ultimately would like to offer it to the President for signature. It
has been debated in the House of Representatives, and it is a bill that
I think we can quickly come together with the House on and agree on
common terms. So it is an important opportunity.
I might say to Senator McCain that I have offered what we would call
unrelated amendments in the past, and he has as well. Going back many
years, in 1993 Senator McCain offered a line-item veto amendment to a
bill involving voter registration. He also offered that same amendment
to research bills and to a bill involving the travel rights of blind
individuals. He had a supermajority requirement to increase taxes added
to a bill--unrelated--on the subject of unemployment compensation. So
it is not unusual. I have done it. Senator McCain has done it.
In fact, this year we have seen it happen repeatedly. In fact, most
of the amendments have come from the other side of the aisle. Senator
Vitter--on a bill that tried to put the economy back on track--offered
an amendment that was critical of an organization known as ACORN. It
had nothing to do with the stimulus package. It was his personal
feeling about that organization that led to the amendment. Senator
Ensign of Nevada offered a controversial amendment which, in fact,
stalled a bill that was relating to the voting rights of the citizens
of the District of Columbia. Senator Ensign's amendment dealt with gun
control, which didn't have a direct bearing on the question of DC
voting rights. Senator DeMint raised the question of the fairness
doctrine of the Federal Communications Commission--another amendment to
the DC voting bill. Senator Thune of South Dakota offered an amendment
relative to concealed firearms, again on the DC voting rights bill.
The list goes on. To suggest what was done this morning is unusual is
to ignore the obvious. For the better part of this year, amendments
have been coming from the Republican side of the aisle that are
unrelated to the subject matter of the bill, and that has been a fact
of Senate life.
This amendment being offered by Senator Reid, as well as many others
relative to hate crimes, is a very important one. I would like to speak
to it.
I speak in strong support of the passage of this hate crimes
legislation. We plan on voting on it as an amendment to the Defense
authorization bill. For several years, the Senate has taken up these
two measures, and for several years both the House and the Senate have
passed the hate crimes bill only to see it blocked by filibuster
threats or veto vows.
We are fortunate to have a new President who supports this hate
crimes legislation. When the House of Representatives took up this
legislation just a couple months ago, President Obama issued a
statement which said:

I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to act on this
important civil rights issue by

[[Page S7516]]

passing this legislation to protect all our citizens from
violent acts of intolerance.

What a difference a year has made. When Congress took up the hate
crimes bill last Congress, President Bush called it ``unnecessary and
constitutionally questionable.'' He promised to veto it.
The American people said last November that they wanted a President
who will take our country in a different direction. President Obama is
doing that, and he is doing it on this issue as well.
The hate crimes bill has another important supporter who, sadly,
cannot be with us on the floor today, and that is Senator Ted Kennedy
of Massachusetts, who has been our leader on this issue for over 10
years. I wish he were here to make another impassioned speech for its
passage. Nobody speaks to this issue with more authority and clarity
than Senator Kennedy. Senator Kennedy has been called the heart and
soul of the Senate. Passing this bill will honor the great work he has
given in his public career to the cause of civil rights.
The Kennedy hate crimes bill now before us is one of the most
important pieces of civil rights legislation of our time. I am proud to
cosponsor it. I generally believe Congress should be careful in
federalizing crime. In the case of hate crimes, there is a demonstrated
problem and a carefully crafted solution.
Here is the problem--in fact, it is twofold. First, the existing
Federal hate crimes law, passed in 1968 after the assassination of Dr.
Martin Luther King, covers only six narrow categories. In order for the
current law to apply, a person has to be physically assaulted on the
basis of race, national origin, or religion, while engaging in one of
the following specific activities: using a public accommodation,
serving as a juror, attending a public school, participating in a
government program, traveling in interstate commerce, or applying for a
job.
The Kennedy hate crimes bill now being considered would expand
coverage so that hate crimes could be prosecuted wherever they took
place as long as there is an interstate commerce connection, such as
the use of a weapon. Federal prosecutors would no longer be limited to
the six narrow areas I mentioned earlier in the bill passed some 41
years ago.
Secondly, the bill would expand the categories of people covered
under the Federal hate crimes law. The current law provides no coverage
for hate crimes based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender, gender
identity, or disability. Unfortunately, statistics tell us that hate
crimes based on sexual orientation are the third most common after
those based on race and religion. About 15 percent of all hate crimes
are based on sexual orientation. Our laws cannot ignore this reality.
Let me address some of the arguments that have been made against this
hate crimes bill. Some of my constituents--in fact, most of those who
write in opposition to the bill--are writing either personally or on
behalf of churches. There are people who believe this bill would be an
infringement on religious speech. Their concern is that a minister
could be prosecuted if he sermonizes against homosexuality, and after
that a member of his congregation assaults someone on the basis of
their sexual orientation. I understand their concern, but it is
misplaced.
The chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, held a
hearing last month on the hate crimes bill. Attorney General Eric
Holder was the star witness. I attended the hearing and asked the
Attorney General pointblank whether a religious leader could be
prosecuted under the facts I just described. I talked to him about a
minister in a church who might stand before his or her congregation and
argue that the Bible states clearly, from their point of view, that
persons engaged in homosexual conduct are sinners, and if after that
sermon someone sitting in the congregation, in anger, turns and strikes
someone who is gay, can the minister be held responsible for inciting
this person to strike someone of a different sexual orientation. This
is what the Attorney General said in response to this hypothetical
question I raised:

This bill seeks to protect people from conduct that is
motivated by bias. It has nothing to do with regard to
speech. The minister who says negative things about
homosexuality, about gay people, this is a person I would not
agree with, but is not somebody who would be under the ambit
of this statute.

Based on that representation from the Nation's top law enforcement
officer, I hope some from religious communities who have been writing
to my office will understand that my response to them over the months
and years that they have been writing is consistent with the
interpretation of this hate crimes bill by the Attorney General of the
United States.

It is also important to point out that the Kennedy hate crimes bill
requires bodily injury. It does not apply to speech or harassment. It
does not apply to those who would carry signs with messages of their
religious beliefs. Attorney General Holder assured the Senate that,
unless there is bodily injury involved, no hate crimes prosecution
could be brought. I don't know how he could have been clearer or more
definitive. I am certain that some who don't want to accept the clear
meaning of his words will dispute him, but he was very clear for all of
the people of good faith who would listen.
And listen to the words of Geoffrey Stone, a first amendment scholar
at the University of Chicago Law School:

It is settled First Amendment law that an individual cannot
constitutionally be punished for attempting to incite others
to commit crimes, unless the speaker expressly incites
unlawful conduct and such conduct is likely to occur
imminently. The last time the Supreme Court upheld a criminal
conviction for incitement was more than a half century ago.

I also note that 24 States--nearly half of the States in America--
have hate crime laws on the books that include sexual orientation, and
religious leaders are not being prosecuted in those States. That is
just not the purpose of the hate crimes laws. Prosecutors aren't going
around looking to put ministers or people with religious beliefs
contrary to certain sexual orientations in jail.
Moreover, I think it is time that many people in the religious
community would come forward and support this legislation. They should
take comfort in knowing that if they believe intolerance and hate are
not part of their spiritual message, this law is a good law in support
of their beliefs.
This law would go beyond the six narrow areas I covered earlier. It
would be an important consideration since 20 percent of all hate crimes
are committed on the basis of a person's religion. This hate crimes law
will actually protect those discriminated against because of their
religious belief. That should be another reason for those of faith to
come forward and consider supporting it.
Another criticism of the Kennedy bill is one that has been around for
a long time. It is an argument about States' rights. They argue there
is no need to pass a Federal hate crimes law because the States can do
the job on their own.
This argument is remarkably similar to one we faced almost a century
ago when Congress debated an antilynching law. Between 1881 and 1964
there is evidence that almost 5,000 people--in fact, 4,749--were
lynched in the United States. Predominantly the victims were African
Americans. Yet Congress resisted addressing this problem for
generations.
Let me read some quotes from a 1922 Congressional Record when
Congress debated whether to pass a bill making lynching a Federal
crime. One Member of Congress said:

The great body of the good people of the country know that
the Federal Government should let the States solve these
purely local questions. They know that peace and confidence
cannot come from distrust and suspicion and that this
Congress cannot, by statute, change God's eternal laws.

Another House Member said:

The question is whether or not we shall duplicate the State
function by conferring the same power upon the Federal
Government as to this class of crimes. Ours is a government
of divided Sovereignties.

The arguments this year against the hate crimes bill sound very
similar to the arguments in 1922 against the antilynching law.
We can all agree that criminal law is primarily a State and local
function. It is estimated 95 percent of prosecutions for crimes occur
at that level. But there are some areas of criminal law in which we
have agreed the Federal Government can and should step in to help.

[[Page S7517]]

There are over 4,000 Federal crimes, 600 of which have been passed in
the last 10 years. Hate crimes are a sad and tragic reality in America.
Last month's horrific shooting, not far from here, at the Holocaust
Museum in Washington, DC, was the most recent reminder that hate-
motivated violence still plagues our Nation.
Earlier this year in my home State of Illinois, two White men in the
town of Joliet used a garbage can to beat a 43-year-old Black man
outside a gas station while yelling racial epithets and stating: ``This
is for Obama.'' The victim sustained serious injuries, lacerations, and
bruises to his head.
Last year, a University of Illinois student was walking near his
college campus with three friends when an attacker, yelling antigay
slurs, pushed him so forcefully he was knocked unconscious and suffered
a head injury.
These are incidents in my home State, which I am proud to represent,
but I am not proud of this conduct, and I do not think America should
be proud of this kind of intolerance and assault--physical assault--
that has taken place.
According to FBI data, which is based on voluntary reporting,
incidentally, there are about 8,000 hate crimes in America every year.
Some experts estimate the real number is closer to 50,000.
The Kennedy hate crimes bill will not eliminate hate crimes in
America, but it will help ensure these crimes do not go unpunished.
When Senator Kennedy introduced the hate crimes bill in April, here
is what he said--for Ted, whom I wish could be with us today, I will
repeat his words so he is part of the Record in support of this bill.
Here is what he said:

It has been over 10 years since Matthew Shepard was left to
die on a fence in Wyoming because of who he was. It has also
been 10 years since this bill was initially considered by
Congress. In those 10 years, we have gained the political and
public support that is needed to make this bill become law.
Today, we have a President who is prepared to sign hate
crimes legislation into law, and a Justice Department that is
willing to enforce it. We must not delay the passage of this
bill. Now is the time to stand up against hate-motivated
violence and recognize the shameful damages it is doing to
our Nation.

In the words of Senator Kennedy, and in my own words as well, I urge
my colleagues to support this important legislation.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, it is my understanding that we are now
on the hate crimes amendment which takes the form of the Hate Crimes
Prevention Act introduced by Senator Kennedy. I wish to speak on that
amendment.
I begin by commending and thanking Senator Kennedy for his leadership
and dedication on this issue for a long time. He has been the leader,
he has been persistent, and I know he remains fully supportive.
This has been offered as an amendment to the Defense authorization
bill. The reason is because it is so long overdue.
This amendment will expand the Federal definition of a hate crime so
that the Federal Government can prosecute crimes committed because of a
person's gender, gender identity, disability, or other sexual
orientation.
It would increase the Justice Department's authority to prosecute by
removing old restrictions that say a hate crime must involve a victim
who is attacked because of hate and attacked while voting, attending a
public school, serving on a jury or involved in another specially
designated activity. So the application of the existing legislation is
highly limited, and this would remove that limitation.
It would authorize $5 million in Federal grants to help States,
localities, and Indian tribes investigate and prosecute hate crimes. It
would also allow the Federal Government to give important technical,
forensic, and prosecutorial assistance to States and localities that
prosecute these kinds of crimes.
It would authorize the Department of Justice to begin programs to
combat hate crimes committed by children and teenagers. This is
important because this is a rising area of concern.
It would allow law enforcement to gather more data about violent hate
crimes so we know how big the problem is and can work to fight against
it.
Let me give a little bit of history. I have been working on hate
crimes since I joined the Senate and the Judiciary Committee almost 17
years ago. I know the history of this amendment very well. In the 103rd
Congress, I introduced the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act to
substantially increase criminal sentences whenever a crime was
committed on Federal land that had an element of hatred to it relating
to race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity or sexual
orientation. The bill was actually enacted into law in 1994, and it was
an important first step.
In the 105th Congress, Senator Kennedy introduced the Hate Crimes
Prevention Act for the first time, and I was one of 33 cosponsors. That
was 1997, and this is the bill we are still talking about today, 12
years later. In the 106th Congress, Senator Kennedy reintroduced the
bill. The bill was bipartisan, it had 43 cosponsors, but it did not
pass.
In the 107th Congress, 2 years later, Senator Kennedy reintroduced it
again. It was bipartisan, and this time it had 50 cosponsors. In July
of 2001, it was reported out of the Judiciary Committee, but a cloture
vote in 2002 failed by a vote of 54 to 43. That was 7 years ago. One-
half of the Senate was cosponsoring this bill, but we lost by six votes
on a cloture vote.
Senator Kennedy reintroduced the bill in the 108th, the 109th, and
the 110th Congresses. Each time there was broad and bipartisan support,
but the bill did not pass. In this Congress, the bill has 45
cosponsors. The Attorney General has testified in support of it, and a
similar bill has already passed the House. I believe it is time to pass
this legislation.
Let me be candid and say I still do not understand the opposition to
the bill. It does not criminalize speech. It only applies to violent
acts. These are acts where the victim is targeted because of who they
are--because of their race, or national origin, or disability, or
religion, or gender, or their sexual orientation. We should have passed
this bill many years ago.
According to the FBI, hate crimes occur in the United States at a
rate of approximately one for every single hour of the day. FBI
statistics are not complete because they rely on voluntary reporting
from local law enforcement agencies, but they are, nonetheless, I
think, chilling and compelling. In 2007, 7,264 hate crimes incidents
were reported to the FBI with a total of 9,535 victims. Approximately
50 percent of the victims were attacked because of their race, 18
percent because of their religion, 16 percent because of their sexual
orientation, 13 percent because of their ethnicity or national origin,
and 1 percent because of a disability.
The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that if we had
information about all the hate crimes that occur in the United States,
the total number would be close to 50,000.
These crimes come in all sizes and all shapes, but they have one
common theme: They leave people terrified, hurt, even dead, and they
rip communities apart.
I think we all remember the story of James Byrd, Jr., a 50-year-old
Black man, who was savagely murdered in Jasper, TX, in 1998, 11 years
ago, while this bill was under consideration. Mr. Byrd was walking home
from his parents' home late one night. He was picked up by three White
men in a pickup truck. They took him to the woods, they savagely beat
him, they chained him to the back of the truck, and they dragged him 2
miles to his death. His torso was found at the edge of a paved road.
His head and arm were found in a ditch a mile away. The three men were
later discovered to be Ku Klux Klan supporters, bearing racist tattoos.
A crime like this is not just tragic for the victim and his family
but it makes an entire group of people terrified to leave their homes
at night, and

[[Page S7518]]

it tears communities apart in a potentially irreparable way. This is a
heinous crime. Hate was the driving motivation and the law and the
punishment ought to reflect that.
Mr. Byrd was killed 11 years ago, and things have not gotten better.
Let me tell you about three trends I find particularly disturbing.
First, hate crimes targeting Hispanic Americans rose 40 percent between
2003 and 2007. FBI statistics show these crimes are rising every single
year. In 2003, 426 crimes against Latinos; in 2004, 475; 2005, 522;--
see it ratcheting up--2006, 576; and 2007, 595. That is a 40-percent
increase in 4 years.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has reported that this
increase in violence correlates with the heated debate over
comprehensive immigration reform, and we have all heard the talk shows
that preach hatred. This is part of the result. Regardless of the
reason, though, for the trend, it is unacceptable for us to stand by
and let these crimes increase.
Another example: In Shenandoah, PA, this year, a 25-year-old Mexican
immigrant and father of two was beaten to death by a group of high
school football players who yelled ethnic slurs as they punched and
kicked him. They beat him until he was unconscious and convulsing. He
died 2 days later from those injuries.
Just last week, a Latina janitor in Ladera Ranch, CA, was doing her
maintenance round when two men hit her on the head and stabbed her with
a switchblade while yelling racial slurs at her. Another hate crime
last week.
These are brutal, and the victims are attacked because of who they
are--their skin color, their religion, their heritage--and their
attackers' hate and vengeance.
There is a second troubling trend. The FBI reported 1,265 hate crimes
against gay men and lesbians in 2007, and these are only the crimes
reported. Many more crimes against this particular community are
believed to go unreported to local law enforcement. The FBI has been
reporting at least 1,000 hate crimes against this community every
single year since 1995.
These crimes are equally chilling. Last December, a woman in my
State, in the San Francisco Bay area--in Richmond, CA--who happened to
be lesbian, was attacked by four men when she got out of her car, which
had a gay pride sticker on its license plate. They raped her and made
comments about her sexual orientation. Then they drove her 7 blocks
away and raped her over and over again before leaving her naked on the
ground near a burned-out apartment complex.
This is the United States of America. In my State, too, in Oxnard,
CA, a 15-year-old openly gay boy named Larry King was harassed and
bullied by his classmates for many years. One day, in 2008, he was
sitting in an English class in school, when a fellow classmate stood,
took out a handgun and shot him in the head. Larry King died in the
hospital a few days later.
It is essential we give law enforcement all the resources we need to
investigate, to solve, to prosecute, and to punish these crimes.
Finally, there is a third area I am very concerned about. Most of the
worst of these crimes are being committed today by young people. On
election night, just last year, four young men between the ages of 18
and 21 drove to a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Staten
Island, where they brutally beat a Black teenager who was walking home
from watching the election results. They went on to assault another
Black man, and they used their car to run over a third man they
believed to be black. They injured this man so badly he was left in a
coma.
In Shenandoah, the individuals who savagely beat a 25-year-old
Mexican immigrant to death were all 21 or younger. And in Oxnard, the
boy who shot Larry King was 14 years old. Imagine being consumed by
hatred at 14 years old and what that means for the future of your life.
Why would anyone oppose giving the Department of Justice more
resources to fight these crimes? These hate crimes are terrifying.
These are the daily lives of Americans we are talking about--innocent
people who are walking to work, driving home at night, working or, yes,
sitting in our Nation's school classrooms.
This legislation is important. It will allow the Federal Government
to prosecute where States or localities are not willing to. It will
allow the Justice Department to assist States and localities that want
to prosecute but don't have the resources or expertise they need. It
does not criminalize speech. It only applies to violent acts, not
expressive conduct. It is bipartisan and supported by a majority of
Congress.
Twenty-six State attorneys general are advocating for it and so are
more than 41 civil rights groups, 55 women's groups, 79 Latino groups,
16 gay rights groups, 63 religious organizations that represent
hundreds of individual congregations, by the International Association
of Chiefs of Police, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association,
the Major Cities Chiefs of Police, the International Brotherhood of
Police Officers, the United States Conference of Mayors, the American
Veterans Committee, and many others.

This legislation is long overdue. There is a problem out there. It
deserves to be solved. It deserves to be deterred. It deserves to be
punished. This bill is long overdue.
I thank Senator Kennedy for his long history of leadership on this
issue. Indeed, if we are able to pass this bill today, or whenever we
vote, it will, in fact, be a major tribute to him.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I wish to repeat and emphasize the
unprecedented fashion that we are now addressing legislation that
concerns our Nation's security and the well-being and welfare of the
men and women who are serving it.
I always thought the job of the majority leader of the Senate was to
move legislation through the Senate. Obviously, the majority leader has
come to the floor of the Senate and, at the request of the majority
leader, the chairman of the committee has taken out an amendment that
addresses a $1.75 billion F-22 amendment that the President has placed
his personal stamp on passing, that the Secretary of Defense has viewed
as one of his highest priorities, as did the Secretary of the Air Force
and other administration officials. What did we do? We come to the
floor and withdraw the amendment, withdraw it so we can take up a major
piece of legislation.
I am reminded that there are amendments proposed by various Members
of this body who believe their amendments need to be proposed and
believe there is no other avenue but to put them on pending
legislation. The majority leader of the Senate can bring up legislation
wherever he wants to. That is the privilege of the majority. That is
the right of the majority.
Here we are trying to address an issue of paramount importance to the
well-being of the men and women of the United States of America. Here
we are trying to address an issue of $1.75 billion, which has far more
importance, in many respects, than the actual cost of the F-22s
themselves, and without a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, without a
bill reported out by the Judiciary Committee, which is the committee of
oversight, the majority leader of the Senate has one very important
amendment pulled and then puts in a piece of legislation which is far-
reaching in the consequences and very controversial.
I introduced into the Record a little while ago the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights opposes this legislation. Doesn't this legislation, the
hate crimes bill, deserve the amending and debate process that
legislation is supposed to go through--committees and then on the floor
of the Senate, open to amendments? No, it has been inserted now on the
Defense authorization bill, and within a short time, I am sure the
majority leader will come to the floor and file a motion for cloture to
cut off debate on an issue of significant importance to all Americans
and railroad it through on a ``bipartisan basis,'' with possibly two
Republican votes.
That is not the way this body should work. It is an abuse of power.
It does not make for comity on both sides of the aisle. In fact, those
of us who are committed to seeing this authorization bill done as
quickly as possible because we are worried about the security of this
Nation take great offense when the majority leader of the Senate, whose
job is to move legislation through the Senate, brings extraneous

[[Page S7519]]

and unrelated legislation to a bill as important as this to the men and
women of this country and our Nation's security. To somehow equate that
with other amendments that have been proposed, from time to time, by
Members on both sides, I think is not an appropriate comparison. I
resent it a great deal. It is not good for the health of this body, in
my view.
Perhaps there is precedent for this. Perhaps there is precedent when
a Defense authorization bill, an issue probably, as I say, of the
highest criticality, with an amendment on it that the President of the
United States has fully weighed in on and committed on, is taken off
the floor, is taken away from consideration in order to put in an
extraneous and very controversial full package of legislation.
The hate crimes bill before us is not an amendment. It is
legislation. It is an encompassing bill, 20-some pages long. We are
going to have about 30 hours of debate, a discussion on it, the
majority leader will come and cut off debate and we will probably pass
it, thereby exacerbating a situation where those of us who oppose this
legislation--and it is important legislation--will be faced with a
dilemma of choosing between a bill which will harm, in my view, the
United States of America and its judicial system and defending the
Nation. I do not think that is fair to any Member of this body.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.

Amendment No. 1521

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, yesterday Senator Brown and I introduced
bipartisan and commonsense legislation as both an amendment to the
National Defense Authorization Act and as a stand-alone bill. This is
not the first time we have worked together on legislation. I would like
to recognize and thank the junior Senator from Ohio for the bipartisan
manner that both he and his staff have worked on this particular issue.
In particular, I would also like to thank the Nevada Office of
Veterans Services and the National Association for State Veterans Homes
for bringing this matter to our attention.
As stated, our legislation is both bipartisan and common sense.
Currently, an individual is allowed into a State veterans home if the
individual is, No. 1, an eligible veteran as defined by the U.S. Code;
No. 2, the spouse of an eligible veteran; or, No. 3, a Gold Star
parent.
The problem, though, arises in the way that the Veterans Affairs
Department defines a Gold Star parent. Under current regulations, an
eligible parent is one who has lost all of their children while serving
their country. I know it doesn't make sense, but that is the way the
definition is. As a consequence, state veterans homes are forced to
deny admissions to Gold Star parents if they have any surviving
children. Losing a child in war is a stunning and life-altering event
for anyone. Senator Brown and I believe that for these families, having
one child make the supreme sacrifice in service to our country is
sacrifice enough to authorize the surviving parent's elder care in a
State veterans home later in life. Our legislation would change that to
permit entry into a VA nursing home to any parent who lost a son or
daughter in war while fighting to protect our freedoms and our very way
of life.
As most people are aware, State veterans homes were founded for
servicemembers following the American Civil War. They have become
institutions that our veterans and their dependents have come to rely
on for nearly 150 years. Currently, there are 137 State veterans homes
in all 50 States and Puerto Rico that, on a daily basis, provide
hospital, rehabilitation, long-term care, Alzheimer's care, and end-of-
life care to approximately 30,000 veterans and dependents.
I would also like to take this opportunity to recognize the Nevada
State Veterans Home in Boulder City, NV, for the great work they do.
U.S. News and World Report recently rated this veterans home as a 5-
star facility and the top nursing home in my home State of Nevada. I
think it is only fair that the parents who have lost a son or a
daughter have access to first-class facilities such as this.
I thank, once again, the junior Senator from Ohio and ask my other
colleagues to support this important legislation.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I rise in support of strengthening our
Federal hate crimes clause to include crimes motivated by a victim's
sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or whether the victim has a
disability. By passing the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act,
we will take a long-overdue step toward ensuring that our law
enforcement officials have the resources they need to prevent and
properly prosecute some of the most toxic and destructive violent
crimes we face. I also thank my colleagues who have worked tirelessly
to see this important legislation enacted into law. For the better part
of the last decade, Senator Kennedy, along with Senators Leahy,
Collins, and Snowe, have shown leadership on this issue, even when the
odds of success were small. Their diligence is one of the reasons this
legislation today enjoys the support of more than 300 law enforcement,
civil rights, civic, and religious organizations. As a new Member of
the Senate, I am proud to join them this year as an original cosponsor
of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. I truly hope my
colleagues will join me to pass this amendment.
In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old college student, was beaten
and murdered just because he was gay.
The brutality of this crime captured the attention of the Nation. It
was an attack not just on Matthew and his family but on an entire
community. I had the opportunity a couple of years ago to meet Judy
Shepard, Matthew's mother.
I applaud her willingness to try and make something positive out of
such a terrible tragedy. She has been a tireless advocate to try and
get hate crimes legislation passed and to point out the impact of these
violent acts on families across this country.
The Matthew Shepard attack sent a message of hate and intolerance to
LGBT youths and their families and instilled in countless young
Americans a sense of fear simply because of their sexual orientation.
Despite this, Matthew's murderers were not charged with a hate crime
because no such law exists in Wyoming or on the Federal level. It is
impossible to know for certain the full effect of crimes motivated by
hate on the communities they target. What is certain is that hate
crimes rob the members of these communities of a sense of security, and
the impact is real.
Among LGBT youth in this country, the suicide rate is four times
higher than their straight peers, as many struggle to find their place
in their families and their communities. While reducing bigotry and
increasing tolerance will require a comprehensive effort, it is an
effort that will take time. But addressing our outdated hate crimes law
is one very important component.
As Governor, I was proud to sign legislation that expanded New
Hampshire's hate crimes to include sexual orientation. Unfortunately,
many States still lack such laws, which is why this bill is so
critical.
By expanding the definition of hate crimes and by easing access to
resources for local and Federal law enforcement officials to prosecute
these crimes, we can hopefully help prevent these crimes and send a
message that hate and bigotry in any form have no place in our society.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, pending before the Senate is the
National Defense Authorization Act which is an annual bill considered
by

