NASA Authorization Act of 2004

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 1 hour and when my time is yielded that the quorum be questioned.

Mr. President, I will address some of the issues just debated on the floor of the Senate. The Senator from Utah is my friend. We have worked together, and he chairs the Judiciary Committee. We are miles and worlds apart on many issues but have found common ground many times and I am sure we will in the future. He has done an excellent job for his President as chairman of the committee.

It is my understanding that, as of today, President Bush has successfully nominated over 200 Federal judges to fill vacancies, thanks to the work of Senator Hatch and many others in the Senate. Those nominees have been approved. At this point, it is my understanding that we have one of the lowest vacancy rates in the Federal judiciary in recent memory and that we have responded particularly in the areas of our country where there have been shortages of judges and an abundance of cases to be considered. It is my understanding that the scoreboard on President Bush's nominees who have been proposed and accepted and approved by the Senate is 201; somewhere in the range of 6 or 8 have not been approved. That is quite a good average by any standard for any President. It is certainly dramatically better than the approval given to judges under the previous President, President Clinton.

There have been a lot of complaints and concern expressed about the six or eight judges who have not been approved, and while all of that argument has gone on, 201 of President Bush's nominees have been approved.

Now we have a suggestion that in the closing days of this session, we should approve even more judges. It is a troubling suggestion only in this regard: Not reflecting on any single judicial nominee or that person's qualifications, it has been a practice and tradition in the Senate that in a Presidential election year, we suspend the approval of Federal judges after the first nominating convention of a major party. It is known as the Thurmond rule because Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, chairing this same committee, established it and said once we get that close to a Presidential election, with the outcome uncertain, that we will not be approving judges. We will wait and see what the verdict of the American people will be as to whether the President, in this case, is reelected or a new President takes office and fills those same vacancies.

The Senator from Utah has asked us to look beyond this time-honored Thurmond rule. In my State of Illinois and many other States, we have withheld pursuing nominees because we understood the process was closed down, that there would not be any further judicial nominees considered. I am sure this will be discussed at length. So the record will reflect that has been the tradition. It is the situation that has applied to President after President, and most of us believe, in fairness, it should apply in this situation.

I listened carefully as the Senator from Utah talked about a number of issues, all of which are relevant, many of which will be discussed tonight in the second Presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis between President Bush and Senator Kerry.

One of the issues which he spoke to with some force was the issue of whether we are doing enough to help seniors and other American families pay for their health care. He noted that we passed a Medicare prescription drug bill. It is true that a bill passed with that name. For a person like myself who has supported throughout his congressional career the idea of assistance to senior citizens to pay for prescription drugs, it was painful to vote against a bill called the Medicare prescription drug bill. But I did vote against it, and the reason I voted against it is the same reason that most seniors across America are not only skeptical of this proposal by the Bush administration and the Republican leaders in Congress but have flatly rejected it, because if you take a close look at the proposal which the Bush White House put before us and was approved by this Republican Congress, you will see it is only a Medicare prescription drug bill in name. In fact, it is not, and the reason is obvious. There

is no authority in the bill for Medicare as an agency to bargain with the pharmaceutical companies to get the best price for seniors and families across America. The pharmaceutical industry is the most powerful industry on Capitol Hill. Bill after bill, vote after vote, amendment after amendment, the pharmaceutical industry rarely loses. Why? Because they are a powerful force in our economy, the most profitable economic sector in America, and a powerful political force. They are involved in the campaigns, primarily with Republicans but some Democrats, too. They make contributions to those who believe in their approach, and they are rewarded many times with votes that come out their way. This is what happened with the Medicare prescription drug bill.

This bill expressly prohibits the Medicare agency from bargaining with pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and what it means is that seniors, even with this bill, will continue to see the cost of medication going up 10, 15, and 20 percent a year. There is no end in sight. It will continue to grow at a pace that will outstrip the money we put in this bill, at a pace that will outstrip the resources of most seniors and, frankly, will do it in a hurry.

I will be happy to yield for a question from the Senator from California.

Mr. President, in response to the Senator from California, I did not hear that exact quote, but it is clear for anyone who reads the bill that Medicare, as an agency, does not have the authority to bargain for lower drug prices or to create its own drug benefit program.

The Republican leadership in the White House and Congress insisted that this be done through private sector insurance companies. In fact, they expressly prohibited seniors from buying Medicare gap policies to cover this overwhelming cost of prescription drugs.

The most telling fact that I think should be part of this debate is the Bush administration insisted that this so-called Medicare prescription drug benefit plan would not go into effect until after this election. They know, the Senator from California knows, I know, that when seniors see the situation close up and all the details, they are going to feel even worse about what Congress has done. Congress has left them vulnerable on prescription drug costs, and they are not the only ones.

We are finding companies across America and families across America wrestling with the high cost of health care. What has the Bush administration done to help small businesses provide health insurance, to help families afford health insurance, to come to the rescue of 100,000 American retirees who have lost their health care benefits because of a bankruptcy court? What have they done to help these people in such dire straits? Nothing. Why? Because the companies that are profiting from these high costs of insurance and pharmaceuticals are companies that are the political favorites of the Bush administration and the Republican leadership in Congress.

So when any Senator comes to the floor and talks with some pride about what has happened over the last 4 years on health care, go ask the families of America what is happening. The honest answer is no relief, no help, and they find themselves with increasing costs for health care and the cost of health insurance.

Businesses identify this as the No. 1 problem facing American business today, that health care premiums are going up 25 percent and more each year. They say to us: How can we provide coverage for our employees, how can we be competitive in the world if we face that overhead cost?

Labor unions say exactly the same thing. They say: We try to get more money per hour for our workers so they can have a better life, but every penny of it goes for health insurance, and this year's coverage is less than last year's coverage. They are frustrated. Business, labor, families, individuals, and retirees are being left out in the cold.

What has the Bush administration and the Republican Congress done for these groups? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I would be happy to yield for a question.

The Senator from California, I am sure, has met with veterans, as I have in Illinois. Veterans are fortunate when they reach an age that they can go to a Veterans Hospital

and get their prescriptions filled for a modest amount each month. That is because the Veterans' Administration bargains for the prices of drugs, brings them down to a lower cost than a senior on Medicare is going to pay.

There has been a lot of talk about reimportation of drugs from Canada. I just want to say for the record, many of us believe that a promise had been made on the Senate floor that we would vote on this issue of reimportation of drugs from Canada before we went home this year. In fact, there is ample evidence in the Congressional Record, a colloquy between Senator Dorgan of North Dakota and the majority leader of the Senate, which led us all to believe that we would finally get a chance to reimport drugs that have been made in the United States safely and can be bought at a fraction of the cost in Canada and other places.

The decision was made, no, we do not have time. We cannot do it. Well, that decision was made as the decision was made to stop Medicare from asking for lower prices for drugs, at the request of the pharmaceutical companies. These companies are making the greatest profit of any sector of the American economy, and they have asked for Congress to protect their profits. This is a decision driven by greed. It is a decision where the pharmaceutical companies have said, despite the hardship on seniors, despite the hardship on families and businesses, we will not reduce the prices of our drugs.

A phony argument has been raised, and that is that we cannot reimport drugs from Canada without compromising the safety of the drugs that are brought in. Let me remind everyone that the overwhelming majority of the drugs we are talking about are the product of research in the United States. They are the product of American pharmaceutical companies. They are in packages and under names in Canada exactly as they are in the United States. We are only asking that these drugs be brought back in so that seniors can get some relief from high drug prices, relief that is not forthcoming in the Medicare prescription drug bill.

Let me say something about the safety issue. Do not trust me. I am just an elected official. Trust instead Dr. Peter Rost, who is vice president of marketing at Pfizer. Let us see what he had to say about the safety issue:

During my time responsible for a region in northern Europe,

I never once--not once--heard the drug industry, regulatory

agencies, the government, or anyone else saying that this

practice was unsafe. And personally, I think it is outright

derogatory to claim that Americans would not be able to

handle reimportation of drugs, when the rest of the educated

world can do this.

It is a phony issue. Safety of drugs is a phony issue. We can put safeguards in place. We have proposals before the Senate to do it. In my home State of Illinois, Governor Blagojevich has been a leader on the reimportation issue. He has established what I consider to be rational and very thoroughly thought out standards for the reimportation of drugs. Resistance comes from the Food and Drug Administration, and that resistance is inspired by the pharmaceutical companies that do not want to see cheaper drugs coming into the United States to help seniors and families meet the overwhelming cost of prescription drugs.

Tonight, during the course of this debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry, I am sure that health care will be an issue. I am guessing that someone, in 90 minutes, in the Washington University audience is going to say to both candidates: What are you going to do to reduce the cost of health care for families across America?

What the President will say is, We have done it with the Medicare prescription drug bill. And the obvious answer to that is, Well, then why did you postpone it until after the election? Why is it so hard to understand? Why the gaps in coverage? Why can't Medicare bargain for a lower price?

The answer on the other side from Senator Kerry is obviously, this administration, in the thrall and under the control of the pharmaceutical industry, is not prepared to confront them on behalf of American families and businesses which are struggling to pay for prescription drugs.

I think that is a clear choice, as there will be a clear choice on so many issues.

Take a look at this issue as well. On the issue of health care, what has happened under the Bush administration? Under President Bush's 4 years, fewer jobs in America provide health insurance. We know from the reports, the President, during his administration, has lost more jobs in America than any President in the last 70 years of either political party. Even today's report about a few new jobs in America still leaves the President somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 net jobs lost during his Presidency. Even his father, facing a recession and a war, was able to see much more employment created than this President.

As a result of the lost jobs, and as a result of businesses struggling with the Bush economic policies, fewer companies offer health insurance.

In the year 2000, when President Bush took office, 63.6 percent of companies offered employer-provided health insurance. Today, it is 60.4 percent. That means 3.8 million Americans have lost health insurance coverage at their job.

Now, what does one do when they have lost their health insurance at their job? Well, for many of these Americans, it means no protection whatsoever. It means that they pray each morning that someone does not develop a serious illness or get involved in an accident.

So how is this making America a better place? How is it strengthening families? How is it removing fears and worries from families who are just trying to get by each day and maybe make life a little better for their children? I cannot imagine in my family, if we did not have health insurance, what it would be like, fearful that at any given moment the savings that we have could evaporate paying for health costs.

Under President Bush, 3.8 million Americans have lost health insurance. That is a fact. That will come up tonight during the course of this debate.

Look at the jobs that have been lost under President Bush as well. The Clinton administration saw an increase of 20.7 million jobs in the 8 years of his Presidency; under President Bush, a loss of 1.6 million jobs. The President says his economic policies are working. The unemployed people of America are a living testimony to the fact that they have failed because the President's economic policy is very simply stated. If we give tax breaks to the wealthiest people in America, surely everybody else will be better off.

It has not worked. It is not going to work. The helping hand should be given to businesses to create jobs. A helping hand should be given to working families to try to keep up with increased costs for health care and college tuition and gasoline. These are the basics of life. This administration has ignored it. By ignoring it they have created an economic climate that has destroyed jobs instead of creating them.

I am happy to yield to my friend.

I would be happy to respond to that question. I would say if you listen carefully, the President's regular response when asked about whether there is enough employment in America is: This administration will not rest until every American has a job.

The President better plan on staying up late at night, all through the night, for the next 3 weeks-plus of this campaign, because Americans are having difficulty finding jobs.

The point the Senator made is an important one. I have met with some of these unemployed people, many of whom worked for years, even decades, in good-paying jobs. They live in nice houses, their kids go to good schools, they had savings accounts, a car in the driveway-- maybe two or three, vacations were planned. Then all of a sudden the bottom fell out. They lost the job. I met with them and listened to them about their desperate efforts to find another job. They are in a situation where they will take a lot less money for a job just to go back to work. The potential employer says: ``Wait a minute, you are overqualified. Because you are overqualified we are not going to hire you because we know you'll take something better that comes along,'' so they can't get employed. But if they luck out and get one of the lower paying jobs, what will they have to sacrifice? Will it be their savings? Will it be the college education of their child? Will it be the home they live in? You can't tell what it means.

