Pharmaceutical Advertising and Prudent Purchasing Act

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I would like to say a few words about the nomination of John Bolton. The Presiding Officer is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and we spent a good deal of time listening to testimony on the President's nomination of Mr. Bolton to be Permanent Representative at the United Nations.

On the face of it, he is as well qualified for this position as any person who has ever been nominated for the position. He has a distinguished background, confirmed by this body, I believe, four times, 4 years ago as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. He was Assistant Secretary for International Organizations under the first President Bush, for whom I served. He was assistant to Attorney General of the Department of Justice in the late 1980s. That would be during the Reagan administration. That is a big job. I believe he was the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He was Assistant Administrator for Program Policy Coordination for USAID in 1982 and 1983. He was general counsel for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

He has the kind of academic record all of us would like to have: summa cum laude from Yale, a JDL from Yale Law School.

He comes from an enormously distinguished background. As has often been pointed out on this floor and in committee hearings, he has some solid accomplishments, including leading the American efforts to repeal the resolution at the United Nations which equated Zionism with racism and his work with the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 through the U.N. Security Council. When former U.S. Secretary of State Jim Baker was asked to help the United Nations in its work in western Sahara, Secretary Baker, who is known for choosing exceptionally talented people to work with him, asked John

Bolton to work with him in the western Sahara in the 1990s pro bono. He designed the current administration's proliferation security initiative under which more than 60 nations now share intelligence and take action to stop the transfer of dangerous weapons.

So I was not one bit surprised when Mr. Bolton made an impressive appearance before the Foreign Relations Committee on the first day of our testimony. He demonstrated command of the issues facing the United Nations. He got a lot of intense questioning, as he should from Senators, for such an important position. The questioning lasted for more than 7 hours. He was calm and collected. He answered the questions with great skill and accuracy, I thought, and he focused on the need for reform of the United Nations.

He brought with him for that testimony strong support of former Secretaries of State Jim Baker, Larry Eagleberger, Al Hague, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and endorsements from more than 50 former ambassadors. I was with one of those ambassadors a few weeks ago, a man very well known in this body, a former Senator and majority leader, Howard Baker. Howard Baker has just returned from 4 years as Ambassador to Japan. He did a tremendous job there, as everyone expected him to, but he remarked to me privately and said I was free to say it publicly--in fact, he volunteered the information--about how he had dealt with Secretary Bolton during those 4 years in Tokyo, these last 4 years, from time to time, and how impressed he was with him and how much he enjoyed working with him. He liked him. He said he spoke frankly, and Senator Baker said he thought John Bolton would make a good ambassador to the United Nations.

The second day of hearings that the Presiding Officer and I were privileged to be a part of was a little different. I was, frankly, disappointed by what I heard. One of the witnesses was called forward, the former Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research, and he presented evidence about how John Bolton had, in his words, chewed out intelligence analysts in the State Department.

Mr. Ford was mad about that. He didn't like the fact that Mr. Bolton had chewed out people on down the line and he came to us and told us so. He was a convincing witness. He was believable because he didn't overstate his case and the information he gave us was information I would rather not have known about the next ambassador to the United Nations. I am sure Mr. Bolton was disappointed, perhaps even embarrassed to hear it.

But Mr. Ford did not say, in the case that we were talking about, that Mr. Bolton was misusing or compromising intelligence. In fact, Mr. Ford himself said, ``In this particular case''--the one Mr. Ford was led to complain about, ``there wasn't politicization of the intelligence.'' Mr. Ford was very clear on that point in his testimony to the committee.

In other interviews conducted by our Foreign Relations Committee staff since that time, another issue was raised about a disagreement about intelligence. One of Mr. Bolton's subordinates who was on detail from the CIA sent a report to the Deputy Secretary of State for review and was unhappy that another bureau had put a memo on top of that report that said the report was incorrect. That certainly sounds like a lot of inside baseball to people outside of Washington, and it sounds like a simple disagreement to me, a disagreement over intelligence that is quite common, from what even Mr. Ford said. In this case, there is no evidence Mr. Bolton was even aware of the dispute. So, again, no evidence of politicization of intelligence. Rather, it appeared that different staff members were arguing for their own point of view, which should not surprise anyone around here.

There have been a variety of other charges and suggestions. Mr. Bolton has had the pleasure that many Presidential nominees had. I was once a Presidential nominee and went through a confirmation process when the Senate was in the hands of the Democrats. So they made sure that everything about me was pretty well known and explained. They took time to do it. I was as polite and happy as I could be. No one enjoys all of that, but it serves its purpose, and it served its purpose with Mr. Bolton as well.

In the end, it is my judgment, after attending the hearings, reading the testimony, conferring with others who have known Mr. Bolton over time, that only one charge against John Bolton appears to have any substance. John Bolton has been rude to staff members who are below him in the bureaucracy. As I said, I imagine he is embarrassed by that. I didn't like to hear it. Perhaps he deserves to be embarrassed by those charges and perhaps he has even learned a lesson. But what I heard hasn't changed my vote, even though it might change Mr. Bolton's ways of dealing with people with whom he works.

How significant is such a charge, that he was rude to people in the bureaucracy? As has been mentioned by many others in this body, if that were the standard for remaining in the Senate we would all have a hard time getting a quorum. There are regularly occasions when busy Senators eager to make their own point are brusque--with staff members, even shout at colleagues. In fact, the shouting was so loud in one business meeting of our Foreign Relations Committee by some of the Senators I could barely hear the charges against Mr. Bolton.

That is not attractive. I do not endorse it. It has even caused me to think back about times that I may have become angry or brusque or impatient or startled in dealing with a staff member or another person, and I have always regretted it when I have and it has made me redouble my efforts to make sure I swallow my pride more quickly and think about what I say and not do that anymore. It is not good conduct. It is not good business. But just how significant is this?

Here is what former Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger had to say about it a couple of weeks ago in the Washington Post. This deserves special attention.

Larry Eagleburger was Secretary of State for the first President Bush. But, in a way, he was more than that. Larry Eagleburger had 27 years in the Foreign Service. We hear a lot of times that a football player is a football player's player, or a man is a man's man, or a woman is a woman's woman. Larry Eagleburger is a Foreign Service Officer's Secretary of State. He had and has enormous respect from those men and women who put their lives on the line daily around the world and in the United States in support of our diplomacy, our foreign policy, and our country.

Here is what Larry Eagleburger had to say about John Bolton in an op- ed in the Washington Post:

``As to the charge that Bolton has been tough on

superordinates,'' Secretary Eagleburger said, ``I can say

that only in more than a decade of association with him in

the State Department I never saw or heard anything to support

such a charge, nor do I see anything wrong with challenging

intelligence analysts on their findings. They can, as recent

history demonstrates, make mistakes. And they must be

prepared to defend their findings under intense questioning.

If John pushed too hard or dressed down subordinates, he

deserves criticism but it hardly merits a vote against

confirmation when balanced against his many

accomplishments.''

That is Larry Eagleburger, the Foreign Service officer's Secretary of State.

Where Larry Eagleburger comes down is where I come down. I believe the benefit of hearing Mr. Ford's testimony may prove to be a little bit of a lesson to Mr. Bolton, and a reminder to the rest of us, us Senators, of how unattractive it is to shout at an associate or unnecessarily dress down a staff member.

I agree with Secretary Eagleburger. John Bolton has a distinguished background and record. He has dedicated himself to improving our country's foreign policy. His action toward subordinates might have been inappropriate. Perhaps he has learned a lesson. But it doesn't cause me to change my vote. I am glad to support him.

This is a critical time for the United Nations. Even the Secretary General acknowledges it is in need of reform. Billions of dollars filtered from the U.N. coffers to Saddam Hussein's pockets in the oil- for-food scandal. Top human rights abusers such as Sudan and Zimbabwe sit on the Human Rights Commission. United Nations peacekeepers in Africa have been found to rape and pillage.

The United Nations has many important roles in the world. I am glad we have them. I want it to work. The President is right in his thinking that we need to take action to help the United Nations reform itself and that a frank-talking, experienced diplomat named John Bolton is an excellent candidate for that commission.

I am pleased to support this nomination. I hope my colleagues will do the same.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I take a few minutes to speak about natural gas prices, the prices at the pump, blue-collar workers, farmers, and homeowners.

The reason I do that is because the Senate Energy Committee earlier today did a good piece of work that I hope the American people understand.

By a virtually unanimous vote, 21 to 1, the committee, after 5 months of work, reported to this body what I hope will be called the Clean Energy Act of 2005.

I suppose people outside of the Senate get tired of hearing Senators compliment one another, but I do that today because this would not have happened had it not been for the leadership of Chairman Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the ranking Democrat, Jeff Bingaman.

We tried to do this in the last session of Congress in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. We were not able to pass an energy bill to give this country a comprehensive energy policy. Senator Domenici deliberately set out to do things different in this session of Congress. He sat down with Senator Bingaman and the Democratic staff and pledged to work with them, to share everything with them. Senator Domenici visited every member of the committee, Republican and Democrat. We worked together on a variety of major hearings and roundtables. The coal roundtable lasted 3 or 4 hours; one on natural gas lasted 3 or 4 hours. He encouraged a variety of committee members to become involved.

On the Subcommittee on Energy, which I chair, he encouraged me to go ahead and, working with Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota from across the aisle, we came up with a Natural Gas Price Reduction Act of 2005 into which we put ideas to bring down the $7 natural gas price we have today, which is the highest natural gas price in the world. Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman did their best to come up with aggressive ideas.

Sometimes when Members set out to compromise and work together, we end up with nothing because the easiest way to compromise is to do nothing. We can all agree on doing nothing and then we will not have a bold bill. But we are almost fortunate this did not pass last year because this is a more urgent time. The natural gas prices are $7, the highest in the industrial world. We have gone from the lowest in the industrial world to the highest in the industrial world. Prices at the pump are high. We have a million blue-collar manufacturing jobs in the chemical industry alone that will go overseas if we do not find some way to deal with this.