[[Page S7520]]

the Senate which basically authorizes the spending of money and certain
policies for the Department of Defense. There is a lot of work that
goes into this bill. It is put in primarily by the chairman of the
committee, Carl Levin of Michigan, and by John McCain of Arizona. This
bill looks to be over 1,000 pages long. They have put a lot of effort
into this bill and are anxious to pass it.
An issue came up, an important issue about the F-22 airplane. This is
a fighter plane that the current administration and others have said
should be discontinued. Whenever a fighter plane is being built and is
being discontinued, there are people who resist because each one of
these Defense projects involves a lot of people, a lot of jobs, a lot
of contracts that are important to businesses and families and
communities. So there is resistance. But on the F-22 fighter plane,
President Obama has gone so far as to say in writing: If you include
more planes beyond the 187 allocated in previous legislation, I will
veto the bill. That, of course, would call for a supermajority to
override the veto, which is not likely to occur. So it is a promise or
a threat from a President we have to take seriously.
The bill currently contains an amendment which expands the number of
F-22 fighter planes that was adopted narrowly in the Armed Services
Committee. The chairman and the ranking Republican have the same
position as President Obama. They want to reduce or hold fast to the
number of airplanes currently projected to be built and not to expand
it, as this bill does. So they offered an amendment to stand with
President Obama and delete the section of the bill which would call for
more planes. That amendment, No. 1469, was offered on Monday to be
considered by the Senate. A number of Members have come to support the
amendment, and I am one of them. I support the President's position and
the position of Senators Levin and McCain. There are others who oppose
this amendment, clearly.
At one point, Senator Levin said: Let's move this to a vote. Senator
McCain agreed, as we should. It had been pending for 2 days. Everyone
knows what is at issue. It is contentious and clearly controversial,
but we deal with those issues. That is part of our job.
At that point, the process broke down. The Republican side of the
aisle objected to calling the amendment. That is when the bill came
grinding to a halt. That is when Senator Levin said: We know that after
this amendment on F-22s, we will go to an amendment on hate crimes
legislation on the same bill. So he withdrew this amendment.
Clearly, the answer to this--one I hope we can work out at the
leadership level--is for Republicans to agree that we have a vote on
the F-22 airplane. We should. Senator McCain is anxious for that to
happen so the bill can move forward. Once that vote is out of the way,
we should schedule a reasonable time for debate and a vote on the hate
crimes legislation, which is not new. We have considered this before.
But we are bogged down.
At this point, tempers are flaring a little bit because this
important bill is being held up over those two issues: whether the F-22
amendment by Senators Levin and McCain will come to a vote and whether
the hate crimes legislation offered by Senator Reid will also then be
considered and voted on. I hope both those occur. There is no reason
why they should not. Those who think they might lose the F-22 amendment
are resistant to calling it for a vote. But there will come a day when
we have to face this issue with a vote. That is ultimately what the
Senate is here for.
I might say about nonrelevant amendments, a position made on the
floor by my friend from Arizona and others, it is a hard argument to
understand in light of what we have been through.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a long list of
nonrelevant amendments offered this year by the Republican side of the
aisle to a series of bills considered on the floor.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Republican Non-Relevant Amendments 2009

Vitter #107 (ACORN) to H.R. 1, The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act; Ensign #575 (DC Guns) to S. 160, DC Voting
Rights; DeMint #573 (Fairness Doctrine) to S. 160, DC Voting
Rights; Thune #579 (Concealed Firearms) to S. 160, DC Voting
Rights; Cornyn #674 (Union Dues) to H.R. 1105, Emergency
Supplemental Omnibus Appropriations; Vitter #621
(Congressional Pay) to H.R. 1105, Emergency Supplemental
Omnibus Appropriations; Thune #662 (Fairness Doctrine) to
H.R. 1105, Emergency Supplemental Omnibus Appropriations;
Thune #716 (Charitable Donations Deduction) to H.R. 1388,
National Service; Vitter #705 (ACORN) to H.R. 1388, National
Service; Inhofe #996 (National Language) to S. 386, Fraud
Enforcement; Vitter #991 (TARP) to S. 386, Fraud Enforcement
and Recovery Act; Coburn #982 (TARP) to S. 386, Fraud
Enforcement and Recovery Act; Thune #1002 (TARP) to S. 386,
Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act; DeMint #994 (TARP) to S.
386, Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act; Coburn #983 (IG-
Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac) to S. 386, Fraud Enforcement and
Recovery Act; Vitter #1016 (TARP) to S. 896, Helping Families
Save Their Homes Act; Thune #1030 (TARP) to S. 896, Helping
Families Save Their Homes Act; DeMint #1026 (TARP) to S. 896,
Helping Families Save Their Homes Act; Coburn #1067 (Guns in
National Parks) to H.R. 627, Credit Cardholders; Coburn #1068
(Guns in National Parks) to H.R. 627, Credit Cardholders;
Hutchison #1189 (Auto Dealers) to H.R. 2346, Iraq/Afghanistan
Supplemental Appropriations; Vitter #1467 (Rx Drug
Reimportation) to H.R. 2892, Homeland Security
Appropriations.

Mr. DURBIN. They run the range of things. I talked earlier about some
of these amendments: an amendment relating to the regulation of guns in
the District of Columbia put on the voting rights bill; an amendment
relating to the fairness doctrine and telecommunications on the same DC
voting rights bill; an amendment related to congressional pay on the
Omnibus appropriations bill. The list goes on and on. I won't go beyond
including it in the Record.
What the majority leader did today with the hate crimes legislation
is not unlike what has been done repeatedly by the Republican side of
the aisle over the last several months. Ultimately, these came to a
vote. They were considered and voted on. That is all the majority
leader is asking for, to bring the hate crimes legislation to a vote on
this legislation.
There is clearly a way out of this. It is for the Senate to do its
job, to vote on the Levin-McCain amendment on the F-22 fighters up or
down. Let's see who prevails, understanding that if this provision
stays in the bill and Levin-McCain fails, the President will veto the
bill. That is a pretty ominous prospect.
Also keep mind that the hate crimes legislation is timely. It has
passed the House of Representatives and should be considered by us.
I would like to say a word on it and ask unanimous consent to have
printed in the Record a publication by an organization known as Third
Way which consists of statements of support from religious leaders for
the Senate hate crimes bill.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Statements of Support From Religious Leaders for the Senate Hate Crimes
Bill

Dr. David P. Gushee, Distinguished University, Professor of
Christian Ethics, Mercer University: As a Christian, I
believe in the immeasurable and sacred worth of every human
being as made in the image of God and as the object of God's
redeeming love in Jesus Christ. In our sinful and violent
world, there are tragically very many ways in which this
sacredness is violated. This bill deserves Christian support
because its aim is to protect the dignity and basic human
rights of all Americans, and especially those Americans whose
perceived ``differentness'' makes them vulnerable to physical
attacks motivated by bias, hatred and fear. The bill simply
strengthens the capacity of our nation's governments to
prosecute violent, bias-related crimes. I am persuaded that
the bill poses no threat whatsoever to any free speech right
for religious communities or their leaders. Its passage will
make for a safer and more secure environment in which we and
all of our fellow Americans can live our lives. For me, the
case for this bill is settled with these words from Jesus:
``As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to
me'' (Mt. 25:40).
Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins, Senior Pastor, Nineteenth Street
Baptist Church, Washington, DC: A strong Biblical imperative
that I believe stands at the heart of my Christian faith is
the preservation and protection of the inherent dignity of
all persons. The Scriptures are replete with examples of
God's concern and compassion for those seen as ``other'' by
many. As an American, I know the protection of personal
dignity and human rights is a principle that makes us

[[Page S7521]]

that much stronger as a nation, and certainly does not stand
at odds with freedom of expression. Passage of the Hate
Crimes Bill will help to ensure the safeguards of the law for
those who are victimized by acts of bias and hate. I welcome
the opportunity to support this bill as an expression of my
Christian witness, and my belief in our nation's highest aims
for all its citizens.
Dr. Joel C. Hunter, Senior Pastor, Northland--A Church
Distributed: I would think that the followers of Jesus would
be first in line to protect any group from hate crimes. He
was the one who intervened against religious violence aimed
at the woman caught in the act of adultery. He protected her
while not condoning her behavior. This bill protects both the
rights of conservative religious people to voice passionately
their interpretations of their scriptures and protects their
fellow citizens from physical attack. I strongly endorse this
bill.
Rev. Gabriel A. Salguero, Executive and Policy Advisor, The
Latino Leadership Circle: At the heart of the Christian
gospel is the belief in the intrinsic dignity of all
humanity. When people are targeted for acts of violence the
Church must speak out. I support the Hate Crimes bill because
it provides room for free speech and religious conviction
while protecting groups of people from acts of violence. As a
Christian who values both love and truth I support a bill
that protects the vulnerable while allowing ministers to
speak freely about their faith and moral convictions. The
Hate Crimes bill does not call for the sacrifice of either
dignity nor conviction. It is my prayer that we continue to
find ways forward that honors both freedom of speech and
protection for all our citizens.

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, those who spoke in favor of the bill
should be noted, their identities should be noted, because there is
some argument, at least in the mail I have received from some religious
leaders against the bill. Dr. David Gushee, distinguished university
professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, has a well-thought-
out statement in support of the bill; Rev. Derrick Harkins, senior
pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, DC, the
same; Dr. Joel Hunter, senior pastor at Northland, has also come out in
support; and Rev. Gabriel Salguero, executive and policy adviser of the
Latino Leadership Circle.
The point I tried to make earlier and the one their support makes is
that there are religious leaders who believe this bill is necessary to
protect those who may be subjected to physical violence because of
religious belief--we don't want that to occur--that intolerance is not
consistent with American values.
Secondly, to those who argue that if we include sexual orientation in
this bill, a pastor who sermonizes against homosexuality based on his
interpretation of the Bible could be arrested for it, that is not true.
As I quoted earlier, the Attorney General said, clearly, hate crimes
legislation is focused on physical violence--not words, not harassment,
but physical violence. If the religious leader is not engaged in
physical violence against someone of a different sexual orientation,
they will not be subject to prosecution under this bill. That has been
made clear by the Attorney General, and the support of religious
leaders indicates they understand that as well. We need to protect the
people of our country against hate crimes and intolerance, but we also
need to honor our constitutional guarantees when it comes to speech and
religious belief. Those are consistent.
I look forward to the Senate coming to a conclusion, but I think
those who have come to the floor and criticized the majority leader for
this situation have not told the whole story. The whole story is the F-
22 amendment by Senators Levin and McCain was ready to be called,
should have been called for a vote, and if it is scheduled for a vote,
it can be dispensed with. I will support it. I have made that clear to
the sponsors. Then we can move to the hate crimes legislation which the
majority leader has brought before us, not unlike the many different
instances this year when Republicans did exactly the same thing on the
floor.
I urge those who might be off to lunch in a few minutes to use this
opportunity. I see my friend from Arizona has taken the floor. I hope
we can find an opportunity to work these two things out, perhaps bring
to a vote the F-22 amendment, which I do support, the Levin-McCain
amendment, to remove language in the bill on the expansion of the F-22
program. The sooner we can get approval from the leadership on the
other side of the aisle, the sooner we can dispense with it one way or
the other, up or down. Secondly, I hope we can then move to the hate
crimes legislation which has been debated at length and is not unlike
many of the other amendments which have been offered on the Republican
side of the aisle on a variety of different bills during the course of
the last few months. Bringing these two matters to a vote, perhaps we
can then take up other pending matters on the Defense authorization
bill on which I know the Senators from Arizona and Michigan have worked
so hard.
Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield.
Mrs. BOXER. I just have a question, while my friend has the floor. I
have been waiting to speak on the hate crimes bill. I am wondering if
it would be possible, because I am not sure if Senator McCain has a
lengthy statement, for him to work with us so we could get a time
certain when I may make that statement.
Mr. DURBIN. I am going to yield the floor. Is the Senator seeking
recognition?
Mr. McCAIN. I will just take a few minutes.
Mr. DURBIN. Could I yield to the Senator from Arizona with the
understanding that after he has spoken, the Senator from California
would be recognized?
Mr. McCAIN. That would be fine with me.
Mr. DURBIN. Could the Senator give an indication of how much time he
may require?
Mr. McCAIN. I am not sure what the Senator's reaction will be to what
I have to say. I can't give him a specific time agreement. I am sorry.
This is a vital issue we are addressing.
Mr. DURBIN. I understand it is.
Mr. McCAIN. I will make my remarks as short as possible. I believe
the Senator from Illinois has the floor; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois has the floor.
Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for another question?
Mr. DURBIN. I will.
Mrs. BOXER. I am trying to get a sense for timing's sake. We all have
obligations in our various committees and with constituents. I am
wondering if I should speak first. My statement is only about 6
minutes. Then I could yield to Senator McCain. I think this hate crimes
legislation is landmark legislation.
Mr. DURBIN. I think Senator McCain has asked to be recognized first.
If I have any response to him, I will try to make it very brief. I ask
unanimous consent that after the Senator from Arizona has spoken, the
Senator from California be immediately recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I want to point out again, the
legislation which is now pending has replaced the F-22, the Levin-
McCain amendment. My argument is that the majority leader has put in
legislation which is not relevant to the pending legislation, which is
the Department of Defense authorization bill. I am perfectly willing
for the hate crimes bill to come up under the regular order. Why it
should be put on the Defense authorization bill, which will then not
allow adequate debate and discussion of amendments, not to mention the
fact that it hasn't gone through the committee of jurisdiction--
frankly, I do not think it is the appropriate way of using the Defense
authorization bill. In fact, I think it is highly inappropriate.
Therefore, why don't we do this, I ask the Senator from Illinois: agree
that as soon as the Defense authorization bill is complete, we take up
the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act under the regular
order and do business the way the Senate should do business?

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 909

So therefore, Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the
pending amendment be immediately withdrawn; that no amendments on the
topic of hate crimes be in order to the pending legislation; further, I
ask that when the Senate completes action on the Department of Defense
authorization bill, it be in order for the Senate to proceed to S. 909,
the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, under the regular
order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). Is there objection?

[[Page S7522]]

Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I would say
that the Senator from Arizona knows that on 16 different occasions this
year Republican Senators have offered nonrelevant amendments to pending
legislation. The Senator has done that himself. I have done it myself.
It is not unusual or beyond the custom and rules of the Senate. And I
believe Senator Reid has the right to do it on this critically
important legislation which we can move to with dispatch. Based on
that, I do object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. McCAIN. So, Mr. President, here are the facts. The fact is, the
majority leader, whose job it is to move legislation through the
Senate, is now blocking progress of Defense authorization--that
progress through the Senate--by proposing an unneeded, irrelevant
amendment, which is a large piece of highly controversial legislation.
The Senate majority leader will come to the floor and he will file
cloture. Then, after some hours--with no amendments because he will
probably fill up the tree--the Senate will pass a highly controversial,
highly explosive piece of legislation to be attached to the
authorization for the defense and the security of this Nation. That is
wrong. And why--I want to put it this way: It is unanswerable that we
do not just take up the hate crimes bill in the regular order and allow
Senate debate and discussion. That is how the Senate is supposed to
work--not put it on a major piece of legislation.
I will also point out to my friend from Illinois something he knows.
It is one thing for someone who sits back there to propose an amendment
to pending legislation because they feel that is the only way they can
get their argument heard. The majority leader of the Senate has the
authority to move whatever legislation he wants. And the majority
leader of the Senate should move the hate crimes bill if he wants it
considered rather than give it priority over the legislation that
accounts for the national security of this country and the men and
women who serve it.
So I am sure there will be all kinds of comments about the
Republicans blocking a vote, blocking this, blocking that. Why don't we
take up legislation in the regular order? Hate crimes has been opposed
by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. This is a very controversial
issue. By putting it on the DOD bill, we are not going to have the
adequate debate, discussion, and amendment an issue such as this
deserves. There is passion on both sides of the aisle.
So it is obvious, whether it is the intention or not, what is
happening here is the whole process of debate and amendment will be
short-circuited, because we on this side of the aisle are more than
willing to take up the legislation as a separate piece of legislation,
debate, amend, and discuss it, and let the American people decide.
Instead, the men and women in the military right now today are being
shortchanged by putting irrelevant legislation that is highly
controversial and highly complex on a bill designed for defense of this
country and for the men and women who serve it.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. McCAIN. Actually, I will be glad to yield. But if the Senator
wants to have a colloquy, go ahead.
Mr. DURBIN. I want to make sure Senator Boxer has her chance.
If I could make two points in the nature of a question to the Senator
from Arizona.
First, Senator Reid offered this amendment on behalf of Senator
Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who is now presiding over
the Sotomayor hearings. I know he supports it, and I support it as
well, the hate crimes legislation, but I want to make that a matter of
record.
Mr. McCAIN. Could I respond to that?
Mr. DURBIN. Yes.
Mr. McCAIN. It is one thing to have the chairman of the committee
support it; it is another thing to have the legislation go through the
committee with the proper debate and discussion and amendment. But go
ahead.
Mr. DURBIN. The second point I would like to make to the Senator from
Arizona is, when we asked for unanimous consent from the Republican
side to move to the hate crimes legislation, there was objection. So it
is not as if we have not tried to go through regular order. This seems
to be the only path we can use to bring this matter to a conclusion.
And I think it can be done in a responsible way quickly. It does not
have to drag out over a matter of days. The Senator knows that. If we
can get agreement on both sides to have a reasonable time for debate
and a vote on the bill, I think that would meet the needs the Senator
has suggested to get back on the substance of the Defense authorization
bill.
Mr. McCAIN. In deference to the Senator from California, I will make
my answer brief, just to say I do not think--as I have said in my
previous argument, it does not belong on a defense authorization bill,
particularly so moved by the majority leader of the Senate. But, Mr.
President, the Senator from California is waiting, and I yield the
floor.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if the Senator from California will allow
me to make a unanimous consent request before she speaks.

Unanimous-Consent Request

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 12 noon, on Thursday,
July 16, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on
the Leahy amendment No. 1511, with the time until then equally divided
and controlled between the leaders or their designees; that if cloture
is invoked on amendment No. 1511, then all postcloture time be yielded
back and amendment No. 1539 be agreed to; that amendment No. 1511, as
amended, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the
table; that upon disposition of the hate crimes amendment, Senator
Levin be recognized to offer the Levin-McCain amendment, and that the
time until 5 p.m., Thursday, July 16, be for debate with respect to the
amendment, with all time equally divided and controlled between
Senators Levin and Chambliss or their designees; that at 5 p.m.,
Thursday, July 16, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the
amendment, with no intervening amendment in order during the pendency
of the F-22 amendment; further, that the mandatory quorum be waived
with respect to rule XXII.
The purpose of this unanimous consent request is to achieve just what
the Senator from Arizona asked for: a timely consideration of both
amendments. We will be back on the bill on his amendment. I ask
unanimous consent that we accept this schedule and move forward.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will
object, I am not asking that there be a time agreement on hate crimes,
I am asking that the hate crimes bill be brought up as a standing bill.
The Senator has 60 votes. The Senator could bring it up whether this
side of the aisle objects or not as a freestanding piece of
legislation. I object to it being considered on the Department of
Defense authorization bill. It has no place for it. It should not be
there. The longer we wait, the longer the delay is in providing the men
and women of the military the tools they need. So I do object. And we
should take this up. I am sorry my unanimous consent request was not
agreed to--that we would take it up as a freestanding bill after the
consideration of the Department of Defense bill.
Mr. President, I yield the floor. I thank the Senator from California
for her courtesy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank Senator McCain and Senator Durbin
for moving through their debate swiftly so I would have this
opportunity to speak in support of a landmark piece of legislation that
has been offered as an amendment, the hate crimes prevention amendment
named after Matthew Shepard.
This bill is a long time coming. I know we could make a process
argument. We do it well around here. But it seems to me, we can move
this Defense bill through quickly. We are doing that. We will do that.
It has strong support. But we can also take care of this long-
neglected, important piece of legislation whose passage will protect
and defend our citizens from hate crimes.
So it is funny, because technically speaking, of course, the Defense
bill is

[[Page S7523]]

about our military, and we all support doing what we have to do to keep
it strong and to be prepared. That is why I will support that. But
there is no reason why we cannot take a little time to look at the fact
that it is time for the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act to
really be passed. It will not slow us up really. We have just seen that
Senator Durbin has asked for a unanimous consent agreement to do this
quickly. It is not going to delay. My Republican friends do not seem to
mind it when they offer nonrelevant amendments to bills. They have done
it 16 times this year. Oh, they do not have a problem. But if it is
something they do not like, suddenly they make this process argument.
Rather than debate process, why don't we just get on with it? We can do
a couple of important things this week--one of them, the Defense bill,
and the other, protecting our citizens from hate crimes.
The importance of the amendment that was offered by Senator Leahy
through our leader is that it would strengthen the ability of Federal,
State, and local authorities to investigate and prosecute hate crimes.
It has been more than 10 long years since the senseless death of
Matthew Shepard--a tragedy that showed us we have a long way--a long
way--to go before we can truly say in this country there is equal
justice for all.
Let's look back at what happened to Matthew Shepard 10 long years
ago. Two men offered Matthew Shepard, a gay man, a ride in their car.
Subsequently, Shepard was robbed. He was pistol whipped. He was
tortured. He was tied to a fence in a remote rural area. And he was
left to die. Mr. President, this was not a robbery. This was not a spur
of the moment situation. We know from the pair's then-girlfriends, who
testified under oath, that the two men plotted beforehand to rob a gay
man in particular. That crime occurred because Matthew Shepard was a
gay man. Well, they robbed him. They tortured him. And they killed him.
This crime should be a Federal crime. And yes, we have tried to pass
that hate crimes legislation for years and years. There is always an
excuse: We do not have the time. It is not relevant to the bill. Well,
Matthew Shepard's family--what happened to them will never go away. The
loss they carry in their hearts will never disappear. But the one thing
we can do to ease their burden is to pass this legislation.
Look, we have offered this on Defense bills before. This is not the
first time. We dealt with it and we voted and we moved on. So the only
thing you can say as to why there is all this objection is because
people do not want to vote on this bill, and they are making it more
and more difficult for us to be able to get to it. I hope we will, in
fact, stick to it and get this done. Again, it is not going to weigh
down the Defense authorization. In my mind, again, it is something we
need to do and we can do with no harm to the underlying bill.
We should be proud to support this legislation, not afraid to vote on
it, not trying to postpone a vote on it. Hate crimes are particularly
offensive because they are propelled by bias and bigotry. They not only
inflict harm on the victims, but they instill fear in entire
communities.
That is why I have--and I ask to put into the Record--a strong letter
of support from my sheriff from Los Angeles, Lee Baca. I ask unanimous
consent to have this letter printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

County of Los Angeles,

Sheriff's Department Headquarters,

Monterey Park, CA, June 25, 2009.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Kennedy: The Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department is proud to support S-909. This bill would provide
federal assistance to state and local jurisdictions for the
prosecution of hate crimes.
This bill will adopt the definition of ``hate crime'' from
the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994
which is a crime where the defendant intentionally selects a
victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that
is the object of the crime, because of the actual or
perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity,
gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person and
additionally include gender identity.
This bill will also authorize the Attorney General, at the
request of the state or local law enforcement agency, to
provide technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or other
assistance in criminal investigations or prosecutions. The
Attorney General is additionally authorized to award grants
to law enforcement agencies for extraordinary expenses
associated with the investigation and prosecution of hate
crimes.
In 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
statistics indicate that 2,025 law enforcement agencies
across the country reported 7,624 hate crimes involving 9,006
offenses. Of those, 7,621 were single bias incidents
involving 9,527 victims and 6,962 offenders. Of the single
bias incidents, 50.8 percent were racially motivated, 18.4
percent motivated by religion, 16.6 percent motivated by
sexual orientation, 13.2 percent motivated by ethnicity or
national origin, and 1 percent motivated by disability.
This bill is, indeed, a civil rights issue, as President
Obama said, ``. . . to protect all of our citizens from
violent acts of intolerance.'' Hate crimes are a scourge in
our society and have no place in humanity.
Thank you for sponsoring this important legislation. It is
the duty of government to protect all, equally and
unequivocally. Should you have any questions, do not hesitate
to contact me directly.
Sincerely,
Lee Baca,
Sheriff.

Mrs. BOXER. I want to note that Lee Baca happens to be a Republican.
I want to note that this law enforcement individual is very strong on
this. He says this hate crimes bill deals with a civil rights issue,
and he quotes President Obama, ``to protect all of our citizens from
violent acts of intolerance.'' Lee Baca adds in his own words:

Hate crimes are a scourge on our society and they have no
place in humanity.