But if this President says he won't rest until every American has a job, he better stay up at night for a long, long time because we have lost more jobs under his Presidency than any President's since Herbert Hoover. For those who are not students of history, he was the President during the Great Depression, a depression which our parents lived through and will remember as the toughest time in their lives.

This President has created a climate in this country where the number of jobs is not growing. It did not have to be that way. Take a look at what happened under the Clinton administration. The Clinton administration was creating 2.6 million jobs a year. The Bush administration has been losing about 200,000 jobs a year.

You say to yourself, What was the difference? The difference was the Clinton administration put together a sound fiscal policy for America. It was not easy. In fact, it passed the House and the Senate--I served in the House at the time--by one vote in each Chamber. Vice President Gore cast the deciding vote. President Clinton did say that in his administration we are going to take deficits seriously. I know the other party, the Republicans, say they are fiscal conservatives but we believe that getting the deficit under control is critically important if we are going to rejuvenate this economy and bring down interest rates and have more capital investment.

We did it. It was painful. Many Members of the House and Senate lost their seats because they voted for this plan. But it worked. As a consequence, under the Clinton administration jobs were created.

Now take a look at what this President has done. Claiming to be a fiscal conservative, this President now has us in a position where we have the largest deficit in the history of the United States. How can this be? The President will say, Don't blame me for 9/11. Don't blame me for the recession that was inevitable. Don't blame me for the war in Iraq. But the honest answer is he has to accept the blame for an economic policy that called for tax cuts during this same period, tax cuts primarily focused on the wealthiest people in America. That is what has been driving deficit numbers to a great extent. That is something for which you can blame the Bush administration.

Many of us believe a tax policy that would have helped smaller businesses, family farmers, and individuals struggling to pay the bills for their families could have put real juice in this economy, as the Senator from California suggested, rejuvenating it at the right level at a lower cost.

To give to a person making over $200,000 a year another $5,000 or $10,000 or $20,000 is gilding the lily. Their life is pretty comfortable. To give them $20,000 more means more stocks purchased, more money invested. But it is not the same kind of expenditure as when you give $5,000 to a working family which turns around and says now we can consider the downpayment on a car, we can get the washer and dryer, a little remodel job on the kitchen, we can put the money away for our son and daughter for a college education, we can make sure we are planning for a brighter future for our family. It is the difference between night and day.

There was a moment in a movie, which was controversial, called ``Fahrenheit 9/11.'' President Bush was speaking to a group. I don't know where it was located. He was on film. He was in his tuxedo and the people all around him were in tuxedos, and he said something along these lines: Some people say you are the upper last class. They call you the wealthy. They call you the upper level. But I call you my base.

It was supposed to be a humorous line, but there was more truth than humor. The President has served his base well with his economic policies. He has said to those people who are well off: You are my first priority. His economic policies have been directed to help them, time and again, at the expense of working families, at the expense of the worst deficit in our history.

So we have a choice. We have a choice to make on November 2. More of the same? Continuation of this policy, risking more jobs lost, putting more burdens on working families?

Take a look at the long-term unemployment in this country. The long- term unemployment in 2000 was 649,000 people. Now it is almost three times that amount, 1.7 million people. Long-term unemployed, meaning they have tried and tried and cannot get back to work.

Take a look at who is better off because of the policies of the Bush administration. These charts tell you what happens here. The household income in America is down, under the Bush administration. If you think you are pedalling faster and not going any farther, this chart tells you why. You may be making a few more dollars, but the cost of living for working families has gone up.

How have the CEOs at the major corporations done under the Bush tax policy, the people making dramatically more money than the people working in the office and factory? The CEO compensation went up 20 percent. Take a look at the HMOs, the insurance companies that have been protected by this administration. Their profits have been up 84 percent.

Do you think you are paying more for gasoline today than you were 4 years ago? This is the chart: $1.47 was the average price of gas in 2001. The average price of a gallon of gas in 2004 is $1.92. And when we hear the price of a barrel of oil is over $50, it may be a good thing for the oil companies, but it is bad news for American families and a lot of businesses.

Why are these airlines going into bankruptcy one after the other? I was on a plane the other day--United. At the end of the flight, as we landed, the flight attendant came on and said: Thank you for flying United. I know you had a choice of many companies that are in bankruptcy or near bankruptcy. That is what he announced to the passengers. Everybody kind of laughed, but it is a sad reality.

The cost of fuel, the cost of oil, and our dependence on foreign oil instead of an energy bill that moves us toward independence have left us vulnerable as an economy and left American families vulnerable paying for the bills.

Where is the leadership? Do we really need 4 more years of wrong decisions like these, decisions that would not challenge the Saudis and their oil supplies and instead say America is going to move forward to energy independence so we can't be held captive by OPEC and the Saudi Arabian oil cartel? That is the difference. That is the case.

We are suggesting there ought to be a better vision for America, and move us away from dependence on Mideast oil, move us toward an economic policy to give working families a fighting chance. You haven't seen it for 4 years.

Tonight, this administration through the President is going to try to justify some of the harsh realities.

Yes.

I would be happy to respond to the question.

First, Mr. President, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

Mr. President, let me say to the Senator from California that she has really come to the heart of the problem. The President said in his first debate that being President was hard work. He said that over and over again. This is hard work. This is hard stuff. These are hard things to do. I don't doubt it. Being President of the United States may be the toughest job in the world. But sadly, the President, despite the hard work he has experienced, doesn't understand the hard work families have to go through just to make ends meet. If he were a little more in touch with these families and their own struggles, he would understand why we need a man or a person in the White House standing up for them and understanding the challenges families face every single day. And it hasn't happened.

The Senator from California mentions outsourcing. It is true. The head of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Bush administration sent a report to Congress saying that the outsourcing of jobs was a positive, a good result; sending jobs overseas was good. He explained that that would mean more competition and lower costs, completely overlooking the obvious. When a good-paying job leaves America, it is not likely the person who lost it is going to get another good-paying job, or get it soon. It is likely that that follow job is not going to have the same level of benefits for the person who just saw their job outsourced.

This administration plays by a strange economic textbook. That economic textbook calls for total free market forces despite the consequences. Even under this administration, the President has seen what the free market unbridled can lead to.

I put as exhibit A Enron. If you do not have a government through its President and regulatory agencies keeping an eye on some corporate activity as we keep an eye on individual activity, terrible things can occur--and they did occur in Enron, a business that defrauded a lot of innocent people out of their life savings, not to mention misrepresentations made in terms of the status of that business and the impact it had on so many other businesses. But this President steps back every time someone suggests that he needs to stand up to free market forces that are not serving America. He will not stand up to pharmaceutical companies that are overcharging Americans. He wouldn't let the Medicare agency bargain for lower prices. No. Let the free market work its will. The free market is working its will at the expense of a lot of senior citizens and families who can't afford their prescription drugs.

Did the President get on the phone as he promised as a candidate and call the OPEC cartel when they were holding oil off the market and driving up prices in America? No. Let the free market work its will. You know what happened. Gasoline prices have gone through the roof, airline fuel prices have gone through the roof, and America's economy has suffered. More jobs are being lost, more airline employees are being laid off, and we see businesses dependent on fuel struggling across America.

When it came to a tax break, did this President take into consideration that the cost of a college education is going up more than 20 percent a year in many institutions and that families with bright students who want the best chance in life just can't imagine their son or daughter graduating with $100,000 in debt and a diploma? Did the President think about that when he decided to look at the Tax Code to help families? No. No, there was no provision in there for the deductibility of college education expenses. The President said to let the market work its will at the expense of many of these families.

Langston Hughes once referred to the group of people that I am talking about. He called them ``people for whom life ain't been no crystal stair.'' He was a person who understood that people get up every morning and struggle--struggle to keep their family together, struggle to make ends meet, struggle to try to believe that their kids will be better off than they are. These families would like to believe there is somebody someplace in Washington who cares, someone who understands we are headed in the wrong direction in this country in so many instances.

We are losing jobs. We are seeing important jobs outsourced. We are seeing our deficit at record levels. These are the harsh realities.

The Senator from California says it does not appear that this administration has a plan. In many instances, it

does not appear this administration has a clue. It is as if the President, with those auditoriums filled with thousands of fans, does not take the time to step outside the auditorium and talk to an average family about what they are going through as their cost of health insurance goes up and the cost of living goes up as well.

Iraq

I will use my remaining time of morning business to speak to the other issue brought up by the Senator from California. That, of course, is the situation in Iraq.

We had a report through the Senate Intelligence Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee this week from Mr. Duelfer who went back to Iraq and for the second time spent months and millions of dollars to look for weapons of mass destruction. He came back and told us they are not there. We cannot find them.

Think about that. Think of how often President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and others told us we were in imminent danger from an attack from Saddam Hussein because of arsenals of chemical and biological weapons and the rebuilding of the nuclear weapons in Iraq. That was the justification. That is why we had to invade. That is why we could not wait. And it was all wrong. Totally wrong.

Now comes the administration saying, no, it was not really about weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact they said that then over and over again. It was the fact that Saddam Hussein could not be trusted and was an evil man. It was about the fact he may have had the desire--the new word, ``desire''--to build weapons of mass destruction and it really was about the Oil for Food Program in Iraq.

Really? Go back and check the tape on statements made by the President as to why we had to send our Armed Forces into harm's way. The statements made by the President do not quibble: weapons of mass destruction, yellow cake, uranium coming into Iraq, linkage between al- Qaida and those who were responsible for September 11, al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein.

Now, today, that evidence, that case, has evaporated. It is gone after millions of dollars have been spent desperately trying to find evidence of one weapon of mass destruction.

Trust me, those who are following this debate, had this administration found a tiny shred of evidence of weapons of mass destruction, it would have been front page news around the world. They could not find a thing.

The intelligence was bad. The reasons for going to war, given to us by the President, was just plain wrong.

Where are we today? Mr. President, 140,000 of our best and brightest, our soldiers, marines, our airmen, those in the U.S. Navy, our guardsmen and reservists, got up this morning in Iraq and went to do their duty and risk their lives for America. Over a year and a half after our invasion of Iraq, there is no end in sight. They say we hope someday soon to have elections. We are not quite sure how much of Iraq will be safe to vote. We hope to have an election and we hope to have the Iraqis take over. Those are two good goals. I hope we can reach them.

But we have to acknowledge the obvious. This administration was not prepared for the war in Iraq. They were prepared for the invasion. Our troops did a masterful job in a very short period of time. But this administration was not ready for what followed. Isn't that the most basic thing to ask of a Commander in Chief? Don't send my son or your son into battle unless you are prepared to give that soldier everything they need to be safe, to win, and to come home. This administration was not prepared.

I know that because for the last few months I have spent time on behalf of Illinois soldiers, demanding they have body armor to protect themselves in Iraq, one of the most basic things one would think we would provide, demanding we have armor plating on Humvee vehicles so as they travel across Iraq they do not fall prey to the homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, demanding we put the necessary defensive equipment on helicopters so we will not have Guard and Reserve and Regular Army helicopters shot out of the sky because they were not properly equipped.

Why would I be doing this, a year and a half after the invasion, after giving the Bush administration every single penny they asked for to execute this war? I am doing it, and many others in the Senate and Congress are doing it, we are doing it because this administration was not prepared for the war in Iraq.

The losers are over 1,000 American soldiers who have lost their lives, and the 7,000 bravely wounded. I have met many going to a veterans hospital, Jefferson Barracks, right outside of St. Louis, meeting a young soldier, quadriplegic as a result of injuries sustained in Iraq; going to Walter Reed Hospital to meet these brave young men and women who have lost an arm, a leg, both hands, suffered head injuries. They are there with their families trying to put their lives back together, still proud of their service to this country, as they should be.