September 11 was a big surprise to our country. Our next big surprise is going to be to our pocketbooks if we do not figure out how to deal with the price of energy. We must figure out how to have a low-cost, adequate, reliable supply of clean energy that is increasingly produced in the United States of America and not overseas. That is our goal.

What is exceptional about this bill, in my view, is that it attacks the problem in a much more comprehensive way than other versions of the bill have. It begins with aggressive conservation. For example, the appliance efficiency standards, which are in this year's bill, are about double the effectiveness of those that were in last year's bill. What does that mean? It simply means that by some estimates these standards could save at peak demand the equivalent of 45 500-megawatt powerplants. If we save building 45 gas powerplants, we decrease the building of natural gas and we tend to lower the price.

There are a good many other examples of aggressive conservation. The second thing the bill does is to begin to change the way we produce electricity. This country produces about 25 percent of all the energy in the world. We use it here. We have 5 to 6 percent of the American people and we produce 25 percent of the energy. Where does that electricity come from? It comes primarily from what we call nonrenewables. It comes from, first, coal; natural gas, second; and nuclear, third. That is 91 percent of it. Now, another 7 percent comes from dams from hydropower and about 2 percent comes from renewable power, which is windmills, solar, biomass, and geothermal.

If we are in competition with China and India for jobs, and an important part of every farm, every manufacturing plant, every home, is the provision of reliable, low-cost, adequate supply of energy, as a practical matter for the next 20 years, most of that will have to come from nuclear power, from coal, and from gas and conservation. That is where it has to come.

Of course, we want to do more with other kinds of energy. For example, I hope the tax committee, when it reports its part of this bill, does something about solar power. We have a renewable tax credit in the law today that does not do much for solar. It encourages powerplants that produce electricity from sun. We almost don't have any of those. What we use solar for is, we put shingles on roofs. We need to give incentives to individual owners to do more of that. That's why I proposed an investment tax credit so individual owners can take advantage of it.

We can do more research and development in biomass and more research and development in geothermal. Even if we do all that we can do for the so-called renewable energies, in the next 20 years--and there is some disagreement about this--in my view, we will still be producing about 95 percent of our power--certainly not less than 90 percent of our power--from nuclear power, from coal, from gas, and hydro.

Now, how many more dams are going to be built in the United States? It is limited. In fact, this bill addresses relicensing of hydro dams. There are a good number of those in Oregon where the Presiding Officer comes from. By the year 2018, according to the National Hydropower Association, there will be 30,000 MW of hydropower plants that need to be relicensed. That's half of the hydropower in the United States. This landmark, bipartisan agreement on hydro relicensing is both urgent and meaningful.

So if one puts all of that aside, if we want to compete for our jobs with people from around the world and if the price of energy is a big part of it, what do we have to do? Nuclear, coal and gas.

Over the last 10 years, almost all of the new powerplants in America that make electricity have been built from natural gas. Now, how wise is that? Here we are with $7 a unit natural gas, the highest price in the industrialized world, our chemical companies, our blue-collar companies using this, some of them as a raw material--Dow Chemical estimates that 40 percent of the cost of its production is energy. Now, if in other parts of the world natural gas is significantly lower, we will have a problem. We will have jobs moving from here to there.

We do not want to make all of our power from natural gas. We do it because we know how to do it and because it is clean. That leaves us with two sources of what we call base load energy, the two things that we must find a way to use and use in a clean way if we want to have a low-cost supply of American-produced energy. One of those is nuclear, and one of those is coal.

Nuclear power is a technology that we invented in the United States, the peaceful uses of the atom. We figured out how to do that in the 1950s. One of the remarkable technological stories in the United States is our Navy and its nuclear-powered vessels. I suppose it is a classified matter exactly how many we have, but we have dozens of them. Some of them have small reactors. Some of them have a couple of big reactors on them.

Since the 1950s, there has never been one single nuclear reactor accident in the U.S. Navy, not one. They are underwater. When they are above water,

they dock at ports all around the United States, and we use them. In our country today, 20 percent of all of our electricity and 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity is produced by nuclear energy. Yet we have not built a nuclear powerplant in the United States since the 1970s, not one new one. How wise is that?

Other countries in the world are. Eighty percent of France's electricity is now produced by nuclear power. Japan, ravaged by nuclear weapons in World War II, relies on nuclear power. They build one or two new plants a year.

We are in competition to keep jobs here. We want clean power. We increasingly want carbon-free power. If 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity is nuclear, then what is keeping us from going ahead? This bill will help us move ahead because it makes it easier for investors to build nuclear powerplants that are safe.

Senator Domenici has come up with an imaginative loan guarantee program that would help launch an entire new generation of nuclear powerplants. Senator Craig, Senator Domenici, and Senator Bingaman have come up with a program that will be based in Idaho for advanced research on how we build lower cost, more effective nuclear powerplants for our country. There is a growing consensus, especially as the Kyoto Treaty and the need to be concerned about global warming persuades more and more people of the importance of capturing carbon, that nuclear power for the next 15 or 20 years is the only logical first step to having a low-cost, adequate, reliable supply of American-produced clean energy. Britain recently has been coming to the same conclusion that nuclear is a necessity for a carbon-free emissions future.

What is the other step? The other step is coal. We instinctively think coal is dirty and it is a source of a lot of problems because of the pollution it causes.

I live 2 miles away from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is the most polluted national park in America. The Knoxville area where I live is one of the most polluted parts of our country. Why is that? There is too much sulphur, too much nitrogen, and too much mercury in the air. Much of that comes from coal-fired powerplants, not just from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which has a number of them in the area, but from all over America. The wind blows the air in, and it backs up against the Great Smoky Mountains, which are the highest mountains in the East, and we breathe the dirty air. So any energy bill has to be a clean energy bill so we can solve our air pollution problems.

There is an even larger issue with coal-fired powerplants. India and China, with their huge economies, a couple of billion more people, are going to be building hundreds of powerplants in the next few years. The conventional coal plant is what many of those plants will be. If India, China, Malaysia, Brazil, and the rest of the world build only conventional coal plants, it will not matter very much what our clean air policies are in the United States because they will produce so many pollutants around the world that when the wind blows them around the world and over the air in the United States, we will suffer from that. So if we solve the problem of how to burn coal in a clean way, then the rest of the world is likely to pick up our innovation and solve their problem because they do not want to have polluted air, either.

So how do we do that? Well, there seems to be a way to do it. We call it coal gasification. There are several technologies. I like to call it clean coal gas because that makes it a little easier to talk about.

The New York Times business section had an excellent article on this on Sunday that Senator Domenici gave to all of us. It talked about this idea of taking coal, turning it into gas, and then burning the gas. That solves a great amount of the pollution. It solves the sulphur, the nitrogen, and the mercury part of the pollution, but it does not solve the carbon part.

Then what we need to try to do is to advance the technology of capturing and sequestering the carbon--in other words, getting rid of the carbon. If we are ever able to do that, we could burn coal as cleanly as we can burn gas, capture the carbon and put it in the ground, and we would never have to worry about the Kyoto Treaty. We would never have to worry about the McCain-Lieberman bill or the Carper-Chafee-Gregg-Alexander bill or caps on carbon because we would not be producing carbon. We would be producing it and recapturing it. Nuclear power is free of it, and clean coal gasification with carbon sequestration captures it and gets rid of it.

The other thing is that we are the Saudi Arabia of coal. We have a 500-year supply of it. So if we can move ahead with nuclear and clean coal gas, we can lower the price of natural gas, and we can have more American-produced energy.

So this legislation begins with aggressive conservation. As I said, the appliance efficiency standards alone would save the building of forty-five 500-megawatt gas plants, but then it begins to change the way we make electricity by research and development in advanced nuclear technology, by the loan guarantee support which could be for nuclear plants of that kind. It also has loan guarantees that I hope would help launch a half dozen coal gasification powerplants and a half dozen coal gasification plants at industrial sites. It also has research and development support for carbon sequestration and for other technologies that hold promise.

We still have some issues to work on. We began with what we could agree on, worked 5 months on it under the leadership of Senators Domenici and Bingaman, and reserved a few issues to the floor. Senator Domenici announced that we will be coming to the Senate floor shortly after the recess, in a completely different spirit than last year, with all of us hoping to get a result. We will then put that bill with the House bill and present to this country a clean energy act of 2005 that will lower natural gas prices, begin to produce more American energy at home, include more aggressive conservation, change the way we make electricity, and focus especially on advanced technologies for nuclear, coal gasification, and the supply of gas.

In the short term, we are going to have to bring more gas in from around the world in liquefied natural gas. I'm pleased that the committee adopted the ideas I and Senator Johnson had on LNG siting in the energy bill.

There is one other area I want to mention without dwelling on it too much. One of the things I hope happens as we debate this bill is that it doesn't change from a national energy policy into a national windmill policy. I say that because one of the issues we have pushed out to be debated on the floor is something called a renewable portfolio standard, renewable energy. That all sounds very good. The proposal was, let's make 10 percent of all of our electricity by the year 2025 from renewable energies. That sounds good, too.

The problem is, I don't think it will work because all we are talking about is geothermal--that is hot water from the ground--solar, which our incentives today don't help much, and biomass, which is burning wood chips and other such technologies. According to a Department of Energy analysis, even if we had such a requirement of all our electric companies that they produce 10 percent of their energy from renewable fuels, they couldn't do it. They could only get to 5 percent due to the way the Bingaman price caps are structured. So what utilities would do realistically is buy credits in a complicated scheme which would then raise the price of our electricity. We should be in the business of lowering energy prices, not raising them for nothing.

The other concern I have is that a renewable portfolio standard is really a wind standard because geothermal and solar and biomass will only increase it a tiny bit. This information I have is from an analysis that the Energy Information Agency did on Bingman's bill shows clearly that the impact of a Bingaman RPS is growing windpower. The only way to go forward is with windmills. So the effect of continuing the current policy is to take this country from about 6,700 windmills to 40, 60, 80,000, depending on estimates that you believe. My point is not to make a big discussion about the windmills themselves. I don't like to see them. I think most people don't. The Governor of Kansas has put a moratorium on some windmills, as has the Governor of New Jersey, and so have communities in

many parts of America, such as Vermont and Wisconsin. I asked the Tennessee Valley Authority to put a 2-year moratorium on new wind power on Tennessee until we could assess the damage it might cause to our tourism industry and to our electric rates and to our view of the mountains.