What we are dealing with is not a Republican issue or a Democratic
issue. There are gay people who are Republicans. There are gay people
who are Democrats. There are gay people in the closet. There are gay
people out of the closet. But I can tell my colleagues that too many
gay people live in fear. They live in fear that two people or one
person could attack them simply because they are gay, and that is not
right in this, the greatest country in the world, and we can fix it.
I also wish to point out this bill also protects women who are
attacked simply because of their gender. So this bill is about making
sure women are protected and gays are protected.
I wish there was no need for this law. I wish we lived in a world
where such a law would be unnecessary. We all do. One of our Founders
said, if people were perfect, we wouldn't need a government. People are
not perfect. There has to be right and wrong and it has to be spelled
out. People who are innocent need to be protected.
A man gets in a car with two people who claim to be his friends, and
he winds up robbed, tortured, and killed, and put on a fence, I might
add.
So, Attorney General Holder, when he testified before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, reported that the FBI said there were 7,624 hate
crime incidents in 2007. That is the most recent data: 7,624 hate crime
incidents.
If we pass this bill, we send a signal that the Federal Government
will not stand by and watch this sort of thing happen. We send a
message that we will be a backup, that we will supply the law
enforcement personnel, the forensic assistance, anything the local
prosecutor needs and the local police need to help them.
Eric Holder also testified that between 1998 and 2007, more than
77,000 hate crime incidents were reported by the FBI. That is one hate
crime for every hour of every day for a decade, one hate crime every
hour of every day for a decade.
Senator McCain--and I have full respect for him--said: Let's just do
this another day.
We shouldn't wait another day. This should receive unanimous support
from everyone across party aisles, and I believe it will receive
tremendous support across party aisles. I do. So let's get to vote on
it.
Statistics are one thing; the individual stories are horrifying. I
will give my colleagues another example, the case of Lawrence ``Larry''
King, a 15-year-old boy from Oxnard, CA. Larry, an eighth-grader, was
shot and killed by a fellow student in the middle of a classroom in
February of 2008. According to news reports, the shooting occurred the
day after the students had a verbal altercation about Larry's sexual
orientation. The police and the district attorney classified the murder
as a hate crime. The district attorney said there had never been a
violent shooting like this before in Ventura County in

[[Page S7524]]

my State. A young life ended too soon by a violent act of hate.
My State is not immune from these crimes.
In Richmond, CA, four men were arrested and charged for brutally
gang-raping a young lesbian. According to news reports, one of the
attackers taunted her for being a lesbian during the attack.
After that heinous incident, a young Black man in Richmond was
attacked. According to the young man's police report, his attackers
yelled racial epithets and slurs as they broke six of his bones.
Finally, another example: In 2006, a man walked into an Amish school
in Pennsylvania. Taking several female students hostage and releasing
all the male students, he shot 10 of the girls, killing 5--killing 5--
before shooting himself. The age of these girls was from 6 to 13 years
old. These girls lost their lives because of a despicable act of hate
based on their gender.
There is no reason to come to the floor and say we can't do this bill
because we have other very important business on our plate. Of course
we do. Of course we need to do the Defense bill. Of course we will do
the Defense bill. The last I checked, the Defense authorization usually
passes practically unanimously. This isn't a problem. So we can deal
with this. We have done it before.
These stories demonstrate if America is to serve as a model for
tolerance and justice, we must do everything in our power to fight
hate-motivated violence, and this amendment is an important step in
that fight.
So to summarize what this amendment does, it would add gender, sexual
orientation, gender identity, or disability as protected categories
under our hate crimes laws. Second, the amendment removes the
requirement that a victim be engaged in a federally protected activity
such as serving on a jury or attending a public school before the
government can act. Third, and very important, the amendment provides
additional Federal assistance to State and local authorities to
investigate and prosecute hate crimes. I talked about the letter from
my sheriff in Los Angeles County. Our law enforcement people need all
the help they can get when they are trying to solve a hate crime and
then trying to prosecute a hate crime. This bill will give them the
assistance they deserve to have if they ask for such assistance. If
they don't act, this is a backup law. This says it is a Federal crime.
There is a nexus with interstate commerce, but as we know, that is not
too hard to make.
So this basically says we are going to protect these individuals in
our society who may be disabled and if they are discriminated against
because they are a woman or a man--gender bias--or because of their
sexual orientation.
Opponents of this amendment will say it punishes free speech and
thought and that every crime will become a Federal hate crime. That is
patently untrue. The hate crimes prevention amendment, as I said, is
narrow, and we know these crimes do occur. This isn't about punishing
speech. This isn't about punishing thoughts. If all that Matthew
Shepard had to deal with were taunts about his sexuality, his sexual
orientation, that would be one thing. He had to deal with murderers who
tortured him. That is different. If they had said something to him and
walked out, that would be one thing. They acted on their hatred, and
that is un-American. It is un-American.
This amendment doesn't attempt to federalize all crimes, or even hate
crimes. The certification provision prevents the Federal Government
from stepping into a case unless it can certify that doing so is
necessary to secure justice and is in the public interest. Thus,
prosecutions that normally take place at the State and local level will
continue to be handled there. The difference is we will then give them
as a Federal Government all the tools they need from us.
This amendment is an important step as we continue to form a more
perfect union, and we can't rest until we do this--and more. We can't
rest until we pass laws to create a fair workplace for all. We can't
rest until we pass a law that repeals ``don't ask, don't tell'' and
allows our capable Americans and our patriotic Americans to serve our
country. We are losing some of the best and brightest from our military
because they don't want to live a lie. We can't rest until we pass laws
to end racial profiling in our society. We can't rest until we pass
comprehensive laws to protect our children from violent crimes.
Years ago I wrote the Violence Against Children Act. I am still
waiting to get it passed. When someone takes up a hand against a child
and injures that child and hurts that child, that is un-American too.
If there is a violent crime against a child, I believe the Federal
Government ought to care and ought to help the local governments who
are trying to solve that crime and punish that crime if they need help.
So we have a lot of work to do to form that more perfect union.
Instead of arguing process today, why don't we have our friends come to
the floor and say: This is a wonderful opportunity now to take a step
forward and pass this Hate Crimes Prevention amendment, which we have
been trying to do for so long, and, of course, not slow down the
Defense bill. There is no need to slow down the Defense bill. We can do
both.
I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment and any kind of
procedural vote it takes to make it available to us on the floor of the
Senate.
I thank you very much, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to speak
briefly on the hate crimes legislation. The details of the bill have
been explained. The statistics have been enumerated by a number of my
colleagues. Perhaps the most impressive statistic is the one from the
Attorney General on 77,000 hate crimes.
I do believe it is time we act. This issue first came before the
Senate back in 1997, some 12 years ago. Senator Kennedy was the
originator. At that time, he searched for cosponsors among Republicans,
and I believe it is accurate to say that I was the only one who would
support cosponsorship, and we moved the legislation forward by
publishing an op-ed piece in the Washington Post.
I ask unanimous consent that op-ed piece be printed in the Record at
the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am glad to say that since the time this
issue has come before the Senate, there are now 18 Republican
cosponsors. My sense is that there will be widespread, if not
unanimous, support among the Democrats so that there is a very solid
statement respectively in the Senate.
Ordinarily, matters of criminal prosecution are left to the States.
The offense is prosecuted in the jurisdiction where it occurred. I have
a strong bias for local prosecutions as a generalization and developed
that concern from my own experience as a district attorney for the city
and county of Philadelphia. Law enforcement ought to be local. But the
brutal fact of life is that when you deal with hate crimes--and there
are many examples. In 1997 when Senator Kennedy and I first introduced
the bill, there was the case of racial matters--dragging an African-
American through the streets of a Texas town. There has since been many
other brutal cases, one highly publicized of a gay young man, a victim
of a hate crime in Wyoming.
Regrettably, discrimination for race or national origin continues
until this day. There has recently been a publicized matter that
occurred in Huntingdon Valley, a suburb of the city of Philadelphia, at
a swim club where the swim club operators negotiated with a group
representing Hispanic and African-American children, ages 5 to 11, to
occupy a swimming pool, with the swimming pool's permission. When the
youngsters, Hispanics and African Americans, went to swim, there was,
according to the media reports--and I have spoken to people on both
sides personally to find out what went on--there was animus hostility,
racial comments directed at African Americans and the Hispanics,
conduct which one would have thought America would have passed long
ago.
But it is as current as 2 weeks ago in the suburbs of my hometown of
Philadelphia, PA. The matter has moved forward. It has resulted in
lawsuits being

[[Page S7525]]

filed. It would be my hope that a way could be found to handle the
matter to the satisfaction of all parties. But I can understand if the
parents of the children involved want to pursue remedies. This is a
matter that could be handled by the civil rights division, which has
prosecutorial authority and also has authority for mediation and
reconciliation.
I cite that as an illustration of a matter that is as current as
today's news on animus based on race, whether it be African Americans
or Hispanics. It is my hope that this matter will receive prompt
attention in the Senate and will be part of the pending legislation and
it will go to conference and become the law of the land.

Exhibit 1

[From the Washington Post, Dec. 1, 1997]

When Combating Hate Should Be a Federal Fight

(By Edward M. Kennedy and Arlen Specter)

The Post's Nov. 17 editorial criticizing the measure we
have introduced on hate crimes reflects a misunderstanding of
our proposal to close the gaps in federal law and a failure
to recognize the profound impact of hate crimes.
Hate crimes are uniquely destructive and divisive because
they injure not only the immediate victim, but the community
and sometimes the nation. The Post's conntention that a
``victim of a bias-motivated stabbing is no more dead than
someone stabbed during a mugging'' suggests a distressing
misunderstanding of hate crimes. Random street crimes don't
provoke riots; hate crimes can and sometimes do.
The federal government has a role in dealing with these
offenses. Although states and local governments have the
principal responsibility for prosecuting hate crimes, there
are exceptional circumstances in which it is appropriate for
the federal government to prosecute such cases.
Hate crimes often are committed by individuals with ties to
groups that operate across state lines. The Confederate
Hammerskins are a skinhead group that began terrorizing
minorities and Jews in Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma a decade
ago.
Federal law enforcement authorities are well situated to
investigate and prosecute criminal activities by such groups,
and the federal government has taken the lead in successfully
prosecuting these skinheads.
Hate crimes disproportionately involve multiple offenders
and multiple incidents and in such cases, overriding
procedural considerations--including gaps in state laws--may
justify federal prosecution.
In Lubbock, Tex., three white supremacists attempted to
start a local race war in 1994 by shooting three African
American victims, one fatally, in three separate incidents in
20 minutes. Under Texas law, each defendant would have been
entitled to a separate trial in a state court, and each
defendant also might have been entitled to a separate trial
for each shooting. The result could have been at least three,
and perhaps as many as nine trials, in the state courts, and
the defendants, if convicted, would have been eligible for
parole in 20 years. They faced a mandatory life sentence in
federal court.
Federal and local prosecutors, working together, decided to
deal with these crimes under federal laws. The defendants
were tried together in federal court, convicted and are
serving mandatory life sentences. The victims and their
families were not forced to relive their nightmare in
multiple trials.
Federal involvement in the prosecutions of hate crimes
dates back to the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War.
These laws were updated a generation ago in 1968, but they
are no longer adequate to meet the current challenge. As a
result, the federal government is waging the battle against
hate crimes with one hand tied behind its back.
Current federal law covers crimes motivated by racial,
religious or ethnic prejudice. Our proposal adds violence
motivated by prejudice against the sexual orientation, gender
or disability of the victim. Our proposal also makes it
easier for federal authorities to prosecute racial violence,
in the same way that the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996
helped federal prosecutors deal with the rash of racially
motivated church arsons.
The suggestion in the editorial that our bill tramples
First Amendment rights is ludicrous. Our proposal applies
only to violent acts, not hostile words or threats. Nobody
can seriously suggest that the neo-Nazis who murdered Fred
Mangione in a Houston nightclub last year because they
``wanted to get a fag'' were engaged in a constitutionally
protected freedom of speech.
In addition, hate-crimes prosecution under our bill must be
approved by the attorney general or another high-ranking
Justice Department official, not just by local federal
prosecutors. This ensures federal restraint and that states
will continue to take the lead in prosecuting hate crimes.
From 1990 through 1996, there were 37 federal hate crimes
prosecutions nationwide under the law we are amending--fewer
than six a year out of more than 10,000 hate crimes
nationwide. Our bill should result in a modest increase in
the number of federal prosecutions of hate crimes.
When Congress passed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act in
1990, we recognized the need to document the scope of hate
crimes. We now know enough about the problem, and it is time
to take the next step.
As the Lubbock prosecution shows, combating hate crimes is
not exclusively a state or local challenge or a federal
challenge. It is a challenge best addressed by federal, state
and local authorities working together. Our proposal gives
all prosecutors another tool in their anti-crime arsenal. The
issue is tolerance, and the only losers under our proposal
will be the bigots who seek to divide the country through
violence.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The Senator from New York is
recognized.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise in support of the vital
legislation that is long overdue. More than a decade has passed since
Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered. Yet the bill that bears his name
is still not law.
The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act has broad bipartisan
support here in the Senate, passed handily in the House, and has the
unequivocal support of the President and the Attorney General. Indeed,
Attorney General Holder recently told the Senate Judiciary Committee
that passage of this legislation is one of ``his highest personal
priorities.''
It is essential that we act now to pass this amendment and make the
Matthew Shepard Act the law of the land.
According to FBI statistics, more than 9,000 violent hate crimes were
perpetrated in 2007. However, experts tell us that since hate crimes
often go unreported, the actual number is an order of magnitude higher.
Whatever the number--all hate crimes are unacceptable. They are
crimes inflicted not merely on individuals, but on entire communities.
As Mr. Holder put it, ``perpetrators of hate crimes seek to deny the
humanity that we all share, regardless of the color of our skin, the
God to whom we pray, or whom we choose to love.''
Let me be clear: this legislation does not criminalize speech or
hateful thoughts. It seeks only to punish action--violent action that
undermines the core values of our Nation.
This legislation strengthens the ability of State and local
governments to prosecute hate crimes by ``'providing grants to help
them meet the often onerous expenses involved in investigating these
crimes. It also enables the Justice Department to assist State and
local governments in prosecuting hate crimes, or to step in when these
governments fail to act.
Even though the aggregate number of hate crimes has slightly
decreased nationally over the past decade, the number of crimes against
certain groups has risen. Hispanic Americans have increasingly become
the target of bigots' rage. And, according to a recent AP story, the
number of fatal hate crimes against LGBT people increased by a shocking
30 percent last year.
Indeed, late last year, there was a particularly chilling hate crime
perpetrated in New York against an Ecuadorian man named Jose Osvaldo.
Jose, a father of two, was walking home with his arm around his brother
and was viciously attacked with an aluminum baseball bat while his
perpetrators yelled anti-gay and anti-immigrant slurs.
This legislation sends a clear message to those perpetrators and to
all others: in America, we do not tolerate acts of violence motivated
by hatred of vulnerable communities. In America, you are free to be
yourself, and you should never be attacked for doing so.
What message will it send to Americans if we fail to pass this
amendment? I wonder and I worry.
I urge my colleagues to support this much-needed legislation.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I take this time to speak in favor of
the pending amendment, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
This is similar to an amendment we considered last year to try to
advance the modifications of the Federal hate crimes statute.

[[Page S7526]]

Some have questioned whether we need this act. They claim that the
instances of hate crimes in America have diminished. I wish that were
the case. I wish we did not need to have a separate law to deal with
hate-motivated violent acts in America.
All we need to look at is what happened at the Holocaust Museum on
June 15 of this year, when Stephen Johns, a security guard, was
murdered. He was murdered by someone who had extreme views. Look at
Lawrence King, a 15-year-old who died on February 12, 2008, because he
was gay; or look at what happened after the last elections, when two
men went on a killing spree to find African Americans; or look at what
happened in July 2008, when four teenagers were brutally beaten up
because they were immigrants.
All we need to look at are the FBI statistics that indicate in 2007
there were 7,600 hate crimes in America. That is the reported hate
crimes. We know many of these acts go unreported and the numbers are
much larger. Ethnic communities are reporting an increase in violent
acts motivated by hate.

Unfortunately, this law is needed, and we need to strengthen the law
so it can effectively accomplish its purpose. What do I mean by that?
This amendment, this law, builds on federalism. It builds on what our
States are already doing to combat these crimes. Forty-five States have
separate laws that deal with hate crimes--31 deal with violence against
someone because of their sexual orientation, 27 include gender
violence. What we need to do is strengthen our Federal law so
federalism, in fact, can work.
The Federal Government has resources which the States don't always
have to be able to pursue these types of violent acts. This amendment
would strengthen the Federal statute so it would apply to acts of
violence based upon someone's gender, sexual orientation, or
disability. And it would go beyond the current Federal law, which only
allows Federal involvement if the crime occurs during some protected
activity.
It also provides the resources to help our States, in that the bill
provides grants to State, local, and tribal law enforcement entities
for prosecution, programming, and education related to hate crimes
prosecution and prevention.
The bill contains a requirement that the Department of Justice
certify that Federal prosecution is necessary because the States cannot
or will not effectively prosecute the crime. This is to supplement the
actions of the State, to work with our States, to respect what
federalism should be about. Most of these matters will be handled by
the State, but the Federal Government may be able to help the State,
and this bill will allow us to do exactly that.
The bill also contains provisions broadening the categories of hate
crimes tracked by the FBI. So these are improvements in the law that
will maintain our ability to deal with this type of outrageous
activity.
Some have questioned: Well, isn't every violent crime a hate crime?
The answer is no. A hate crime occurs because the perpetrator
intentionally selects the victim because of who the victim is. Similar
to actions of terrorism, hate crimes have a greater impact because they
cannot only affect the victim, they affect our entire community. We are
all diminished when someone in our community is violated because of his
or her ethnic background or because of race or sexual orientation.
We need to speak to our national priorities. This amendment speaks to
what America should stand for--that we will not permit or tolerate
someone to be victimized because of that person's gender or race or
because of that person's sexual orientation or disability.
This is a bill that has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in this
body. Many of us have worked for many years in order to improve the
Federal Government's ability to respond in these areas. This is the
next chapter that needs to be done. I hope my colleagues will do what
we did in the prior Congress and pass this amendment to the Defense
authorization bill so we can move forward to strengthen our resolve
against this type of hate activity in America.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Health Care Reform

Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Madam President, watching the Senate floor
during the debate over health care reform, I cannot help but feel that
some of my colleagues are a little confused. It is almost as if they
have forgotten that this discussion is going on in America, not Canada.
They don't want to talk about the 22,000 Americans who died in 2006
because they do not have insurance. They don't want to talk about the
more than half a million Americans who file for bankruptcy after
incurring unpayable medical bills. They don't want to talk about the
millions of other Americans who worry that they are one layoff away
from losing coverage and one heart attack away from losing everything.
No, they want to talk about Canada. I am not saying we should not
sympathize with our neighbors to the north, but I wish to talk about
how we can fix the health care system for the American people, for the
people of New Mexico, since none of the plans we are considering would
set up a Canadian system.
Let's look at how we can pass an American solution to the problems
faced by Americans. If you like the coverage you have, you should be
able to keep it, and none of the plans we are considering would take
away the options Americans already have. But the status quo is not
enough. We need to give consumers another option. We need to give them
the freedom to choose a quality, affordable, public health option.
After all, what is more American than competition and choice? Even if
our private market functioned perfectly, it would make sense to give
consumers another choice. But our health care system doesn't function
perfectly. Our system provides too little choice and too little quality
at too high a price. Too many of America's health care markets are
effectively monopolies, or at best duopolies. According to a recent
study by the American Medical Association, most American metropolitan
areas are dominated by one private insurer, and others are largely
dominated by just two. In New Mexico, the top two companies have 65
percent of the market. To put that in perspective, Dell, Compaq,
Gateway, HP, and IBM combine for less than 54 percent of the U.S.
personal computer market. I have to believe we can offer our consumers
more than two choices of health plans.
My State is a rural State, and in rural areas such as ours consumers
often have less choice. They get to pay whatever the local health care
plan wants or go without insurance. Insurance companies have used this
monopoly power to offer less and to charge more. As consolidation has
increased since 2000, insurers have raised deductibles and copayments
without increasing coverage, and they have continued to make healthy
profits while their customers struggle to keep up with rising costs.
Premiums for employer-sponsored health care have almost doubled since
1999, but rising costs have not hurt health care company CEOs. The top
10 CEOs managed to pull down $85.4 million in 2008.
Even worse, what competition we have doesn't keep companies honest.
Instead, they compete to avoid the poor and the sick. In New Mexico, an
insurance company can charge a customer more because of a health
problem from 5 years ago or because he happens to be 45 years old and
not 44. They can even charge a woman more because she might get
pregnant. They have every incentive to do so.
When a private insurance company turns down somebody who needs help,
its profits go up. When it denies needed care, it has more money for
its shareholders. That is a broken system.
In New Mexico, we have seen the impact of unaffordable health care.
Almost one in four New Mexicans is uninsured and nearly half our
citizens have inadequate coverage. The vast majority of these people
are employed, but they and their employers simply cannot afford
coverage.
A constituent of mine from Cedar Crest, NM, wrote me the other day to

[[Page S7527]]

explain she and her husband cannot afford to offer their employees
health care at a small manufacturing company they own. The rates for
small businesses such as theirs are unaffordable.
Our high numbers of uninsured citizens cost the rest of us money. The
average New Mexico family with insurance pays an additional $2,300 just
to cover the price of the uninsured--$2,300. You see, if a New Mexican
with diabetes has insurance, his insurance company can pay a small
amount to have him receive routine tests and treatments from a
podiatrist. But if a New Mexican is uninsured, he is less likely to
receive checkups. As a result, he is more likely to miss the telltale
signs of a circulatory problem and twice as likely to need an
amputation.
Diabetes amputations cost almost $39,000, and New Mexico did 366 of
these procedures in 2003 for a total of $4.2 million. When a diabetic
has a limb amputated, the operation is only the beginning of the
medical services he will need. For the uninsured, those costs fall on
every family with insurance.
Some of my colleagues admit that the status quo does not work, but
they claim a government regulator can keep the private HMOs in line; we
will not need more regulation if open competition can be more
effective. Others just claim that a public health care option will not
work, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Experts have developed a
number of viable plans to give Americans the choice of a quality,
affordable public option. More than 30 State governments offer their
employees a choice between private insurance and a State-backed public
option, including my State of New Mexico. These States have not found
this strategy unworkable. They have not seen either public or private
coverage dominate the market. Their employees just have another choice.
What would be wrong with that?
The truth is, this Congress has a very simple decision to make. We
can stick with our current system or we can give Americans another
option that guarantees quality, affordable care. Opponents of reform do
not want to talk about that decision so they talk about Canada. But the
decision before us has nothing to do with Canada. It is about the
American people. They have been stuck in a broken system too long, and
it is time to give them another choice.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). Without objection,
it is so ordered.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

aung san suu kyi

Mr. McCain. Mr. President, I wish to take a few moments to address
the situation in Burma.
Though it has faded from the headlines, the outrageous detention and
trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, that astonishingly courageous Burmese
leader, continues. Ms. Suu Kyi, who has spent the majority of the past
two decades under house arrest, is being held at the notorious Insein
Prison compound. She was charged with crimes following the arrival at
her house of an uninvited American man who swam across a nearby lake.
He then reportedly stayed on her compound for 2 days, despite requests
to leave. Based on this occurrence, the regime charged Ms. Suu Kyi with
crimes and ordered her to stand trial in late May. Since then, she has
been jailed and awaits possible conviction and up to 5 years in prison.
Let us recall that this long-suffering woman is, in fact, the
legitimately elected leader of that country. To this day, the generals
refuse to recognize the 1990 elections, in which the Ms. Suu Kyi's
National League for Democracy was victorious. Instead, they plan to
proceed with ``elections,'' to be held next year, that they evidently
believe will legitimize their illegitimate rule. The ruling regime
seeks ways to ensure that Ms. Suu Kyi and other NLD members are not
free to participate in these elections, since it is the NLD--and not
the military junta--that has the support of the Burmese people. As an
estimated 2,100 political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, fill
Burmese jails, the international community should see this process for
the sham that it represents.
I once had the great honor of meeting Aung San Suu Kyi. She is a
woman of astonishing courage and incredible resolve. Her determination
in the face of tyranny inspires me, and every individual who holds
democracy dear. Her resilience in the face of untold sufferings, her
courage at the hands of a cruel regime, and her composure despite years
of oppression inspire the world. Burma's rulers fear Aung San Suu Kyi
because of what she represents--peace, freedom and justice for all
Burmese people. The thugs who run Burma have tried to stifle her voice,
but they will never extinguish her moral courage.

Earlier this month, the United Nations Secretary-General traveled to
Burma in an attempt to press the regime on its human rights abuses. The
ruling generals reacted in their typical fashion. They stage managed
Ban Ki-moon's visit, even refusing his request to speak before a
gathering of diplomats and humanitarian groups.
Instead, before leaving, he was forced to speak at the regime's drug
elimination museum. He was also refused a meeting with Aung San Suu
Kyi. Burmese officials stated that their judicial regulations would not
permit a meeting with an individual currently on trial. Incredible.
Following his visit to Burma, the Secretary-General pointed out that
allowing a meeting with Ms. Suu Kyi would have been an important symbol
of the government's willingness to embark on the kind of meaningful
engagement essential to credible elections in 2010. He is right, and
the regime's refusal is simply the latest sign that meaningful
engagement is not on its list of priorities.
It is incumbent on all those in the international community who care
about human rights to respond to the junta's outrages. The work of Aung
San Suu Kyi and the members of the National League for Democracy must
be the world's work. We must continue to press the junta until it is
willing to negotiate an irreversible transition to democratic rule.
The Burmese people deserve no less. This means renewing the sanctions
that will expire this year, and it means vigorous enforcement by our
Treasury Department of the targeted financial sanctions in place
against regime leaders. And it means being perfectly clear that we
stand on the side of freedom for the Burmese people and against those
who seek to abridge it.
The message of solidarity with the Burmese people should come from
all quarters, and that includes their closest neighbors--the ASEAN
countries. The United States, European countries, and others have
condemned Ms. Suu Kyi's arrest and called for her immediate release.
The countries of Southeast Asia should be at the forefront of this
call.
ASEAN now has a human rights charter in which member countries have
committed to protect and promote human rights. Now is the time to live
up to that commitment, and ASEAN could start by dispatching envoys to
Rangoon in order to demand the immediate, unconditional release of Aung
San Suu Kyi.
Following the visit of the U.N. Secretary-General, the Burmese
representative to the U.N. stated that the government is planning to
grant amnesty to a number of prisoners so they may participate in the
2010 general elections. ASEAN states should demand the implementation
of this pledge to include all political prisoners currently in jail,
including Ms. Suu Kyi.
Secretary of State Clinton will travel to Thailand later this month
to participate in the ASEAN Regional Forum. I urge her to take up this
issue with her Southeast Asian colleagues.
Too many years have passed without the smallest improvement in Burma.
And although the situation there is replete with frustration and worse,
it is not hopeless.
We know from history that tyranny will not forever endure, and Burma
will be no exception. Aung San Suu Kyi, and all those Burmese who have
followed her lead in pressing for their own inalienable rights, should
know: All free peoples stand with you and support you. The world is
watching not

[[Page S7528]]

only your brave actions but also those of the military government,
where cruelty and incompetence know no bounds.
Burma's future will be one of peace and freedom, not violence and
repression. We, as Americans, stand on the side of freedom, not fear;
of peace, not violence; and of the millions of people in Burma who
aspire to a better life, not those who would keep them isolated and
oppressed.
The United States has a critical role to play, in Burma and
throughout the world, as the chief voice for the rights and integrity
of all persons. Nothing can relieve us of the responsibility to stand
for those whose human rights are in peril, nor of the knowledge that we
stand for something in this world greater than self-interest.
Should we need inspiration to guide us, we need look no further than
to that astonishingly courageous leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta's
latest actions are, once again, a desperate attempt by a decaying
regime to stall freedom's inevitable process in Burma and across Asia.
They will fail as surely as Aung San Suu Kyi's campaign for a free
Burma will one day succeed.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
an article from BBC News entitled ``Inside Burma's Insein Prison'' and
an AP article entitled ``Myanmar junta stage-manages visit by UN
chief.''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From BBC NEWS, May 14, 2009]

Inside Burma's Insein Prison

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is being held
in the notorious Insein jail in Rangoon, after being charged
with violating the terms of her house arrest.
Human rights campaigners say incarceration at the top
security prison, which is known as the ``darkest hell-hole in
Burma'', could be tantamount to a death sentence--especially
as the 63-year-old's health is known to be fragile.
Bo Kyi, now joint secretary of Assistance Association for
Political Prisoners (Burma), has firsthand experience of life
in Insein jail.
He was jailed for more than seven years for political
dissent, and was kept in solitary confinement for more than a
year, in a concrete cell that was about 8ft by 12ft (2.5m by
3.5m).
There was no toilet in the cell--just a bucket filled with
urine and feces. He slept on a mat on the floor.
Mr Kyi says he was tortured and beaten by the prison
guards. He was shackled in heavy chains, with a metal bar
between his legs, which made it difficult to walk.
Every morning for about two weeks, he says he was made to
``exercise''--forced to adopt awkward positions and if he
failed he was brutally beaten.
During this time he was not allowed to shower and was
forced to sleep on bare concrete.

Disease rife

He was later moved from isolation and shared an overcrowded
cell with four other political prisoners.
He says the prison has the capacity to house 5,000-6,000
prisoners. He estimates there are currently some 10,000 in
detention.
Once a week they were able to wash their clothes. But
during the stifling summers he said there was no water to
bathe.
With only three prison doctors to treat 10,000 inmates, he
says diseases such as tuberculosis, scabies and dysentery
were rife. Mental illness was also widespread.
Bo Kyi says Aung San Suu Kyi is most likely being held in a
special compound built for her detention in 2003, which has a
wooden bed and a toilet.
Although the conditions there are probably not as bad as in
the rest of the prison, he says he is still extremely
concerned for her well-being.