But as you walk away from the hospitals, you think we could do more. We should have been ready. We were not ready. But we could not wait. We could not wait for the U.N. inspectors to finish. We could not wait for a real coalition to come together--taking nothing away from the coalition we have, let's be honest. When you pick up the morning paper, the casualties, the soldiers who have lost their lives are overwhelmingly American soldiers. I am glad the Brits are with us. I am glad another 30 nations have given us some assistance in this regard, but when it comes to putting lives on the line in Iraq every single day, trust me, it is America front and center. And it has been for a long, long time.

When it comes to paying for this war, it is the American taxpayers front and center. We have spent over $1 billion a week on the war in Iraq and there is no end in sight. We appropriated almost $20 billion to start rebuilding Iraq and we are not spending it. Why? It is a vicious circle. Let me tell you what it is.

You cannot stabilize Iraq until you move the economy forward. You cannot move the economy forward until you build basic infrastructure such as electricity, and you cannot build basic infrastructure if you have insurgents and terrorists and guerillas blowing up everything you build. This vicious circle suggests there is no end in sight.

So the President has driven our national bus into a cul-de-sac and now challenges Senator Kerry to explain how to get out of this mess. A lot of us think that even giving the President the authority to go forward, he should have been prepared. He should have known what we were getting into.

Ambassador Bremer said, within the week, we did not send enough troops there. Had the right number of troops been sent at the right time, it could have been a more peaceful environment, but instead it is dangerous and American soldiers are still living in fear of what is going to happen from day to day.

At the same time, we turned our back on the obvious target, Osama bin Laden. I went to Afghanistan in the first codel with Senator Daschle, the first daylight codel that was allowed into Afghanistan, to Bagram Air Force Base, to a closed briefing by our intelligence agents about Osama bin Laden. They put up this huge aerial photo of the Tora Bora Mountains and they drew a tiny circle on the map. They pointed to all Members of Congress and the Senate and said: This is where Osama bin Laden is and we are going to nail him. This tiny circle.

I left there thinking, great, that will break the back and the morale of this terrorism network of al-Qaida. But it didn't happen. The Bush administration did not execute it well. They did not bring in the troops. They did not capture Osama bin Laden. He is not only still on the loose but al-Qaida is spreading like a cancer across the globe.

Where is our coalition to fight al-Qaida? It is the coalition that was stiff-armed by this administration when it came to the invasion of Iraq, when the President said, We will do it alone. We do not need you. Bring it on.

Remember when the President said, ``Bring it on''? Well, they brought it on and, sadly, we have a lot of soldiers who have sacrificed so much for their country because of it.

We need to turn this corner. We need to have a new vision. We need to have a leader who will reach out to the world and reestablish America as a leader willing to work with others, not

that any country should ever have veto power over our national defense. That is our call. That is our decision.

But we know, as President Bush's father knew, that it is a coalition of nations that makes us stronger. When we decided in the Persian Gulf war to bring Arab nations and their soldiers into that war as part of our coalition, it did not just add more soldiers in the field, it added an element that is missing in this war in Iraq.

Why are we being criticized so roundly in Arab States? Because we went into Iraq without waiting for those who could and would have helped us. This President could not wait, and now our soldiers are paying the price. I hope the American people make a decision to move forward with a new vision for this country, not to repeat the same mistakes again and again.

We have made mistakes when it comes to our economic policy, and we have paid a dear price for it. We have made mistakes when it comes to our agenda in Congress. We do not take up the serious bills that America's working families expect us to take up. We have generated the biggest deficit in the history of the United States to leave our children. We have the costs of war that are over $1 billion a week, and no end in sight. And, sadly, we are still losing our soldiers.

I was on the phone yesterday, as I have tried to so many times, to call the families of Illinois soldiers who have died overseas. I have not been able to get through to all of them, and I can understand some of them just don't want to take phone calls. That is understandable. And each and every one of them is a profile in courage. They are so proud of their son or daughter who has lost his life or her life in Iraq, and they are proud they served their country. I am, too. But I also want to take some pride that we have policies that are going to reduce the likelihood that more soldiers will end up losing their lives.

This administration has been in total denial about the reality of the threat in Iraq, total denial about the reality of what continues as a war in Iraq, total denial when it comes to understanding that we have lost a worldwide coalition that stood by our side after 9/11 and now wonders why the United States wants to go it alone.

I want to make certain, as I end these remarks, that we understand that in this great Nation we live in, we do have a chance to make a choice. And that chance will come on November 2.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that as part of my unanimous consent agreement, that when I finish and yield the floor, a quorum will be questioned.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I object.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

If I am not mistaken, it is possible to amend the conference committee report which was sent to us for consideration on the floor of the Senate. The Senator suggested amendments several times. I ask if he would please clarify that.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object, his hour will be counted against the time for the cloture; is that right?

I object, then.

I objected.

The hour will be counted?

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a parliamentary inquiry?

As manager of the bill, am I not entitled to be given by the Senator from California 1 hour of time? As manager of the bill, as I understand it, I have the right to be yielded 1 hour of time by any Member.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the Senator from Texas wishes to speak for 20 minutes as in morning business. The time will count toward the 30 hours. Following that, Senator Durbin, who has already used his hour, or his designee, would be recognized for 20 minutes to speak as in morning business. That time would also count against the 30 hours. That is the request for which I ask unanimous consent.

Absolutely. And that following Senator Durbin, or his designee, we will return to a quorum call.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

As I understand, the Senator from Missouri would be recognized for 15 minutes, and Senator Durbin or his designee would be recognized for 25 minutes.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Lautenberg be the designated substitute for Senator Durbin.

And further, the consent agreement said that following the statement of Senator Durbin or his designee, we would return to a quorum call.

Mr. President, if my friend would yield, those of us who served in the House know how important a minute is.

In the House, how we got to speak was, we were entitled to 1 minute a day. We were always guaranteed 1 minute a day. But most of the time that was all we got all week long, that 1 minute a day.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Hollings), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), and the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, it does not take consent to stop reading. I seek recognition. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute.

Mr. President, I want the attention----

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute.

I ask unanimous consent to speak before Senator Kennedy for 1 or 2 minutes.

Mr. President, I direct this to my friend from Oklahoma. I have the greatest respect for the Senator from Oklahoma. But it is not appropriate when neither manager is on the floor to send an amendment to the desk. It is not the way we do things around here. I ask unanimous consent that the action taken by my friend be vitiated. That is not fair. I say that with all due respect. We have been here for the last 3 or 4 days.

My time is not up.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the action taken by the Senator from Oklahoma be vitiated, and that we go back to where we started before he offered his amendment.

Mr. President, no matter how many times you say something that is not true, it does not make it true. I am not going to belabor the point other than to say we have spent a lot of time doing what the 9/11 Commission recommended. Did we do everything they asked? No, we did not. Did we do 90 percent of what they asked? The answer is yes, as I explained on the floor on more than one occasion with the charts where we checked off what they asked for and we did. Again, I repeat, it does not matter how many times you say something that is not true, it does not make it true.

Now, people can minimize all they want. The committee on homeland security will be created as soon as we complete this cloture fiasco we are now involved in. As I read on the floor here yesterday evening for half an hour, only getting into two directorates, the homeland security committee that will be formed could hold hearings every day next year and still not complete all the policy decisions that are made regarding terrorism in this country. Yes, they may not have all the employees, but they have the policy that is important to make our country safer.

We start out with the basic Government Operations Committee, and we do not change that one iota, and we add to that four directorates. For three they have total 100 percent responsibility, and for the fourth one they have partial responsibility.

I repeat for the third time today, no matter how many times you say something that is untrue, it does not make it true. You cannot have it both ways. We have people telling us that we may establish nothing out of this committee, but yet we have people here grousing from 10 different committees saying we gave them too much. You cannot have it both ways.

Now, I know there is some disappointment on the part of the Senator from Maine, and I have heard very little from the Senator from Connecticut. I know he has been away for religious observances, but I have kept in close contact with him. I think he realizes the glass is not half empty, it is half full.

This committee is a good committee. It is going to be one of the most significant committees in this Congress. It is going to increase the brawn and muscle of the Government Operations Committee tenfold. We took jurisdiction from 10 standing committees and gave things to the new committee.

Now, as an example, let's just take my committee. I have been chairman on two separate occasions of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We have wide-ranging responsibilities in that committee. But one thing we have that is most important is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I have spent a lot of time on that committee.

When I served in the House of Representatives, Congressman Al Gore was chairman of a committee called Investigations and Oversight, and we spent weeks doing investigations regarding FEMA. I know a little bit about it. It is a very powerful institution. The new government operations/expanded homeland security has complete jurisdiction over that, except for flood control. Flood control has always been with the Banking Committee. It took all day yesterday to work something out so that the new Government Operations Committee could still have that.

So, Mr. President, when we complete our work on this--and we are going to complete it pretty soon--people will be striving to get on the committee that will be chaired, at least for the next couple of months, by Chairman Collins; after that maybe Senator Lieberman.

But the point I want to make is I know people have been putting in the mind of the distinguished Senator from Maine that she got nothing. Isn't it terrible what they did to you? The fact of the matter is, I read only partially here on the Senate floor last night the responsibilities of this new committee. The responsibilities are terribly significant.

We still have work to do on this resolution. I am disappointed that it has not been completed. I want the record to be spread with the fact that Senator McConnell and I did not do a perfect job, but we did the best job we could do, and we have worked for weeks trying to do something that was very hard to do; that is, change what this body does.

Everyone hates change, as when I started my remarks, whether it is a change in your family relationship, as I explained when my daughter left to go to college, or whether it is a committee you feel strongly about.

I talked to a Member of the Senate today, and he said: Today was a big change in my life. I said: What? And he said--I am not going to embarrass him and use his name; this happened at lunchtime--he said: I have been using the House gymnasium for 22 years. He said: I switched; today I started using the Senate gym. He said: You have no idea how hard that was for me to do because even though I am a Senator now, I have used that gym for 22 years.

People hate change. They fight change. And I have to say, I have never changed; I still use the House gym.

So I am sorry, because I have talked to her personally, and I am sorry the Senator from Maine is disappointed in the jurisdiction she has. I am sorry we could not give her more jurisdiction. But, believe me, she will do a good job, because there is so much to do. I have worked here with a lot of different Senators in the years I have been in the Senate, and I have found very few people as competent and as resourceful and who work as hard as the Senator from Maine. I know when she gets this committee, even though she feels slighted that she did not get more, she will have her hands full doing what she will be doing very competently.

So the main point I want to make here, for the fourth time--and I am not going to apologize to anyone for the work I did on this. Not to anyone. I worked hard. It was hard to get where we are. And I repeat, if people think we did nothing, why have I been berated the last few days about: How could you do this? How could you take this from me? And I used, every time, the example of FEMA. FEMA is no insignificant matter. We took significant matters from 10 standing committees and have given them to the new government operations, expanded homeland security committee.

I am going to continue to support the legislation. I have kept the 9/ 11 Commission advised. This is not an end run we have done on the 9/11 Commission. Oh, isn't it surprising? Why didn't Reid keep us informed? Reid kept them informed.

Now, I wrote a book, published a history book, and people criticized my book. They can if they want. I defend what is in my book, and they defend what is in their report. The 9/11 Commission--I have said on this floor, not on one occasion, not on two occasions, I cannot count how many occasions I have complimented my friend, Congressman Lee Hamilton, and Governor Kean. I know Lee Hamilton very well. I have known him for 22 years. I do not know Governor Kean very well, but I surely like him. I know how competent he is. I know Roemer, who served there; Slade Gorton, an outstanding Senator whom I served with; Bob Kerrey, one of my good friends, whom I think the world of. They did a wonderful job.

We have given the 9/11 Commission and the people of America, as I said, most everything the 9/11 Commission

recommended. The 9/11 Commission, by the way, did not tell us how to reorganize the Senate. What we are doing here does not take the President to sign off on. We do this on our own. This is what we are doing. This is one of the most significant changes in the history of this Congress.

Now, people say: Well, big deal; it is not a very big change. I think it is a significant change. Remember, we got rid of a subcommittee on Appropriations. We created a new subcommittee. We gave a lot of muscle to the new Intelligence Committee.