People think of windmills and think those are nice. Grandma had one on her farm. It was by the well. My grandparents did. But these aren't your grandmother's windmills.

We have the second largest football stadium in the United States in Knoxville, TN. We call it Neyland Stadium. One hundred seven thousand people can sit there, and it has sky boxes that go up as high as you can see. Just one of these windmills would fit into Neyland Stadium. The rotor blades would extend from the 10-yard line to the 10-yard line. The top of the windmill would go twice as high as the sky boxes or more. And on a clear night you could see the red lights 25 miles away. There are significant problems with this power. It only works 25 to 40 percent of the time. You don't get rid of any nuclear or coal plants when you have the windmills because you still need the power. You can't store the energy for your lights or your computer and all the things you use electricity for going all the time. So there are many problems.

But here is the biggest problem, the one I want to mention today. I will just leave it for the members of the Finance Committee upon which the Presiding Officer serves and others. This Energy bill will have three parts to it. It will have some things from the Energy Committee which we have finished today. It will have a contribution from the Finance Committee, which will come in June, and it will have a contribution from the Environment and Public Works Committee, which will also come in June. We will put all those parts together.

We are told that this whole bill, when it is put together, can't cost, our Budget Committee says, more than $11 billion. The President hopes we won't spend more than $8 billion. But the production tax credit in the current policy provides $3.9 billion over 5 years, almost all of which will go to windmills unless we change the policy.

In other words, if we have $11 billion to spend and we spend $3 billion on ethanol or renewable fuel, we will only have $8 billion left to spend on everything else, and nearly 3.5 to 4 of it will go for windmills. That is what I mean by a national windmill policy.

My hope is that my colleagues will take a fresh look at our tax credit for renewable fuels and make sure that we use it wisely because that is a lot of money to create the largest amount of carbon-free clean energy.

Here are some of the suggestions for better use: For example, $1.5 billion for consumer incentives for 300,000 hybrid and advanced diesel vehicles. That would give 300,000 Americans a $2,000 deduction to purchase a hybrid car or an advanced diesel vehicle. Those operate about 40 percent more efficiently than conventional cars. That saves a lot of energy. For $750 million, we could give manufacturing incentives for building those hybrid cars and advanced vehicles in the United States. Unfortunately, as it stands now, we aren't doing that. They would all be built overseas because most of the good hybrid technology has been invented overseas and is being rented to the United States. That would be 39,000 jobs in the United States.

I have with me a copy of the National Commission on Energy Policy which recommends both of these ideas, the $2,000 tax deduction and the incentive for manufacturing of hybrid cars. That would be a wise way to spend money for clean carbon-free energy.

There are many more good ideas: $2 billion in tax incentives for energy-efficient appliances and buildings, suggested by Senators Snowe and Feinstein. Senator Johnson and I had suggested $2 billion for tax incentives to commercialize coal gasification for powerplants and $300 million to make more effective support of another renewable energy, solar energy, which has basically no support the way our laws are written today.

The National Commission on Energy Policy has several other recommendations: Build in tax incentives to commercialize carbon capture and geologic sequestration in a wide array of industries. As soon as we figure out how to capture carbon, we can use coal gasification in a big way to reduce dependence on foreign energy and to lower the cost of natural gas.

They also recommend $2 billion in tax incentives for nuclear deployment, $1.5 billion for biodiesel and nonpetroleum low-carbon fuels. I have suggested those in the order in which I like them.

I am not a member of the Finance Committee so I won't have a chance to be a part of that discussion in that committee. My point is simply that if we have $8 billion to spend or $11 billion to spend, we may have already spent a couple of billion in what we are doing with renewable fuel, then we have a lot more good ways to spend money in support of carbon-free energy than we have money for. I respectfully suggest that if we are spending most of $3.7 billion over the next 5 years as a national windmill policy and not a national energy policy, that ought to be reasonably adjusted.

Let me not emphasize the disputes that we have yet to come. I am here today to say, particularly, after a time in the Senate when people who watch us must wonder if we are speaking to each other, the answer is, yes, we are. We have been meeting for 5 months on this Energy bill. We have been working together, as Senator Bingaman said today. I don't remember a party-line vote in the 5 months. We had some close votes, but it wasn't Republican versus Democrat. It was just different ones of us with different opinions. And there must have been half the committee there today when Senators Domenici and Bingaman announced the results at a press conference.

So I honor them for their leadership. I think the American people are proud of Domenici and Bingaman as Senators. New Mexico ought to be proud. It has both of them from the same State. Even though we have CAFE standards still to debate, MTBE still to debate, we have some final work to do on how do we site terminals for liquefied natural gas, further increasing the supply of natural gas, and we will be debating the so-called renewable portfolio standard for how many windmills we should have--all that will be sometime in June. That is what we are supposed to do as Senators.

That is why we are here, to take both sides of this issue and see if we can come to a good result. So far, I think we have.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my speech the article on coal gasification from the New York Times business section on Sunday; a letter I wrote to the directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority, asking them to put a 2-year moratorium on wind power until we had an opportunity--we in Congress and local officials--to consider the effect of these large wind farms on our tourism industry, on our view of the mountains, on our gas prices; and finally, an article from the Guardian Unlimited, which is an interesting discussion of what is going on in Great Britain, as they consider how to meet the Kyoto standard for carbon-free electricity production, and how many of the people who formerly had favored large windmills are concluding they don't want them destroying the rural areas of Britain, and they are looking at nuclear power in a fresh way which, as I mentioned, is the way we in the United States today produce 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to join with Senator Lieberman today in introducing an amended version of the Climate Stewardship Act, which we introduced in February.

The legislation we submit today incorporates the provisions of S. 342, the Climate Stewardship Act of 2005, in its entirety, along with a new comprehensive title regarding the development and deployment of climate change reduction technologies. This new title, when combined with the ``cap and trade'' provisions of the previously introduced bill, will promote the commercialization of technologies that can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and increase the Nation's energy independence. And, it will help to keep America at the cutting edge of innovation where the jobs and trade opportunities of the new economy are to be found.

In fact, the ``cap and trade'' provisions and the new technology title are complementary parts of a comprehensive program that will allow us to usher in an new energy era, an era of responsible and innovative energy production and use that will yield enormous environmental, economic, and diplomatic benefits. The ``cap and trade'' portion provides the economic driver for existing and new technologies capable of supplying reliable and clean energy and making the best use of America's available energy resources. Because of the multiple benefits promised by this comprehensive program, we expect that the new bill will attract additional support for the vital purposes of the Climate Stewardship Act. We simply need the political will to match the public's concern about climate change, the economic interests of business and consumers, and American technological ingenuity and expertise.

Our comprehensive bill sets forth a sound course toward a productive, secure, and clean energy future. Its provisions are based on the important efforts undertaken by academia, Government, and business over the past decade to determine the best ways and means towards This energy future. Most of these studies have shared two common findings. First, significant reductions in greenhouse gases--well beyond the modest goals of our bill--are feasible over the next 10 to 20 years using technologies available today. Second, the most important technological deployment opportunities to reduce emissions over the next two decades lie with energy efficient technologies and renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, and biofuels. For example, in the electric power sector, which accounts for one-third of U.S. emissions, major pollution reductions can be achieved by improving the efficiency of existing fossil fuel plants, adding new reactors designs for nuclear power, expanding use of renewable power sources, and significantly reducing electricity demand with the use of energy-saving technologies currently available to residential and commercial consumers. These clean technologies need to be promoted and that is what spurs our action today.

Before describing the details of this legislation, I think it is important to talk about what has occurred since the Senate vote on this issue in October 2003. For example, the scientific evidence of human- induced climate change has grown even more abundant. But just since February of this year, when I highlighted the results of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, even more startling evidence about the Arctic region has been revealed. In a recent Congressional briefing, Dr. Robert Corell, chair of Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, presented recent data indicating that climate change in the Arctic is occurring more rapidly than previously thought. Annual average arctic temperatures have increased at

twice the rate of global temperatures over the past several decades, with some regions increasing by five to ten times the global average.

The latest observations show Alaska's 2004 June-July-August mean temperature to be nearly 5 degrees Fahrenheit, 2.8 degrees Celsius, above the 1971-2000 historic mean, and permafrost temperature increasing enough to cause it to start melting. Dr. Corell said the Greenland ice sheet is melting more rapidly than thought even 5 years ago, and that the climate models indicate that warming over Greenland is likely to be up to three times the global average, with warming projected to be in the range of 5 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit, 3 to 6 degrees Celsius, which will most certainly lead to sea-level rise. These are remarkable new scientific findings.

It isn't surprising that just this past Tuesday, indigenous leaders from Arctic regions called on the European Union to do more to fight global warming and to consider giving aid to their peoples, saying their way of life is at risk. Global warming is said to be causing the arrival in the far north of mosquitoes bearing infectious diseases. And in Scandinavia, more frequent rains in the winter are causing sheets of ice to develop on top of snow, causing animals to die of hunger because they cannot reach the grass underneath.

We are not asking for sympathy, said Larisa Abrutina of the

Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North. We

are asking each country in the world to examine if it is

truly doing its part to slow climate change.

The efforts taking place globally to address climate change have gained even greater prominence. For example, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made climate change one of his top two issues during his Presidency of the G8. Mr. Blair's commitment to addressing climate change should be commended. He has chosen to take action and not to hide behind the uncertainties that the science community will soon resolve. The Prime Minister made it clear in a January speech at World Economic Forum in Davos as to his intentions when he said:

. . . if America wants the rest of the world to be a part of

the agenda it has set, it must be a part of their agenda too.

The top two issues that Prime Minister Blair has chosen to deal with are climate change and poverty in Africa. It is interesting to note that a recent article in the New York Times highlighted the connection between the two issues. The article highlights that a 50-year-long drying trend is likely to continue and appears to be tightly linked to substantial warming of the Indian Ocean. According to Dr. James Hurrell, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research:

. . . the Indian Oceans shows very clear and dramatic warming

into the future, which means more and more drought for

southern Africa. It is consistent with what we would expect

from an increase in greenhouse gases.