`Totally unacceptable'

Ms Suu Kyi has spent more than 11 of the past 19 years in
some form of detention under Burma's military government.
She was jailed at Insein prison in May 2003, after clashes
between opposition activists and supporters of the regime.
Her latest period of house arrest was extended last year--a
move which analysts say is illegal even under the junta's own
rules. It is due to expire on 27 May.
Human rights activist Debbie Stothard, from the pressure
group Altsean-Burma, has urged the international community to
intervene in trying to secure Ms Suu Kyi's release.
``Many people have died when they have been detained in
Insein, that's a proven fact.
``The fact that Aung San Suu Kyi . . . now might be subject
to a life-threatening detention condition--it's totally
unacceptable,'' she said.
``It's totally unjust and it's time that Asean, China and
the rest of the international community finally put their
foot down.''
Many analysts believe that pro-democracy leader's arrest is
a pretext by the military regime to keep her detained until
elections expected in 2010.
____

[From AP, July 6, 2009]

Myanmar Junta Stage-Manages Visit by UN Chief

(By John Heilprin)

Yangon, Myanmar.--Myanmar's ruling junta wanted Ban Ki-moon
to go into a grandiose drug museum through the back door to
prevent the U.N. secretary-general from making a rock-star
entrance.
Ban eventually did walk through the front door--a small
victory after he had lost far bigger battles, notably a
hoped-for meeting with jailed democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi (pronounced ong sahn SUE CHEE).
After a two-day visit in which the generals tried to stage-
manage the world's top diplomat at every step, Ban left the
country with few prospects of even slightly loosening the
iron grip on power held by military regime and its junta
chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
If people saw Ban acting independently in Myanmar ``that
would cause Than Shwe to lose face,'' said Donald Seekins, a
Myanmar expert at Japan's Meio University. ``So they want to
manipulate him.''
By snubbing Ban, the country's military rulers lost an
opportunity to improve its standing among many of the world's
nations that view the struggling country with rich reserves
of gas and minerals as a pariah.
Inside Myanmar, Suu Kyi's opposition party said Than Shwe
(pronounced TAHN SHWAY) showed he is unwilling to permit real
change ahead of the 2010 elections, which would be the first
in two decades.
Ban had asked to make his closing speech to diplomats and
humanitarian groups Saturday at a hotel, but the junta
refused and forced him to instead speak at the government's
Drug Elimination Museum.
Ban's staff didn't want his presence there--where a wax
figure depicts a military intelligence chief chopping opium
poppies, which Myanmar views as a scourge introduced by
colonialists--to appear like another prop furthering the
government's agenda.
``They fought us over every last detail,'' said a U.N.
official who took part in organizing the trip, speaking
anonymously and out of protocol because of the sensitivity of
the matter.
Ban--whose mild-mannered facade belies a toughness and
occasional temper--would have preferred a tete-a-tete with
Than Shwe to having note-taking aides around, an example of
his belief in his ability to sway recalcitrant world leaders
if only he can get them alone in a room.
But Than Shwe's idea of a tete-a-tete was to pit himself
and the other four generals who together make up the ruling
State Peace and Development Council against Ban and some
high-ranking U.N. deputies in the rarely visited capital of
Naypyitaw, according to U.N. officials.
The 76-year-old Than Shwe suggested that Ban might not be
invited back until after the elections.
Ban said Than Shwe promised to hand over power to civilians
after the elections. But the generals refused to follow U.N.
recommendations intended to prevent sham elections, including
publishing an election law and freeing Suu Kyi and 2,200
other political prisoners to ensure general participation.
``Only then will the elections be seen as credible and
legitimate,'' Ban told reporters Monday in Geneva,
Switzerland.
The government refused to honor the results of the 1990
elections after Suu Kyi's party won in a landslide. The junta
tolerates no dissent and crushed pro-democracy protests led
by Buddhist monks in September 2007.
At the end of the trip, Ban tried to defuse the notion he
was returning empty-handed.
He said the visit was an opportunity to plant seeds that
could blossom later and that he was dutifully relaying the
international community's message the elections must be seen
as credible.
In the meantime, Ban said he will keep talks alive with
Than Shwe through the so-called Group of Friends on Myanmar.
That approach hasn't nudged Myanmar on key issues. Nor have
eight previous visits by Ibrahim Gambari, Ban's top envoy to
Myanmar, produced many results.
``Than Shwe is using the United Nations as a way of buying
time or distracting people from the main issues, so it isn't
very constructive,'' Seekins said. ``I don't think Than Shwe
is willing to make political concessions, especially
concerning Aung San Suu Kyi. I think he would really like to
put her away in jail and not have to worry about her.''
In the absence of Suu Kyi, it was left to Ban to deliver
unusually stinging remarks about the government, its
pummeling of human rights and the urgent need to set a new
course.
When he took the stage at the museum, it was a rarity in
the military's half-century of dominance--an outside
political figure allowed to say what he wants.
And after much haggling, Ban's black Mercedes was allowed
to pull up to the front door of the museum. There, his
motorcade disgorged a small entourage of aides and a half-
dozen international journalists. Local press awaited him
inside.
That also ensured an audience for him in Myanmar and
beyond--another small victory.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, from the story of the Burmese prison, let
me quote:

[[Page S7529]]

Human rights campaigners say incarceration at the top
security prison, which is known as the ``darkest hell-hole in
Burma'', could be tantamount to a death sentence--especially
as the 63-year-old's health--

Referring to Aung San Suu Kyi's health----

is known to be fragile.
Bo Kyi, now joint secretary of Assistance Association for
Political Prisoners (Burma), has firsthand experience of life
in Insein jail.
He was jailed for more than seven years for political
dissent, and was kept in solitary confinement for more than a
year, in a concrete cell that was about 8ft by 12ft. . . .
There was no toilet in the cell--just a bucket filled with
urine and faeces. He slept on a mat on the floor.
Mr. Kyi says he was tortured and beaten by the prison
guards. He was shackled in heavy chains, with a metal bar
between his legs, which made it difficult to walk.
Every morning for about two weeks, he says he was made to
``exercise''--forced to adopt awkward positions and if he
failed he was brutally beaten.
During this time he was not allowed to shower and was
forced to sleep on bare concrete.

It goes on.
So she is there in that prison. I hope and pray the treatment she is
receiving is not anywhere along the lines of what this prison is well
known for.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, first, I commend my colleague from
Arizona, Senator McCain, for his great leadership and for his important
words about Burma. No one would know better than Senator McCain about
the human rights violations of someone held in a prison such as that.
As he is aware, on a bipartisan basis, the women Senators have come
together to support Aung San Suu Kyi and her fight in Burma.
I would also add, I recently met with a Burmese community in my
State. They are concerned about their relatives there and everything
that is happening in that country. We have someone in our office whose
relatives are in Burma.
So I thank the Senator for his words and also for his leadership on
the amendment, the Levin-McCain amendment to strike the $1.75 billion
added to the bill that is on the floor to purchase additional F-22
aircraft that have not been requested by the Pentagon.
This is a very difficult issue for many people in this Chamber,
including the Senator from Arizona. But we all know in the end what
counts is to do the right thing for our troops and for our national
security.
This amendment truly gives us an important choice: Will we continue
to pour billions into unproven weapons systems, despite repeated cost
overruns and program delays or are we going to make the hard choices
necessary to ensure that our troops in the field have what they need to
fight present and future conflicts?
These F-22s, we know, possess unique flying capabilities, but not one
has ever flown over Iraq or Afghanistan. We have much more pressing
needs. Both the past President and the current President support this
amendment. I hope my colleagues will support it as well.
I am actually here to speak in support of the Matthew Shepard Hate
Crimes Prevention Act. I am a cosponsor of this legislation which will
help us fight hate crimes and make our communities safer.
Among other things, the bill would impose criminal penalties for
targeting a victim on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation
or disability.
I wish to thank Senator Leahy for his work on this bill and, of
course, Senator Kennedy for his work and leadership on the issue over
the years.
I have been involved with this piece of legislation for many years.
If you go way back to 2000, when I was the county prosecutor for
Minnesota's largest county, I was actually called to Washington for the
first time to take part in a ceremony in which the bill was introduced.
I remember this moment well because there I was with the President at
the time, President Clinton, and Attorney General Reno. We were ready
to walk in for this ceremony to introduce the hate crimes bill. I was
standing outside, and the military band struck up ``Hail to the Chief''
because the President was entering the room. I started to walk, and all
of a sudden I felt this big hand on my shoulder, and this voice said: I
know you are going to do great out there, but when they play that song
I usually go first.
It is something I will never forget.
So here I am now, 9 years later, with this same bill. We are working
very hard to get this bill passed. I am hopeful we will be able to do
that.
What I remember most about that day back in 2000, however, was the
meeting I had with the investigators in the Matthew Shepard case. They
were two burly cops from Wyoming, and they talked about the fact that
until they had investigated that horrible crime, they had not
considered what the victim's, Matthew Shepard's, life was like.
When they got to know the family in the case, when they got to know
the mom, and they got to know the people surrounding Matthew Shepard,
their own lives changed forever.
I hope by passing this bill we can prevent other Matthew Shepards
from being targeted and deter hate crimes.
Attorney General Eric Holder recently appeared before the Senate
Judiciary Committee to talk about his support for this bill, and he
gave us some somber statistics. He reported that ``there have been over
77,000 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI'' from 1998 to 2007 or
``nearly one hate crime every hour of every day'' for the past decade.
In my State of Minnesota, there were 157 reported offenses in 2007.
But when I think about this issue, it is not just about the statistics.
It is about the victims of these crimes.
When I was county prosecutor, we had a number of cases that were
clearly motivated by hate. That was one of the reasons, actually, I was
chosen to go out to Washington. And part of it was we had worked well
with the Federal prosecutors on some of the cases.
We had the case of a 14-year-old African-American boy who was minding
his own business, and a guy who did have some mental health issues told
his friends: I am going to go out and--he used a different word--but
shoot a Black kid on Martin Luther King Day. And he did. And he almost
killed this little 14-year-old boy. But he survived, and we prosecuted
the case.
I also think about a young Hispanic man. He was working in a factory,
and his boss got mad at him because he did not speak English and he was
speaking Spanish at work. His boss took a 2 by 4 and hit him over the
head, resulting in bleeding in his brain and brain damage--all for
speaking Spanish.
I also think about the case we had with a Hindu temple that was
severely vandalized by young kids. And I think about the case of a
Korean church that had all kinds of hateful graffiti written on it.
Some of these cases, as I said, were major attempted murder cases. Some
of them were simply graffiti cases. But to the people in that church,
to the people in that temple, it meant something much more.
That is why I was glad, at least in a few of these cases, we were
able to use our State hate crimes legislation. Those were cases in
Minnesota--a place where you might not think you would see these kinds
of cases. But we did.
This bill in front of us, the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill, will
strengthen the ability of Federal, State, local, and tribal governments
to investigate and prosecute hate crimes. It increases the number of
personnel at the Treasury Department and the Department of Justice
working on hate crimes. It gives grants to State and local law
enforcement officials investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. It
authorizes the Attorney General to provide resources and support to
State, local, and tribal law enforcement officials for hate crime
investigations and prosecutions.

In addition, this bill authorizes the Federal Government to step in
when needed and prosecute hate crimes, when needed, after the Justice
Department certifies that a Federal prosecution is necessary. While
most of these cases will continue to be handled by State and local
jurisdictions, the bill provides a Federal backstop for State and local
law enforcement to deal with hate crimes that otherwise might not be
effectively investigated and prosecuted or for when States request
assistance. It is a backdrop. Think about how many other areas of the
law where we have these kinds of backdrops. In the gun area, as the
Presiding Officer is aware from his work in the State of

[[Page S7530]]

New Mexico, sometimes we have overlapping jurisdictions. The gun crime
is a perfect example. State laws can apply, but sometimes the Feds will
come in or you will want them to come in and handle the case. The same
with drug crimes. It helps to have that Federal backdrop for the
investigating power, for the sentencing power, and for many other
things. So this bill won't usurp the role of local law enforcement but,
rather, supplement it when needed.
Finally, I wish to note that this legislation has the support of
numerous law enforcement organizations, including the International
Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs, and the
National District Attorneys Association.
For years we have recognized the need for this legislation. I think
back to 2000 when I was standing outside of the East Room with
President Clinton when it was first introduced. For years we have known
we need this legislation, but year after year the forces of reaction
have stalled and blocked and tried to do everything they can to make it
go away. This must end.
A little over 40 years ago, Robert Kennedy broke the news to a crowd
in Indianapolis that Martin Luther King, Jr., had just been
assassinated. During his speech, Kennedy called on the crowd and the
country to make an effort, to understand and to comprehend, and to
replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed with an effort to
understand with compassion and love. We should answer his call today.
I look forward to the day--and I hope it will be very soon--when the
Hate Crimes Prevention Act becomes law. It is long overdue. I urge my
colleagues to support it.
Thank you very much, Mr. President.
I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are on the Defense authorization bill,
apparently stranded, unable to vote on an amendment that had been
offered dealing with the issue of the F-22. The F-22 airplane is a
remarkable airplane. I have talked to pilots who have flown it. I have
seen it at Edwards Air Force Base. It is an extraordinary airplane.
It costs a lot of money. We have built as many as the Defense
Secretary wants built at this point. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
the Defense Secretary, the head of the Air Force, has indicated they
want to cap the F-22 at that number--I believe it is 187--and do not
wish to build more. They say that is all we need. That is all we want.
There is a $1.75 billion fund that was put in this bill, now, as an
amendment in the Armed Services Committee, to build more F-22s. So the
amendment by the chairman of the committee and by Senator McCain, the
ranking member, was to take the $1.75 billion out of the bill. I
support the amendment--not because I don't like the airplane, I do; but
if those who are in charge of the Pentagon, Secretary Gates; Admiral
Mullen; the head of the Air Force, Secretary Donnelly; General Schwartz
and others say we do not want anymore F-22s, don't need anymore F-22s
to do the mission that we believe is necessary for that airplane, and
instead we want to move toward the Joint Strike Fighter--if that is
their judgment, in my judgment we ought not put another billion back
into this bill. Yet that is what happened in the subcommittee.
I wish to call attention to the fiscal policy and where we are in
this country. President Obama has been in office a relatively short
period of time. He inherited an unbelievable mess. There is no question
about that. We are in the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
There is a substantial decrease in revenues and increased spending this
year as a result of this very steep recession. Social service costs are
going up, and there's more unemployment, more food stamps and so on. I
believe there is close to a 20-percent reduction in revenue for the
government and close to a 20-percent increase in spending. On top of
that, Congress passed a stimulus or economic recovery program. All of
this has driven the deficit up in this fiscal year, a very sizable
deficit. That deficit will be very sizable next year and the year
after.
It begins to go down and then goes back up in the outyears. This is a
fiscal policy that is not sustainable for our country. It just is not.
It is not a Democratic or Republican policy that is not sustainable, it
is a fiscal policy of trillions and trillions of dollars of red ink
that we must change.
If we cannot even deal with the issue of adding $1.75 billion to
build more planes that the Defense Department says they do not want, we
will hardly be able to deal with the more difficult fiscal problems in
the future. So I support the amendment offered by the chairman and the
ranking member. I hope we get a chance to vote on that amendment.
The issue of spending money we do not have, often on things we do not
need, is not new in any committee in this Congress. There are plenty of
areas where we can take a pretty big slice out of spending. You can do
it, not with just big programs, you can do it with smaller programs. I
brought to the floor a couple charts that show an issue that, in my
judgment, is flatout total, complete, thorough government waste. I have
tried, now, about 5 years in a row to get rid of it and have been
unsuccessful. I finally got an amendment this past week added to an
appropriations bill that shuts down the funding. But now we will see,
there will be a big fight on the floor to restore the funding. Let me
tell you what this is.
Again, we are not talking about a lot of money. In my hometown, this
would be a lot of money, but my hometown is 300 people, so $20, $30
million is a lot of money.
This is a picture of Fat Albert, which is an aerostat blimp or
aerostat balloon. This is Fat Albert, purchased by the government. In
fact, we purchased a couple of them so we can put it way up in the air
on a tether, and it would broadcast television signals into the country
of Cuba because the Castro brothers run an operation down there that
doesn't provide any freedom to the Cuban people, so we are sending them
television signals to tell them how wonderful things are in the United
States and how awful things are in Cuba.
Actually, the Cuban people do not need those television signals to
know that because they can simply listen to Miami radio, or they can
listen to what is called Radio Marti, which actually gets into the
market in Cuba. We broadcast Radio Marti. I don't object to that. It
costs a fair amount of money. I don't object to that. We get radio
signals into Cuba to tell the Cuban people what is going on in our
country and the problems they face in their country.
I have been to Cuba. I think the Cuban people know pretty much the
problems they face with the Castro regime, a regime that squeezes the
freedom out of the Cuban people.
But here is the deal. We have aerostat balloons, first of all, to put
television signals into Cuba. The problem is we have spent a quarter of
a billion dollars doing it and the Cubans can't get the TV signal. Why?
Because the Castro government jams it easily. They jam it just like
that. We used to broadcast from 3 in the morning to 7 in the morning a
signal no one can see, so we use these balloons on a big tether and
broadcast a television signal to people who can't see it. We kept
spending money thinking it was a great thing to do, broadcasting a
television signal nobody can see. In fact, one of these balloons got
loose, got off its mooring, and wound up somewhere in the Everglades.
They had a devil of a time trying to catch this balloon; and another
balloon disappeared in a hurricane, and they have never seen it since.
They decided, you know what, we can actually clip the American
taxpayer for more than a balloon. What we will do is buy an airplane
and broadcast the television signal the Cuban people can't see from an
airplane, so the American taxpayers bought an airplane. It flies, I
think, 5 or 6 days a week, broadcasting television signals into Cuba
that the Cubans block, that no one can see.
You talk about ignorant? At a time when we are deep in debt, spending
money we don't have to broadcast television signals to people who can't
get it? That is unbelievable to me.

[[Page S7531]]

Here is what the Cuban people see. All of us have seen bad television
with snow covering the entire screen. Here is what is broadcast--it is
programs with caricatures of the Castro brothers. The Cubans don't need
to be reminded the Castro brothers are a scourge in that government.
Let me describe what John Nichols, who is a professor of
communications and international affairs at Penn State University, has
said:

TV Marti's response to this succession of failures over a
two-decade period has been to resort to ever more expensive
technological gimmicks, all richly funded by Congress. And
none of these gimmicks, such as the airplane, have worked . .
. It's just the laws of physics. In short, TV Marti is a
highly wasteful and ineffective operation. . . .

Even as I speak, I assume our airplane is broadcasting a television
signal to the Cuban people who cannot receive it.

TV Marti's quest to overcome the laws of physics has been a
flop.

John Nichols says, the same witness.

Aero Marti, the airborne platform for TV Marti, has no
audience currently in Cuba, and it is a complete and total
waste of $6 million a year in taxpayer dollars. The audience
of TV Marti, particularly the Aero platform is probably zero.
. . .

Talking now about the airplane platform.
We are talk about the GAO report.

The best available research indicates that TV Marti's
audience size is small . . . telephone surveys have reported
less than 1 percent had watched TV Marti over the last week.

I don't know what 1 percent is. I don't know what less than 1 percent
is. That is minuscule, right? But I have offered an amendment that
takes out about $15 million to support TV Marti, which is a program
that has now wasted about a quarter of a billion dollars sending
television signals to Cuba that no one in Cuba can see. You know what,
it is very hard to get this kind of thing stopped.
The reason I wish to mention it today is we are on the floor talking
about $1.75 billion for the F-22. We are, I assume--almost everyone
here is supporting the next generation fighter we are building, the
Joint Strike Fighter. But the Pentagon says they want to stop and not
order anymore of the F-22s. It is a reasonable thing, to me, that being
deep in debt, choking on red ink, at least we might want to accept the
recommendation of not building that which they do not want. At least
with respect to Aerostat balloons and airplanes and television signals
to Cuba that no one can see, the very least the taxpayers should expect
of us is that perhaps we would stop spending money sending television
signals to no one. Maybe that is not too much to ask.
Let me ask consent to speak in morning business for 5 minutes on a
different subject.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today House and Senate leaders appointed
members for a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. That is the title,
the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. I have been calling for both a
commission and also a select committee of the Congress because I think
that we have a requirement and responsibility to establish what is the
narrative that has caused this economic and financial crisis in this
country. We are in a deep financial crisis and have been for some long
while.
This didn't happen as a result of some giant hurricane or some
tornado or some flood, or some other natural disaster visiting our
country. No, this was not a natural disaster. This happened as a result
of decisions being made by human beings here among us. The question is
who? And what decisions? How did this happen? What is the narrative
that has caused the most significant crisis since the Great Depression?
Very smart economists have said, you know what, over a long period of
time from the Great Depression forward, we created stabilizers in this
country so we would not see steep recessions or certainly not a
depression in our future. We are evening things out, they would say,
and that was probably true for a while, but this recession is deep,
this hole is steep. The question is, What caused it? What happened.
I support the creation of a commission today. I offered legislation
in January of this year, called the Taxpayer Protection Act, which
called for the creation of a commission to investigate this financial
crisis. My colleagues, Senator Conrad and Senator Isakson, similarly
offered a commission proposal, a piece of legislation during debate
earlier this year. I support the notion of going forward. The
appointments today to this Commission are welcome. I hope the
Commission does all that is necessary to uncover what has happened
here.
I still believe we need a Select Committee in the Senate. The New
York Times said it in an editorial, nothing can substitute for the work
the Senate must do itself. I say that because we now have, in recent
days, additional news items in the paper you read. Let me pick one. I
don't mean to pick this company out just to be punitive, but it is a
good example in recent days: Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo is a FDIC-insured bank. It is one of the biggest banks in
America:

Wells Fargo to expand securities business. It plans to grow
and invest in securities activities that it largely inherited
from Wachovia. The business is to be called Wells Fargo
Securities.

What is Wachovia? Wachovia is a bank that was failing because
Wachovia had all kinds of problems. Wachovia was a bank that had
purchased Golden West Financial, which had about $120 billion, we are
told, in toxic option adjustable rate mortgages.
By the way, related to this, I saw in the newspapers the other day
that pick-your-payment mortgage plans have actually now had a higher
default rate than other subprime mortgage loans. Think of that. You
look at that and think, What was the pick-your-payment plan? That was
the plans put out by these mortgage companies--sophisticated, exotic
plans--saying to people, you know what, pick your own payment. You tell
us what you will pay and we will write a mortgage around it.
So we had all of these strange plans out there, exotic plans, some of
which were creating an unbelievable bubble of speculation. We had bank
holding companies buying them and we had FDIC-insured banks actually
trading them. Pretty soon you got toxic assets lying in the belly or
the gut of these financial institutions, and they are going to go
belly-up unless somebody else buys them.
So Wells Fargo buys Wachovia, and then Wells Fargo announces that,
well, our investment banking and our capital markets businesses are now
going to operate under a new name, ``Wells Fargo Securities.''
The question is this: With the biggest banks in the country
operating, in many cases with holding companies engaged in real estate
and securities issues, having demonstrated now that these holding
companies do not have firewalls that are much thicker or much more
beneficial than tissue paper, are we still going to continue to see all
of this?
Are we still going to see FDIC-insured institutions, for which the
taxpayers are ultimately responsible for failure, talking about: We are
going to get involved in more risk trading, more securities?
Wachovia. Well, Wachovia Bank, I have spoken of them before. Wachovia
Bank was one of those banks buying sewer systems in Germany. Why?
Because an American bank wanted to own a sewer in a German city? No.
They wanted to avoid paying U.S. taxes, so they did sale-lease back
transactions with German sewer systems.
That is part of a culture issue with companies, it seems to me, when
you do that sort of thing. But now we have Wells Fargo that bought
Wachovia, announcing the best part of what they bought was Wachovia's
securities business. The fact is, Wachovia was not going to make it.
That is why Wells Fargo purchased them.
We ought to be asking a couple of questions these days about the
Administration's announced plans for new financial reform, which I
welcome by the way. This President inherited this mess, so he is
talking about financial reform, and I welcome that discussion.
One, I think we ought to have a healthy and robust discussion about
whether the Federal entity that shall become the systemic risk
regulator in this country should be the Federal Reserve Board.
Not me. Not me. The Federal Reserve Board is what has helped cause
this

[[Page S7532]]

problem. I mean, the Federal Reserve Board acted blindly for over a
decade. In addition, the Federal Reserve Board by itself is almost
totally unaccountable to anyone and operates in very substantial
secrecy.
Why would we decide to have an agency that has failed over the last
decade or so in managing and supervising the financial industry in this
country, that watched the creation of these big holding companies,
watched what happened with the mortgage companies with unbelievably
speculative instruments, watched the advertisements on television
saying: If you have been bankrupt, slow pay, no pay, got bad credit,
come to us. We will give you a loan--the Federal Reserve watched all of
that and did nothing. Now we are going to be told they are the ones to
save us with respect to systemic risk in our economy? I do not think
so. That is No. 1; the Federal Reserve Board is going to be the entity
to deal with systemic risk? Boy, there is no evidence, at least in
recent years, to suggest that makes much sense.
No. 2, no discussion yet, and there might be, on this issue of too
big to fail. Does it matter that we have allowed the creation of
entities in the financial sector that are too big to fail? In my
judgment it matters because if they are too big to fail, then the
American taxpayer bails them out. That is what happened last fall.
The Treasury Secretary leaned over the lectern to us one Friday and
said: Look, if you do not pass a bailout bill in 3 days, a three-page
bill giving me $700 billion, this economy is going to fall off a cliff.
Well, I did not believe it. I did not vote for the bailout. But the
fact is, all of this was because some of the largest financial
institutions in the country, he said, were in deep trouble.
Why were they in trouble? Because they loaded up with substantial
risk. Congress, in the last decade, has passed laws that allowed them
to do that. They said this is modernization. But when we create
institutions that are too big to fail and then they load up with
substantial risk, especially those that are FDIC-insured with holding
companies now, engage in securities, and that is exactly what Wells
Fargo is announcing: We bought Wachovia. Now we will take the
securities on with Wachovia and decide to juice it up.
Should we continue with the doctrine of too big to fail? I do not
believe so. Yet in the intervening months, the last 8 months or so, the
very institutions that were judged too big to fail and were required to
get bailouts from the American taxpayer are still engaged in merging
with other institutions, making them bigger and even less able to fail.
So is there someone willing to intervene to say too big to fail has
to change? Must we perhaps at least have a discussion about breaking up
some institutions that are too big to fail? What about very large
strong regional interests that are not too big to fail? I am just
asking the question because nobody, in talking about financial reform
that I am aware of these days, is willing to address the question of
too big to fail. And you cannot address this question of financial
reform without including it.
All of us want the same thing for this country. We want this country
to recover. We want our economy to expand and grow and create jobs and
be healthy again. The fact is--I have talked about this many times. I
taught economics briefly in college. The fact is, all of the charts and
graphs and indices are irrelevant as compared to the confidence of the
American people.
When the American people are confident about the future of this
country and about their future, about their job, about their family,
then they do things that manifest that confidence. They buy some
clothes, buy a car, take a trip, buy a house. They do the things that
expand the economy because they are confident about the future.
When they are not, they do exactly the opposite and that contracts
the economy. The question is, how do we give the American people
confidence going forward that things are going to be better? Month
after month, because unemployment has a long tail even past recovery,
we see hundreds of thousands of people having lost their jobs.
Obviously, those folks do not have a lot of confidence. They feel
helpless and hopeless.
How do we give people confidence we are going to fix things that are
wrong so this will not happen again? That is where this issue of
financial reform comes in. Part of that confidence, it seems to me, can
come from this institution, from the Congress and the President. Part
of it can come from the people watching this institution.
Take a look at this amendment, an amendment that says: Let's not
spend $1.75 billion we do not have on something the Pentagon says they
do not want.
Confidence can come from affirmative action on that. Part of that
confidence could come from 100 or 1,000 of these examples, a little
program called TV Marti, broadcasting television signals to people who
cannot see it, and doing it for 5, 10, 15 years and spending a quarter
of a billion dollars. Part of that confidence could come from the
American people taking a look at our deciding to shut these kinds of
things down and trimming back government that has become bloated. So we
can do some of this to create confidence.
But another part of it, it seems to me, has to come from the
administration's judgment about what is real reform in financial
reform. That must include, in my judgment, the issue of too big to
fail. It must include effective regulatory oversight so we do not have
the kind of activities going on that we saw for the last 10 years:
financial institutions engaged in unbelievable practices with no one
minding the store and no one watching who were the referees of the
system, wearing striped shirts and whistles and blowing the whistle
when they saw a foul in the market system. We cannot continue that. We
need effective regulation. We need effective reform. When we get that,
the American people will feel: You know what. They fixed that which
caused this serious problem, and we feel better about the future of
this country.
We have a lot to do in a short time. Some big issues of health care,
energy, and climate change, and others. I am going to visit about the
issue of climate change tomorrow. But we have very big issues that have
great consequences for this country. But at the moment, we stand in a
very deep recession.
The American people are concerned about the future and want some
assurance that all of us are doing the things necessary to put the
country back on track.
One step today is the amendment that was offered by the chairman and
the ranking member of this committee. It is $1.75 billion. That is a
lot of money. But step after step after step in the right direction can
give people confidence about the future of this country.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ISAKSON. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ISAKSON. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Financial Markets Commission