I checked off here yesterday all the things we gave to the new Intelligence Committee. We got rid of term limits, which they complained about for so long, increased staffing and made it bipartisan, so now it is not divided 3 to the minority and 23--I don't know the exact number, but about that--33 to the majority. It is now divided 60/40. That is the way it should be.

Congress should create a single, principal point of

oversight and review for homeland security. Congressional

leaders are best able to judge what committee should have

jurisdiction over this department and its duties.

This is not something I dreamed up. This comes directly from the 9/11 Commission. Page 421 of the 9/11 Commission, what did they say? They said:

Congressional leaders are best able to judge what committee

should have jurisdiction over this department and its duties.

We did that. Now, is it in keeping with what my friend for 22 years, Senator McCain, thinks we should do? No. He thinks we should do things differently. But we made decisions he does not agree with. That does not mean we are all right, but that does not mean he is all right either. I mean, he is all right--not right on this issue. So we did as the 9/11 Commission said we should do.

Again, it is not as if we were doing something that was significantly more important anyway. But I read yesterday all the many responsibilities that this committee has. I want to find this again. I am turning to my loyal staff here. This is directorate No. 1. The responsibilities are very significant. And for someone to say this is not important, I defy reason to say this is not important.

This committee has jurisdiction over this: To access, receive, and analyze law enforcement information, intelligence information, and other information from agencies of the Federal Government--and it always says ``State and local''--to integrate such information in order to, A, identify and assess the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the homeland; B, detect and identify threats of terrorism against the United States; and, C, understand such threats in light of actual and potential vulnerabilities of the homeland.

No. 2, to carry out comprehensive assessments of the vulnerabilities of key resources and critical infrastructure of the United States, including the performance of risk assessments to determine the risks posed by particular types of terrorist attacks within the United States, including assessment of the probability of success of such attacks and the feasibility and potential efficacy of various countermeasures to such attacks.

I say through the Chair to my friend from Maine, if you spent 6 months of the next congressional session having congressional hearings on this, you would have your plate completely full just on this. But we didn't stop there. I have gone through two of the obligations, responsibilities they have. But there are 17 more, such as: To integrate relevant information--I am skipping a little bit--analyses, and vulnerability assessments in order to identify priorities for protective and support measures by the Department, other agencies of the Federal Government, State and local government agencies; to ensure the timely and efficient access by the Department to all information necessary to discharge the responsibilities.

No. 5, to develop a comprehensive national plan for securing the key resources and critical infrastructure of the United States, including power production, generation, and distribution systems, information technology, telecommunications systems, including satellites, electronic, financial, property record storage, transmission systems, emergency preparedness communications systems, and the physical and technological aspects that support such systems.

I say, these responsibilities may not be very glamorous. You may not be calling people in that are part of the 41,000 Transportation Security Administration, but it sure is important to my family and the people of the State of Nevada that we do some good work to find out about a national plan for securing our electricity, our satellites, our electronic and financial records storage and transmission systems. That requires some congressional hearings.

If somebody is chairman of that committee and ranking member or a member of the committee, I think that is something they should focus on, at least for a little while.

No. 6, to recommend measures necessary to protect key resources and critical infrastructure of the United States, in coordination with other agencies of the Federal Government.

No. 7, to administer the homeland security advisory system, including exercising primary responsibility for public advisories related to threats to homeland security; to review, analyze, and make recommendations for improvements in the policies and procedures governing the sharing of law enforcement information, intelligence information, intelligence-related information, other information related to homeland security.

No. 9, to disseminate information analyzed by the Department to Homeland Security, agencies of State and local governments, and private sector entities with such responsibilities to assist in the deterrence, prevention, preemption of, or response to terrorist acts against the United States.

I think that is a pretty heavy responsibility. To say this is nothing, you haven't given us anything.

No. 10, to consult with the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency--right now we still have a CIA Director--and other appropriate intelligence, law enforcement, or other elements of the Federal Government to establish collection priorities and strategies for information relating to threats of terrorism against the United States; to consult with State and local governments and private sector entities to ensure appropriate exchanges of information, including law- enforcement-related information; to ensure that any material received pursuant to this act is protected from unauthorized disclosure; to ensure that any intelligence information is shared, retained, and disseminated consistent with the authority of the Director of the CIA.

So for someone to say: What is this? You wasted all of our time here. We should not have done anything. It is an insult. I told people this is, if not the hardest thing I have ever done, one of the hardest in all the time I have been in Congress. For someone to stand and say, You didn't do anything, what I would suggest to the Senator from Maine, if she doesn't like this committee, turn it over to somebody else. I will bet a lot of people would like it. The ranking member right under her, I bet they would love to have this committee.

To request additional information from other agencies of the Federal Government, State and local government agencies, and the private sector relating to threats of terrorism against the United States; to establish and utilize, in conjunction with the chief information officer of the Department, a secure communication and information technology infrastructure, including data mining, and other advanced analytical tools, in order to access, receive, and analyze data and information.

Again, there are not a lot of employees involved in this, but if we depended on that--I don't know the number of employees we have in the Federal Government; it is over 2 million, millions anyway--how many employees were involved, you would just ignore the FBI. There are only 11,000, only 11,000 out of approximately 2 million. I don't know that exact number, a very tiny percentage of what the FBI makes up of the overall workforce, but it is still real important.

What I am talking about is, that is going to be the responsibility of this committee, and it is also important.

I am still only through No. 13. We have six more to go in the first directorate. I have three more directorates to go through to show what this new committee that a small minority here think doesn't amount to much, I am

saying it amounts to plenty. If this committee does its job--and I say without any hesitation that I know that Senator Lieberman and the distinguished Senator from Maine will do a good job--they will have a lot to do. They make sure to listen in one ear about all they don't have to do, but let's also listen with the other ear about all they have to do. Some people like to denigrate anything we try to do about this institution. Some like to tear it down.

No. 15, to ensure, in conjunction with the chief information officer of the Department, that any information databases and analytical tools developed or utilized by the Department are compatible with one another and with relevant information databases of other agencies of the Federal Government; B, treat the information in such databases in a manner that complies with applicable Federal laws on privacy.

That is one of the biggest issues. I did a poll in Nevada a few years ago, and my staff, when they came to me, was stunned. In Nevada, the most important issue was not health care, it was not education, not the environment, not jobs--it was privacy. People in America are extremely concerned about privacy. We have all these electronic tools to do all kinds of things. And we want to make sure people's privacy is protected. One of the obligations of this committee is to see what can be done, with all the electronic apparatus we have for collecting intelligence and protecting the homeland, that it doesn't interfere with my family's privacy. That is a responsibility this committee will have when we complete it.

No. 16, to coordinate training and other support to the elements and personnel of the Department.

No. 17, to coordinate elements in the intelligence community with Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and the private sector, as appropriate; to provide intelligence and information analysis, and support to other elements of the Department.

And who does this cover? Who does this committee look to, to gather information? One of their defined legislative responsibilities--it is in this Record right now, we are making legislative history with the jurisdiction of this committee, but this is also in the underlying amendment that is now before this body, covered agencies: The Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and any other agency of the Federal Government that the President considers appropriate.

This is the legislative history that we are making to establish what this committee has to do. For someone to say their dealing with the CIA, FBI, NSA, and the DIA is not important, well, that is too bad because it is important.

We also have another directorate, and I will only cover a couple because there are four. The fourth one doesn't have total coverage over that. That is the one where immigration--they only have part of that-- relating to security.

The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over immigration as it relates to policy matters, as I understand it. They have security matters. I may not have defined it as policy, but they don't have 100 percent of the other directorate.

One of the directorates they have is emergency preparedness and response. I already talked about FEMA being part of their responsibility--and a big responsibility FEMA is, Mr. President. It is one of the most important agencies we have in the Federal Government today. As we speak, they are doing gallant work in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia as a result of the hurricanes. We lend that agency to foreign countries because they are the best in the world when there is an emergency. I have learned over the years that the most important thing they work on is water-related emergencies across the country, with flooding and those kinds of things. Floods are caused by lots of different things. So what does the FEMA have to do? They do this:

All functions and authorities prescribed by the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistant Act, which is carrying out its mission to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the Nation from all hazards by leading and supporting the Nation in a comprehensive, risk-based emergency management program--A, of mitigation, by taking sustained actions to reduce or eliminate long- term risk to people and property from hazards and their effects; B, of planning for building the emergency management profession to prepare effectively for, mitigate against, respond to, and recover from any hazard; of response, by conducting emergency operations to save lives and property through positioning emergency equipment and supplies, through evacuating potential victims, through providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to those in need, and through restoring critical public services; of recovery, by rebuilding communities so individuals, businesses, and governments can function on their own, return to normal life, and protect against future hazards.

Mr. President, I first became aware of the work that FEMA does when we had a disastrous flood in northern Nevada. We don't get much rain in Nevada, but we had a lot of snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We had early rain. That water came down without warning. And as I traveled to Gardnerville and Minden in Douglas County, one of my friends there, a farmer who had lived there for a long time, said: Look out here. A little river that a child could walk across most of the time was like a raging river. Cottonwood trees that were 100 years old were being thrown down the river path like toothpicks. By the time I got to northern Nevada, coming in a different airport because the regular airport was closed, FEMA had already set up operations and started life-sustaining operations, feeding people. They had already set up locations for businesses that had been devastated to come and make their claims.

If we did nothing else other than transfer FEMA from the Environment and Public Works to the new homeland security committee, that is a tremendous new responsibility for that committee--in addition to the page after page of other stuff I read that is their responsibility.

For the fifth time, people can come on this floor and keep saying what we have done is inconsequential and doesn't mean anything, but saying that doesn't mean it is true. I want everybody within the sound of my voice to understand some of the things we have transferred to this committee. Remember, this was already an A committee. It had lots of work to do. That is why some people around here are saying, What are people complaining about? It is already an A committee. They are getting a lot of stuff to do, other responsibilities from 10 different committees. What more do they want?

Well, I guess they want more. I say the glass should be half full, not half empty. It may not be perfect, but it is certainly pretty good.

We have to complete this legislation. There are six amendments, a couple maybe we can work out. Some of them probably we will not be able to work out, and a couple will be withdrawn. We are close to being able to finish. As I understand the parliamentary aspect, first of all, sometime tomorrow, if all time is used, we will vote on the amendment now before the body. After having completed these amendments, then we will vote on the underlying resolution--invoke cloture on that and, of course, there are 30 hours to run on that. When that is completed, this will be done.

The Senate, without having to go to the House of Representatives or the President, will have made one of the largest changes in the history of this body by reorganizing the legislative branch of Government. So, again, we transferred matters from Agriculture, Armed Services, Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources, Environment and Public Works, Finance, Foreign Relations, and Judiciary, so I think we have done a good job.

I am disappointed that my friend from Maine is apparently disappointed in thinking she is not going to have enough to do. I want her to know that the distinguished Senator from Kentucky and I did the best we could. Remember, this is not a dictatorship we have here, it is a legislative body. We cannot just suddenly decide what we want and it happens. It is a process that I talked about last night.

Legislation is the art of compromise. That is why you don't see much reorganization in the legislative branch of Government, because it is hard to do. As the President said in the last debate: This is hard work. It is hard work what we have done.

Again, I am disappointed that she is disappointed because I have the highest respect for her. I want her to know that I have only touched, this afternoon, on a very few things that she has to do. There are so many other things that this committee has. As I said, in years to come, what we have done this afternoon and what we will do on this legislation will be laid out before the Senate, so it will be easy for referrals and other things this committee will do.

This is one of the directorates, emergency preparedness and response:

The Secretary, acting through the Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response shall include: Helping to ensure the effectiveness of emergency response providers to terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies; coordinating other Federal response resources in the event of a terrorist attack or major disaster; aiding the recovery from terrorist attacks and major disasters; building a comprehensive national incident management system with Federal, State, and local government personnel, agencies, and authorities, to respond to such attacks and disasters; consolidating existing Federal Government emergency response plans into a single, coordinated national response plan; and finally, developing comprehensive programs for developing interoperative communications technology and helping to ensure that emergency response providers acquire such technology. So please do not tell me this committee does not have a lot to do. This committee will be one of the most important committees there is.