It appears that Mr. Blair's two priorities are quickly becoming one enormous challenge.

In its September 2004 issue, The National Geographic devotes 74 pages laying out in great detail the necessity of tackling our planet's problem of global warming. In an introductory piece, Editor-in-Chief Bill Allen described just how important he thinks this particular series of articles is:

Why would I publish articles that make people angry enough

to stop subscribing? That's easy. These three stories cover

subjects that are too important to ignore. From Antarctica to

Alaska to Bangladesh, a global warming trend is altering

habitats, with devastating ecological and economic effects. .

. This isn't science fiction or a Hollywood movie. We're not

going to show you waves swamping the Statue of Liberty. But

we are going to take you all over the world to show you the

hard truth as scientists see it. I can live with some

canceled memberships. I'd have a harder time looking at

myself in the mirror if I didn't bring you the biggest story

in geography today.

The articles highlight many interesting facts. Dr. Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University collects ice cores from glaciers around the world, including the famed snows of Kilimanjaro, which could vanish in 15 years. According to Dr. Thompson, ``What glaciers are telling us, is that it is now warmer than it has been in the past 2,000 years over vast areas of the planet.'' Many of the ice cores he has in his freezer may soon contain the only remains of the glaciers from which they came from.

Highlighted quotes from the articles include: Things that normally happen in geologic time are happening during the span of a human lifetime. The future breakdown of the thermohaline circulation remains a disturbing possibility. More than a hundred million people worldwide live within 3 feet of mean sea level. At some point, as temperatures continue to rise, species will have no room to run. The natural cycles of interdependent creatures may fall out of sync. We will have a better idea of the actual changes in 30 years. But it is going to be a very different world.

Global warming demands urgent action on all fronts, and we have an obligation to promote the technologies that can help us meet the challenge. Our aim has never been simply to introduce climate stewardship legislation. Rather our purpose is to have legislation enacted to begin to address the urgent global warming crisis that is upon us. This effort cannot be about political expediency. It must be about practical realities and addressing the most pressing issue facing not only our nation, but the world. We believe that our legislation offers practical and effective solutions and we urge each members careful consideration and support.

I will include for the Record a more detailed description of the various components of the new technology title. However, I do want to describe some of the key provisions designed to enhance innovation and commercialization in key areas. These include zero and low greenhouse gas emitting power generation, such as nuclear, coal gasification, solar and other renewables, geological carbon sequestration, and biofuels:

The bill directs the Secretary of Commerce, through the former Technology Administration, which would be renamed the Innovation Administration, to develop and implement new policies that foster technological innovation to address global warming. These new directives include: developing and implementing strategic plans to promote technological innovation; identifying and removing barriers to the research, development, and commercialization of key technologies; prioritizing and maximizing key federal R&D programs to aid innovation; (establishing public/private partnerships to meet vital innovation goals; and promoting national infrastructure and educational initiatives that support innovation objectives.

It also authorizes the Secretary of Energy to establish public/ private partnerships to promote the commercialization of climate change technologies by working with industry to advance the design and demonstration of zero and low emission technologies in the transportation and electric generation sectors. Specifically, the Secretary would be authorized to partner with industry to share the cost, 50/50, of ``first-of-a-kind'' designs for advanced coal, nuclear energy, solar and biofuels. Moreover, each time that a utility builds a plant based on the ``first-of-a-kind engineering'' design authorized by this bill, a ``royalty'' type payment will be paid by the utility to reimburse the original amount provided by the Government.

After the detail design phase is complete, the Secretary would be able to provide loans or loan guarantees, Up to 80 percent, for the construction of these new designs including three nuclear plant designs certified by the NRC that would produce zero greenhouse gas emissions; three advanced coal gasification plants with carbon capture and storage that make use of our abundant coal resources while storing carbon emissions underground; three large scale solar energy plants to begin to tap the enormous potential of this completely clean energy source; and three large scale facilities to produce the clean, efficient, and plentiful biofuel of the future--cellulosic ethanol.

The loan program will be administered by a Climate Technology Financing Board, whose membership will include the Secretary of Energy, a representative from the Climate Change Credit Corporation, as would be created in the bill, and others with pertinent expertise. Once each plant is operational, the private partner will be obligated to pay back these loans from the government, as is the case with any construction loan.

I think it is important to be very clear about this ambitious, but necessary, technology title. We intend that much, if not all, of the costs of the demonstration initiatives, along with the loan program, will be financed by the early sale of emission allowances through the Climate Change Credit Corporation under the cap and trade program, so that industry and the market will foot much of the bill, not the taxpayers. And, as I already mentioned, the bill requires that any Federal money used to build plants will be repaid by the utility when the plant becomes operational.

Finally, the bill contains a mechanism requiring utilities to pay reimbursement ``royalties'' as they build plants based on zero and low emission designs created with Federal assistance. These funding provisions are more fair and certain than requiring taxpayers to cover the entire costs of these programs and depending upon future appropriations. But there will be some costs involved. That is why it is important to weigh these expenditures against the staggering cost of inaction on global warming. I think we will find more than a justified cost-benefit outcome.

In addition to promoting new or underutilized technologies, the bill also includes a provision to aid in the deployment of available and efficient energy technologies. This would be accomplished through a ``reverse auction'' provision, which would establish a cost effective and proven mechanism for Federal procurement and incentives. Providers' ``bids'' would be evaluated by the Secretary on their ability to reduce, eliminate, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions.

The ``reverse auction'' program would be funded initially by the taxpayers but eventually would be funded by the proceeds from the annual auction of tradeable allowances conducted by the Climate Change Credit Corporation under the cap and trade program.

I want to clarify that this bill doesn't propose to dictate to industry what is economically prudent for their particular operations. Rather, it provides a basis for the selection and implementation of their own market-based solutions, using a flexible emissions trading system model that has successfully reduced acid rain pollution under the Clean Air Act at a fraction of anticipated costs--less than 10 percent of the costs that some had predicted when the legislation was enacted. That successful model can and must be used to address this urgent and growing global warming crisis.

The ``cap and trade'' approach to emission management is a method endorsed by Congress and free-market proponents for over 15 years after it was first applied to sulfur dioxide pollution. Applying the same model to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is a matter of good policy and simple, common sense. It is an approach endorsed by industry leaders such as Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, one of the largest companies in the U.S.

Moreover, using the proven market principles that underlie cap and trade will harness American ingenuity and innovation and do more to spur the innovation and commercialization of advanced environmental technologies than any system of previous energy-bill style subsidies that Congress can devise.

Three decades of assorted energy bills prove that while subsidies to promote alternative energy technologies may sometimes help, alone they are not transformational. In the 1970s, Americans were waiting in line for limited supplies of high priced gasoline. We created a Department of Energy to help us find a better way. Yet today, 30 years later, we remain wedded to fossil fuels, economically beholden to the Middle East and we continue to alter the makeup of the upper atmosphere with the ever-increasing volume of greenhouse gas emissions. Our dividend is continued energy dependence and global warming that places our nation and the globe at enormous environmental and economic risk. Not a very good deal.

Cap and trade is the transformational mechanism for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, protecting the global environment, diversifying the Nation's energy mix, advancing our economy, and spurring the development and deployment of new and improved technologies that can do the job. It is indispensable to the task before us.

The Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act does not prescribe the exact formula by which allowances will be allocated under a cap and trade system. This should be determined administratively through a process developed with great care to achieve the principles and purposes of the Act. This includes assuring that high emitting utilities have ample incentives to clean up and can make emission reductions economically and that low emitting utilities are treated justly and recognized for their efficiency. Getting this balance right will not be easy, but it can and must be done.

The fact remains that, if enacted, the bill's emission cap will not go into effect for another 5 years. In the interim there is much that the country can and should do to promote the most environmentally and economically promising technologies. This includes removing unnecessary barriers to commercialization of new technologies so that new plants, products, and processes can move more efficiently from design and development, to demonstration and, ultimately, to the marketplace. Again, without cap and trade, these efforts will pale, but the new technology title we propose will work hand in glove with the emission cap and trade system to meet our objectives.

As I mentioned, the new title contains a host of measures to promote the commercialization of zero and low-emission electric generation technologies, including nuclear, clean coal, solar and other renewable energies, and biofuels.

I want to take some time to address the bill's nuclear provisions. Although these provisions are only part of the comprehensive technology package, I am sure they will be the focus of much attention.

I know that some of our friends in the environmental community maintain strong objections to nuclear energy, even though it supplies nearly 20 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. and much higher proportions in places such as France, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland--countries that aren't exactly known for their environmental disregard. But the fact is, nuclear is clean, producing zero emissions, while the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity produces approximately 33 percent of the greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere, and is a major contributor to air pollution affecting our communities

The idea that nuclear power should play no role in our energy mix is an unsustainable position, particularly given the urgency and magnitude of the threat posed by global warming which most regard as the greatest environmental threat to the planet.

The International Energy Agency estimates that the world's energy consumption is expected to rise over 65 percent within the next 15 years. If the demand for electricity is met using traditional coal- fired power plants, not only will we fail to reduce carbon emissions as necessary, the level of carbon in the atmosphere will skyrocket, intensifying the greenhouse effect and the global warming it produces.

As nuclear plants are decommissioned, the percentage of U.S. electricity produced by this zero emission technology will actually decline. Therefore, at a minimum, we must make efforts to maintain nuclear energy's level of contribution, so that this capacity is not replaced with higher emitting alternatives. I, for one, believe it can and should play an even greater role, not because I have some inordinate love affair with splitting the atom, but for the very simple reason that we must support sustainable, zero-emission alternatives such as nuclear if we are serious about addressing the problem of global warming.