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, almost 7 months ago, Senator Conrad from
North Dakota and myself began an adventure attempting to convince this
body and the one across the hall to create a Financial Markets
Commission to study and do a forensic audit of what happened to our
financial markets in 2007, 2008, and 2009. All of us recognize we have
been through a catastrophic financial collapse with many potential
components contributing to the gravity. It is not over yet.
I commend Leader Reid and Leader McConnell, Leader Boehner in the
House, and Speaker Pelosi and others who had the authority under the
legislation for announcing their appointments today to the Commission.
I particularly commend the majority on the appointment of Ms. Born to
the Commission. It was her outspoken words prior to the collapse that
should have warned us better, or we should have paid more attention to,
about the overleveraging of the economy and the underwriting of risk.
Nonetheless, the

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collapse has happened. The recession is here. Unemployment in Georgia
today topped 10 percent. We are seeing predictions that it will top 10
percent for the entire country within the days ahead. It is critically
important that we find out what went wrong, what the contributing
factors were, and recommend back to the Congress those actions we need
to take to ensure this never happens again.
For my children and grandchildren, if I have one last legacy, it is
to say, when it was on my watch, we found out what the problem was, we
corrected past errors, and we gave a little more security to their
investments and future in the days to come.
I have my opinions as to what went wrong, but I know I am not smart
enough to have all the answers. There are others who think they know
what has gone wrong. We already have from the White House as well as
from the Senate some who are making recommendations over creating czars
or authorities or things to address the financial collapse. It would be
a mistake beyond words for us to do that now in the absence of all the
facts. This Commission has the authority, the money, and the power to
get to the bottom of the problem. We gave them a $5 million budget, an
18-month timetable, and subpoena powers. As evidenced by those who have
been named today, we have some of the best financial minds in the
country--not elected officials, not members of government, some former
servants, but some of the best minds in the business to begin the
process of studying the collapse that began in 2007, continued through
2008, and in a protracted way continues today.
It is important that we get all the facts. There is plenty of blame
to go around. Members of the House, in 1999, such as myself, who voted
overwhelmingly for the repeal of Glass-Steagall--that very well could
be one of the things the Commission finds was where we had too much
deregulation in financial services. We ought to know that and what
contribution it may have had. I have grave suspicions over the role
Moody's and Standard & Poor's, the ratings agencies, played. I wonder,
why should the agency that rates the security be paid by the creator of
the security? They ought to be paid by the person buying the security
if they are looking for a surety. And why were credit default swaps
unregulated? Why did they fall outside the purview of government? What
is it about FASB rule 114 that is hurting so bad in the community
banking system today because of the devastation of mark-to-market on
real estate? And congratulations on the change by FASB of rule 157,
which has lessened some of the pressure on mortgage-backed securities
and the valuation of those, which has helped some bigger institutions.
But there are lots of things that could have gone wrong and some that
did. We need to have all of them on the table, the best minds in the
business looking at it, and we need to have a bipartisan, unfettered,
comprehensive recommendation on what we need to do to ensure that it
never, ever happens again.
I urge the President and our leadership to be cautious in moving
ahead regulatorily without first getting the facts together. We are in
an environment now where everybody does know what the rules are as they
exist. In the few months ahead, long before this Commission reports, a
lot of decisions will be made that will be dependent and predicated
upon the environment the investment community thinks they are operating
in or at least knows they are operating in today.
We have some bumps ahead. Commercial mortgage-backed securities are
the next shoe to drop in this economic compromise we have been through,
although those mortgage-backed securities are not in trouble as much
because of their underwriting as they are from the effects of the poor
underwriting of the residential mortgage-backed securities that caused
a collapse of those markets and those securities. That comes ahead of
us.
We have another wave of adjustments in terms of residential
mortgages. That is not over. We have the pending problem of the number
of mortgages in foreclosure, more performing, good loans at one time
than subprime-originated loans at their beginning, meaning the
unemployment rate and the protracted decline of the economy is
contributing to people who were paying and are falling behind on
payments on their houses. Now, because values have declined, they
recognize they are better off to leave than to try to sell the house
because they can't get anything out of it. We must put an end to this
decline. We can best do it by having all the facts necessary at our
disposal to know what went wrong when, who did wrong where, and what we
need to do as quickly as possible to prohibit this from ever happening
again.
I spent 33 years of my life in the private sector in the real estate
business. I know lots of people in that business, and I know how much
the families they represent, the customers they have had, and the
families themselves have suffered in the months past and the pending
suffering yet to come.
This is the most important thing this Senate and Congress can do, to
do a forensic audit and diagnosis. Let the chips fall where they may
and then make the corrections necessary so it never happens again.
I am happy to commend our leadership for their expeditious
appointment of highly qualified and talented people. I hope all in this
body will pay close attention to what they say and do and not rush to
judgment thinking we know the answer, when all of us really know this
Commission is essential to finding out what really did happen and what
we really do need to do.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I rise today as a member of the Armed Services
Committee in the Senate to support this bipartisan bill in front of us
that is critically important to our national security.
I applaud Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain for their
leadership in guiding this bill to the floor today. They have done a
tremendous job. I also want to acknowledge the expert staff they have
been ably supported by who serve on the committee the Acting President
pro tempore and I are both so honored to be a part of.
I am particularly grateful to them for including provisions important
for Colorado, including $560 million in authorized military
construction.
I would like to highlight in particular the military construction
dollars for Fort Carson, which is in the wonderful city of Colorado
Springs and the County of El Paso. Millions of dollars have been
allocated to Fort Carson for military construction projects to prepare
to expand the post so it could house a 47th Brigade Combat Team, and
millions more are in the pipeline for fiscal year 2010.
But the future of that funding was put in doubt when Defense
Secretary Gates announced earlier this year that the Army would not
create a new brigade combat team at Fort Carson.
I remain disappointed that brigade will not be coming to Fort Carson,
at least in the near future. But I understand Secretary Gates's concern
that we need to fill out the brigades we have, expand the amount of
dwell time service members have between deployments, and meet readiness
requirements before we create new brigades.
Still, I wanted to ensure that Fort Carson and the Colorado Springs
community are not punished because of the Army's decision. Many of the
soldiers at Fort Carson live and work in substandard buildings. They
still need new barracks, mess halls, vehicle maintenance shops, and
other infrastructure--even if that new brigade combat team will not be
located there.
A number of faculties were scheduled to be replaced in future years
anyway, so with the dollars we have kept in the bill, the 43rd Brigade
Combat Team will get its updated facilities a few years early. I am
pleased the committee worked with me to preserve the most important
construction dollars at Fort Carson. This ensures the soldiers at Fort
Carson will have the quality of life they deserve.
The bill also includes language I offered in the committee with
Senator

[[Page S7534]]

Lieberman that studies the benefits and risks of reducing the planned
number of BCTs from 48 to 45. The relationship between the number of
brigades and dwell time and demands on specific military occupational
specialties, so-called MOSs, is complicated. I want to make sure the
reduction of BCTs results in the upsides we expect and does not present
unforeseen problems or downsides.
Staying on the topic of what is important in the bill to Colorado,
there is $246 million in funding to keep the cleanup of the Pueblo
Chemical Depot on track. This will allow the destruction of weapons
there and the cleanup at the depot to be completed by the
congressionally mandated date of 2017. Significantly, the bill funds
the disposal, onsite, of these hazardous wastes left after the chemical
treatment of the mustard agent. I worked with the people of Pueblo to
fight a proposal to ship this waste offsite, so I am glad the bill
underscores the DOD's commitment to onsite disposal. It is the safest
thing to do and makes the most sense.
Finally, in regards to Colorado, the committee approved an amendment
I offered regarding reimbursement for health care providers, such as
Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group in Colorado Springs. This center,
and many centers like it, want to help our soldiers and their families,
but TRICARE--which is the civilian health care system for military
personnel and their dependents--cannot keep up with the high costs of
medical care, and sometimes providers are not reimbursed at all for
their necessary services.
In particular, TRICARE providers are not reimbursed for providing
case management services for soldiers with PTSD and traumatic brain
injury, known as TBI. If we help these soldiers stay in treatment, if
we make sure they get their medical appointments, and if we generally
coordinate their care, we end up reducing costs, and we help those
soldiers and their families who are facing these challenges with mental
health function in their communities.
So this amendment directs the Defense Secretary to assess the
efficacy and cost of case management services for those with serious
mental health problems. My hope is the study will show the benefits of
case management and then help further the DOD consider covering this
important service under TRICARE.
If I might, let me turn to the broader legislation because it
includes many provisions that do not directly relate to Colorado.
The bill supports our service members, and it keeps Americans safe.
It authorizes $679 billion for defense programs, with $129 billion
going to our ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
First and foremost, the bill focuses on our military's readiness
needs. We need to do all we can to help make sure our men and women in
uniform--who voluntarily put their lives on the line for us, and who
have been stretched to the limit by repeated deployments--have the
training, the equipment, and the facilities necessary.
To help our men and women in uniform support themselves and their
families, the bill provides a 3.4-percent, across-the-board pay raise,
as well as an extension of stop-loss pay for 2 more years. That is an
important number.
Importantly, this bill gives Afghanistan the attention it deserves. I
had the great privilege of traveling to that part of the world
recently, and I think there is a window of opportunity to try to arrest
deteriorating security conditions in both countries and to work with
the civilian governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan to achieve
stability and security in this all-important region.
This is not about ``staying the course.'' This is about finally
committing resources and attention to an area that is a critical front
in the war against Islamic extremism and correcting the mistakes and
missteps of recent years.
That is what the bill would do. It would refocus our attention on
this important region. It would protect our troops in harm's way by
providing funds for MRAP all-terrain vehicles to be deployed in
Afghanistan and additional Blackhawk helicopters to give mobility to
our troops.
Our bill also supports the training and equipping of the Afghan
Security Forces, as well as efforts to help the Pakistani Government
understand and implement a counterinsurgency strategy on the part of
their military forces.
Moreover, our bill cares for our wounded warriors. It expands TRICARE
benefits for certain military retirees. It requires mental health
assessments of service members prior to deployment, and it calls for an
increase in the number of military and civilian behavioral health
personnel.
We also include a comprehensive review of the activities of the
Department of Defense for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of
substance abuse disorders among service members. This is particularly
important in light, today, of a report that has been released--the
EPICON study--that directly focuses on Fort Carson.
This is a study that was initiated last year to examine the records
of Fort Carson soldiers who have been involved in violent crimes since
returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army Surgeon General,
Lieutenant General Schoomaker, put together a team of experts to
identify any commonalities among the violent crimes.
I had a chance to sit down with General Schoomaker yesterday. He and
his team have concluded that although risk factors alone do not explain
a ``clustering'' of crime in the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 4th
Infantry Division--the 4 of the 4--a combination of factors converged
to increase the risk that these soldiers would be engaged in violent
crime.
One concern General Schoomaker expressed was that the stigma and lack
of referral to the Army Substance Referral Program for required
substance abuse screening may have increased the overall risk of
violent behavior. The general talked about the need to reduce barriers
to treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, which is an Army-wide concern.
He mentioned pilot projects ongoing at a number of posts where soldiers
who ``self-identify'' a substance abuse problem can get treatment
without the knowledge of their commanders, helping them seek treatment
without fear of appearing weak in the eyes of their superiors. I will
be urging the Army to establish a similar pilot program at Fort Carson.
Mr. President, let me turn to the bill and what is notable for what
it does not include. There are policies that are difficult to change
because they are antiquated and no longer reflect the reality of our
society. The failed policy, ``don't ask, don't tell,'' is a good
example. But the fact that it will be difficult to repeal does not mean
we should not try.
Since the implementation of this program in 1993, the Armed Forces
have discharged over 12,000 brave and qualified combat troops--code-
breakers, medical and intelligence specialists, and skilled
translators--simply for being gay. This includes over 300 service
personnel who have been discharged since President Obama took office.
Mr. President, this is 2009. I believe this discriminatory policy
undermines the strength of our military and the fairness of our great
Nation. We are engaged in two wars. It is counterproductive to
discharge service members who have critical skills to winning these
wars, even as the military has to spend scarce dollars to replace them.
In my opinion, we need to bring the injustice of this policy to the
forefront now, and I plan to work with my colleagues and with the
administration to see that we accomplish, in a timely manner, the full
repeal of ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell.''

There are things this bill doesn't include that it shouldn't include,
such as spending on underperforming, unnecessary, and outdated weapons
systems. It took courage for Secretary Gates to make the
recommendations he did, since it is never easy to stop spending
programs in our Defense budget. But we need to stop funding programs
that significantly exceed their budget and we need to stop spending
limited dollars to buy more capability than the Nation needs.
There are also provisions in this bill that shouldn't be included,
such as additional spending on the F-22. I voted in committee against
an amendment to add $1.75 billion to the bill to purchase F-22 aircraft
that the military does not

[[Page S7535]]

want, does not need, and says we cannot afford. The F-22 is a valuable,
capable aircraft, but the question is whether we need more than 187 F-
22s to meet the Nation's requirements, and there is bipartisan
agreement that we do not. Presidents Obama and Bush, two Secretaries of
Defense, three Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and current members of the
Joint Chiefs agreed that 187 aircraft are sufficient.
So let me conclude by saying that this is a good bill. It is a bill
that balances the need to sustain our current war-fighting abilities
with the need to prepare for the next threat to our national security.
It is critical that we are able to meet the operational needs of our
military today, even as we continue to prepare our men and women in
uniform to be the best trained and equipped force in the world.
This is a good bill for our Nation and for my home State of Colorado;
it is a carefully drafted and considered bipartisan bill, and I urge
its passage.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan is
recognized.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Colorado, not just
for his statement and for his support for this bill but for his work on
this committee. He has made a major contribution already. We look
forward to his continuing work with us. As he knows and has so well
expressed, this is a bipartisan effort on the part of the committee. It
is important that we continue that way, and his instincts have shown
already very dramatically that those are his views as well.
So I thank him very much, not just, again, for the support of an
amendment that we plan on getting back to as soon as we dispose of the
hate crimes bill but also, and even more importantly, for his great
work on our committee.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma is
recognized.

Tribute to Norm Coleman

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I wish to pause for a moment. I know we
are on the bill, and I am most anxious to proceed with the Defense
authorization bill, having served on the committee since 1994 and
before then in the House. It is imperative now that we get as robust a
bill as possible.
Before doing that, let me mention one thing because I haven't yet
spoken about this. I have been watching several of our colleagues who
have come to the floor to speak about a great Senator, Norm Coleman,
who is no longer seated in the Senate but who is a remarkable
character.
A good friend of mine, Paul Weyrich, who recently died, wrote an op-
ed piece, and it is called ``The Workhorses and the Show Horses.'' He
talked about so many of the Members of the House and the Senate who are
out there just to make themselves look good. They are the ones who are
show horses. Then there are the workhorses. We talk about someone such
as Norm Coleman, who was always there and getting deeply involved in
issues, many of which are not popular issues if you are using them to
run for reelection. I am thinking of a close friend, a mutual friend of
ours named Ward Brehm. Ward Brehm and I have been working together for
a long time on some things in Africa, as the Chair is aware, and he was
talking about being from Minnesota and how much involved Norm Coleman
got in various international affairs issues that don't have any votes
behind them, but he was willing to do it. Every time you turned around,
he was willing to do things that other people weren't willing to do.
I remember several years ago when he and I met with a delegation from
Burundi and Rwanda and the DRC. This was a group that was over here in
conjunction with the National Prayer Breakfast. He and I always worked
together during the time that we had the National Prayer Breakfast. We
would get these people to come all the way over here from different
countries, but we kind of concentrated on Africa. I remember him
standing there talking about, for a long period of time--keep in mind
he is a Jew. I was never real clear where in New York he was from--I
think the Bronx or someplace. But anyway, he was very strong in the
Jewish community, and I am not. I am on the Christian side. But we
would always get together and talk to them about Jesus and talk to them
about loving God. And then when he would pray--at the end of these
things, we would offer a prayer, and he would end up giving a prayer in
Hebrew--an amazing guy.
At the National Prayer Breakfast African dinner 2 years ago--I had
sponsored the dinner that was for all the Africans who had come over
for the Prayer Breakfast and stayed for the African dinner--he was a
major player in that. So these are things people didn't know about Norm
Coleman.
The idea is scripturally based; it is Acts 2:42. It is kind of a
genesis of these weekly Prayer Breakfasts in the Senate. On Wednesday
mornings, we had a Prayer Breakfast and about 20, 25 Senators showed up
every Wednesday and Norm Coleman was the chairman of that and was
always in these groups. But he was also one who was helping us in
forming these same groups with members of Parliament from all over
Africa. He was a tireless worker in that effort, which was not
something out there to get any votes.
I talked to him the other day, having gone through this election and
then the 8 months or so, whatever it was, in recounting and all of
that. I told him that many years ago I was mayor of Tulsa, and I did a
pretty good job, I thought. I was supposed to win hands down. Someone
came out of obscurity and because of a set of circumstances that should
have gotten votes, not lost votes, I had lost unexpectedly on that
Tuesday.
Well, we had scheduled our Tulsa Mayor's Prayer Breakfast the next
morning. Bill Bright, who died not too long ago, came by as the
speaker. Keep in mind, here he was the speaker at the Mayor's Prayer
Breakfast the morning after I lost the election. He gave the most
brilliant speech. I remember how he said it and the words he used. He
said: A lot of times we think in terms of what is happening to us
today, looking at our own careers, but, he said, God is still up there
and there is a plan for all of us. He said in a very clear way that I
thoroughly understood, the day after I lost the election I wasn't
supposed to lose, that God opens a window and he closes a door and that
window is going to be bigger. I can tell you right now I wouldn't be
doing what I am doing today if it had not been for that.
So I would just say about my friend, Norm Coleman, God has a plan in
mind for you, Norm, and it is one we will look back someday and say
perhaps this is the best thing that could have happened to you. In the
meantime, we love you, Norm, and God bless you.

Amendment No. 1511

I wish to also speak in terms of a program that I think a lot of
people don't understand, and on which I know there is honest
disagreement.
The F-22, people have said, is something like a Cold War aircraft. It
is not. To quote Secretary Donnelly and General Schwartz both, because
they both said the same thing, they said the F-22 is unquestionably the
most capable fighter in our military inventory, not just air to air, as
some on this floor have insinuated, but also precision attack air to
ground, as well as intelligence collection. In contrast, almost every
other piece of military equipment in our inventory today--air, land,
and sea--is Cold War equipment that needs to be replaced.
I think about the Bradley vehicle. It has been around since the
1960s. I think about the Abrams tank. It has been around since the
1970s. I think about the Paladin, even though we have had about five
major upgrades on the Paladin, that is our artillery beast, and that
was actually World War II technology where you had to get out of the
thing after every shot and swab the breach. You hear that and people
can't believe it. Well, fortunately, we are going to go through an
improvement on that. But the point I am trying to make is most of the
stuff we have is Cold War stuff and to find that F-22 isn't needed
because it wasn't flown in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think, is pretty
narrow-minded. We have a lot of people we have to defend America
against for contingencies that we don't know are out there and we don't
know what our needs are going to be. The need certainly wasn't there in
terms of Afghanistan and Iraq, but we don't know where the next enemy
is going to be coming from or what the next contingency is. I wish we
did. I can remember being on the House Armed Services

[[Page S7536]]

Committee my last year there in 1984. We had people testify. They
said--these are smart people. They said: You know, in 10 years, we will
no longer need ground capability. And look what has happened since that
time.
So no matter how smart our people are, there is no way we are going
to be able to determine where the next guy is going to come from and
what our capability is going to have to be. Is it going to be in the
air, sea, strike vehicles, lift capacity, cannons? So we need to keep
that in mind because the only thing we have in the form of a fifth-
generation fighter is the F-22, and it is uniquely designed and
equipped to penetrate a hostile environment and be a savage air
dominance for our ground forces. The F-22, I look at it as an
investment in the future, not just 10 years down the road but 20 years
and beyond. What we build today is going to have to be able to
determine and deter and defeat adversaries for decades. Just look at
the age of our entire military today. We talked about all these
vehicles, but we have such things as the national security in long
term, 40 years. We can't even see what we are going to need 10 years
from now.
Now we talk about the F-35. Well, the F-35 is great. I am a strong
supporter of the F-35 and working on it and getting it up as fast as
possible. Its mission requirements are not the same as the F-22. The F-
22 is out flying today, and we have that capability today. Only five F-
35s are flying, and it is still in the testing period. It is impossible
to assess the full capabilities of the F-35 until operational tests are
completed in, I think, 2014. Well, that is 2014. This is 2009. There is
a lot of time between now and 2014.
While we discuss cutting the only fifth-generation fighter in
production today, China and Russia are continuing to move forward with
the development of their fifth-generation fighters. I think they call
the Chinese one the J-12 and the Russian is the T-50. They are out
there right now talking about building these things. Today our Legacy,
our F-15s, F-16s, F-18s are less capable than other fourth-generation
fighters, such as the SU-27 and the SU-30 series aircraft.
I might remind the President that we have--we already know other
countries are buying these capable fourth-plus generation aircraft that
are better than what we have now, except for the F-22. We know of one
sale, and I remember this--it has been quite awhile ago now--for F-27s
from China, 240 of these. Now they are talking about cutting our number
of F-22s--and I will talk about the numbers in a minute--down to the
187 and stopping the amendment that would increase that by seven
vehicles. I don't want to see our Legacy fighters outmatched by fifth-
generation fighters developed by China and Russia. I have always said
our pilots are better, our training is better, but they have to have at
least comparable equipment to survive.
So our air-to-air threat is only one aspect of the threat our Air
Force faces today. Our surface-to-air threat remains to be a real
serious problem. You just think about what the Russians are making now,
the S-300s and the Chinese 4000s. They are capable of tracking up to
100 targets and getting as high as 90,000 feet in the air.
Now, that is priceless. These systems that make penetrating hostile
airspace difficult and deadly for a legacy aircraft, including unmanned
vehicles, such as our Predator, which has performed brilliantly, are
uncontested facts. Only the F-22, with its advance stealth technology
and weaponry and supersonic speeds, can successfully penetrate what we
call denied airspace, hunt and destroy strategic ground targets during
the day or night, and collect and provide battle intelligence and
awareness, and maintain our superiority in the air.
The Air Force officials have repeatedly stated no less than 243 F-22s
would be sufficient to maintain a moderate level of risk. We are
talking about the deaths of Americans. If that is the goal, that is
what we should have. In the beginning, it was 750 F-22s. We have slowly
gone down. That is what this amendment is about today.
GEN John Corley, Commander of the Air Force Combat Command, said:

At Air Combat Command, we have held the need for 381 F-22s
to deliver a tailored package of air superiority to our
Combatant Commanders and provide a potent, globally arrayed
asymmetric deterrent against potential adversaries. In my
opinion, a fleet of 187 F-22s puts the execution of our
current national military strategy at high risk in the near
to mid term. To my knowledge, there are no studies that
demonstrate that 187 F-22s are adequate to support our
national military strategy. Air Combat Commandment analysis,
done in concert with the Headquarters Air Forces, shows a
moderate risk force can be obtained with an F-22 fleet of
approximately 250 aircraft.

So we are talking about a bare minimum number, and whether it is 243
or 250, that should be a bare minimum number.
While the F-22 hasn't deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, a theater
security package of six F-22s are on a continuous rotation to Guam in
the Pacific Theater of Operations and have been forward deployed in
Japan.
Why? Because it is the only fighter capable of stealthy penetration
of North Korea's air defenses.
Finally, there continues to be allegations about the costs and
operations of the F-22--to include an article last week in the
Washington Post. The bottom line is, these allegations are false or
intentionally misleading. The F-22 cost per flying hour is $19,750, not
more than $44,000, as they were trying to say. The F-22 maintenance
trends have improved from 62 percent to 68 percent. The F-22 skin is
not vulnerable to rain. Finally, the fly-away cost for F-22s multiyear
this Congress approved is $142.6 million, not $350 million.
One final point on all of these supposed studies about the F-22: We
have been through this before with the approval of the multiyear and
are going through it again. I have been briefed on both classified and
unclassified studies, and while the range of numbers varied, each study
concluded that 183 F-22s is not enough. So we need to continue to build
the F-22s and look at exporting this aircraft to our allies.
Fortunately, some of that is taking place today. Japan, Australia, and
Israel have expressed considerable interest in the purchase of F-22s.
Nations around the world realize the F-22A Raptor is the only
operational fighter-bomber available that can successfully defeat and
destroy air and ground threats of today and tomorrow.
So what we are talking about is--in the markup, we increased the
number by seven aircraft. The chief mover of this, I have to say, was
Senator Saxby Chambliss. As I told him, this is not enough. He agreed,
but it was the most we thought we could do.
I believe when the time comes for an amendment to cut that number
down, we need to give serious consideration to that amendment and not
allow it to pass.
There is an expectation of the American people--and I have gone
through this before with other airframes and other ground platforms--
the American people think we give our kids who go into battle the very
best of everything. I can tell you that is not true. I gave an example.
There are five countries, including South Africa, that make a better
non-line-of-sight cannon than we have today.
To me, that is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to the American
people when we explain that is the situation. The F-15, F-16, and the
F-14 have done a great job, but they need to move on to the fourth and
fifth generation, and the only way to do that is with the F-22, which
has been a success story.

Guantanamo Bay

I have another interest I want to share today, and that has to do
with Gitmo. People are probably tired of hearing me talk about Gitmo,
but I think we are about to make a mistake. The administration is
making the demand that we close Gitmo. I have stood on the floor of the
Senate many times and talked about my experiences there--the fact that
anybody who wants to close Gitmo, if you ask why, they will say that
for some reason people associate that with the types of torture that
allegedly went on at Abu Ghraib and all of that.
This has nothing to do with that. There has not been a documented
case of waterboarding at Gitmo. It is a state-of-the-art prison.
When President Obama talked about the 17 locations in America where
we can take terrorists and relocate them from Gitmo to America, one
happened to be Fort Sill in my State of Oklahoma. I went down to Fort
Sill, and there was a lady in charge. She is a young major in charge of
the prison where they would put these terrorists.