I say, in closing, to my friend from Maine, when I first came to the Senate, I received a phone call from Howard Metzenbaum. Howard Metzenbaum said: We finished--I think it is called the Steering Committee--and you are going to the Appropriations Committee. I was so excited about that. He said: You have a choice of two other committees you can go on--either Environment and Public Works or Government Operations.

I said: Senator Metzenbaum, I am so thrilled about being able to be on Appropriations. You decide which one I should go on.

He said: It does not matter. They are both great committees.

He chose for me Environment and Public Works. One reason he chose that is because in those days--I don't know if it is still the same way--a member of the Government Operations Committee, even though you were a new member, you were entitled to a staff person, someone assigned to you. They figured they would give that plum to someone else.

My point being, the Government Operations Committee has always been a good committee, but it is going to be a really good committee now. I think it will be on the par of Armed Services. I think it will be on the par with any committee we have. I will sleep well knowing that my friend, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman, and my friend, the distinguished Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, will be the two leading that committee. I know they have the ability to do a good job in meeting all the responsibilities this new committee has, including all the responsibilities they had to start with.

No objection, as long as the time continues to be counted against the 30 hours.

Mr. President, I object.

Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada wishes to speak; also the Senator from Louisiana. Even though there has not been a lot of order here today, I wonder if we could attempt, at least for a short time--how much time does the Senator wish to speak?

The Senator from Nevada, 15 minutes in morning business. The Senator from Louisiana, 15 minutes. So 15 minutes to the Senator from Nevada, Senator Ensign, followed by the Senator from Louisiana, 15 minutes, and then we would return to a quorum. Is that appropriate? I ask consent.

It is 15, 15, go back to a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I cannot make a unanimous consent request.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for up to 1 hour and after that the quorum be reinstituted.

No, because I am not speaking on the bill.

That is fine.

Fine. Your request is fine.

I thank the distinguished minority whip and, of course, my friend from Iowa for their courtesy. I have been wanting to give these Senate remarks as in morning business ever since yesterday.

Medicare Modernization Act

Mr. President, over the past few weeks several of our colleagues on the

other side of the aisle have given rousing statements on health care.

There is no question that health care is of paramount importance on American families. On that we can all agree.

I am sure it will come as no surprise that I disagree with a number of points my colleagues have raised. In fact, some of their allegations are just plain wrong, particularly with respect to the Medicare prescription drug law which I helped to negotiate.

I was a member of the tripartisan group that came up with a bill that I think would have been supported by the 20 Democrats at the time. I have been working on this ever since and was on the conference committee, sat in for days, weeks, and months on that conference committee to negotiate this bill.

It is mind-boggling some Senators seem willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of beneficiaries by spreading mistruths about the law. These mistruths could cause a beneficiary to forego learning more about provisions in the law that could really help, such as the Medicare-approved discount card program which study after study shows is delivering real savings, or the voluntary Part D benefits that begin in 2006.

This continued misinformation and set of damaging attacks are a tremendous disservice to Medicare beneficiaries. So I wanted to take this opportunity to set the record straight.

Opponents have characterized the Medicare law as a failure for beneficiaries. What poppycock. To me, we would have failed had we not passed the Medicare Modernization Act, had we not given beneficiaries what they need, meaningful prescription drug coverage and a stronger Medicare Program.

Let me highlight a few areas in which we need to set the record straight. The first is the cost estimates of the MMA. I will refer to this bill, the Medicare Modernization Act, from here on in as the MMA. That means the Medicare Modernization Act.

Let me talk about cost estimates. The central theme echoed by those who seek to discredit the new Medicare law is the allegation that the administration hid the true cost of the Medicare law from the Congress before the final vote.

This is simply political election year hyperbole.

The opponents of the drug benefit have made this claim because the complete and final cost estimate from the CMS Office of the Actuary was not finished before the vote took place.

Let's be clear, the administration's cost estimate was not withheld from Congress because there was not a final cost estimate from CMS to withhold. The CMS cost estimate was not even completed until December 23, 2003--long after the House and Senate vote, long after the bill was signed into law. So let's get rid of that argument right off the bat because it is a false, fallacious argument.

Rick Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services confirmed these facts to us earlier this year in a Finance Committee briefing and we all know that. Even after that briefing, however, some chose to continue this erroneous attack, perhaps because they did not take the time to attend the briefing. To me, this is but another indication of election year hyperbole.

Let me also be clear that we did have the official cost estimate on the Medicare bill before the vote. That estimate, as my colleagues are well aware, is the one from the Congressional Budget Office, not CMS. That is what binds us. That cost estimate, our official cost estimate, by the entity we rely on in Congress, was available to every Member of Congress before the measure was presented to either the House or the Senate.

No one should doubt that we had the true cost estimate for the prescription drug bill last year, and everyone in this body and the other body had access to it before the vote.

There also have been claims that the administration changes its cost estimate. Again, that is not the case. The President's mid-session review did update the estimates of Medicare outlays, but it did not change the estimate of the Medicare Modernization Act, the MMA.

In fact, Rick Foster, the CMS actuary, has said you simply cannot add the change in estimated outlays to the MMA estimate and declare you have a new estimate.

Apparently, Mr. Foster's words, the words of a trained actuary, don't matter to some of these so-called critics. If opponents of the Medicare bill value his opinion of cost estimates so highly, why do they ignore him now? That is amazing to me. They will quote part of what he said-- but ignore the other part of what he said. Mr. Foster has said that the MMA estimate has not changed; but despite that, opponents of the MMA have wrongly claimed that it did.

Again, it is just political hyperbole. We had--and have--the true cost estimates from CBO. Case closed. That is what we have to rely on in the Senate Finance Committee.

Now let me address the accusations that the bill prohibits Medicare from negotiations with drug companies. This is another one of the fallacious things that enemies of the bill have been spewing forth.

Those who make this charge imply, wrongly, that the price charged to beneficiaries is not subject to negotiation. That could not be further from the truth. The truth is, Medicare prescription drug plans will be negotiating with drug makers. These negotiations are the very heart of the new Medicare drug benefit.

The absurd claim that the Government will not be negotiating with drug makers comes from a non-interference clause in the Medicare law.

This noninterference clause does not prohibit Medicare from negotiating with drug makers. It prohibits CMS from interfering in those negotiations. That is a far cry from some of the fallacious statements that have been made on this floor.

Let me be clear, the non-interference clause is at the heart of the bill's structure for delivering prescription drug benefits. This clause ensures those savings will result from market competition, rather than through price fixing by the CMS bureaucracy. That is what was behind this. Let's not distort these provisions.

What is ironic about the minority charges on this provision--some in the minority; not all in the minority would agree with some of these fallacious charges--but what is ironic about these minority charges by some on this provision is that the same non-interference clause was in the Daschle-Kennedy-Rockefeller bill and the Gephardt-Dingell-Stark bills in the year 2000.

I hate to say this, but if my memory serves me correctly, these are leading Democrats in the Senate and in the House. They are not Republicans. It is the same provision that is being condemned by some in this body through hyperbole, political hyperbole. In fact, I want to read this to you:

In administering the prescription drug benefit program

established under this part, the Secretary may not--(1)

require a particular formulary or institute a price structure

for benefits; (2) interfere in any way with negotiations

between private entities and drug manufacturers, or

wholesalers; or (3) otherwise interfere with the competitive

nature of providing a prescription drug benefit through

private entities.

Now, what is the source of that language? It is from S. 2541, the Medicare Expansion for Needed Drugs, or MEND, Act, introduced in 2000 by Senator Daschle and cosponsored by 33 Democrats, including Senator Kerry. Think about it, some of the very people who are criticizing the MMA, that passed overwhelmingly in both Houses of Congress.

I find it curious that this approach, which is mislabeled as ``preventing Medicare from negotiating,'' was fine in the year 2000 when the Democrats were putting forth a bill, but not fine when enacted into law by a Republican President and a Republican Congress in 2003.

I must remind my colleagues that Senator Daschle, the distinguished Senator from South Dakota, once said:

Our plan gives seniors the bargaining power that comes with

numbers. . . . Our plan mirrors the best practices used in

the private sector. For beneficiaries in traditional

Medicare, prescription drug coverage would be delivered by

private entities that negotiate prices with drug

manufacturers. This is the same mechanism used by private

insurers.

Think about that. I think those who advance these arguments that you cannot have competitive work with regard to drug pricing ought to be ashamed of

themselves and ought to quit playing politics with a bill that is so important for senior citizens all over this country.

A related charge I heard one minority Senator make was that this so- called non-interference language contributed to next year's Part B premium increase. Again, this is plain wrong.

The Part B premium reflects the costs of Part B benefits. These include physician services and other outpatient services.

I would like to remind my colleagues that when Medicare was first created, the Government paid 50 percent of the premiums and beneficiaries paid 50 percent of the premiums. That was when Medicare was instituted. Today, the Government pays 75 percent of the premiums and beneficiaries pay only 25 percent of the premiums because we in the Congress were trying to help limit beneficiaries' out-of-pocket costs.

Those who suggest this non-interference language will drive up the cost of implementing the law simply do not have the facts or the legislation on their side.

This is what the CBO said about eliminating the non-interference clause in a letter earlier this year:

[T]he Secretary would not be able to negotiate prices that

further reduce federal spending to a significant degree.

The CBO in that letter went on to say:

CBO estimates that substantial savings will be obtained by

the private plans.

Now, let us be clear: Direct Government negotiation is not the answer. The Government does not negotiate drug prices. That would be price control, and it would, I think, inevitably cause prices to rise as companies would not be able to do business in this country as they have in the past.

The bill's entire approach is to get Medicare beneficiaries the best deal through vigorous market competition, not price controls.

Again, it might be illustrative to quote from the distinguished minority leader, Senator Daschle, when he outlined the principles for the MEND Act. Now remember, the MEND Act was a Democrat-sponsored act. This is what Senator Daschle said:

[W]e should take a lesson from the best private insurance

companies: Cost-savings should be achieved through

competition, not regulation or price controls.

Now, keep in mind, they had the same provision in their bill that they are criticizing now in the MMA.

This year, even the Washington Post, in a February 17 editorial, stated that:

Governments are notoriously bad at setting prices, and the

U.S. government is notoriously bad at setting prices in the

medical realm.

There is proof of that.

In an August 2000 report, the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, found that drug manufacturers could respond to a mandate that they extend Federal prices to a larger share of purchasers by adjusting their prices to others. The larger the group that would be newly entitled to receive a Federal price, the greater the incentive for drug manufacturers to raise that price.

The GAO stated that with the Medicaid rebate experience, specifically, that following enactment of the rebate program, discounts for outpatient drugs decreased significantly because manufacturers raised the prices they charged large private purchasers. Now, this shows how Federal and non-Federal drug price discounts could change if Medicare beneficiaries had access to the same price discounts available to Federal purchasers.

It is common sense that expanding access to the Medicaid rebate means weaker discounts for everyone. If almost everyone can get the Medicaid ``best price,'' then no one gets a discount.

Another charge we hear frequently is that Congress should give Medicare beneficiaries access to the Veterans' Administration approach. Well, what these critics do not tell beneficiaries about the VA model is that it is a very restrictive formulary and that the drugs are available only through a limited number of VA pharmacies.

The VA has lower prices in part because it has a very restrictive formulary. Now, this puzzles me because many proponents of the VA system also have expressed the concern of ensuring beneficiaries' access to drugs.

In calling for the VA system, Families USA spotlighted 15 drugs commonly taken by Medicare beneficiaries. In fact, of the 15 drugs mentioned by Families USA, only nine are even on the VA formulary. The rest are not even covered.

Sixty-one percent of the drugs on the VA formulary are generic drugs. If a Medicare beneficiary needed a brand-name drug--and the vast majority either do or will--the beneficiary would have to meet a narrow set of exceptions to get that brand-name drug under the VA system.