I would like to submit for the record a piece written by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. Mr. Kristof made the following observation: ``It's increasingly clear that the biggest environmental threat we face is actually global warming and that leads to a corollary: nuclear energy is green.'' He goes on to quote James Lovelock, a British scientist who created the Gaia principle that holds the earth is a self-regulating organism. He quoted Mr. Lovelock as follows:

I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to

drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy. Every

year that we continue burning carbon makes it worse for our

descendents. Only one immediately available source does not

cause global warming, and that is nuclear energy.

I have always been and will remain a committed supporter of solar and renewable energy. Renewables hold great promise, and, indeed, the technology title contains equally strong incentives in their favor. But today solar and renewables account for only about 3 percent our energy mix. We have a long way to go, and that is one of the objectives of this legislation--to help promote these energy technologies.

I want to stress nothing in this title alters, in any way, the responsibilities and authorities of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Safety and security will remain, as they should, paramount in the citing, design, construction and operation of nuclear power plants. And the winnowing effect of the free market, as it should, will still determine which technologies succeed or fail in the market place. But the idea that a zero-emission technology such as nuclear has little or no place in our energy mix is just as antiquated, out-of-step and counter-productive as our continued dependence on fossil fuels. Should it prevail, our climate stewardship and clean air goals will be virtually impossible to meet.

The environmental benefit of nuclear energy is exactly why during his tenure, my friend, Morris Udall, one of the greatest environmental champions the United States has ever known, sponsored legislation in the House, as I did in the Senate, to develop a standardized nuclear reactor that would maximize safety, security, and efficiency. The Department of Energy has done much of the work called for by that legislation. Now it is time for the logical next steps. The new title of this legislation promotes these steps by authorizing Federal partnership to develop first of a kind engineering for the latest reactor designs, and then to construct three demonstration plants. Once the demonstration has been made, free-market competition will take it from there. And the bill provides similar partnership mechanisms for the other clean technologies, so we are in no way favoring one technology over another.

No doubt, some people will object to the idea of the Federal Government playing any role in helping demonstrate and commercialize new and beneficial nuclear designs. I have spent 20 years in this body fighting for the responsible use of taxpayer dollars and against porkbarrel spending and corporate welfare. I will continue to do so.

The fact remains that fossil fuels have been subsidized for many decades at levels that can scarcely be calculated. The enormous economic costs of damage caused by air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions to the environment and human health are not factored into the price of power produced by fossil-fueled technologies. Yet it is a cost that we all bear, too often in terms of ill-health and diminished quality of life. That is simply a matter of fact.

It is also inescapable that the ability to ``externalize'' these costs places clean competitors at a great disadvantage. Based on that fact, and in light of the enormous environmental and economic risk posed by global warming, I believe that providing zero and low emission technologies such as nuclear a boost into the market place where they can compete, and either sink or swim, is responsible public policy, and a matter of simple public necessity, particularly, as we enact a cap on carbon emissions.

The Navy has operated nuclear powered submarine for more than 50 years and has an impressive safety and performance record. The Naval Reactors program has demonstrated that nuclear power can be done safely. One of the underpinning of its safety record is the approach used in its reactor designs, which is to learn and build upon previous designs. Unfortunately for the commercial nuclear industry, they have not had the opportunity to use such an approach since the industry has not been able to build a reactor in over the past 25 years. This lapse in construction has led us to where we are today with the industry's aging infrastructure. As we have learned from other industries, this in itself represents a great risk to public safety.

I want to close my comments on the nuclear provisions with two thoughts. A recent article in Technology Review seems particularly pertinent to those with reservations about nuclear power. It stated:

The best way for doubters to control a new technology is to

embrace it, lest it remain in the hands of the enthusiasts.

This is particularly sage advice because, frankly, the facts make it inescapably clear--those who are serious about the problem of global warming are serious about finding a solution. And the rule of nuclear energy which has no emissions has to be given due consideration.

Mr. President, don't simply take my word regarding the magnitude of the global warming problem. Consider the National Academy of Sciences which reported in 2001 that:

Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere

as a result of human activities, causing surface air

temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.

Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over

the last several decades are likely mostly due to human

activities. . . .

Also consider the warning on NASA's website which states:

With the possible exception of another world war, a giant

asteroid, or an incurable plague, global warming may be the

single largest threat to our planet.

Consider the words of the EPA that

Rising global temperatures are expected to raise sea level,

and change precipitation and other local climate conditions.

Changing regional climate could alter forest, crop yields and

water supplies. . . .

And, let's consider the views of President Bush's Science Advisor, Dr. John Marburger who says that,

Global warming exists, an we have to do something about it,

and what we have to do about it is reduce carbon dioxide.

Again, the chief science advisor to the President of the United States says that global warming exists, and what we have to do about it is to reduce carbon dioxide.

The road ahead on climate change is a difficult and challenging one. However, with the appropriate investments in technology and the innovation process, we can and will prevail. Innovation and technology have helped us face many of our national challenges in the past, and can be equally important in this latest global challenge.

Advocates of the status quo seem to suggest that we do nothing, or next to nothing, about global warming because we don't know how bad the problem might become, and many of the worst effects of climate change are expected to occur in the future. This attitude reflects a selfish, live-for-today attitude unworthy of a great nation, and thankfully, not one practiced by preceding generations of Americans who devoted themselves to securing a bright and prosperous tomorrow for future generations, not just their own.

When looking back at Earth from space, the astronauts of Apollo 11 could see features such as the Great Wall of China and forest fires dotting the globe. They were moved by how small, solitary and fragile the earth looked from space. Our small, solitary and fragile planet is the only one we have and the United States of America is privileged to lead in all areas bearing on the advance of mankind. And lead again, we must, Mr. President. It is our privilege and sacred obligation as Americans.

I ask unanimous consent an editorial from the New York Times be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I rise to offer to my colleagues my strong and unequivocal support for John Bolton and his nomination to be our United States representative to the United Nations.

John Bolton was picked by the President. A President ought to be able to bring people into his administration, men and women, who share the values, the aspirations, the goals, of that administration. This President also represents the views of most Americans who believe the United Nations needs reforming. We need to bring someone into that position to get those reforms done.

I believe very strongly John Bolton is exceptionally well-qualified for this task. This is a time of change, a time of improvement that is necessary for the United Nations.

During the protracted committee process, we saw all sorts of sensationalized charges and outright fabrications against John Bolton. His nomination nonetheless, has finally reached the Senate where I am sure my colleagues will see the wisdom in confirming John Bolton. This debate provides an opportunity to have a full discussion on John Bolton and his qualifications to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations.

What has been lost in this entire debate from the very beginning as they are off on tangents, detours, and all sorts of allegations. What is being missed--and what I hope my colleagues and the American people will focus on--is the dire need for change in the United Nations. The need for accountability, the need for scrutiny, the need for reform.

In testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee and in interviews conducted by the committee staff, there is almost no mention, or discussion, of what needs to be done to reform the United Nations. John Bolton is a man with the skill, wisdom, principles, and the right person to unflinchingly lead those changes as our representative.

Much of the debate during the committee consideration and some of the things that have been said in the Senate has been focused on the sensibilities of some who are apparently easily offended. There is a fascination with speech crafting. For example, there is concern over what Mr. Bolton said at a speech to the Heritage Foundation concerning Cuba's biological weapons program and how that might be shared with rogue nations.

The reality is, and I will quote this for the record so if anyone wants to see what was actually said that created this controversy. What was actually said is the following by John Bolton at the Heritage Foundation in the speech ``Beyond the Axis of Evil,'' May 6, 2002:

Here is what we now know. The United States believes that

Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare

research and development effort. Cuba has provided dual-use

biotechnology to other rogue states. We are concerned that

such technology could support biological weapons programs in

those states. We call on Cuba to cease all biological weapons

applicable cooperation with rogue states and to fully comply

with all of its obligations under the Biological Weapons

Convention.

Well, one of the people, a very cheerful fellow, Carl Ford, complained about the sensibilities of some staff person. Here is what he said in testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee. He said:

The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited

developmental offensive biological warfare research and

development effort. Cuba has provided dual use bio-technology

to rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could

support biological weapons programs in those states. We call

on Cuba to cease all biological weapons applicable

cooperation with rogue states and to fully comply with all

its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.

Mr. President, I see you are squinting and trying to probably figure out: Well, what is the difference? There is no difference. It is the same in the speech as was the testimony from Mr. Ford in the Foreign Relations Committee. Then, we hear from folks talking about: Oh, people were upset because of all of this concern on how this speech was constructed. Well, here is the reality. The whole process was one in which the person who was clearing this language did some things that were inappropriate. An e-mail from Thomas Fingar to Thomas Bolton stated the following:

I looked at what my guy sent to the IC and that won't

happen again . . . Choice of the phrase ``does not concur''

was entirely inappropriate . . . we have no role whatsoever

in determining how you or any policymaker says what you want

to say beyond suggesting alternatives that we think might be

cleared more readily than what has been drafted if time was

of the essence and the drafter asked for such advice.

The bottom line, he ends it:

We screwed it up, but for base reasons. It won't happen

again.

So John Bolton had a reason to be concerned about how some things went around through the loops and so forth. The reality is, as many individuals, our colleagues, fellow Senators, particularly on the Foreign Relations Committee--in recent months, once John Bolton had been nominated for this position--were talking about how he was rude maybe, or irascible with some staff, or concerned about this, that, or the other. Things that have supposedly come up in recent years, of course, each and every one of these allegations have been refuted and the truth has come forth.

The reality is that when John Bolton was proposed and nominated to be Under Secretary of State, back in 2001, Senators Biden, Boxer, Kerry, Dodd, and Sarbanes--all of them--voted against John Bolton. That was even before they knew about these tangential issues.

Now, I would prefer, when looking at the United Nations, we would be, as a country, united in making sure we pursue the abuse and anti- Americanism that pervades the United Nations. Rather than get off on these tangential and unfounded charges, I am much more concerned about the United Nations being used as a front for dictatorships and terrorists, as well as being a waste of the taxpayers' money.

Over the last year, we have witnessed scandal after scandal in the United Nations. Unfortunately, these are not issues that can be addressed by a few marginal changes. These are issues that have shaken the credibility of the United Nations and caused many citizens in the United States, and people around the world, to really wonder whether the U.N. has any relevance in the future or has a redeeming role in world affairs.