[[Page S7537]]

She said, ``I don't understand what people are thinking.'' This young
lady, named SMA Carter, said she had two tours at Gitmo, and it is
designed for terrorists. They have a court system where they can do
tribunals.
We have six classifications of security in Gitmo. It is one of the
few good deals the government has. We have had it since 1903. I have
told the Presiding Officer this before. We only pay $4,000 a year for
it. Do you have a better deal than that in government? There isn't one.
I have to say the terrorists are still at war with the United States,
and we are legally entitled to capture and hold enemies and fighters in
the hostilities. We detain terrorists and supporters to prevent them
from returning to the battlefield, saving the lives of our service men
and women and the lives of civilians who are innocent victims. I have
spent a lot of time there. I am familiar with some of the terrorists
there who are really bad people. They want to kill everybody who is
listening right now. That is their mission in life.
We have had about 800 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists who
have been sent to Gitmo since 9/11--people who are really bad. I looked
through there, and we saw Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was the architect
of 9/11. There was also the guy who was the explosives trainer for 9/
11, who provided information on the September 2001 assassination of the
Northern Alliance leader, Masood, and on the al-Qaida organization's
use of mines. There was also the terrorist financier who provided
detailed information on Osama bin Laden's front companies. There was
the Taliban fighter linked to al-Qaida operatives connected to the 1998
East Africa Embassy bombings. Remember that, in Tanzania and Kenya?
Down there we also had an al-Qaida explosives trainer who designed a
prototype shoe bomb for destroying airplanes, as well as a magnet mine
for attacking ships.
These people are unlike the types of prisoners we have had in other
wars. If we look back during any of our wars, we had soldiers fighting
for their countries. These people are not soldiers fighting for a
country. They are fighting for a cause, and that cause is to destroy
us.
To date over 540 prisoners have been transferred or released, leaving
approximately 230 at Gitmo. They include members of al-Qaida and
related terrorist organizations, planners of major terrorist attacks
worldwide, including 9/11. These are the types of people there.
The intelligence gained from detainees at Gitmo helped the United
States and its allies identify, exploit, and disrupt terrorist
operations worldwide, saving untold lives. There have been a number of
terrorist attacks. For a long time, they were classified, but most are
no longer classified.
In 2007, the Senate voted 94 to 3 on a nonbinding resolution to block
detainees from being transferred to the United States, declaring:

Detainees housed at Guantanamo should not be released into
American society, nor should they be transferred State-side
into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods.

On May 20, 2009, the Senate voted 90 to 6 on a bipartisan amendment
by myself and Senator Inouye to prohibit funding for the transfer of
Gitmo detainees to the United States. Unfortunately, the supplemental
appropriations conference report deleted that provision, allowing
detainees to be transferred to the United States for trial.
If we put them into our Federal system--I can speak this way because
I am not an attorney, so I can stand back and cite the obvious. If we
do that, then the rules of evidence are different.
There are a lot of these guys who are picked up, and even now they
talk about Miranda rights. That blows my mind when I think about it--
when this goes on now and we have the opportunity to get these people
and extract information from them. Thinking about the idea of trying
them in the Federal court system where, if they cannot get a
conviction--and many times they could not for one reason, which is that
the rules of evidence are different.
When they were captured, they went by the rules of evidence for
military tribunals. So we could have some who would be turned free, and
many of them in the United States.
Recent polls show that a majority of Americans oppose closing Gitmo
and moving detainees to the United States. By a margin of 2 to 1--which
is huge in polls--those surveyed said Guantanamo should not be closed,
and by more than 3 to 1 they oppose moving some of the accused
terrorists housed there to prisons in the United States.
Again, one of the prisons the Obama administration talked about of
the 17 prisons happened to be in Oklahoma. It should be obvious to
everybody if we have 17 locations where we are housing terrorists, that
becomes a magnet for terrorism--17 magnets in the United States.
A recent Fox News poll said President Obama made a mistake when he
signed the order to close Gitmo. Seventy-seven percent of all Americans
say that was a mistake, that Gitmo should not be closed, 60 percent of
all Americans, up from 53 percent in April and 45 percent in January.
You can see the trendlines. The vast majority--nearly two-thirds--is
saying he should not close Gitmo and Gitmo prisoners should not be
transferred into prisons in the United States. Sixty percent of all
Americans say that is true. Sixty percent in polling is a huge number,
a vast majority.
I encourage Senators who will be voting on this significant amendment
to keep that in mind. Since President Obama announced he intended to
close Gitmo, it has become widely circulated that these detainees could
be transferred to American prisons for prosecution in U.S. criminal
courts and potentially released in the United States. Moving detainees
to prisons here would require significant investment in restructuring
existing facilities and would cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Currently, the United States only has one Supermax facility located
in Florence, CO. According to the Bureau of Prisons, as of May 21,
``only 1 bed was not filled at Supermax.'' So if we want to give
maximum security to these people, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we
better decide who is going to be in that one bed because we don't have
the capacity. The capacity of all the high security Bureau of Prison
facilities at the beginning of this month was 13,448 inmates, while the
total prison population was approximately 20,000.
So what we are talking about is they are overcrowded, and that is
flat not going to happen. Despite claims by Senator Durbin that the
Supermax prisons in the United States are ready to receive Gitmo
detainees, the Supermax prisons in the United States are at or above
their maximum capacity.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said there is the very real possibility
that the Gitmo detainees will recruit more terrorists from among the
Federal inmate population and continue al-Qaida operations inside the
walls of prison. That cannot happen in Gitmo because they are all
terrorists there. That is how the New York synagogue bombers were
recruited, in our own prison system.
In 2002, an entire wing of a jail in Alexandria, VA, was cleared out
for the 9/11 ``20th hijacker,'' Zacarias Moussaoui, to be housed for
his trial--just for one detainee. Bringing Gitmo detainees to the
United States could also place America and its citizens at risk by
inevitably creating a new set of targets for the jihadist terrorists.
Gitmo, on the other hand, is a state-of-the-art prison. I cannot find
anyone who has gone over there, including unfriendly media, media that
was bent on closing Gitmo--once they go over there and see it, almost
all of them change their mind. It is a state-of-the-art facility that
provides humane treatment for all detainees. It is fully compliant with
the Geneva Conventions and provides treatment and oversight that exceed
any maximum security prison in the world, as attested to by human
rights organizations, the Red Cross, Attorney General Holder, and an
independent commission led by Admiral Walsh. This is state of the art,
and this is not a place where torture takes place. It is the only
facility of its kind in the world that was specifically designed to
house and try these types of dangerous detainees.
If President Obama ever decides to visit Gitmo, I am sure he would
equally

[[Page S7538]]

be impressed as everyone else, including, I might say, Attorney General
Holder. He came back and gave a glowing report and said how great this
was and, at the same time, said the President still wants to close it.
When you look at the Gitmo situation, there are, on average, two
lawyers for every detainee. There are 127 doctors and nurses. The ratio
is 1 to 2 in terms of health care specialists to take care of these
prisoners. Here we are talking about health care in this country. Maybe
they want to go to Gitmo. They would be a lot better off. Current
treatment and oversight exceeds that of any maximum security prison in
the world.
There is also a $12 million expeditionary legal complex. This is very
significant because if we are going to do tribunals, we cannot do
tribunals in our court system in the United States because it is not
set up for that. Obviously, there are some things in testimony that
takes place that have to be private. You cannot have these things go
out because that would endanger American lives. We spent $12 million on
this complex. It is a courtroom at Gitmo to try detainees, and
specifically that is what it is there for. It is the only one of its
kind in the world, and it provides a secure location to try detainees
charged by the Federal Government. They have full access to sensitive
and classified information, full access to defense lawyers, and
protection by the full media, access by the press. But it is set up to
take care of that specific type of an incarcerated individual.
Senator Harry Reid declared, in a press conference after my
bipartisan amendment was adopted, that ``We will never allow terrorists
to be released into the United States.'' I applaud Senator Reid for
that statement and hope he will stay with that because that is
something the American people are not willing to tolerate.
He went on to say he opposes imprisoning detainees on U.S. soil,
saying:

We don't want them around the United States . . . I can't
make it any more clear than the statement I have given to
you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the
United States.

Senator Durbin said:

The feeling was at this point we were defending the
unknown. We were being asked to defend a plan that hasn't
been announced.

I think Senator Durbin was correct then and is correct now.
There are lots of questions, very few answers. What is the impact?
Let's say we close Gitmo. What is the impact of placing detainees in
the U.S. prison system--pretrial and posttrial? Has an assessment been
done to determine the risk of escape, as well as potentially creating
targets in the United States for terrorist attacks? Will Gitmo
detainees be segregated from the regular prison population? Keep in
mind, these guys are trained to recruit. That would be a garden spot
for them to get into the American prison system to recruit people to
become terrorists. What facilities exist in the United States today
that can hold these detainees? We talked about that. They tried to
locate 17 facilities, and it will not work.
By the way, the State legislatures in each one of those States that
have one of these facilities have passed resolutions or some type of a
document saying: We don't want them in our States. That is what they
are saying from the States, and we need to listen to them. One might
ask, where will the military commissions be held--at Guantanamo or the
United States? Obviously, if you close Guantanamo, you lose that
facility. Assuming military commissions are held in Guantanamo, where
will detainees who are convicted serve out their sentence, if not
there, because there is no other place that has the capability of doing
that. There are all these questions.
What additional constitutional rights will a detainee gain if they
are tried in the United State versus Guantanamo?
Are there differences in the rights awarded to detainees tried in a
Military Commission versus civilian court? Could location or geography
affect the right afforded to detainees--somewhere in the U.S. versus
Gitmo?
How do we handle protection of classified information during trials?
What are the long-term implications on future conflicts of trying
these detainees in a civil court versus military commissions?
Why is the administration reading Miranda rights to some detainees
captured or held in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many are being read
Miranda rights? How many have invoked their rights?
What is the impact of requiring the reading of Miranda rights to
terrorists captured on the battlefield and advising them they have the
``right to remain silent''?
What if a detainee is found not guilty--where will he be released?
What does the administration plan to do when a Federal judge orders
the release of a detainee but the administration knows is too dangerous
to release of transfer?
What do you do with a detainee you cannot try or release due to
national security concerns?
Despite not having a plan, the administration continues in its quest
to empty Gitmo regardless of the cost or the risk.
The Obama administration initially talked with the small South
Pacific island of Palau, population 20,000, to accept transfer of a
group of 17 Chinese Muslims currently at Gitmo, called Uighurs, at the
cost of some $200 million. That is $11.7 million per individual. This
is not a cheap thing he is talking about doing. The total cost to build
Gitmo was only $275 million. As I said, it has been on lease since 1903
for $4,000 a year. The Wall Street Journal just yesterday had a
government official who said that well over 50 detainees have been
approved for transfer to other countries and that negotiations are
continuing with Saudi Arabia to take a large group of Yemeni detainees.
Attorney General Eric Holder has estimated that more than 50 detainees
may end up on trial by U.S. authorities. This news comes as more and
more Americans are growing opposed to the closure of Gitmo, placing
them unnecessarily at risk in order to satisfy political goals.
I think we need to stop, sit back, take a deep breath, and look at
some of the things that are going on today. The idea that we would have
Miranda rights for terrorists, people who have killed Americans, is
pretty outrageous.
Finally, on June 9, the Obama administration again went against the
will of the Congress and the American people by transferring the first
Gitmo detainee to the United States for his trial in New York City.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has been indicted for the 1998 al-Qaida U.S.
Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 224
people, including 12 Americans. Ghailani was later captured in Pakistan
in 2004 while working for al-Qaida, preparing false documents.
Intelligence shows he met both bin Laden and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in
Afghanistan and remained a close associate with al-Qaida until his
capture in 2004.
This bonafide terrorist will have the privilege of a U.S. civilian
court trial in the United States--I think it is New York. To me, it is
inconceivable that could happen. The press reported that Ghailani was
smiling when the charges were read to him in New York.
Despite the Obama administration's intentions, they will find
themselves in a position where they cannot even try or safely transfer
or release Gitmo detainees. As of May 2009, 74 transferred/released
detainees have returned to the fight--74. These are the ones we
captured again. We know they returned to the fight. How many more are
there out there? If you release these people, they go right back to
their practice of killing Americans. Former Guantanamo Bay inmate
Mullah Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, is leading the
fight against the U.S. Marines in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan.
He surrendered in north Afghanistan in 2001, was transferred to Gitmo
in 2006, and then released. He is out there killing marines today. That
is what is happening currently. There is no alternative to Gitmo.
I go through all this not to be disagreeable with anyone except to
say there is an answer, and there is only one answer.
Today, we are considering the Defense authorization bill. I have an
amendment to that bill. I now have, in a matter of 3 hours, 22
cosponsors. This is amendment No. 1559 to the Defense authorization
bill, S. 1390. This does something very simple. I like simple bills
because they cannot be misunderstood. They are not like the health
insurance bill with over 1,000 pages no

[[Page S7539]]

one has read. They are not like the cap-and-trade bill that passed the
House with no one reading it, over 1,000 pages. This is just two pages.
That is all. It is easy to read. Let me tell you what it says. I am
wrong, it is one page. It says an amendment offered by Senator Inhofe:

Sec. 1059. Prohibition on transfer of Guantanamo Detainees.
No department or agency of the United States may
(1) transfer any detainee of the United States housed at
Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to any facility in the
United States or its territories.

That is No. 1.
No. 2 is, we cannot ``construct, improve, modify, or otherwise
enhance any facility in the United States or its territories for the
purpose of hous-
ing any detainee described in para-
graph (1) . . .''
No. 3: We cannot ``permanently or temporarily house or otherwise
incarcerate any detainee described in paragraph (1) in the United
States or its territories.''
That is a very simple solution. It is all in three sentences on one
page.
I have a feeling there are going to be many people who know that we
are on the right side of this issue, know that the American people are
overwhelmingly, by more than two to one, in support of an amendment
such as this, and are going to offer some amendment full of loopholes
that will still allow them to close it. It will sound good. But this is
the only one out there.
Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, if their interest is to really
do something about keeping Gitmo open, there is only one vehicle out
there. We are on it right now--the Defense authorization bill. That is
amendment No. 1559. All it does is prohibit us from transferring any
detainee from Gitmo to any facility in the United States of America or
its territories; it prohibits us from constructing, improving,
modifying, or otherwise enhancing any facility in the United States or
its territories for the purpose of housing any detainee described in
paragraph 1 above--that is the terrorist; and No. 3, it prohibits us
from temporarily or otherwise incarcerating any detainee described in
paragraph 1 in the United States or its territories. Period. That is
all it does.
I say to those two-thirds people of America, there is a vehicle now
we can use to make sure that facility, one of the really true state-of-
the-art resources we have in this country, stays open and keeping those
detainees, those terrorists out of America. If you want to keep them
out of America, this is the way to do it.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Global Warming

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I notice no one else is on the floor right
now. I was only going to address those three subjects, but I do want to
make a couple of additional comments. If anyone comes in and seeks the
floor, I will come to a close.
There is one other major issue that we are dealing with right now--we
have had a number of hearings--and I would like to kind of put it in
perspective so people will understand.
There are a lot of complaints around the country about the cap and
trade bill that was passed by the House of Representatives--
interestingly by one vote over the majority--which is 219. Most of the
bill actually was written at about 3 o'clock in the morning and passed
the same day--a thousand pages. I applaud John Boehner over there for
saying that we want to establish some kind of a program whereby
anything we are going to consider on the floor should be on a Web site
so all of America can read it at least 72 hours before it is voted on.
I applaud that, and I hope we will be able to do that.
I certainly hope we will be able to do that with a bill that I am
sure will be passed from the Environment and Public Works Committee of
the Senate--the cap and trade bill that has yet to be drafted. The
chairman of that committee, Senator Boxer, has stated it is going to
basically be the framework of the Waxman bill from the House that was
passed by a margin of 219 votes to 212, I think it was.
Anyway, that at least gives us something to talk about. I would like
to go back historically to my first exposure to this whole issue. Back
about 10 years ago, when we had the Kyoto Treaty, the Kyoto Treaty was
a treaty the Clinton-Gore administration was trying to get us to ratify
in the Senate. It was a treaty that would establish a cap-and-trade
type of arrangement to limit the number of CO<inf>2</inf>--and the
proper term is anthropogenic gases--anthropogenic, man-made gases,
methane, CO<inf>2</inf>.
The theory behind that, and I believed it at that time because
everyone said it was true, was that these man-made gases were causing
global warming. I assumed the science was there and was settled. As I
say, everybody thought it was. It was at that time that the Wharton
School of Economics came out with the Wharton econometrics survey. That
survey quantified how much it would cost America in taxes if we in the
United States ratified the treaty and lived by its requirements. The
result was in the range between $300 billion and $330 billion a year.
Now, I have often said one of the most egregious votes ever taken in
the Senate was the vote that took place in October of 2008 when we gave
an unelected bureaucrat the $700 billion to do with as he wished. It
was just unconscionable. I voted against it. I was opposed to it, but
we lost. We did it, and now, most of the people who voted for it, are
sorry. I tried to equate at that time what $700 billion was, and I said
if you take all of the families who file tax returns and pay taxes and
do your math, it is $5,000 a family--$5,000 for every American family,
not just the ones in Oklahoma but everywhere. So I thought, as bad as
that was, that was a one-shot deal. If we pass cap and trade, we are
talking about a $300-plus billion tax increase every year, not just
once.
So at the time we looked at this, and the Wharton School came out
with these figures, I thought, let me be sure in my own mind, as a
member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, that the science
is there. So I looked into it, only to find out this whole thing came
from the United Nations' IPCC--the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. All we have seen are just the reports not from scientists but
from politicians on the summaries they give policy donors. So we
started talking to real scientists only to find out that really well-
established scientists--and this is 10 years ago--who looked at this
said: Well, yes, there could be a connection between man-made gases,
CO<inf>2</inf>, and global warming. However, it is not a major
significant contribution.
Now, to fortify this, then-Vice President Gore was trying to build
his case on why we should ratify this convention and he did his own
study. He hired a guy--one of the top scientists in America--named Tom
Wigley to do an analysis. Now, here was his challenge. If all of the
developed nations in the world--America, France, Western Europe and the
rest of the developed nations--would ratify this treaty and would live
by its emission requirements, how much would that lower the temperature
in 50 years? So if all the countries in the developed nations did this,
how much would it lower it in 50 years? The result of the study was
seven one-hundredths of a degree Celsius. Well, I said that is not even
measurable. And I said, if his own scientist says that, we have to have
a wake-up call here in America. And that is when I made this statement
that people have been throwing at me for 10 years--the idea of the
notion that man-made gases significantly contribute to global warming
is probably the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.
Well, when we stop and look back now at what has happened in the
scientific community, many members of the community were the recipients
of grants and had those grants held up unless they would come in and
say, yes, we are going to have to do something about CO<inf>2</inf> in
order to stop global warming.
By the way, I have to just say that at this time we are in our ninth
year of a global cooling. People seem to forget we have been going
through these ups

[[Page S7540]]

and downs all throughout recorded history. God is still up there, and
we are going to have warming and cooling periods.
The same individuals who are so hysterically behind this idea of
passing a cap and trade--putting a huge tax on America at this time--
are the same ones in 1975 that were saying we are going to have to do
something because another ice age is coming. Well, anyway, this has
been going on for a long period of time.
So as we have progressed through the years, more and more scientists
have come over who were on the other side. And I call to mind now, just
from memory, Claude Allegra, from France. Claude Allegra is a socialist
over there--very prominent scientist. He was marching through the
aisles with Al Gore 15 years ago, and he has now reversed his position
and said, wait a minute, everything we thought from the modeling didn't
happen. This thing is not real. He is solidly on the skeptic side now,
saying I was wrong back then. This Claude Allegra is the guy Sarkozy
now is talking about putting in as the environmental minister of the
country of France. Now that is the caliber of people we are talking
about.
David Bellamy was the top scientist in the U.K. and David Bellamy was
solidly on the other side 10, 12 years ago. He is now saying, we have
looked at the modeling and we have changed and this is just flat not
true.
A guy named Nir Shaviv from Israel, another top scientist, he was on
the other side of this issue and he has now come over.
And for my colleagues who want to really see the fortification, see
the numbers we are talking about in terms of scientists who have
reversed their position, go to my Web site, Inhofe.Senate.Gov, and look
it up. There are a lot of speeches I have made from the floor of the
Senate, but one was about the 700 scientists, most of whom were on the
other side of the issue and are now saying the same thing as Claude
Allegra, David Bellamy, Nir Shaviv, and others have said because they
have changed their minds on this thing.
So clearly the science has turned around, and that gives a sense of
urgency for some people who want to respond to some of the extremists--
mostly in California, and mostly in Hollywood--to go ahead and pass
something. Get something passed and get it passed quickly. It is kind
of like health care. They want to get it passed before people have a
chance to read it.
So now we have a bill that is going to be put together and drafted in
the Environment and Public Works Committee, which was going to be
coming to the floor of the Senate prior to the August recess--just a
few weeks from now--but Chairman Boxer has now decided to put it off
until after the recess. I applaud her for that, because time is not the
friend of the people who are trying to make believe we are going to
have to pass an expensive tax to address what they consider to be a
more serious problem than I consider it to be. And during the August
recess, during those 30 days, you are going to have a lot of Members of
this Senate be approached by people--such as people in the agricultural
community.

I had the opportunity of going and talking to the National Farm Coop
the other day and discussing with them what would happen if we were to
pass a cap-and-trade system and what that would do to the farmers of my
State of Oklahoma and all throughout America. Stop and think about it.
Seventy-one percent of the cost of a bushel of wheat is in fertilizer
and in energy costs. That is what would go up. So you would be talking
about doubling the price of wheat, or I could use soybeans or any other
commodity. It would be disastrous for our farmers in America.
So the years have gone by, and slowly people have caught onto this
thing, and that is why there is such a sense of urgency by people who
want to pass this before the public realizes what it is. Fortunately,
the public already understands, and the vast amount of recent polling
shows that, just like the issue of closing Gitmo, which I talked about
a few minutes ago, they are solidly on the side of not passing a cap-
and-trade tax which would constitute the largest tax increase in the
history of America to address a problem that people aren't really sure
exists to start with.
So I think we will defeat that in the Senate. It will, of course,
pass out of the committee. It is a very liberal committee. I love
everyone on that committee, but they will pass anything that has to do
with a cap-and-trade package, so it will be on the floor of the Senate.
But it will not pass the Senate. And the reason I say that is we have
had several votes in the Senate--the House had never had any votes. We
have considered this five times, and actually voted three times--2003,
2005, and 2008.
In 2003, it was called the McCain-Lieberman bill. At that time, I was
the only one on the floor. For 5 days, 10 hours a day, I talked about
this and was trying to defeat that thing. For 50 hours, only two or
three Senators came down for a short period of time to help me. Now,
fast forward from 2003 to 2005 to 2008. The bill was called the Warner-
Lieberman bill. We had 23 Senators who came down, and it didn't take 5
days to defeat it; it was just 2 days.
So I think in terms of passing the tax increase called cap and trade,
they have about maybe 34, 35 of votes, and it takes 60 votes in the
Senate to pass it. Really, I am happy our forefathers were divined and
inspired when they thought of the two Houses so we could have checks
and balances.
So I think that is what will happen. I know there are other names I
could mention but cannot because some of the things I know are at a
level of confidence. But some of the new Senators who have been
elected, they don't really want to go back and say--whether Democrats
or Republicans, but, in fact, it is the Democrats I have in mind--
saying to the people who have just elected them: Aren't I doing a good
job for you, coming back from my first session and passing the largest
annual tax increase in the history of America? That isn't going to
happen, Mr. President. People are so sensitive right now with the level
of spending that is going on in this country.
I can remember in 1993, it was the first year of the Clinton
administration, and I was complaining at that time on the floor--I was
serving in the House of Representatives--of the huge tax increase he
was pushing, and all of the things that were going on--with gun
control, the Hillary health care, which we all remember. At that time,
I remember complaining on the floor: He even has a budget of $1.5
trillion. Well, guess what. This one is $3.5 trillion. We can't sustain
that. We can't do that in America.
So I think one at a time we are going to have to stop these expensive
programs, one being the health care program--I know we can't afford
that--another being cap and trade. I think we will defeat that, and I
believe America is now going to look a lot more carefully, and they are
going to applaud the efforts being made to make sure any bill that
comes up for consideration of this magnitude should be on a Web site,
as Mr. Boehner suggested, and several other Senators have suggested,
including myself, for at least 72 hours so we and the American people
can read and see what it is going to be. I can assure you, if that had
happened when the cap-and-trade bill passed the House, it would not
have passed the House.
With that, I see there is someone else on the floor wanting to have
the floor, so I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Jersey is
recognized.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, what is the status of the Senate right
now?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate is in consideration of
S. 1390.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the pending
amendment. Let's all imagine a situation. You are a 25-year-old, a
father of two, it is night and you are walking home across a park. A
group of teenagers come near and they throw a slur at you. When you
respond and their verbal attacks escalate, they are nasty. They seek to
dehumanize you because of where you were born, how you look or how you
speak. There is a fight, four on one, in which you are pummeled to the
ground and kicked in the skull repeatedly.
As you lie on the pavement in convulsions, foam oozing from your
mouth, life slipping away, there is one more insult. They yell a
warning to anyone who looks like you or talks

[[Page S7541]]

like you that they will do the same thing.
Imagine you are this man's two little children. Your father spends 2
days in intensive care, his face bruised and swollen, his head
bandaged, tubes everywhere, and then he passes on from this world. You
will never remember your father holding you or feeding you or kissing
you; you are too young. What you will remember is growing up without a
father. He was the victim of a needless death from a senseless beating,
a beating fueled by red-hot hatred for the type of person he was.
The one hope for some small measure of fairness so that these two
young children will one day know that justice was served after their
daddy was killed would be an appropriate conviction for this
unthinkable crime. But in the courthouse the verdict is read. The most
serious charges, the most appropriate charges, are discarded. At most,
two of the four young men who committed this murder in a bigoted rage
will spend less than 2 years--less than 2 years--behind bars. But they
could be there for as little as 6 months--6 months in jail. But this
man, this father, he is gone forever.
It is as sad and heart wrenching a situation as you can imagine. How
we wish it was only that, a horror story we simply imagined. But it is
not a figment of our imagination, it is a dose of reality. This
nightmare scene actually happened, and it did not happen in a society
less open than ours, nor did it happen 100 or 200 years ago. It
happened exactly 1 year ago in Shenandoah, PA, less than 150 miles from
where this Chamber is; less than 50 miles from my home State of New
Jersey.
Luis Ramirez was the target of the vitriol and the beating; struck in
the chest so hard he bore a bruise in the shape of Jesus Christ from
the medallion he wore on a chain around his neck. As he lay, seizing
from the deadly blows, if he had still been conscious what he would
have heard were words that, uncensored, do not befit the Senate.

Tell your [expletive] friends to get the [expletive] out of
Shenandoah or you will be [expletive] laying next to him.
Tell your [expletive] friends to get the [expletive] out of
Shenandoah or you will be [expletive] laying next to him.