The drugs are only dispensed at VA facilities. Such a closed system would limit Medicare beneficiaries' access to their neighborhood pharmacy. I am not for limiting beneficiaries' access to their neighborhood pharmacies. And I don't think any of my colleagues are either, in spite of some of the comments that have been made on the floor of the Senate.

So while proposing the VA system might make for a good sound bite or advantageous sound bite, they might think, there are some important facts they are not sharing that could do more harm than good. And those facts were taken into consideration when we wrote this bill.

We did not rely on CMS price fixing, but instead created a new drug benefit that relies on strong market competition and an approach in keeping with the principles of the MEND Act, the Democratic act, as introduced by Senator Daschle and cosponsored by 33 Democrats, including their candidate for President, Senator John Kerry. But that was then, I guess this is now. All of a sudden, this provision they adopted, that they were articulating, that they were pushing, is now suddenly a bad provision for senior citizens.

Moving along, I want to talk about the Part B premium increase. There has been a good deal of criticism on the increase of the Part B premium, and that was understandable as many of us were shocked at so high a jump. Many of us were concerned about the impact this could have on beneficiaries, especially those living on fixed incomes.

But it might be helpful to look at why this increase occurred rather than demagogue about it.

The vast majority of the premium increase resulted from physician payment changes made in a previous year and by those in the Medicare Modernization Act that were needed to ensure beneficiaries' access to care. I can't relate how many letters I have received over the past few years from beneficiaries and providers alike who were concerned about the negative impact of reductions in physician reimbursement. Preventing those cuts was not a partisan issue. Indeed, Republicans and Democrats worked to prevent payment cuts to physicians so access to their services would be protected.

In fact, some of today's most vocal critics of the administration joined with 71 Democrat and Republican Senators to sign a letter to the administration calling for immediate action to prevent payment cuts to physicians. We all knew that had to be done if we were going to be fair to those on Medicare. Virtually all of us hailed the ensuing action to prevent the physician pay cuts.

Yet today many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle criticize the Part B premium increase, four-fifths of which is directly attributable to the actions they requested to prevent the decrease in physician payments. Is that right? I don't think so.

Let's look at another reason the Part B premium increased so much this year.

Congress increased payments made on behalf of beneficiaries who choose a Medicare Advantage plan. The higher payments, like the physician payments, were necessary to preserve access to Medicare Advantage plans and were supported by both Democrats and Republicans.

In a letter to Medicare conferees, several prominent Democratic Senators expressed support for including these higher payments in the final Medicare bill. Senator Kerry, by the way, was a lead cosponsor of an amendment to increase Medicare Advantage funding.

In his floor statement last June, he said:

The Schumer-Santorum-Kerry amendment focuses on protecting

this important option for seniors who have nowhere else to

turn for the quality health care coverage they need.

Senator Kerry went on to state:

I urge my colleagues to support the additional funding that

is urgently needed to strengthen the Medicare+Choice program

for seniors. This should be among our highest priorities in

this year's Medicare debate.

``Among the highest priorities''--that is their nominee for President of the United States. These are the reasons the Medicare premiums went up. It wasn't because of the new Medicare bill. I find it so disingenuous for some of my colleagues to question the premium increase when they, in fact, supported the changes that led to the premium increase. Better medical care and more widespread medical care is being given as a result of the bipartisan work that we did.

There were also six amendments to the Medicare bill introduced by Democratic Senators that, if approved, would have increased the Part B premium even more--six amendments by Democrats that would have increased the Part B premium even more. Yet we hear the persistent minority drumbeat trying to say that this increase was caused by the new Medicare reform bill.

That is pure bunk. The amazing thing is, I guess they don't fully realize it. So I am making this speech to make sure they do realize it and that they understand it. When we hear charges that the new Medicare bill drove up the Part B premium--which as I have noted are largely false--we must also keep in mind the fact that the premium increase will not affect low-income beneficiaries, whose premiums are paid for by the Government.

We must also bear in mind the important fact that the premium also reflects new Medicare coverage for important preventive benefits.

Practically every other American with private health coverage has a wider array of preventive benefits. But Medicare beneficiaries, who could possibly benefit the most from the value of prevention, did not have the benefit of coverage for many of these basic preventive services prior to enactment of the Medicare reform bill.

That didn't make sense. Now Medicare will cover important screenings for cholesterol and diabetes, as well as the initial physical.

Finally, the MMA can save beneficiaries money. Reforms and overpayments for drugs, combined with the new preventive benefits, will lower beneficiaries' out-of-pocket costs by $270 million in 2005.

Beneficiaries deserve to know the facts, not to be fed lines that amount to nothing more than political year potshots. They deserve to know how the new benefit will work, not to be given misleading information that may cause them to forgo learning more about the prescription drug benefit. Quite frankly, I am surprised and dismayed that some who claim to care about seniors and the disabled have unfairly distorted the new law and have spread falsehoods about what it does. To me, their actions are irresponsible and wrong and should be condemned as election year politicking at its very worst.

Beneficiaries deserve much better. I hope my colleagues will think twice about frightening beneficiaries with untruths and distortions. The new Medicare law is a solid attempt to improve some glaring deficits in the Medicare program and should be heralded as what it is: a bipartisan effort to help seniors and the disabled, and not hurt them as some so irresponsibly have charged.

How anybody can say that this new Medicare bill will not help seniors when we are going to spend an additional $400 billion plus over the next number of years that would never have been there without this bill is beyond me. I don't see how anybody can stand up with a straight face and make some of the comments and charges that have been made. In all honesty, it is hard to believe some of these charges. And in the process, we have taken care of more of the poor than was even contemplated by the prior attempts to reform Medicare. The poor are very much helped by that bill. Frankly, virtually everybody is very much helped by that bill. I personally think it is despicable to come on the floor or to speak in public and try to scare our seniors so they don't know what to do. Seniors can have confidence in CMS and have some confidence in the Medicare bill which will be for their benefit.

Judicial Nominations

Mr. President, I rise to speak about four fine judicial nominees that deserve votes before we adjourn this Congress. Three of these four nominees received the ABA's highest rating, unanimously ``well-qualified.'' The Judiciary Committee has thoroughly reviewed their background and qualifications and determined that they would all make fine Federal judges. All four were reported favorably by the committee, three of the four by unanimous vote. They have put forward their good names for the Senate's evaluation, and they deserve our attention before we adjourn. We owe them no less.

Susan Neilson has been waiting a long time for a vote. She was nominated to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, for a seat that has been classified as a judicial emergency, on November 8, 2001. That is nearly 3 years that she has been waiting for this body to consider her nomination. Mr. President, it is time.

Judge Neilson is an outstanding candidate for this post. She received a unanimous ``well qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association. She graduated with high distinction from the University of Michigan Honors College in 1977 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Judge Neilson received her law degree, cum laude, from Wayne State University School of Law in 1980 and was a member of its law review. Following her graduation, Judge Neilson began her legal career as an associate at the Detroit law firm of Dickinson Wright, one of the oldest and most prestigious law firms in Michigan. She became a partner in the firm in 1986 and continued to practice there until 1991. While in private practice, Judge Neilson appeared in court on a regular basis and handled hundreds of cases at both the trial and appellate levels.

In 1991, Governor John M. Engler appointed her to the 3rd Judicial Circuit Court of Michigan, the largest trial court in the State. She was reelected to that post in 1992, 1996, and 2002. She currently is assigned to the criminal division of the court.

Despite her busy schedule, Judge Neilson makes it a priority to give back to the community. She is active in many service organizations including the Catholic Lawyers Society and the Worship Commission of her church. She served as President of her local chapter of Soroptimist International, a worldwide organization working to promote human rights and the status of women.

Judge Neilson is also a prolific writer. She has written numerous articles and was co-editor and author of Michigan Civil Procedure, a two-volume treatise on all areas of Michigan civil practice. This treatise was selected by the Michigan Judicial Institute for purchase on behalf of every trial court judge in the State of Michigan and received the ``Plain English Award'' from the State Bar of Michigan. I also understand that she is currently working on a new book.

Judge Neilson is imminently qualified for the Sixth Circuit. I commend her to my colleagues and urge them to vote for her confirmation.

Micaela Alvarez, nominated to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas, is an experienced attorney and trial judge. She began her legal career in 1989 as an Associate Litigation Attorney at the law firm of Atlas & Hall, in McAllen, TX. Her practice focused primarily on insurance defense, employment defense, and wrongful discharge defense. Judge Alvarez later joined the Law Offices of Ronald G. Hole where she expanded her practice to include medical malpractice defense and products liability. In 1995, she was appointed to the 139th Judicial District Court in Hidalgo County, TX, where she served as presiding judge.

Judge Alvarez brings a wealth of experience to the Federal bench, and she will make an excellent addition to the Southern District of Texas.

Keith Starrett, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, is an exceptional nominee with a long and distinguished record both as an attorney and judge. He is a graduate of Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi School of Law. He is an experienced litigator who has represented plaintiffs, defendants, debtors, creditors, and criminal defendants in both

State and Federal courts. While in private practice he litigated over 400 cases. In 1992 he was appointed to the Fourteenth Circuit Court of Mississippi where he presently serves. The American Bar Association unanimously gave him its highest rating of ``well qualified.'' The Mississippi Bar Association awarded him with the Judicial Excellence Award in 2003. Undoubtedly, he will be a wonderful addition to the Federal bench.

Christopher Boyko has been nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Judge Boyko brings 25 years of legal experience and sterling credentials to the Federal bench. He has served as a judge for the Court of Common Pleas in Cuyahoga County for 8 years. He also served on the Parma Municipal Court before joining the Court of Common Pleas.

Prior to his appointment to the bench, Judge Boyko built a successful law practice, which he coupled with his duties as assistant prosecutor, prosecutor, and director of law, for the city of Parma. He also served as the legal adviser to the local police department's S.W.A.T. team, as a statutory legal counsel for the Parma School District, and as chief legal counsel for the Southwest Enforcement Bureau.

The ABA has recognized this seasoned nominee with a unanimously ``Well Qualified'' rating. In addition, he has received Martindale- Hubbell's highest rating of ``AV.'' He has the distinction of having been elected to ``Who's Who in American Law,'' and the Judicial Candidates Rating Coalition, in Cleveland, unanimously gave him an ``excellent'' rating for 2004.

Mr. President, I think that you will agree that these four fine nominees possess the credentials, reputation, and experience to be Federal judges. I am convinced that each of them would serve with distinction.

Now, let me take a minute to dispense with the old canard that judges aren't confirmed late in an election year. When Senator Thurmond chaired this committee, during a Presidential election year, the Senate confirmed six Circuit Judges after August 1--one in August and five in October. In addition, 12 district judges were confirmed in September and October of that year. So I will follow that Thurmond rule and continue to bring the President's nominees to the committee for action and to the Senate for consideration.

I am only too well aware of the unprecedented and constitutionally suspect tactics my colleagues across the aisle have used to filibuster circuit court judges. So I am under no illusion that Judge Neilson will be given the up-or-down vote that the Constitution requires. Certainly this is unlikely to occur in the closing days of this session. Be that as it may, I hope that the devious tactic of filibustering circuit judges will in no way prevent the Senate from confirming three superbly qualified district judges. I hope they will be included in the final Executive Calendar package along with four commissioners for the Sentencing Commission and four U.S. Attorneys.

I understand time is precious. We are in the waning hours of this Congress, and still much is left to be done. We should not, however, in our haste to adjourn, neglect consideration of all these outstanding nominees. They deserve our attention. They deserve our time. I call on the leadership on both sides of the aisle to move these nominations and urge my colleagues to vote for the confirmation of all these distinguished nominees.

Mr. President, in accordance with the unanimous consent request agreed to earlier, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I object for the moment, but I will come back to it.

Mr. President, I withdraw my objection.

Speaking for our side, is the Senator asking for 5 minutes from our remaining time?