Now, the United Nations was founded on:

faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth

of the human person.

While the United Nations performs a number of admirable endeavors, it is also beholden to tyrants, dictators, and repressive regimes in certain circumstances. Not considering the scandals, this is an organization that has allowed some of the world's worst violators of human rights to chair its Commission on Human Rights. Just when the United States has made a commitment to the spread of freedom and justice throughout the world, it is difficult for Americans--I know in Virginia, in North Carolina, and elsewhere around this country--to see the United Nations as anything other than wasting their tax dollars. When a country such as Libya is chairing the Human Rights Commission. Sudan is on the Human Rights Commission, and within the last several weeks, Zimbabwe has been made a member of the Commission. This is certainly not an indication that the Secretary General's call for reform of the Commission on Human Rights is at all being heeded.

Now, as public servants and stewards of the American taxpayers' dollars, we need to make sure the revenues we allocate are being put to good use. The United States and the people of this country, the taxpayers, every single year, are providing $2 billion to the United Nations. We will provide over 22 percent of the U.N.'s regular budget in 2005.

I believe all Americans want reforms enacted that would prevent future abuses in programs like the Oil-for-Food Program, where Saddam Hussein and his thugs skimmed off $20 billion. I think we also, as Americans, want to hold accountable U.N. peacekeepers who commit crimes against children. We have an obligation to work with like-minded reformers in the U.N. to make sure policies are implemented to prevent similar abuses in the future.

Now, reform is absolutely necessary in the United Nations. The United Nations is in a crisis, and the United States has a strong interest in seeing it emerge as a credible and relevant institution once again. The U.N. Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency, otherwise known as IAEA, are needed forums for discussing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the actions that need to be taken, not just by the United States but with our European and other allies around the world, to make sure that rogue nations do not acquire those nuclear weapons.

We have seen in recent years that the United Nations can provide an important role in helping the spread of democracy. They can be helpful in rebuilding societies that are emerging from decades of tyranny and repression.

The United Nations has a role to play in the future of global affairs and security, but it can only do so if it takes serious steps to reform the extraordinary corruption and ineptitude that has plagued it in recent years.

Now, John Bolton comes to this nomination with a broad and deep knowledge of international affairs. From his early days as General Counsel at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Ronald Reagan administration, to his most recent post as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Affairs, Mr. Bolton has spent a great deal of time working on advancing the interests of the United States and our foreign policy.

Some have wrongly criticized John Bolton as a rigid unilateralist who is incapable of building consensus with allies. However, his years of service prove otherwise.

On counterproliferation, Mr. Bolton's efforts gave life and actual meaning to President Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative. Under John Bolton's leadership, a dangerous gap in counter-proliferation enforcement on the seas has been filled by international cooperation and information sharing. Sixty countries were brought together. That is not working alone. He understands, if we are going to interdict weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons, nuclear or otherwise, we do need the support of other countries.

In addition, Mr. Bolton helped create the Global Partnership at the G-8 summit in Alberta, Canada, in 2002. This partnership doubled the size of the nonproliferation effort in the former Soviet Union by committing our G-8 partners to match the United States' $1 billion per year Cooperative Threat Reduction or Nunn-Lugar program.

He also played a central role in negotiating the Treaty of Moscow, which will reduce operationally deployed nuclear weapons by two-thirds.

Elimination of North Korea's nuclear threat still requires much hard work, but it is clear that the half century stalemate that has allowed the North Koreans to steal or develop nuclear arms technology is over. Growing pressure is on that dictatorship, and John Bolton's role at the State Department in creating it are being confirmed by the torrent of personal invective directed at him from the North Korean Government.

While our Ambassador there might have had his sensibilities offended by John Bolton calling the North Korean regime a ``repressive dictatorship,''

which seems to be accurate, as well as saying it is a ``hellish nightmare'' for people to have to live in. North Korea, which I might not have used the first word, but it is certainly a nightmare, it seems to me to be very accurate description.

Of course, some have criticized John Bolton for doing that. And gosh, the North Koreans called him ``human scum.'' I am going to stand with John Bolton in his characterization of North Korea. In fact, they say of John Bolton: Oh, this was not helpful for him to be calling North Korea or characterizing it as it is.

He helped break a long international silence, while there are some who think, when you are dealing with a repressive dictatorship, the best thing to do is just be quiet, calm them down, try to coordinate them into a corner, pet them, don't get them agitated, and maybe they will just change on their own. Maybe there are those who think you can have editorials in newspapers and that is going to matter to tyrants and dictatorships. They don't care about public opinion. They don't care about human rights. All they care about is power and staying in power.

So John Bolton, in my view, performed a valuable service in breaking this long international silence about the suffering of the people in North Korea. For too long, savage conditions, condemned by food aid workers, and glimpsed by visitors to the North, received very little, very scant world attention. By magnifying the human dimension of the North Korean problem, his work may hasten the day when these abhorrent human rights violations in North Korea will end. The reality for North Korea is that we need the Chinese. The South Koreans, the Japanese, and the Russians are all very important but as a practical matter the ones who really prop up that regime is the Government of the People's Republic of China.

When people are allowed to escape from North Korea, what happens? They get to some embassy in China and they get sent back to North Korea. Guess what happens? They get tortured and in some cases they get killed. We need to make sure that if somebody can get out of that regime--just as if someone could have gotten out of East Germany or Czechoslovakia or Hungary or Poland; if they somehow could get out of those countries and escape to Austria, to West Germany, to the Netherlands, to Denmark, we certainly would not say: Go on back in there and let the East German police take care of you or let the Soviet puppets in the Eastern Bloc take care of you.

So, I think John Bolton has done a great job in pointing out the human rights violations in North Korea. Some may also not agree with his forthright critique of the United Nations and its failings. I think Mr. Bolton has clearly placed a great deal of thought into his views, and he can work with the United Nations' bureaucracy. But he is not going to be a lapdog. He is not going to get seduced by niceties. He is going to say: This is what needs to be done.

As Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations--and this is, indeed, working with the United Nations--John Bolton--and you can read what Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger wrote--led the effort to have the United Nations change its odious resolution that equated Zionism with racism. Now, to get the United Nations to say that they ever did something wrong and to repeal it--similar to anything that even happens here, to say we did something wrong and to repeal some law--takes some negotiation. John Bolton was able to get the United Nations to repeal that odious resolution.

It is a clear, a very clear--example of his ability to stand by principle, stand for what is right, and also to work cooperatively with other countries in the United Nations.

So in my view, John Bolton has the knowledge and experience to effectively represent the United States at the United Nations and to negotiate the changes that need to be made to ensure its relevancy and its credibility in the future. All of us want a United Nations that is with us, working to advance free and just societies and human rights around the world. We do not want them squandering, wasting money, propping up repressive regimes, being a front for terrorist regimes. We need the United Nations to remember what its charter is.

Now, unfortunately, the committee was forced to spend a majority of its nomination hearing and subsequent meetings on tangents, exploring wild claims, and not addressing the issues that face the United States at the United Nations. Nor has the debate been much about John Bolton's qualifications to serve as our representative.

Most of those who have complained and made charges against John Bolton never had any intention of considering the merits of his nomination in the first place. When considered, as I said earlier, for his current position, all of these--Senators Biden, Sarbanes, Dodd, Boxer, and Kerry--voted against him. We have had many unsubstantiated claims and rumors and exaggerated innuendo. I do see the Senator from Wisconsin, who did vote for him the other time, so it does not apply to Senator Feingold. I hope the Senator recognizes I did not list his name. I think, as people look at these overly hyped charges, they have been refuted. They do not have any bearing on John Bolton's ability to serve as our ambassador to the United Nations.

A President should have the prerogative to select the men and women-- unless there is some extraordinary, proven infirmity or criminal violation--he determines to advance and lead his initiatives and also to keep the promises he made to the American people. President Bush has nominated John Bolton to advance our foreign policy and goals at the United Nations.

Let me conclude with these final thoughts. In 1945, when it reported the U.N. Charter to the Senate for ratification, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote that:

. . . neither this Charter nor any other document or formula

that might be devised can prevent war. . . . The

establishment of the United Nations will at best be a

beginning toward the creation of those conditions of

stability throughout the world which will foster peace and

security.

As we know, the United Nations has fallen short of these expectations. But a better, more accountable United Nations may better serve our interests much more reliably.

Thus, the Bolton nomination offers the Senate an opportunity to again play a historic role in bringing sensible reform to the United Nations. It is worth the effort. John Bolton is the right person to advocate our principles, and he will not be easily seduced by empty, meaningless, courteous pontifications of international bureaucracies.

John Bolton will bring much needed reform and accountability to the United Nations, that is in dire need of such to regain its credibility. He will be a watchdog, and that is what I think the taxpayers of this country want. He is going to be a strong diplomat, a man of vision, and an integral part of an administration team that has proven its readiness to foster positive change throughout the world.

The Senate, at 6 o'clock this evening, I hope, will take action--take action, and very positive action. There will be some differences, but let's recognize that this is a historic time, a time for change in the United Nations, a time for reform. And these reforms will be positive. Our taxpayers will support these changes.

I think freedom-loving countries and people who are not yet tasting that sweet nectar of liberty will also appreciate these changes. The billions of dollars going to the United Nations will be used for positive, constructive change in implementing and fostering the construction of those pillars that are so essential for a just and free society: The freedom of religion, freedom of expression, private ownership of property, and the rule of law. Those are the principles we need to address, and we are, as a country, in advancing the United Nations, consistent with its Charter, which ought to be a strong ally, not an impediment, in those efforts.

I hope we will work with John Bolton and the United Nations to bring forth this reform, improve the credibility and, in fact, the effectiveness of the United States and the United Nations, to advance freedom and justice for people throughout the world.

I thank you for your attention, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?

Fifty?

How much does the majority have remaining?

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I will use at this moment. Obviously, I will not use all of it.

Mr. President, I am not sure how much of that time I will use.