This in the 21st century, in the United States of America, the land
of the free--all men created equal--life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Not for Luis Ramirez. He may have been born originally in a
different country, but he was just as human as you or I. It did not
matter. He was cursed and battered and put down like an abused animal
would be, in the United States of America.
The people who did this, the people who beat their fellow man to
death, treating him as subhuman--this gang gets a veritable slap on the
wrist.
We can change that--no more circumstances such as that, not with this
legislation. There is no better prosecutor of hate crimes in our
country than Federal law enforcement. They are tough on these hate
criminals and they are determined to serve justice in each and every
one of these cases. If we are to make sure hate crimes are treated with
the seriousness they deserve, if we are to make sure would-be
perpetrators think twice, Federal law enforcement must have a greater
involvement.
I can hear opponents of this legislation, this particular amendment:
This is 2009. The President is African American. It is a reaction to an
insignificant problem.
Ask Luis Ramirez, if you could. I would ask them to consider this,
from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights: Between 2003 and 2007,
hate crimes reported against Hispanics increased not just a little bit
but by 40 percent. In 2007, Hispanics were the target of 60 percent of
hate crimes committed based on ethnicity, signifying an increasingly
sharp rise.
But this is not just a problem confined to the Hispanic community.
The man who packed up his rifle, got in his car, drove to Washington,
entered a building, opened fire, and claimed the life of a noble
security guard--he didn't just do that at any building. He did it at
the Holocaust Museum, because this murderer hates Jewish people, hates
them enough to kill.
Let's never forget the namesake of this legislation, Matthew Shepard,
a University of Wyoming student who had his whole life ahead of him
before it was snatched away on an October night in the countryside near
Laramie. Two men, uneasy with Matthew's sexual orientation, drove off
from a bar with him, only to beat him mercilessly with a pistol and
rope him to a fence, as if a warning to the gay community. They hated
Matthew because he was gay. He lost his life because he was gay.
I ask those who would argue against this legislation, how many more
tragic stories do we have to hear before we make our laws tougher? How
many more? Do we have to hear another story, such as the one of Jose
Osvaldo Sucuzhanay, a father of two and native of Ecuador who ran a
real estate agency, who was headed home with his brother from a bar
after a church party. These brothers walked around the Brooklyn street
with arms around each other, like men in Latino cultures often do.
Up drove three men, yelling slurs that were both homophobic and
racist, they belted Jose on the head with a glass bottle. They smashed
his head in with a metal bat. They continued to beat him and kick him
and beat him and kick him. He clung to life for 2 days in a hospital
and then he died.
How many more stories? Do we have to hear another story such as that
of Marcelo Lucero? He, too, was born in Ecuador and he, too, was a real
estate professional and he, too, was killed simply for the way he
looked and the way he spoke, the innocent victim of a senseless gang of
teenagers on Long Island, driving around in search of ``some Mexicans
to [expletive] up.''
Here is how the prosecutor described this assault:

Like a lynch mob, the defendant and his friends got out of
a car and surrounded Mr. Lucero.

Like a lynch mob--in the 21st century in the United States--they beat
Marcelo and stabbed him to death.
How many more of these stories? How many more? Do we have to hear
another story such as that of Walter Sanchez? His horrific story
happened earlier this year and it happened in my home State of New
Jersey.
Walking to a restaurant with his cousin, a car with five men pulled
up. Calling Walter a Hispanic son of a [expletive], they beat him
senseless. He was one of the lucky ones, escaping with his life, but he
still underwent hours of reconstructive surgery to put many of the
bones in his face back together.
Again, how many stories do we have to tell? It is time to stop asking
and it is time to start acting. We can pass this legislation and know,
while there is still a ways to go until we have wiped our society clean
of bigotry and hatred, we will have made it harder for the perpetrators
of these evil acts to escape justice. As the law is written now, there
are too many ways in which those who commit hate crimes can escape the
kind of justice Federal law enforcement is prepared to bring.
Sometimes these loopholes are bewildering, even perverse. Remember
the story of Luis Ramirez, whose murderers will serve as little as 6
months in jail? The cruel irony is that the deadly beating he suffered
occurred in the street, not in the park 100 feet away, the park where
Luis had walked minutes, if not seconds, before he was battered. If
this murder of a hate crime had taken place in that park, it would have
been Federal law enforcement's business. The delivery of justice may
have been different. As it turned out, local law enforcement, some of
whom were related to the assailants, took 2 weeks to arrest the four
men, and we know how the rest of the process turned out.
We can all agree, a hate crime is a hate crime--whether it is in the
park or in the street, on the grass or on the pavement, 100 feet this
way or 100 feet that way. A hate crime is a hate crime.
I sponsored, when I was back in the New Jersey legislature, the law
that became one of the first landmark pieces of legislation on hate
crimes in our country. I said then that we cannot eliminate hate with
the passage of a law, but we can send a clear societal message that we
do not tolerate such crimes against individuals because of their race,
because of their religion, because of their ethnicity or, for that
matter, their sexual orientation.
Hate crimes are hate crimes. They are all an affront to the set of
values

[[Page S7542]]

upon which this great Nation stands, and they all deserve the full
scrutiny of our Federal law enforcement.
It is time to pass this legislation. I urge my colleagues to vote in
favor of the amendment and make sure each hate crime is met
appropriately with justice.
I ask you to remember, as I started this speech, that father kicked
to death, with the two children who will never ever know their father
as so many of us are fortunate to know ours. Remember when you cast
your vote. Think that, but for the grace of God, it could be you. That
is how momentous this decision is. That is how important this
legislation is. That is why justice is served with the passage of this
amendment.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, the facilities and services located at
Ohana Nui and Camp Catlin, and designated as excess, were established
at the behest of the U.S. Navy in the 1950s for the benefit of our
military and their families. Not-for-profit organizations responded to
the needs identified by the Navy to assist our military. The
relationships formed between the military and surrounding community
have grown over the past 50 years at Ohana Nui and Camp Catlin
including schools for children in prekindergarten through high school.
It is my hope the Department of the Navy will consider the Federal Real
Property Management Regulations regarding adjusted fair market value
when making their determination for the Ohana Nui and Camp Catlin
property.
Mr. BEGICH. Mr. president, today I submitted amendment No. 1572 to S.
1390 that would provide for earned retirement payments to be restored
to a group of selfless heroes in Alaksa.
In 1942, after the Alaska National Guard was called overseas, a group
of brave Alaska Native men formed a group called the Alaska Territorial
Guard, ATG. These men helped protect the territory of Alaska during and
after World War II by conducting scouting patrols and constructing
military airstrips. The brave men received no pay or benefits for their
sacrifices during their time of service in the ATG. After disbanding in
1947, many of these former ATG members continued their service in the
army and Alaska National Guard and other services.
Recognizing the heroic and patriotic actions of the ATG members, in
2000 Congress passed a law that made former members of the ATG eligible
for veterans' benefits. In 2008, approximately 25 of these guardsmen,
mostly Native Alaskans in their mid-to-late eighties, were issued
military retirement credit for their period of service in the ATG and
began receiving a modest $500 a month in retirement pay.
However, in January of this year, the Defense Finance and Accounting
Service abruptly ended these payments based on a finding that a
misinterpretation of the law had resulted in erroneously awarding these
payments. These men, who live in remote areas and rely on this payment
for day-to-day needs, were devastated by the unexpected decrease in
their monthly income.
Understanding the significant financial impact experienced by these
heroes and their contributions during World War II, the Secretary of
the Army provided them 2 months of pay from the emergency and
extraordinary expense fund. The Alaska Legislature, further cushioning
the economic loss experienced by this courageous group, enacted a bill
that temporarily restores the entitlement to the ATG members until the
earlier of the date that the Federal Government restores the
entitlement or February 1, 2010.
My amendment permanently restores the earned Federal entitlement
benefit to members of the ATG for their service. As Members of the
Senate, it is our responsibility to take care of those who have served
and sacrificed. Earlier this year, this body supported restoring this
entitlement to the ATG in the Senate-passed budget resolution, S. Con.
Res. 13. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment to honor those
who have served.
Mr. President, amendment No. 1573 to S. 1390 would authorize the
Department of Defense to reimburse military families for costs incurred
for transport of a second personally owned vehicle on a change of
permanent duty station to or from Alaska, Hawaii, or Guam.
Current law only authorizes servicemembers to be reimbursed for the
cost to transport one personally owned vehicle. As with their
counterparts in civilian life, many military families today own and
rely on a second vehicle. For example, a significant number of military
members live off base and commute to work, while their spouses work as
well, making ownership of just a single vehicle impractical for most
families.
Some military families ship their second vehicle back to the lower 48
States or Alaska, Hawaii, or Guam at their personal expense. Shipment
of a second personally owned vehicle to Alaska, Hawaii, or Guam, or to
the lower 48 States from these locations can cost our servicemembers as
much as $2,000 out of pocket.
Other times, they opt to sell their second vehicle prior to the move
and repurchase a second personally owned vehicle upon arrival of duty
station. This is a costly option resulting in severe financial loss.
The current policy of reimbursing military families for only
transport of one personally owned vehicle is an outdated policy that
unfairly impacts the finances of these families who rely on a second
vehicle to sustain their needs.
Authorizing reimbursement for a second privately owned vehicle will
greatly enhance the quality of life for our servicemembers and their
families stationed in Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam, and those returning to
the lower 48 States and the District of Columbia from those locations,
and will alleviate the unnecessary financial burdens on these families.
I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I have listened to the debate all day
with regard to the national defense authorization bill, and, frankly,
it is one of the frustrating aspects of serving in this great body, to
sit here and debate an issue like we have debated over the last couple
of days and to think that you are going to come to the floor of the
Senate and to cast a vote on a very important measure that has been
characterized by Senator McCain earlier as one of the most important
pieces of legislation or amendments that we will have--and I agree with
him that is the case--and all of a sudden we are thrown into an
entirely different atmosphere with regard to what has taken place on
the floor.
All of a sudden we are not talking about defense, we are not talking
about our troops, we are not talking about the national security of the
United States, we are talking about hate crimes.
We are in some very difficult times with respect to the national
security of our country. While Senator McCain and I disagree on the
issue of the F-22 and this amendment, he and I agree strongly--and it
is why he is my dear friend and why we agree on most things--about the
fact that we ought to be here debating defense issues and voting on
defense issues.
It truly is frustrating. I know our soldiers in the field can't
understand what in the world is going on in the Senate now, when they
thought we were going to be debating and voting on amendments that
pertained to them--issues such as their pay raise, their quality of
life, weapon systems--and all of a sudden we are thrown into doing
something else. So I just want to associate myself with the remarks of
my friend, Senator McCain, with respect to why we are here.
With regard to what Senator Levin said, frankly, Senator Dodd, on the
other side of the aisle, who has been working very closely with me on
the F-22 amendment, he and I had a meeting with Senator Levin and
Senator McCain on Monday, and informally--or actually formally agreed
between the four of us--which is an informal agreement--that we would
have a vote on the Levin-McCain amendment on Wednesday morning. We
thought that was kind of a done deal.

[[Page S7543]]

Now, all of a sudden we have debated and we have talked about this,
we have debated it again, we have talked about the amendment, and now
we are thrown into an entirely different scenario on the Senate floor
when we have been prepared to vote. I would hope we still have the
opportunity to vote in the short term on the issue of the F-22.
On that point, just very briefly, Mr. President, I want to state a
couple of things with regard to that issue. I made a very long
statement yesterday, and I am not going to go back into all the detail
with the reference to the why-fors of the F-22 and its value to the
national security of the United States, but there have been some
comments made on the Senate floor that I think are important to
address.
One of those comments made by Senator Levin was that I had made a
statement that there had never been a study by the Air Force which
validated the requirement that 187 aircraft be the top line number for
the F-22.
What I said was there have been dozens of studies out there over the
years on the F-22, and there has only been one study--and it was an
internal study at the Department of Defense, without the input of the
Air Force--that said 187 is the number. I want to make sure everybody
in this body understands every single other study done internally, as
well as outside the Pentagon, outside the Air Force, outside the Office
of the Secretary of Defense, or inside, has concluded that the
requirement for the number of F-22s we need far exceeds the number of
187. The minimum number that has ever been referred to is 243, which is
some 56 airplanes more than the 187 we are talking about now.
Last week, in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee,
we had GEN James Cartwright, who is a Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice
Chairman, and I asked General Cartwright if there was any study or any
analysis done at the Pentagon that validated the number 187. General
Cartwright told me:

There is a study in the Joint Staff that we just completed
and partnered with the Air Force which validates the number
of 187.

Well, on Monday afternoon, a reporter asked a Pentagon official, and
the top spokesman from the Pentagon, Geoff Morrell, made the statement
in response to that reporter's inquiry about that study as follows:

Well, it is not so much a study as work products. What I
think General Cartwright was referring to is two different
work products, one by the Program Analysis and Evaluation
shop and one by the Air Force. Not so much a study.

So what has happened is there have been discussions within the
Pentagon to attempt to validate the number of 187. It is pretty obvious
what I said on the floor of the Senate remains true, and that is that
of all the dozens of studies that have been done on the F-22
requirement, the minimum number that has ever been validated is 243.
The number goes up from there all the way to 781, which I think was our
original number. The number of 381 is the number that has been used in
most of the recent studies as the number we need.
Also, with respect to other statements regarding the Secretary of
Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and others who are saying
that 187 is the number, that is leadership at the Pentagon. The
leadership at the Pentagon has the responsibility for sending a budget
to the Senate and to the House, but it is our obligation as Members of
the Senate and the House to review that budget--sometimes to agree with
it; sometimes to disagree with it. We often disagree with it.
In this case, a number of us disagree with the number of 187 as being
the top line for the F-22. That is not unusual. But with respect to
what the leadership at the Pentagon has said, let me go back to a
letter I talked about yesterday, and it is a letter that has been
received from Rebecca Grant, the Director of the Mitchell Institute for
Airpower Studies. What she says in her letter to me is: In the letter
of July 13 from Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates, the
characterization of F-35 as a ``half-generation newer aircraft than the
F-22 and more capable in a number of areas such as electronic warfare
and combating enemy air defenses'' is incorrect and misleading.
Air Force Secretary Donley and General Schwartz have repeatedly
stated: ``The F-22 is, unquestionably, the most capable fighter in our
military inventory.''
The F-22 was designed with twice the fighting speed and altitude of
the F-35 to preserve U.S. advantages in the air even if adversaries
contest our electronic countermeasures or reach parity with us.
She also States in that letter:

If electronic jamming fails, the speed, altitude and
maneuverability advantages of F-22 remain. The F-35 was
designed to operate after F-22s secure the airspace and does
not have the inherent altitude and speed advantages to
survive every time against peers with counter electronic
measures. Only five F-35s are flying today. The F-35 has
completed less than half its testing. Developmental tests
will not be completed until 2013. It is impossible to assess
the full capabilities of the F-35 until operational test is
complete in 2014.

The Secretary of Defense and others in the administration are putting
all of their tactical air eggs in one basket, Mr. President. That is a
very dangerous road down which we should not travel with respect to the
national security of the United States and the safety and security of
our men and women.

Appointment to the HELP Committee

Mr. REID. Mr. President, under an order of May 5 and under the
auspices of S. Res. 18, I made a temporary appointment of Sheldon
Whitehouse to serve on the HELP Committee, while retaining my authority
to make a permanent appointment to the HELP Committee. I now announce
that as of today, Senator Al Franken is appointed to serve on a
permanent basis to the slot that was occupied by Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse.

Senator Whitehouse

Mr. President, Sheldon Whitehouse, since coming to the Senate, has
truly been a workhorse. There isn't anything I have asked this fine man
to do that he has not come forward with enthusiasm to do it. We have
seen the brilliant work he has done on so many different occasions as a
member of the Judiciary Committee.
His other assignments in the Senate have been just as auspicious as
his work on the Judiciary Committee. His background is significant. He
has a real interest in health care. His work on the bill that was
reported out of the HELP Committee today was essential. All members of
the committee, Democrats and Republicans, are astounded at how good he
was.
I repeat, he enthusiastically accepted this temporary assignment
while we waited for the long, never-ending situation in Minnesota to
come to a close. Senator Whitehouse was far from just a seat-warmer. He
dove into the issues and, to no one's surprise, was a substantive
contributor to one of the most important bills the committee has ever
marked up in the history of this country.
Without belaboring the point, on behalf of the entire Senate, I
greatly appreciate his service on the committee, and I personally thank
him, as does the entire Democratic caucus. I bet if a poll were taken
of those who serve as Republicans on the HELP Committee, they would
acknowledge his brilliance and hard work. I know Senator Kennedy, whom
we have missed on that committee and the vital work he has done for
decades in the Senate, is someone who has watched from afar and
applauded Senator Whitehouse.
Mr. President, I came to the House of Representatives in 1982. In
that class of 1982 was a young man from Arizona, someone who came with
a certain degree of fame. His name is John McCain. He had served our
country valiantly during the Vietnam conflict and spent 5 years in a
prisoner-of-war camp in Vietnam. I have great admiration and respect
for him. I want the record to reflect that my respect for John McCain
is very deep. Not only did we come to the House together, but we also
came to the Senate together. We were elected together in 1986. Our
seniority is as close as it can get. We both have the same amount of
service in the House of Representatives, so seniority is determined by
how many people are in the State of Nevada and the State of Arizona.
There are more people in the State of Arizona than in the State of
Nevada, so he is one up on me in overall seniority in the Senate.
Having said that, recognizing who this man is, he was proudly the
nominee for Republicans in the last election. I watched his campaign
and admired his courage, the stands he took. While I may not have
agreed with him,

[[Page S7544]]

I recognize he has strong feelings. But so do I.
The senior Senator from Arizona today said he was ``deeply, deeply
disappointed'' that what he considers an unrelated amendment; that is,
the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill, has been added to this bill, the
Defense authorization bill. I wonder on which recent morning did the
Senator from Arizona wake up and suddenly feel so strongly. Where has
he been in the past? Let me make a couple of comments about the remarks
of my friend from Arizona.
First, his is a new outrage over a very old issue. The hate crimes
bill was first added to the Defense authorization bill in a previous
Congress. I didn't do it. The amendment today was an amendment I
offered on behalf of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and other
sponsors of this legislation. Senator Leahy would have been here, but
he is a little busy with the Supreme Court nomination. The hate crimes
bill was first added to the Defense authorization bill when George Bush
was President, a Republican. Where was the Senator's disappointment
then? I heard no big statements at that time, and no one else did.
Second, the Senator from Arizona has evidently not always held the
belief he discussed today. This is a new conversion. He has evidently
not always believed that bills must only contain amendments that relate
directly to the underlying legislation.
It was just a while ago a bill came before the Senate known as the
motor-voter bill, a bill to make it easier for people to register to
vote. When they got their registration changed on their car, they would
at the same time have the opportunity to register to vote. It was a
unique and good idea, and it has allowed millions of people to register
to vote who ordinarily would not register.
On that legislation, motor-voter, Senator McCain offered a line-item
veto amendment. It had nothing to do with registration to vote. So it
is hard to understand how his was the kind of related amendment he
demands today. In fact, that issue went to the Supreme Court, where the
Supreme Court declared it illegal, unconstitutional.
It was a year before that that Senator McCain offered the same
amendment to a research bill. Again, it is hard to understand how his
was the kind of related amendment he demands today.
Additionally, Senator McCain offered an amendment that would change
Senate rules about tax increases to a bill about unemployment
compensation. It is hard to understand how his was the kind of related
amendment that he suddenly today demands.
He also offered his line-item veto amendment to a bill that would
give more rights to blind Americans. It is hard to understand how the
line-item veto had anything to do with the visually impaired. But it
appears this was the kind of amendment he demands today.
Again, Senator McCain offered an amendment about Medicare to a bill
funding energy and water development, having no relation, obviously. It
is hard to understand how his was a kind of related amendment that he
demands today.

The third point I want to make is that the Senator from Arizona is
not alone in offering such unrelated amendments. His Republican
colleagues do it all the time. In fact, they are quite fond of doing
it.
Where has his outrage been when that has happened, Mr. President?
Where has the outrage been from the Senator from Arizona when, for
example, one of his Republican Senator friends twice offered an
amendment about the ACORN group? This is an organization around the
country that is involved in a lot of different things. But he wanted to
do an amendment on the economic recovery package related to the ACORN
organization. That was a bill, of course, that had nothing to do with
voting registration.
Another Republican Senator offered an amendment about prescription
drugs to a bill that funds homeland security--no relation whatsoever.
Where was the outrage of my friend from Arizona about that?
Another Republican Senator offered an amendment about the fairness
doctrine--a fake issue meant exclusively to excite a very small segment
of our population--to a bill that would give DC residents, finally, the
right to vote. Where was the outrage of my friend from Arizona about
that?
Another Republican Senator offered the same amendment; that is, the
fairness doctrine; another Senator, same amendment, on the same
conjured issue to the Omnibus appropriations bill. That is the bill we
passed to keep our government running and complete unfinished business
from the Bush administration. Where was my friend's outrage about that?
Another Republican Senator offered an amendment about union dues to
that same Omnibus appropriations bill, having nothing to do with what
we were trying to accomplish here.
Another Republican Senator offered an amendment about congressional
pay to another appropriations bill, having no relationship whatsoever.
Another Republican Senator offered an amendment about rules
surrounding charitable donations to the national service bill--no
relationship whatsoever. I did not hear my friend say one word about
that. The Senator from Arizona did not complain 1 minute about that.
Another Republican Senator offered an amendment about national
language to a bill that helps us crack down on mortgage fraud. Now try
that one. That is something that might stir up a little outrage but not
from my friend from Arizona.
Another Republican Senator offered an amendment on auto dealers to a
bill that funds our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Where was the
outrage on that--an amendment on auto dealers on a bill that funds our
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the supplemental appropriations bill?
Mr. President, there are lots of other examples. Those are just a
few. It is hard to understand how any of these amendments were the kind
of related amendment Senator McCain demands today. But it is even
harder to understand why the Senator from Arizona did not feel the need
to express, as I have said, the outrage he did this morning.
Finally, I want to say that I would gladly, as a matter of principle,
keep each of these bills separate; that is, hate crimes, Defense
authorization. But the reality is, the Republicans' relentless and
reckless strategy of slowing, stopping, and stalling has made it
impossible for us to do so. My friend, the senior Senator from Arizona,
knows the most recent example of this all too well. His Republican
colleagues refuse to let us vote on his amendment, which I support. I
support the F-22 amendment. I support that. Why can't we vote on that?
This could have been done yesterday, the day before, today, but for the
stubbornness of the Senate Republicans.
We have lots of work to do, a lot of priorities to fulfill, and a lot
of mistakes in the last 8 years to correct. And we are trying to do
that. The bottom line is, we would not have to take the time for such
steps if the Republican minority would not waste the American people's
time and money by making us jump through procedural hoop after
procedural hoop just to do our jobs. Last Congress, 100 filibusters;
this Congress, I think we are at 21 already this year--21.
To my knowledge, Senator McCain has never supported hate crimes
legislation. If I am mistaken, it certainly would not be the first
time, but that is the information I have. It is my understanding he
does not think there probably is ever a good time to pass this
important and overdue bill.
This is an issue here, a very important issue. And that is the real
reason the Republicans, I assume, do not like to talk about the Matthew
Shepard hate crimes bill. But I am not afraid to talk about the issue.
A man by the name of Luis Ramirez was picking strawberries and
cherries to support his three children and a woman he wanted to marry.
When he was not working the fields, he worked a second job in a local
factory in Shenandoah, PA. It is a coal town of only 5,000 people.
As he was walking home one Saturday night, six high schoolers jumped
him in a park. They taunted and screamed racial slurs at Luis, who came
to this small town in the middle of Pennsylvania from a small town in
the middle of Mexico. But the boys did not stop with the taunting and
screaming racial slurs. That was not enough.

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They punched, beat, and kicked him. When Luis's friend pleaded with the
teenagers to stop, one yelled back: Tell your Mexican friends to get
out of town, or you'll be lying next to him.
These boys stomped on Luis so hard that an imprint of the necklace he
was wearing was embedded into his chest. They beat him so badly and so
brutally that Luis never regained consciousness. He is dead. On July
14, 2008--2 days after the beating and exactly 1 year ago yesterday--
Luis Ramirez died. He was 25 years old.
Hate crimes embody a unique brand of evil, and that is why the
legislation is so important. It is terrorism; it is just a different
kind than we normally see or think of. A violent act may physically
hurt just a single victim and cause grief for loved ones. But hate
crimes do more. They distress entire communities, entire groups of
people, and our country.
Our friend, Senator Ted Kennedy, has for many years courageously
fought for the legislation Senator Leahy and I offered as an amendment
today to the Defense authorization bill. Senator Kennedy has correctly
called hate crimes a form, I repeat, of domestic terrorism. It is our
obligation to protect Americans from this domestic terror.
The hate crimes bill will help bring justice to those who
intentionally choose their victims based on race, color, religion,
nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, or
disability. Disability--there are examples all the time of someone who
may not be what ``normal'' may be; maybe they are mentally challenged.
There are all kinds of examples of people for that reason taking
advantage and hurting them. That is a hate crime.

Hate crimes are rampant and the numbers are rising. The Department of
Justice estimates that hundreds happen every day. Now State and local
governments are on their own when it comes to prosecuting even the most
violent crimes and conducting the most extensive and expensive
investigations. State and local governments will always come first, as
they should, but if those governments are unwilling or unable to
prosecute hate crimes--and if the Justice Department believes that may
mean justice will not be served--this law will let the Federal
authorities lend a hand to State and local authorities.
I spent some time yesterday with Judy Shepard. I have five children.
I have four boys. I had never met Judy Shepard until yesterday. My
wife, within the past few months, had lunch with her and a number of
other people and sat next to her. She told me what a wonderful person
she is. When I met with her yesterday, the thing she said that was so
traumatic to me was: I only have one boy left. Two children; Matthew is
dead.
The bill we have is named after Matthew Shepard, Judy's son. He was a
21-year-old college student when he was tortured and killed for being
gay--and did they torture, did they torture. And that was not good
enough for them. In the cold Wyoming night, they took him, before he
was dead, and hung him on a barbed-wire fence.
When Wyoming police pursued justice in Matthew's murder, they needed
resources they did not have. Laramie, WY, is where it is. Police could
not call in Federal law enforcement for help--the law would not allow
it--and their expensive investigation devastated that small police
department. It was a police department of 40 people--not all police
officers. As all police officers, some of them took care of the little
jail, did jail duty, and they were responding to phone calls. Out of
this 40-person police department, they had to lay off 5 people so they
could prosecute this crime, this vicious crime, this hate crime. But it
cost that little town a lot. When this bill becomes law, that will
never happen again in Laramie, WY, or anyplace else in the country.
We must not be afraid to call these crimes what they are. The
American people know this is the right thing to do. Hundreds of legal,
law enforcement, civil rights, and human rights groups know this is the
right thing to do. The U.S. Senate knows this is the right thing to do.
This bill simply recognizes that there is a difference between
assaulting someone to steal his money or doing so because he is gay or
disabled or Latino or Jewish; that there is a difference between
setting fire to an office building and setting fire to a church, a
synagogue, or a mosque; that there is a difference, as we learned so
tragically last month, between shooting a security guard and shooting
him because he works at the Holocaust Museum.
It is a shame that we often do not discuss our responsibility to do
something about horrific hate crimes until after another one has been
committed. It means we always tend to act too late. But does this mean
we should not act now? Of course not. It means, in fact, the opposite:
it means we must act before another one of our sons or daughters or
friends or partners is attacked or killed merely because of who they
are.
We must act in the name of people such as Thomas Lahey, who, in 2007,
was beaten unconscious in Las Vegas. Why? Because he was gay.
Not far from my hometown of Searchlight, NV, is a place called
Laughlin, NV--25 miles away. It is on the river, a little resort
community. We must act in the name of Jammie Ingle, who, in 2002, was
beaten and bludgeoned to death in Laughlin, NV. Why? They thought he
was gay.
We must act in the name of Tony Montgomery, who was shot and killed
in Reno. Why? Because he was an African American.
We must act in the name of those who worship at Temple Emanu-El in
Reno, a synagogue that has been firebombed time and time again by
skinheads. We must act in the name of Luis Ramirez, whom I already
talked about who died 1 year ago this week. We must act in the name of
Judy Shepard, of her son, Matthew Shepard, whose family has fought
tirelessly since his brutal death, his brutal murder, so others may
know justice. If their country doesn't stand for them, if we don't
stand for them, who will?