Mr. President, I will use our time to discuss a couple of subjects, one of which relates to the present debate or dialog, and that is the position of our respective parties on behalf of the interests of the American people. After that, I will talk about the terrible attack that took place in Egypt against a group of Israelis and what the world is saying about events such as that.

First, what we heard in the debate a little while ago was the fact that the reason, as I heard it--and I am willing to be corrected if wrong--that one of the reasons we went to war in Iraq was a resolution that was passed in this body, in the Senate--talking about the resolution that was passed in October 2002--giving the President authority to send our troops to Iraq. That hardly was the reason we did that.

We did not mandate in this body that we go to war. What we said was: OK, Mr. President, if you know about those weapons of mass destruction, and if you know that al-Qaida has a presence there, and if all of these threats are directed at world peace and a threat to the security of the United States, we give you permission, we give you support to send them.

We never relinquished our support for the troops in Iraq, nobody here, not even the most tranquil of the personalities. Everybody said: Take care of our troops. Senator John Kerry stood up and said: Take care of our troops.

I was not in the Senate at that particular moment, but I have been back here again since the beginning of 2003. There was never a moment when it was suggested that we would not support our troops and their needs, the basic things.

So when we were told that all these threats were there, that we have to do it to protect ourselves, that 9/11 was fresh in our memory, that we felt we had to get out there before we had another 9/11 thrust down our throats that would kill more Americans, we said: OK, let's do it. Let's go ahead and make sure that we wipe out these things that menace America's population, that menace American citizens.

That was the reason we did it. Then we found out that we were duped. That is what happened. We were fooled. We were misled, and now everybody knows it. Yes, Senator John Kerry had the same information President Bush had. The fact is, Senator John Kerry did not manipulate the information, did not make sure that people were identifying tubes and pipes as part of the threat that Iraq raised to us and to world peace.

Much of that was, if not fabricated, tainted, biased. Some of our most distinguished Government servants, our distinguished Secretary of State Colin Powell, made such a convincing argument in front of the U.N. and in front of the world at large about where these weapons were stored, how they were transported, and so forth. And all of us--I speak for myself--have faith in Secretary Powell, a distinguished soldier, great statesman, brilliant man, honest--honest. He later on said in a public release that he, too, was deceived by the information that he received.

Now when we try to suggest that we were parties to the origination of this war, it is an outrage. I felt, too--and I was not in the Senate, but I said it publicly, people were still hearing me occasionally--that I supported the thrust to go to war in Iraq because of the ominous reports we had.

It was not that we wanted to throw American lives in there. We are now about to deploy some 1,500 Guard people from New Jersey. I hope that tomorrow I will be able to be there to wish them well when they depart New Jersey. It reminds me of a long time ago when I also was transported out of New Jersey to a ship up in Massachusetts so I could go to Europe during the war. I want to be there tomorrow. They are all concerned. They are frightened. The families are frightened. Their spouses are frightened. Their kids are frightened. We are in a mess, we are in a quagmire, and the world is looking at us and listening to the messages that say we are doing well, we are prepared for the Iraqi takeover fully for the next election.

We hear, well, maybe the next election cannot be held as we thought it might be in the whole country, maybe only part of it, maybe just the part that we think is friendly.

The assertion when Prime Minister Allawi was here, the interim Prime Minister who made his speech at the joint session, that we should be assured--I heard President Bush say we should be assured that things are on the right track. In other words, do not believe what one sees in front of them. No, no. Listen to what we tell people coming from the administration. Listen to the fabrications. Listen to the stories about Senator John Kerry's lack of courage, unwillingness to support the troops. There is an unwillingness that stands largely in our sight about an unwillingness to serve when the country was sending its people to Vietnam, where 58,000 of them perished on the battlefield. For Vice President Cheney, he said, and I quote him, I think--if I do not quote him, I am sure about the general content of what he said, and that is: I had other priorities. He received almost a half dozen deferments.

President Bush's service, yes, I know, it was 30 years ago, and what does it matter? It matters because it shows character. That is what it does. It shows character. President Bush did not want to be over there where the fighting was tough, where one's life

might be at risk. No, no. He managed to have a sweetheart duty and never went to war when he could very well have, with the bravado that is now exhibited. He could have gone to war and stood alongside people like John Kerry and Max Cleland, those who paid a price for their loyalty to country.

I saw a commercial running on TV this morning. I found it shocking. Widows, apparently, whose husbands perished in the Korean War were saying they did not trust John Kerry's judgment because, why? It is because the Bush administration and the political operation there has succeeded in poisoning the minds of Americans.

Do not believe the fact that Senator Kerry got three Purple Hearts, deservedly, oh, no. They want to make the judgment from the White House. Those judgments were made by the medical department of the U.S. military, and they were confirmed by the highest authorities in the military.

The medals for valor, the Bronze Star and Silver Star--I served in Europe during the war and I know what it took to get those medals. It took heroism. I did not get one of those medals. I did my job the best I could. But John Kerry earned his medals, and they are being questioned to try to show he is unpatriotic.

The fact that he rebelled against the purpose of the war in Vietnam after he served, boy, what kind of backbone that takes. The man knows the policy is wrong, and it turned out to be wrong, and it turned out to be a terrible loss of life, but he fought the battle. He exposed himself to danger, to death. He did it. What kind of courage that is. That is not the kind of courage we saw from a young George W. Bush, not at all, or from Vice President Cheney. I think Attorney General Ashcroft also had a few deferments. There is a list of them.

I think the race against former Senator Max Cleland, who lost two legs and most of an arm and struggles to get out of bed every day and do what he has to--he is a courageous man and he lost because he was portrayed as soft on defense. He was portrayed as soft on defense by those who also had Vietnam deferments.

The country was in a rage, with demonstrations all over the place, but John Kerry took up the challenge and went to war.

So now when I hear these spurious assertions that one cannot trust John Kerry, well, I will say, if I was lost in the woods and had a choice between John Kerry or George W. Bush getting me out, I know John Kerry can make a decision. I know he can find his way. I know he can survive when the going is tough. I know he had the guts to reach into the water to pull out one of his companions who was likely to drown and saved his life. The man says so all over the place.

I think the country would be far better off if we followed John Kerry's courageous character and tried to find a way out of the mess. We are almost a year and a half after President Bush declared the mission was accomplished. It is almost 18 months ago but more importantly it was more than 800 lives ago. We have now lost over 1,000 people and more than 800 of them since May of a year ago, and they are still trying to portray what the President said as gospel: mission accomplished.

He said, bring them on. Boy, that one got to me because I know what it is like to be worried about the enemy. They shoot at you. Bring them on? I never wanted to see a German uniform, I can say that. I never wanted to see more of the enemy. I wanted to make sure I did my duty. I wanted to make sure that I got through. I wanted to make sure I got back to my widowed mother and my kid sister. That is what I wanted to do. So we never said, bring them on. I have never heard of another Commander in Chief say, bring them on.

I do not want to elongate this discussion, but I must say when I see these character assassination ads that run on television regularly, I do not hear them talking seriously about the job recovery, no, no. Some jobs are newly created but not as many as we lost.

They talk on the other side about how John Kerry is going to raise taxes. Outrageous, the thought that he had voted to increase taxes. No, they would rather vote to increase the deficit and to increase our indebtedness. That is what they want to vote for. Let America owe so much money that we may one day tip the world's economy into a recession mode. That was said by former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, a very reliable voice. Both Republicans and Democrats had faith in Bob Rubin. He said if this indebtedness continues to grow, we could upset the world's economy, not just ours. And I believe it. Anybody who has ever been in business, anybody who has ever paid bills, anybody who has ever lived in a serious adult life knows that indebtedness is a killer. But the administration managed to turn things around. It wasn't my doing, I can tell you. I tried to help. When I left here, we were having surpluses, a couple of hundred billion dollars in surplus with forecasts of a $5 trillion surplus at the end of 10 years. That has turned around. Instead, we expect about a $7 trillion deficit after 10 years.

We have managed to take this economy and turn it on its ear, borrow from Social Security, threaten Medicare with insolvency in 15 years. By 2019, the expectation is that Medicare will go belly-up at that time. Social Security? We are borrowing everything available there. Why don't we tell the people the truth? Why don't we talk about those issues in depth?

In the debates coming up tonight and another one next week, I hope the focus will be on what kind of plans each of the candidates has. What kind of plans has President George W. Bush for getting us out of Iraq? What kind of plans does he have for getting this economy back into surplus performances year after year? What kind of plans does he have to fulfill the obligation he took on with the Leave No Child Behind Act? It is one thing to enact legislation, to create law; it is another to pay for it. When it comes to paying for it, that didn't happen.

When you think about these tax cuts, we were accused before by one of our distinguished colleagues on the other side of trying to create class warfare. That is the cheesiest thing I have ever heard. Class warfare? I happen to be in a class of income earners who did very well in America, I and two other kids who came from the same poor neighborhood that I did. Their father worked in the same mill my father worked in, and my father died at 43 from an occupationally hazardous environment. We built a huge business, a huge business. We went from nothing, three of us together, kids in their 20s, and we built a business that today employs 40,000 people. That is the old-fashioned American way. I made some money with this, as did many others who succeeded in business. We did it the old-fashioned way.

Class warfare? I come from working-class stock, and I am proud of it. But because I have been successful, because this country was the enabler that permitted me to be successful, as everybody else who has been successful here, I say I don't need a tax cut. It will not do me any more good. I can't buy more, I can't eat more, I can't do more, and I want it distributed among the ordinary people who work every day, struggling the way I remember my mother and my father did just to keep things on an even keel, to provide clothing, to provide food, to provide decent shelter. I lived in the back of the store for a lot of years, I can tell you, four of us in one room. Nobody wants to hear those stories anymore. The Great Depression is a thing of the past. But we do understand when people want to rise above their circumstances and educate their children and make sure they have a chance at a job, a career, and a family where they can afford the ordinary things of life--not the luxuries.

So we can't talk about class warfare. If there is class warfare, boy, it is over there. They say take the upper class, give them a lot of money back, and don't worry about those poor people or those who now have two jobs, who now find their purchasing power is substantially reduced, who now are worried about what it is going to cost for health care and who are worried about pensions.

I was at a hearing the other day on the financial condition of the airlines. What they want to do is to get rid of their pension obligation. If you work 26 years for an airline, a factory, or a company, work 27 years, count on your pension, and wake up one day and find out it is not there, what do you do? You are 55, 60, 65 years of age. These are terrible blights. I hope we are going to see something of the truth.

Terrorist Bombing In Egypt

Mr. President, I want to discuss another subject. I want to discuss the news we heard today of a raid in Egypt aimed at a bunch of Israelis who were there on vacation--brutalizing, suicide bombers, the whole thing. An Israeli official says maybe it was al-Qaida. Obviously it was some mad group.

What I see lately is disturbing trends regarding the various criticisms of Israel. We have seen two prominent church bodies decide to take away their investments from Israel because of Israel's--maybe it is because Israel wants to defend itself, to keep its people alive. Maybe it is because Israel wants to live as any other country--in peace, without torture, without suicide bombers ripping up the society.

The Israelis have lost over 1,000 lives since 2000. Think of it in terms of America and the numerical equivalents because their population is so much smaller. One thousand citizens of Israel would be the same as 48,000 Americans lost to terror. Heaven forbid it, but that is the truth of the matter.

Israel has taken appropriate measures to defend itself against the terrorist threat it faces every day. Israel has made tough choices to defend her people. But now we are seeing these respected, mainstream church organizations contemplating divestment campaigns against the State of Israel. I wish they would talk about ending the violence that has been the pattern there for so long. There is so much violence and strife in the region, not dissimilar to that which we are facing in Iraq.

There is a trend. You can see it in the talk of a divestment campaign--blame Israel first. The innocents killed by terrorists are ignored, but there is a disproportionate focus on civilian victims of Israeli military operations against terrorists. To blame Israel for the turmoil and violence in the Middle East is outrageous. Review some of the recent history in the Middle East, events that had nothing to do with Israel. Yet when I was in Syria with other Senators, we heard the President of Syria, President Assad, say all the problems that exist in the area are because of Israel.