I have made a significant amount of argument, as others have, in the Foreign Relations Committee during the time leading up to this debate on the floor. I listened to Senator Biden's comments and I listened to Senator Biden's colloquy with Senator Sarbanes. They raised critical points, as have others, such as Senator Dodd and Senator Voinovich, and others on the floor. I am not sure it serves any great purpose to rehash all of those arguments, but I will say in summary that what brings a lot of us to this point of questioning the nomination of John Bolton is not personal and it is not political in the sense that it is sort of an automatic reflex reaction to a nomination of the President, or to divisions between the parties.

I think people can sense from the bipartisan concerns that have been expressed, as well as the record that has been set forward, that these are really deeply felt and very legitimate concerns about a position that is one of the most important foreign policy positions for our country.

Obviously, the President has the right to make a choice. We all understand that. Subsequent to the President making that choice, an enormous amount of information has come forward, not from traditional sources, not from people who might have been disposed to oppose this nomination, but from people who have worked with Mr. Bolton, from people who are ideologically in the same place as he is, who are members of the same administration.

The picture they have painted is clearly one that ought to raise concern for any Member of the Senate about a position that requires special credibility, special stature, and special ability to be able to carry the message of our country in one of the most important fora in the world, in a very complicated world.

On several occasions, a number of Senators have talked about this issue of credibility, and it cannot be overlooked. One cannot gloss by it. We are in the midst of delicate, critical negotiations with Iran. Nobody knows where that will go in these next months. The potential for critical intelligence analysis to be put before the United Nations in order to persuade the world of potentially dangerous steps requires a voice that has no questions attached to it, where people will not have to ask whether that person speaks for the administration or for themselves.

The history of Secretary Colin Powell, whom we all admire but who was sent to the United Nations with information that was inaccurate and made a speech which he now personally wishes were otherwise, raises even further the question of credibility. In addition, we will have to deal with Syria itself where important issues have been raised with respect to Mr. Bolton's attitude toward Syria, his willingness to stretch information with respect to Syria. Obviously, North Korea looms huge on the diplomatic and security horizon.

All of this fits within a context of information that the Foreign Relations Committee has requested a number of times. Two weeks ago, the Foreign Relations Committee, in a historical moment, voted to send John Bolton's nomination without recommendation. I voted no at that time for the reasons that I stated, and I believe we have yet to complete the task of building the complete record to be able to have the full Senate make a judgment on this nomination.

Over the last 24 years, the Foreign Relations Committee has sent hundreds of nominations to the floor with favorable recommendations. Only twice did the committee report a nomination unfavorably, and only once did it report a nomination without recommendation. So obviously we come with serious reservations within the committee, and the Senate ought to want a full record to be put in front of it before it votes on this nomination.

The power of advice and consent has been talked about a lot in the last weeks. Obviously, we have a constitutional responsibility not just to advise but also to consent, and nowhere is it suggested in the Constitution that we ought to consent automatically.

So over the last week, both Democrats and Republicans on the committee have worked hard together to jointly interview more than 30 individuals with information relevant to this nomination. We also requested numerous documents from the State Department, USAID, and the CIA. This indepth level of investigation was necessary because concerns were raised by individuals in Government and in the private sector about the nomination. Again, I repeat, we did not seek out these people. They came to us. Most of those who came to us have worked with Mr. Bolton and continue to work in Government. They came to us at great risk to themselves. That risk has to be measured by our colleagues in the Senate.

Everybody knows how this place works. We know the difficulty of a person coming out of the same place of business in politics and saying something that is critical of somebody they worked with. The fact is that we owe those people who took those risks a serious and complete effort in the consideration of this nomination, not a perfunctory effort, not one that seeks to find a way around a legitimate request for information.

The fact is that this administration's cooperation in the Foreign Relation Committee's effort to do due diligence on the Bolton nomination has been sporadic at best and far from complete. In the 22 years I have served on the committee, I have seen efforts on both sides of the aisle that have been far more extensive and far lengthier for less important positions or for the similar position.

Initially, the administration's response was to refuse access to documents or individuals to be interviewed until just a few days before the committee's first business meeting to consider the Bolton nomination on April 19. Chairman Lugar had to personally intervene in order to persuade the administration to comply with earlier requests that were made repeatedly by Senator Biden on behalf of all of the Democrats on the committee.

The State Department finally responded but, again, not fully. It did not provide all of the documents requested, and those that were provided were suddenly deemed to be classified, even though many were unclassified e-mails.

After the committee decided on April 19 to further investigate allegations and concerns about this nomination, the administration continued to drag its feet on the Democratic request for information. On April 29, Senator Biden sent a letter specifying nine different categories of documents relating to the issues of concern that needed to be investigated thoroughly. Some of these requests involved additional information related to specific cases the committee had been reviewing. Four of them were requests for drafts of speeches or testimony. These four requests were designed to ascertain whether Mr. Bolton sought to stretch the intelligence to support his policy views. A lot has been spoken on the

Senate floor about that effort to stretch, and I would associate myself with the concerns that have been expressed by other Senators about that effort. There is nothing more serious at this moment in time.

The State Department refused to respond fully to Senator Biden's request. Instead, it responded to a letter by Chairman Lugar on May 4 suggesting that it needed to provide documents in only five of the nine categories. Well, it is not up to the administration to decide which categories are appropriate for the proper advice and consent of a Senate committee or of the Senate itself.

So in an effort to move the process along and get further cooperation from the administration, Senator Biden narrowed the Democratic request down to two areas: Information related to the clearance of Mr. Bolton's September 2003 testimony on Syria before the House International Relations Committee and information related to National Security Agency intercepts and the identity of U.S. persons on those intercepts.

Over a period of 4 years, Mr. Bolton requested the identity of U.S. persons on intercepts 10 times.

Senator Dodd originally asked for these intercepts in a question for the record on April 11. The Department responded by saying that the committee needed to get these from the National Security Agency. So Chairman Lugar supported the Democratic request for the NSA intercepts but asked the Intelligence Committee to request them and find a means of sharing them with the Foreign Relations Committee.

The Intelligence Committee finally did get the intercepts, but the chairman and ranking member of that committee were not allowed to see the key information; that is, the names of the U.S. persons, which is an essential part of the evaluation of the committee. No one--no one on the Foreign Relations Committee, not Chairman Lugar or Senator Biden-- has been given access to these intercepts.

In response to letters from Senator Biden regarding the intercepts, the Director of National Intelligence, Ambassador Negroponte, referred Senator Biden back to the Intelligence Committee.

What the Senate has to decide is whether it is going to stand up for the rights of a committee, for the rights of an appropriate set of inquiries to be answered so we can fulfill our constitutional responsibilities. Senators can be for Mr. Bolton, Senators can have already made up their minds, Senators can have decided that they know how they are going to vote and they do not need more information, but they ought to respect the fact that both the chairman and the ranking member made a request and that request has not yet been fulfilled.

The information we are seeking relating to the Syria testimony will shed further light on whether Mr. Bolton tried to press the envelope on intelligence and whether he told the committee the truth when he said he was not personally involved in the preparation of the Syria testimony. The question of whether Mr. Bolton told the committee the truth is important because there are already several other instances where it is in doubt, where in fact there is clear evidence that he didn't tell the truth, specifically with respect to the efforts to fire the two analysts of intelligence.

Stretching intelligence and credibility are two of the key areas of concern with respect to the Bolton nomination, two of the key areas of inquiry that the committee is seeking. This is a proper and a critical request. Having access to the NSA intercepts will tell us whether Mr. Bolton did anything improper after receiving the identities of U.S. persons involved. The fact they do not want anybody to see it seems to suggest the exact opposite.

Senator Roberts, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, indicated in his letter to Senators Lugar and Biden that on at least one occasion Mr. Bolton shared the identity information of a U.S. person with another individual in the State Department without authorization from NSA.

Did he do this more than once? Why did he request these intercepts? What was he trying to find out? What was he going to do, or did he do with the information? We can only speculate without proper access to those intercepts and without knowing the identities of the persons on them.

The State Department has told the committee that the request for information about the Syria testimony is not ``specifically tied to the issues being deliberated by the committee.'' But for the executive branch of Government, which has already been slow-walking this provision of information, to tell a Senate committee how to exercise the advice and consent power of the Senate is not only unacceptable, it is unconstitutional. The Foreign Relations Committee has the prerogative to determine, and has laid out for our colleagues to judge, the legitimacy of the basis of this request. I think it passes muster.

For the chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee to be denied access to NSA intercepts and information which Mr. Bolton was able to see is unacceptable on its face. An Assistant Secretary of State and staff are permitted to see this, but the chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee are not? Is the Senate prepared to ratify that as a standard by which we will have our inquiries pursued with respect to any nomination on either side at any time?

The Foreign Relations Committee has spent an enormous amount of time and energy related to this nomination. Grudgingly, cherry-picking document requests, we have proceeded along with the administration actually denying other requests entirely.

The information we continue to seek is relevant to this nomination and to the critical concerns that many of us have about the nominee and his use of intelligence. We should have access. Since the administration has refused to provide it, the only choice we have is to deny the vote on this nomination until there is full compliance. That is not a filibuster. That is not an effort to not have a vote. Give us the information. We are prepared to have a vote immediately and let the chips fall where they may. But it is vital that the rights of the committee and the rights of the Senate, the rights of the advice and consent process, be upheld.

Let me just say again this should not be anything except a measurement on the merits. During her confirmation hearing in 1981, to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick described her vision of the job. She said:

I do not think that one should ever seek confrontation.

What I have every intention and hope of doing is to operate

in a low key, quiet, persuasive, and consensus-building way.

I think a principal objective should be to try to communicate

effectively with the representatives of as many nations as

possible to broaden a bit the areas of mutual understanding.

We should try to extend a bit the frontiers of reason and

cooperation, and I think we should work to that end, and we

should work to establish the patterns of consultation and

trust.

No one would ever accuse Jeane Kirkpatrick of being soft or shying away from her views. She is a staunch conservative who speaks her mind. But she understood and respected the value of diplomacy and negotiation; of listening to and respecting others' views; of working the system; of seeing the big picture and, most importantly, of establishing credibility and trust. She herself has said of this nominee that he is ``no diplomat.''