The F-22 is an airplane I have seen. A number of them are stationed
at Nellis Air Force Base. Nellis Air Force Base has almost 15,000
people who are involved in that air base, civilian and military
personnel. We are so proud of that. Nellis Air Force Base is named
after Bill Nellis from Searchlight, NV. Bill Nellis was a war hero in
World War II. He joined then the Army Air Corps, already having two
children, was way beyond the age when he would be drafted, but he
volunteered. He served 69 missions before a dive bomber went down in
Belgium where he is now buried. We are proud of Nellis. We are proud
the F-22s are there. But we have had enough F-22s at Nellis Air Force
Base. We have enough F-22s anyplace else.
The F-22 is a Cold War weapon that has not flown a single mission
over Iraq or Afghanistan--not one; not a training mission, not any kind
of a mission. It is a powerful plane built to fight superpowers. But as
we all know, the wars we fight today are not against superpowers. This
generation of our military bravely fights a new generation of warfare
against terrorists and insurgents. For today's national security needs,
the F-22 is an overpriced and underperforming tool. And the nearly 200
we already have in our fleet is sufficient. It is a sufficient
deterrent to the potential of conventional war. But some want us to
spend at least $2 billion to keep making more of them. That is only the
first step. Actually, it is $1.75 billion. I rounded it off to $2
billion. It is a very expensive plane to build and a very expensive
plane to fly. It costs taxpayers $42,000 an hour to operate.
This technology is not suited for today's warfare. The radar in the
F-22 means that when it flies over heavily populated cities such as the
ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, its position is easily given away. We
have at Nellis Air Force Base in the ranges there what we call red flag
activities.
A couple times a year, we bring our fighting forces there, our air
fighting forces, and they do mock exercises. It is a wonderful place,
one of the few places in the world this can take place. They do all
kinds of good things. Aircraft from all over the world come there to
participate in these war games. If the F-22's radar is turned off to
avoid being so easily detected, its agility is significantly
compromised. We know that. This was proven recently in a recent
exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, when an F-16 brought down in a war
game an F-22 that simply had turned its radar off in a test fight.

[[Page S7546]]

There is broad bipartisan consensus that ending the F-22's production
is in our national security interests. Here is a list of some who
agree: Chairman Levin; Ranking Member McCain; Commander in Chief Barack
Obama; the previous Commander in Chief, President Bush; the Secretary
of Defense; the previous Secretary of Defense; the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, I repeat; the ranking member, I
repeat, of the Senate Armed Services Committee; the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
the Secretary of the Air Force; the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.
Can you believe that? And we are going to try to move forward in doing
this, and no one wants it in the military. All of those have prudently
pointed out that buying more F-22s that we don't need means doing less
of something we do need.
Some have encouraged us to continue making this Cold War-era plane
because it creates jobs for those who build them. Being a little bit
personal here, the stealth airplane was developed in the deserts of
Tonopah, NV. It was a wonderful thing our country did. Each of these
airplanes had its own hangar up in the desert because the Soviet
satellites came over, and they couldn't come out in the daytime. These
pilots were trained so efficiently; everything they did was in pitch
darkness, but that is where these airplanes were developed and flown.
There came a time after it became public that we had these stealth
aircraft that they had to put them someplace. They put most of them at
Nellis Air Force Base. The Pentagon, after they had been stationed
there for a matter of months, made a decision: That is not good. We
need to move them to New Mexico to an airbase. Pete Domenici, my
friend, was concerned about whether they should go to New Mexico or
Nevada. I said: Pete, I got a deal for you. I, personally, don't
believe that what we do for the military is a jobs program. I think it
is to make our Nation more secure. Let's have the General Accounting
Office do a study, and if they come back and say it will save the
country money and it will make our country more secure if they move
them to New Mexico, I am not going to say a word about it. It took the
General Accounting Office a matter of a few months to do this. They
came back and said these stealth aircraft would be better off in New
Mexico, and it will make our country more secure; they can train better
there because of how much activity there is at Nellis, and it will save
the country money.
That is how I feel about the military. I think we have to have the
most sophisticated, secure weapons systems that exist, but it has to be
something that is good for our country. It is obvious--with all these
people from President Obama to President Bush to the Secretaries of
Defense in the past to now--these airplanes are not necessary. They
prudently point out that buying more F-22s that we don't need means
doing less of something else that we do need.
I repeat: Some have encouraged us to continue making this airplane
because it creates jobs for those who build it. I don't believe that is
the purpose of why we are here. I understand the importance of jobs,
but a more advanced jet, the F-35, which can be used by all branches of
the military service, would create similar jobs--jobs that actually
will enhance our national security. That is what this is all about.
That is what this bill is about, the Defense authorization bill.
Finally, President Obama has pledged to veto this Defense
authorization bill if it includes continuing to build this obsolete
airplane. And he will veto it. That is a risk, and why would anyone
want to take it? I spoke to the President's Chief of Staff yesterday.
The President is going to veto this bill. This is kind of an: Oh, he
will never do that. He will.
Cutting funding for wasteful programs is good for our economy, good
for our workers, and good for the continued military dominance of our
country. I oppose continuing to build a weapon that will compromise our
national security. I oppose continuing to fund a program that will
jeopardize our economy. I oppose wasting billions of dollars of
taxpayer money on a plane that doesn't defend us in our wars that we
fight today and will not defend us in tomorrow's wars. I support moving
our military into today's century the 21st century, not go back to the
last century.

Now, finally, let me say this: I have called my friend, the
Republican leader, and he will call in just a minute when he has some
time because I didn't call him while he was in a meeting. I wanted to
speak to him before I came to the floor, but I have something else I
have to do tonight. We are going to vote on invoking cloture. We will
see if we can get 60 votes on this hate crimes amendment that is on
this bill. I would like to work it out so we can do it conveniently for
everyone, sometime tomorrow. What I would like to do is set aside some
more time if we want to debate more the hate crimes, set aside more
time to do that, and if people want to do the F-22, let's do that.
Let's get these two out of the way. I can't force an amendment vote on
the F-22, but I can force a vote on cloture, and we are going to do
that. We will do that tomorrow. Tomorrow may spill over until a little
after midnight Friday morning, but we are going to do this. So everyone
should understand the hate crimes bill is going to be voted on either
tomorrow or very early Friday morning. I have said Friday there will be
no votes, and that is by day. This will be in the middle of the night.
I hope we don't have to do that, but that is when time runs out on
this.
I think these two amendments are important. I understand the anxiety
of those who would rather not have hate crimes legislation on this
bill. I accept that. But I spent a lot of my time here on the floor, as
I have outlined, wondering why in the world other people don't complain
when they offer these ridiculous amendments on legislation that is so
important. I have indicated that we are going to go back to the way we
used to do business in the Senate. I have done that during the time I
have had this job. We have this--this year we have had an open
amendment process except on rare occasions. I have stood here when we
have done abortion amendments, gun amendments, you name it. I have told
Senator McConnell I wish this were not the case, but that is why we are
here, to make tough votes and easy votes both.
So I hope we can work something out, where we can resolve this matter
tomorrow during the daylight hours; otherwise, we will do it tomorrow
night.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The Senator from Arizona is
recognized.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for his words
concerning the parliamentary situation we are in. Of course, I am very
appreciative of his words about the long service we have shared
together, both in the other body and in the Senate. Since I have
returned from the campaign trail, I have appreciated his kind words
about my service to the country. I must say, while the majority leader
is still on the floor, I might point out that they are dramatically
different from the comments he made about me during the campaign--not
just our political differences but my qualifications to serve and other
statements about my character. All those things are said in political
campaigns, but I am certainly glad to see sort of a significant change
in his comments concerning me, and I am always very grateful.
Can I also say that the distinguished leader said he couldn't
understand that I couldn't understand. Well, the thing I can't
understand is the fact that the majority leader can, by virtue of being
majority leader, put legislation at any time before this body. I have
never been majority leader, and in all candor I never want to be
majority leader. I think the majority leader in the Senate has a very
tough job. I appreciate the hard work he does in trying to move
legislation through the Senate. My former colleague and one-time
majority leader, Senator Lott, once said that being majority leader of
the Senate was like herding cats, and I certainly agree with that
assessment.
So let me say I appreciate the work the majority leader does, but if
I had been majority leader, I would never have had to do any of those
amendments. The majority leader sets the agenda for the Senate. All he
has to do if he wants the hate crimes bill up is to schedule it to be
taken up and debated and discussed and amended--but in the

[[Page S7547]]

regular order of the Senate. Instead, he chooses to put it on the
Defense authorization bill, a bill that is vital to the future of the
security of this Nation.
I understand his passion concerning hate crimes. I have heard
speakers come to the Senate floor all day, and they, in very graphic
and moving terms, described events, as I am sure the next speaker
will--about the terrible crimes committed in this country by some of
the worst of the worst people who have ever inhabited this country.
But the question remains: Why should a bill of this importance--the
hate crimes legislation--not have been, at the majority leader's
direction, moved through the Judiciary Committee, reported out, and
reported to the floor of the Senate? We have been in session since
January. I am sure the Judiciary Committee has a lot to do. This has
been described by proponents, as they come to the floor, as one of the
most important issues of our time. If it is, why not move it through
the Judiciary Committee, move it to the floor, and allow us to amend,
debate, and discuss the issue? Instead, it is put, as an amendment, on
the Defense authorization bill.
That is not right, Mr. President. The fact is, the amendment the
majority leader just, very rightfully, extolled, the Levin-McCain
amendment--and I appreciate his strong remarks about the importance of
it--is the one he wanted withdrawn. The reason we are not debating it
now is because the majority leader told the chairman of the committee
to withdraw the amendment.
I appreciate his passionate advocacy of this issue. I also want to
reemphasize this isn't just about $1.75 billion. This amendment is
about whether we are going to change, fundamentally, the way we do
business.
If the opponents of the amendment succeed, and we fund additional F-
22 aircraft, which as the majority leader pointed out has never flown
in Iraq or Afghanistan, that signal to the military industrial complex,
which President Eisenhower warned us about is business as usual in our
Nation's Capitol.
So this is an amendment that has transcendent importance. The
President has guaranteed a veto. The Secretary of Defense came out and
staked his reputation on succeeding here and eliminating, bringing to
an end the F-22 production line and moving forward with the F-35
production line.
A lot of my friends ought to understand this is not just about
cutting or eliminating or ending production of the F-22. It is also
about the F-35 aircraft. If I had been majority leader, I would have--
when he described those amendments I put on bills that were before the
Senate, it was because I could not get them up in any other way.
Let me say this: Hate crimes legislation deserves the attention of
the Senate in the normal legislative process with amendments, debate,
and discussion. If it is so important, and speaker after speaker,
including the majority leader, came to the Senate floor talking about
how important and vital it is and all of the terrible things that have
happened as a result of, in their view, not having this bill--although
that is not in agreement with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. But
the fact is, then you would think we would want to take it up in the
regular fashion and debate it, and that we would want to improve it and
make it more effective through the amending process. But, no, we are
not going to do that. We are going to take down the pending amendment
that is probably one of the most significant amendments we have had in
recent history of the Senate--at least as far as defense is concerned--
and replace it with a piece of legislation that is complex, certainly
controversial, and certainly deserves the full attention of the Senate.
I proposed earlier a unanimous-consent request, which was rejected by
the majority, that we move back to the F-22 amendment, that we dispose
of this legislation, and then that we move to the hate crimes bill, the
Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, even bypassing the
Judiciary Committee, which is not a normal thing to do given the
complexity of the issue.
I am deeply moved by the stories the majority leader told, and both
Senators from California came to the floor, and many others have given
very graphic and dramatic and compelling stories recounting terrible
things that have happened to our citizens--horrible, awful, horrifying
things. I understand that and my sympathies and thoughts and prayers go
out to their families. We must do everything in our power to make sure
these kinds of horrendous acts are never repeated.
Let me point out another thing, if I could. There are also men and
women in the military who are in harm's way now and who have been
gravely wounded. The sooner we enact this legislation, we will make
preparation and be able to better care for them.
Mr. President, I don't usually tell these anecdotes. I heard a lot
today, and I sympathize with them. Before the majority leader took the
floor, I was outside the Senate Chamber. There was a young man there
who said he wanted to meet me--a young marine in a wheelchair, badly
wounded. He was there with his family. He was escorted by Congressman
Kennedy. I was gratified and moved that he wanted to meet me.
Do you know what. That made me want to come back here and pass this
legislation as quickly as possible because this legislation, No. 1,
provides fair compensation and first-rate health care and addresses the
needs of the injured and improves the quality of life of the men and
women of the All-Volunteer Force--Active Duty, National Guard, Reserve,
and their families. That is the No. 1 priority of this legislation.
Instead of moving this legislation as quickly as possible through the
Senate, we have now withdrawn the amendment and moved on to a piece of
legislation that has nothing to do with the purpose and our obligation
to the men and women serving this country.
I understand what numbers are, and I understand what the outcome of
elections is. I understand there is a majority on the other side of the
aisle. But what is being done by withdrawing an amendment that has
transcendent importance and putting another totally unrelated piece of
legislation in--it may set a dangerous precedent for this body.
This is not a one-shot deal; this the hate crimes bill. This is not
an amendment to say you can carry a gun in a national park. This is not
a single specific issue bill--hate crimes. We are talking about a very
large, encompassing piece of legislation that, by any rational
observation, demands to be considered through the proper committee and
on the floor through the proper process.
We are now holding up the progress of legislation that is important
to the future security of this country and the men and women who serve
it, to give them the resources, training, technology, equipment, force
protections, and authorities they need to succeed in combat and
stability operations.
I understand and appreciate the passion of the advocates of hate
crime legislation. They have made it very clear and told compelling
stories on the Senate floor. I believe we must take it up and enact it
as immediately as possible. What we should be doing is taking up the
hate crimes bill in the Senate for full debate and discussion as soon
as we finish the Defense authorization bill. There is no connection
between the Defense authorization bill and hate crimes. It is a complex
and detailed--26 pages, as I recall--piece of legislation.
Again, I appreciate the kind comments of the majority leader, who
came to the floor and said he couldn't understand certain things I have
done. I hope the majority leader understands better now. If he doesn't,
I will be glad to come to the floor again and point out that what we
are doing is wrong. It is wrong for us to get off the legislation that
provides for the defense and security of this Nation. It is wrong to
take up a piece of legislation that should go through the appropriate
committee.
This is what we teach kids in school in Civics 101--that a bill is
proposed and goes through the proper committee, is reported out, and
then it comes to the floor of the Senate for debate and amendment.
Instead, we are violating the fundamental rules of procedure of the
Senate.
As we continue and vote at 2 a.m.--or whatever it is that we are
going to do--

[[Page S7548]]

all we will have done is delay the responsibility we have, which is to
provide for the security of this Nation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after my
remarks, which will be no more than 5 minutes, Senator Brown be
recognized for up to 10 minutes, and then Senator Chambliss be
recognized for 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, my dear friend from Arizona has
spoken very eloquently about the transcendent importance of the Levin-
McCain amendment. I could not agree with him more. We tried for 2 days
to get an agreement to vote on that amendment. It is a critically
important amendment for the reasons he has given and for the reasons I
hopefully have given persuasively around here, and others have as well.
We have this President, the previous President, this Secretary of
Defense, the previous Secretary of Defense, this Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, the previous Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and the
Secretary of the Air Force saying we have enough F-22s. We have to move
on to the F-35, which is under production, by the way. We have 30 F-35s
funded in this bill.
We have tried to get the Levin-McCain amendment to a vote. We tried
to reach an agreement and a time. We could not get an agreement on the
time. That is what has then precipitated the decision of the majority
leader to move on to the hate crimes amendment. We have simply tried,
day after day, to get a vote, without success.
I could not agree more that this is a critically important amendment,
and we have to end production of a weapon system that we no longer
need, according to top civilian and military experts, and focus more on
the F-35, which is going to be used by all three of the services, not
just one. It will have greater capabilities in very critical areas than
the F-22, and it will cost significantly less than the F-22. But we
could not achieve that.
I don't understand the logic or the strategies involved that say we
cannot have a vote on the amendment that is pending--Levin-McCain
amendment--and then when faced with the majority leader's amendment on
hate crimes, forces that to a cloture vote, which is going to be held--
in other words, everybody understands both of these amendments are
going to be addressed on this bill one way or the other. Nobody can
guarantee the outcome on these amendments. But what can be guaranteed
is that these amendments are going to be debated on this bill because
the majority leader has made that clear for a long time. The procedures
of this body allow for it.
The precedents of this body are full of amendments such as this. As a
matter of fact, the hate crimes amendment was adopted on the Senate
Defense authorization bill 2 years ago, after the same kind of debate.
Debate is fair. Debate is important. Every one of us should protect the
right of everyone else to debate. Whether it should go on this bill or
another, we can debate that. But it is offered on this bill, as was
noticed by the majority leader days ago. It is what we have done years
ago. It is totally consistent with the rules of the Senate. As a matter
of fact, it has been done repeatedly in the Senate.
Maybe we should adopt a new rule that says you have to be relevant or
germane to offer an amendment to a pending bill. We don't have that
rule, never had that rule, and probably never will have that rule.
But that is the way the Senate operates. These are important
amendments. Again--and I am going to close with this--I don't get the
logic of not allowing us to proceed to the Levin-McCain amendment
because another amendment that some people don't like and don't think
should be offered is going to be offered on this bill, when what is
certain is that both amendments are going to be offered on this bill.
Nothing is accomplished by refusing that vote on the Levin-McCain
amendment except delay. That is the only thing accomplished by the
refusal of whoever it was who refused to agree to a time to vote on
Levin-McCain, nothing was accomplished except delay. And that, I don't
think, is in anybody's interest, for the reasons Senator McCain gave.
We want to get this bill passed. We want to get it conferenced. We
want to get it to the President, hopefully, by the time this fiscal
year is over because the troops deserve us to act.
I am going to vote for the hate crimes amendment. I believe it is
very appropriate that it be on this bill. I spoke 2 years ago to this
effect, and I will speak again at the right time, perhaps tomorrow if
there is time, as to why the hate crimes amendment belongs on this
bill. It is an important amendment. It involves acts, as the leader and
others have said, of domestic terrorism. The values reflected in the
hate crimes legislation are values which our men and women who put on
the uniform of this country fight for and put their lives on the line
for, a country which believes in diversity, a country that believes you
ought to be able to have whatever religion you want, be whatever ethnic
group, whatever religious group, whatever racial group you are part of,
whatever your sexual orientation, whether you are disabled, regardless
of your gender, that you should be free from terror and physical abuse.
That is what the hate crimes law does now, except it does not include
some groups who should be included, including the disabled and
including people who are gay. That is what is involved here.
It is not a new debate. We debated it 2 years ago. It is not new on
this bill. It was added in the Senate 2 years ago.
I hope we can reach an agreement to get to a vote on both these
amendments. They are both going to be resolved on this bill. That is a
certainty. Again, how they are going to be resolved no one knows. We
can guess as to what the outcome will be. They will both be close
votes, I believe. Let's get on it and get through those votes.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Affordable Health Choices Act

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I grew up in Mansfield, OH, a middle-class
town of about 50,000 people, halfway between Cleveland and Columbus, in
north central Ohio. It is a town similar to thousands of other cities
in Ohio such as Marion, Zanesville, Xenia, Springfield, Portsmouth,
Chilcote, and Ravenna. It is a town not much different from dozens of
cities around our Nation.
My dad was a family doctor. He practiced into his late seventies. He
lived to be 89 and died about 9 years ago. My dad for years made house
calls, caring for his friends and neighbors, regardless of their
ability to pay. One patient, I remember, gave my dad a little arrowhead
collection after my dad had done very important work for his health.
Today the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passed
historic health reform legislation that restores my dad's sense of
quality and compassion in our health care system.
This legislation was not written for the insurance industry. It was
not drafted by the drug industry or any other segment of the health
care industry. We remember not that long ago in this Chamber--I
remember it more intensely at the other end of the Hall in the House of
Representatives where I sat on the Health Committee--we remember in
those days the drug companies wrote the Medicare laws, and the health
insurance industry wrote health care legislation. Those days are gone.
This bill is not for them; it is for the American people.
The health care industry does not like this bill that much. That is
because they did not get their way on issue after issue. They did
sometimes. They did dramatically on occasion in our committee. But, by
and large, this bill is not for them. This bill is for the American
people. It is for American families who are afraid that unaffordable
health care costs will deny their children a chance for a healthy life.
Everybody in this Chamber has met dozens of children such as that who

[[Page S7549]]

needed the Children's Health Insurance Program to keep their families
from going bankrupt and to keep their health care going. Children who
need this health care legislation, families who need this bill too
often choose between medicine and food, between heating their homes in
the winter and cooling their homes in the summer on the one hand and
going to the doctor on the other.
This bill is for American families that do not have health insurance
at all. Maybe they work for an employer who cannot afford to provide
health insurance. Maybe they lost their job. Maybe they cannot afford
their share of the premium for employer-sponsored coverage. Maybe they
have a preexisting condition that makes them undesirable to the
insurance industry. Maybe they cannot pay their mortgage, feed their
children, and pay for nongroup health coverage. Unfortunately, for many
Americans, something had to give. But not anymore. This bill is for
them.
Two weeks ago in Columbus, I was having breakfast with my daughter
and a friend--a young woman who teaches voice lessons. She just
graduated from college. She is working at this restaurant part time
while she finds more and more students to teach voice lessons as she
begins her business. She does not have health insurance. She came up
and said: Are you going to give me health insurance this year?
I said: Yes. It is a commitment of the President of the United
States. We are going to finish this bill this year.
I am going to send her a note tonight telling her what we did today.
Not too long ago, I was at a grocery store in Avon, OH, near my home.
My wife asked me to find water crackers. I didn't know what water
crackers were. I was standing in the aisle, and I asked a guy: Do you
know what water crackers are?
He said: They are right there. This is a gentleman who is self-
employed and sells food products, mostly crackers and cookies, for a
national company. He sells them to local grocery stores in Lorain
County. He said to me: I am self-employed. Are you going to pass the
public option I need to make sure you can keep the health insurance
industry honest and I can get decent health coverage?
I said: Yes, we are--because we are.
This bill is for them. It is for the young woman in Columbus, it is
for the younger man in Avon, the man approaching middle age, it is for
him.
This bill was developed with a few core principles in mind. First,
Americans who like their current health coverage should be able to keep
it. If you have good insurance, if you like your employer-based
insurance, by all means keep that insurance. Keep what you have. This
bill is designed to protect existing coverage while putting downward
pressure on health insurance premiums. What is going to happen to those
people who now have insurance? Right now if you have decent insurance,
you are also paying the cost; when you go to the emergency room with
your insurance, you are also paying the cost of somebody who goes to
the emergency room without insurance. You are paying the cost that
doctors and hospitals and, frankly, taxpayers provide for those people
without insurance. You are absorbing those costs.

So when this bill passes, when the President signs this bill in
October or November, there is a reasonably good chance that the cost of
your insurance, whether you are the employer, whether you are the
employee, will stabilize. The costs will stabilize and maybe go down.
I mentioned this bill was developed with a few core principles in
mind. No. 1, people who like their current insurance can keep it. No.
2, people underinsured or uninsured should be able to find good
coverage and pay a reasonable premium for it. They will have full
choice of private insurance or, the third point is, Americans should
have choices they want. This bill includes a strong public health
insurance option designed to increase price competition in the health
insurance industry and to help keep private insurers honest.
And speaking of honest, another principle behind this bill is that
health insurers should do what they are paid to do. This bill includes
new rules to prevent insurers from denying you coverage for preexisting
conditions, terminating your coverage just to save money or excluding
you from coverage because of your age or health history.
There are two things going on here: One, we are putting rules on the
insurance industry so they cannot keep gaming the community rating
system, can't keep imposing preexisting conditions on potential people
they insure, can't lock people out who are too sick and they don't want
to cover.
First is the rules. Second is creation of a public option, which will
mean competition. We make sure insurance companies are doing the right
thing by the rules, but we also inject competition, so public option
will compete with private insurance companies.
This bill was written for American families, for American patients,
for American businesses, and for American taxpayers. This bill is a
victory for the thousands of Ohioans who shared with me their struggle
for our health care system. It is about retiree Christopher from
Cincinnati. He is worried his shattered retirement savings and small
pension won't keep up with rising insurance premiums.
This bill is about breast cancer survivor Michelle from Willoughby,
OH, Lake County, east of Cleveland, who should no longer live, in her
words, ``for the sum of my work is to pay for insurance.''
It is about the children that Darlene, a school nurse from Cleveland,
treats each day who struggle in school because they are worried about a
sick parent or grandparent who cannot get the health care they need.
It is about small business owner Kathleen from Rocky River, who is
trying to do right for her employees but whose small business is being
crushed by exorbitant health insurance costs.
It is about Karen from Toledo, whose adult son has advanced MS, and
for 5 years she has seen her savings drained, forcing her to drop out
of college.
It is about these Ohioans. It is about Ohioans in Lima, Springfield,
Volare, St. Clairsville, Pickaway, and Troy. It is about people around
this country, the millions who work hard, play by the rules, who still
struggle each day with disease and despair. It is about their stories,
those who have inspired us to stand with them and not be intimidated by
the special interests that are spending $1 million every single day
lobbying to try to write this bill--the insurance companies, the drug
companies that have had such a huge influence in the Halls of Congress
over the last several years but this time did not have the kind of
influence they wanted.
Because of this bill, more Americans will be able to afford health
care. Crucial national priorities will not be crowded out by health
care spending. No longer will exploding health care costs cut into
family budgets, wear down businesses, drain tax dollars from local
governments, from State governments or from Federal budgets.
This bill uses market competition and common sense to squeeze out an
efficiency, to maximize quality to ensure every American has access to
quality, affordable coverage.
More work is yet to be done. We have taken a long step toward the day
that generations before us have prepared us for, that pushed this
government to do more and do better.
This started in the 1930s when Harry Truman wanted to include
Medicare or some version of national health care with Social Security
but thought he could not get it passed and settled for Social Security.
Harry Truman tried in the late 1940s. Lyndon Johnson successfully
pushed through Congress, with strong Democratic majorities in each
House, to create Medicare. We have tried ever since. This is the time.
I thank Senator Dodd for his leadership of the HELP Committee over
the last few weeks. It was an impressive and productive process from
beginning to end. We worked in a deliberate, bipartisan manner.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BROWN. I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. We worked in a deliberate, bipartisan manner, spanning 13
days, 287 amendments were debated, and 161 Republican amendments were
included in this bill. We worked hard to make sure this bill reflects
broad

[[Page S7550]]

ranges of views and best serves the American people.
A special thank you to my friend and colleague, Chairman Kennedy,
whose Senate career has been dedicated to providing health care to
those in need. Senator Kennedy's activism and determination made this
day possible. My Senate colleagues and I and millions of Americans who
may finally see the day when there is quality affordable health care
owe him our gratitude and thanks.
In closing, of all injustices, Martin Luther King once observed:
``Injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.''
This day is a victory for Ohio families, it is a victory for seniors
and middle-class families around the Nation who deserve the humane
justice of an affordable health care system that works for all of them.
We have a historic opportunity to make fundamental improvements to
our Nation's health care system. We must not squander it--not in this
Nation, not at this time.

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