Millions died in the Iran-Iraq war. It had nothing to do with Israel. In Sudan, Arab Muslims are murdering thousands of Black Christians-- nothing to do with Israel. Iraq invading Kuwait in 1991 and threatening Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with Israel. The Taliban took control of Afghanistan and severely oppressed women and gave safe haven to terrorists--nothing to do with Israel. None of these events had anything to do with Israel, yet somehow or other the region's problems are Israel's fault.

How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, with that, I will close my comments and hope the world takes a look at what is causing the problems within Israel and her right to defend herself.

I yield the floor.

Quorum Call

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. President, how much of the 20 minutes remains?

Mr. President, if the Senator from New Jersey would agree, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes, and I would, of course, agree that he could have an additional 5 minutes, if we could modify that previous unanimous consent request.

No, 5 minutes in addition to my 11 minutes, and then my request would be that you would have an additional 5 minutes, for a total of 25.

Under the same parameters as the unanimous consent request of the Senator from Illinois, I ask to extend the 20 minutes to 25 minutes on each side. I think I can do what I need to do if I have about 15 minutes.

If the Senator from Nevada will yield, it is only a minute, but a minute is a minute. I think I had 11, so an additional 5 would be 16 minutes.

I thank the Senator from Nevada. I don't mean to quibble over a minute. On the other hand, the Rams would probably have won the Super Bowl a couple of years ago if they had had another minute, so one never knows.

And the Senator knows, I also served in the House and came from there more recently than he did. I do guard my minutes jealously.

The Senator has had a similar experience as I have. Having prepared a nice set of remarks on issues about which he feels passionately and gone to the floor manager in the House and asked how much time he could have and being told: Well, a couple of other people have expressed a desire for time; how about 90 seconds.

I thank the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Nevada for their flexibility. I will proceed with my 16 minutes as best I can.

Mr. President, I share the observation of the Senator from Texas that our friend from Illinois is certainly very angry and seems to be rather negative about the prospects for America. He would probably say he is negative about the administration, but he seems to describe an economic and foreign policy picture that is very bleak. I don't think it reflects reality or what most Americans believe is reality. I am certain it does not reflect the views or the policies of the administration.

I do think it is important to get some of these charges correct. I don't have time to go through everything. I want to talk about a couple of things that have interested me. I don't generally get up here to participate in these debates that are clearly part of the Presidential campaign. I am here to try and do things. I have an agenda I am trying to accomplish, and others share it.

I was distressed when the Senator from California referred to some of the remarks of the Senator from Utah and said: Talk about flimflam, talk about misleading the seniors.

That was with reference to the Senator's comments regarding the Medicare prescription drug bill, which I happened to rather like and I supported. It is already helping thousands of Missouri seniors, and I don't think that is flimflam. I will get to that in a minute.

The Senator from Texas correctly pointed out that when the whole issue of jobs lost over the last few years comes up, it is important to keep in mind, before blaming President Bush, that President Bush was not in office when the recession began. Americans all across the country understand there is something called a business cycle, an economic cycle in the country. I don't tend to blame Presidents for recessions. I blame them if they have long-term policies that depress the economy over the long term.

I agree with the Senator from Texas, if you want economic growth--and we should all want that because we cannot do anything we want to without growth; we cannot fund education, we cannot have good health care, or a strong defense, and we cannot have retirement security without growth.

How do you get growth? Our Democrat friends believe you get it by raising taxes on people. What the Senator from Illinois said--they didn't used to think that. There was a time not so long ago when there was a bipartisan agreement that, if you wanted growth, one of the things you did was cut taxes. That is not some kind of modern conservative philosophy. That is what John Maynard Keynes thought; that is what FDR thought; that is what LBJ and JFK thought. But they don't believe that today. They are entitled to

their beliefs, but they are not entitled to blame President Bush for a recession that was in effect and had started before he assumed office and was magnified by events over which he had no control--the attack on 9/11 and corporate fraud.

I don't blame any President for that either, but it didn't happen on President Bush's watch. He took steps to get the economy moving. He proposed a tax cut, which we passed despite the opposition of many-- although not all--Members of the other side of the aisle. He proposed tort reform, restrictions on abusive lawsuits, which I think is the most important thing we can do to get the economy going. That was filibustered by the other side. You can filibuster if you want to, but you cannot filibuster and then blame somebody else for not getting things done.

You heard from the Senator from Illinois that energy prices are too high. I am on the Energy Committee. It is one of my priorities to get energy prices down. We put together a really good Energy bill. We got it all the way through the process, with one vote left. We could not take that vote. Do you know why? It was filibustered. Is it President Bush's fault that the Energy bill was filibustered--a pro-production, pro-jobs, pro-growth Energy bill?

Many Members on the other side joined us in trying to defeat the filibuster, but there were not enough. We lost three-quarters of the other party. Senator Kerry voted for the filibuster.

Iraq. We hear over and over again that there was no reason, no plan, no coalition. There was a reason and it goes back to 1991. I remember during the 1990s, when people criticized the first President Bush because he didn't get rid of Hussein. He was trying to appeal to the U.N., and he left Saddam Hussein in power.

I was in the House all through the 1990s on the Armed Services Committee. This man and his regime was an organic threat to the interests and security of the United States of America. Everybody saw it. He had attacked his neighbors twice, lobbed missiles all over the country. He used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. We cannot permit an anti-American tyrant to take control of that part of the world.

I believe very strongly that President Clinton was moving toward a resolution of that when he left office. Look at the statements he made then and the statements he has made since then. Even if there had not been a 9/11, we would have had to do something about Saddam Hussein and, no, we could not wait longer. How long are you supposed to wait? At what point do arguments in favor of waiting really become just a disguise for doing nothing and not wanting to admit it?

No plan. The plan was to remove Saddam Hussein and replace him, with the help of the Iraqi people, with a liberal democracy that would be an ally against terrorism. Saddam Hussein is gone. We have had the provisional convention. We have a provisional government in place. We are going to have elections in January. Prime Minister Allawi stood on the dais in the House and said that. He also said: We are going to stand with you. He said--I remarked on this--``as you have stood with us, we will stand with you in the battle against terrorism.''

No coalition. Look, this kind of a military effort, no matter where it occurs, and whether the U.N. supports it or not, is going to be 95- percent led and executed by forces of the United States of America. In the air war in Bosnia, which everybody supported, even though there was no U.N. resolution in support of it, 95 to 97 percent of the airpower was American.

There is one very important coalition partner--the Iraqis. It is incorrect to say that 90 percent of the casualties have been American. We have taken casualties, but they are taking them too, and they will take more and more as they assume responsibility for this war.

The Medicare prescription drug bill. The Senator from Illinois says it is a terrible political conspiracy on the part of the President to delay the full implementation of the bill until after November 2004. Nobody's proposal would have been implemented before November 2004. I didn't like that. I complained about that. I thought, well, in 1965 they did the whole Medicare bill in 8 months. Why does it take so long to set up one new feature? Everybody believed that. There were not any of their proposals that would have taken effect before November of 2004. I don't like that, but that is not a political conspiracy. I don't know if the Senator from Texas heard that. I had not. You cannot bargain.

Look, this is the reason for the Medicare prescription drug bill--and I have 200,000 senior citizens in Missouri who have no insurance for their prescription drugs. They are paying not only out of pocket, which is the first thing that is wrong, but they are paying the highest price because when they walk into the pharmacy, it is them against the big insurance companies. The whole idea is to get them into a pool because if you are part of a big pool, you have economies of scale and prices will be lower. That is what this bill does. I don't have time to go into length on this issue.

The bargaining with the prescription drug companies is going to be done by the organizations that put the pool together--like we have discount cards, one, for example, that AARP puts out, and AARP bargains with the prescription drug companies and you buy the AARP discount card and you get the discount. People are getting that discount today.

If I go to the car dealer and buy an automobile, I may bargain with the dealer about the price of the car. I am not going to bargain about the price of the tires on the automobile. That doesn't mean there was no bargaining over the price of the tires; it means the automobile manufacturer did it. The difference between us and them on this--and it is a legitimate difference--is they want a one-size-fits-all, Government-dominated program where the Government would directly do the bargaining with the drug company.

There are worse things than that. We thought ours was better. We wanted a number of different options for seniors, where the people who organized the options would bargain with the prescription drug companies. It is a difference of philosophy because they are more trusting of the Government than we are. It is not some kind of conspiracy with the drug companies.

How much time do I have left?

I think I can do it in 6 minutes.

This is the reason I got up. President Bush actually has a plan to lower health insurance premiums. It is a pretty good plan. It is my plan. He kind of got it from me and Senator Snowe and Senator Bond and a couple of us over here, those of us who have worked on this since 1997 when I was in the House. I don't like people saying my plan is not a plan.

President Bush wants two things. He wants medical liability reform-- reform of frivolous lawsuits in medicine. In Missouri, they know about this because we are losing doctors because malpractice insurance premiums are going up due to a problem with frivolous lawsuits.

The Senator from Texas told me they just passed a bill to reform that and their health insurance premiums are going down substantially, and I know this is happening all over the country. If you cut that risk of the frivolous lawsuits, where people are recovering many more times the value of actual injuries, insurance premiums will go down. President Bush wants that. We didn't get that here because it was filibustered. His opponent in the election supported the filibuster.

How can you say he doesn't have a plan? You can say you disagree with the plan if you want--you filibustered it. The plan I have that the President supports is called the association health plan.

Most of the people who do not have health insurance in the country are working people. They work for small businesses or are farmers. They cannot get health insurance because it is more expensive to buy health insurance as part of a small group than it is as a big national pool.

There is a reason everybody else who has health insurance, except people who work for small businesses, get in as part of a national pool. Think about that for a minute. You work for a big company, you are part of a big labor union plan, Medicare, a national pool, Medicaid, a national pool. You are a Federal employee, retired Federal employee, retired military, you get it as

part of a national pool because there are economies of scale to insuring a large group. Administrative costs are less, and the bargaining power is more. You get more for less. You get better quality health insurance at less cost and no sacrifice of access or quality.

What I would like to do and the President would like to do is allow small businesses to do the same, to get health insurance through their trade association, so that my brother--and I have mentioned him on the floor before--who has a little restaurant in St. Louis--and I encourage anybody within the sound of my voice to patronize it; great hamburgers, Mr. President--he would like to get health insurance for his people as part of a big group. He would get it then. He is an employee of his corporation, his little business. He has to buy it on the small group market. But what if he could join the National Restaurant Association and become part of a 10-, 20-, 30-person pool and get health insurance on the same terms as if he worked for Anheuser-Busch headquartered in St. Louis or Hallmark headquartered in Kansas City. The health insurance premiums would go down 30 percent, at no cost to the taxpayers because it is not a Government program. It empowers small businesses to do what big businesses can do.

We hear over there how they do not like big business. They are not supporting this. It has passed in the House year after year with bipartisan support. The President supports it; his opponent does not.

Mr. President, look, there are differences between President Bush and Senator Kerry. The nature of our elections, unfortunately, is our candidates--and I can assure voters of this--are never as bad as they make each other out to be. They are both better people than you would believe from the commercials, but there are big differences of opinion. And I am proud of the fact that with the support of many people on the other side of the aisle, my party in leading this Congress and my party's leader at the White House has proposed a series of measures that empower small businesses and farmers that create jobs, that lower health insurance costs in innovative ways that will not cost the taxpayers a lot of money, that has built up our defenses, has taken the fight to the terrorists and has stood with respect but clearly for the commonsense cultural values of this country.

I would say in each of those areas, there is a big difference between my party's nominee for President and the other party's nominee, as much as I respect him and as often as I have worked with him on various issues in the past. With the greatest respect to the Senator from California and the Senator from Illinois, that ``ain't'' flimflam. That is not misleading anybody. That is the way it is. If we are going to debate out here on the floor regarding the Presidential election, we ought to at least get it right.

I yield back the remainder of my time.