We should make the judgment in the end of whether this is the right person. I have heard colleagues argue how important it is to have a straight-talking, tough person at the U.N. This is not about the U.N. per se, obviously. It is about our interests and how we are going to best advance those interests. But those of us who spent a long time trying to reform the U.N. and working with it, and have had some success in some measure with respect to that effort, in a bipartisan effort going back to the time we worked with Nancy Kassebaum and Larry Pressler and Jesse Helms, all of us understood you need to establish those patterns of consultation and trust and speak with credibility.

I regret that this process has proven that this nominee does not meet the Jeane Kirkpatrick standard or test, and therefore all of us ought to raise serious questions about the nomination.

I think my time is about up, so I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, what is the current time on both sides?

Mr. President, will the quorum be tallied to both sides?

Mr. President, I rise to oppose the confirmation of John

Bolton to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. I do not take this decision lightly. As the Senator from Virginia just pointed out, when Mr. Bolton's nomination was first announced, my vote was by no means a foregone conclusion. In fact, in 2001, when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee considered the nomination of Mr. Bolton to be the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, I parted company from my Democratic colleagues on the committee to vote in favor of his nomination both in committee and on the floor.

I did so because I generally believed, as the Senator from Virginia said, that the President has the right to choose executive branch nominees who share his overall world view, even when I do not share that world view. Barring serious ethical lapses or a clear lack of appropriate qualifications for a given job, I tend to give the President a great deal of latitude in making these appointments.

But after examining the record, I have concluded that Mr. Bolton is fundamentally unsuited for the job to which he has been nominated. His blatant hostility toward the institution at which he would serve and his history of pursuing his personal policy agenda while holding public office lead me to question whether Mr. Bolton's appointment as our ambassador to the United Nations would serve the interests of the United States.

I share the views of many who are insisting on reform at the U.N. The U.N. must become more effective and more accountable and, as stewards of the American taxpayers' dollars, we must insist on this point. But Mr. Bolton's record suggests that his personal animosity toward the United Nations is so great that he cannot effectively lead the charge for reforms that can make this vital, but deeply flawed, institution stronger and more effective.

He seems to view the U.N. as an instrument to be used when it suits only our immediate interests but one best ignored or even undermined the rest of the time. His failure to grasp the give and take required for effective multilateralism makes him a real obstacle to any hope of pursuing vital long-term U.S. interests and increasing burden sharing and marshaling a global force strong enough to defeat the terrorist networks that seek to do us harm.

Mr. Bolton's record also reveals many instances of intemperance and rash decisionmaking. At least two senior intelligence officials told committee staff that Bolton's draft testimony prepared for a House hearing on Syria in 2003 went well beyond what the intelligence community would clear or could clear. This wasn't a case in which State Department intelligence analysts alone had concerns about Bolton's proposed language. The CIA, the Department of Energy, and the Defense Intelligence Agency all objected. According to interviews conducted by the committee staff, Bolton's office pushed back, resisting the intelligence community's efforts to alter problematic provisions. Bolton was determined to be such a loose cannon that the Deputy Secretary of State instituted an extraordinary policy to address the problem, requiring all of Mr. Bolton's public presentations to be cleared by Larry Wilkerson, Secretary Powell's Chief of Staff, or Deputy Secretary Armitage himself.

Regrettably, I do not have confidence that his personal agenda would always, as it must be, subordinated to that of the Secretary of State who, in testimony before this committee in her first days in office, has placed such a premium on restoring frayed diplomatic ties.

In addition, information that came to light during the Senate Foreign Relation Committee's consideration of this nomination indicates that John Bolton has sought to punish intelligence analysts whose assessments did not support what Mr. Bolton wanted to say or wished to say. After all that has happened to our country's reputation and credibility in recent years, we cannot afford to tolerate, let alone promote, a policymaker who seeks to silence dissent from the intelligence community. What the committee found was not that Mr. Bolton made careless remarks in the heat of a tough bureaucratic dispute; the evidence shows that over a period of many months, Mr. Bolton repeatedly sought the removal of a respected intelligence analyst at the State Department who had raised concerns about language Mr. Bolton wished to use publicly, in the course of the standard clearance process, a process that is there to protect against misleading or inaccurate public characterizations of important security issues. And Mr. Bolton repeatedly sought the removal of the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, again pursuing this vendetta for months, not heated minutes, and going so far as to consider blocking country clearance for Mr. Smith to travel abroad. In both cases, the offense that so incensed Mr. Bolton appears to be that the analysts did their jobs--they presented the facts as they saw them, and declined to keep silent when the facts did not support what Mr. Bolton wished to say. And in both cases, senior officials with decades of experience in government who were involved in these episodes told committee staff that Bolton's actions--his attempts to retaliate against these analysts--were absolutely extraordinary.

In addition to these disturbing incidents, other interviews conducted by committee staff revealed a broader pattern of attempting to simply cut those who disagreed with his policy views, or those who he believed disagreed with his policy views, out of the policy-making process entirely. John Wolf, the former Assistant Secretary of State for Non- Proliferation, told committee staff that Bolton attempted to retaliate against at least two public servants in the non-proliferation bureau because of differences in their policy views. Mr. Bolton tried to remove a State Department attorney from a case relating to a sanctions issue because of perceived policy disagreements--the record suggests that Mr. Bolton actually misunderstood where the lawyer in question stood--and went so far as to suggest that he would not work with the State Department's entire legal bureau on the matter from that point on--a declaration quickly negated by Deputy Secretary Armitage, who felt compelled to remind Bolton that as a State Department official, he would indeed be working with the State Department's lawyers. This kind of tunnel-vision, everyone-else-out-of-the-room approach was summed up by Secretary of State Powell's Chief of Staff Larry Wilkerson, who told the committee staff, ``when people ignore diplomacy that is aimed at dealing with [North Korea's nuclear weapons development] in order to push their pet rocks in other areas, it bothers me, as a diplomat, and as a citizen of this country.'' When asked specifically if he thought that Mr. Bolton had done that, Wilkerson said, ``Absolutely.'' Mr. Wilkerson ended his interview with the committee with the following:

I would like to make just one statement. I don't have a

large problem with Under Secretary Bolton serving our

country. My objections to what we've been talking about

here--that is, him being our ambassador at the United

Nations--stem from two basic things. One, I think he's a

lousy leader. And there are 100 to 150 people up there that

have to be led; they have to be led well, and they have to be

led properly. And I think, in that capacity, if he goes up

there, you'll see the proof of the pudding in a year. Second,

I differ from a lot of people in Washington, both friend and

foe of Under Secretary Bolton, as to his, ``brilliance''. I

didn't see it. I saw a man who counted beans, who said, ``98

today, 99 tomorrow, 100 the next day,'' and had no

willingness--and, in many cases, no capacity--to understand

the other things that were happening around those beans. And

that is just a recipe for problems at the United Nations. And

that's the only reason that I said anything.

Some have suggested that, because Mr. Bolton did not succeed in his attempts to end the careers of analysts whose dissenting views angered him, and because he did not succeed in his attempts to manipulate the government's processes to shut out voices of disagreement, caution, or dissent, there is no problem here. I cannot believe that any of my colleagues actually believes that is true--not after all that we have learned about the vital importance of dissent in the intelligence community from the 9/11 Commission, the Silberman-Robb Commission, and numerous other investigations into the major intelligence failures that have gravely harmed our credibility and our security over the past years. Why would we choose to promote to a position of prominence and trust an individual who has repeatedly tried to suppress inconvenient

analysis? As the former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council told the committee staff, politicization ``even when it's successfully resisted, it doesn't mean that there hasn't been an effect, because it creates a climate of intimidation and a culture of conformity that is damaging.'' Carl Ford told this committee about his concerns of a ``chilling effect'' that Bolton's actions with regard to Mr. Westermann could have on all of the analysts in the department's intelligence analysis bureau. And Mr. Westermann told the committee staff that in the wake of his run in with Mr. Bolton, ``I was concerned that I had to spend time thinking about how I was approaching issues so that I didn't step on a landmine.'' Attempting to undermine important clearance processes, attempting to run roughshod over the safeguards in place to protect U.S. credibility, is an awfully big problem, whether or not the attempt was successful. It is, in my view, a disqualifying problem.

Finally, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to examine the record of the Foreign Relations Committee's consideration of this nomination. It raises very serious concerns regarding Mr. Bolton's understanding of his obligations to be forthcoming with this committee. Several of Mr. Bolton's answers to Senators' questions were misleading at best, and several were quite blatantly non-responsive. A number of these instances relate to Mr. Bolton's efforts to retaliate against intelligence analysts, and these are detailed in the minority report on this nominee. But others relate to more general foreign policy issues. The Bush administration's first Ambassador to South Korea, Tom Hubbard, was so troubled by Mr. Bolton's misleading characterization of Mr. Hubbard's role in approving a controversial speech that Mr. Bolton gave in Seoul that he felt obligated to contact the committee to correct the record.

In light of the evidence this committee has seen in recent weeks, most of us can probably agree that if Mr. Bolton does end up being our next Ambassador to the UN, extremely careful oversight will be required. But our oversight responsibilities depend, in many instances, on the executive branch officials who come before us understanding that they have a constitutional obligation to be forthcoming with Congress. The record that he has amassed during this confirmation process gives me no confidence that Mr. Bolton intends to adhere to this obligation.

Mr. Bolton's nomination raises fundamental questions regarding both credibility and accountability. The credibility of our representation at the UN, the credibility of intelligence, the credibility of the oversight process are at stake. And the question of whether or not this committee will hold officials who seek to suppress dissent accountable for their actions is before us today as well.

I deeply appreciate the extraordinary courage of the many people who came forward to share with the Foreign Relations Committee their own concerns about Mr. Bolton's fitness for the UN post or to correct inaccuracies in the record--in some cases at real risk to their own careers. I am grateful for their efforts, and deeply appreciate their honesty. I hope that my colleagues will consider their words carefully. Their statements came at a price to them, and they should not be ignored.

In contrast to these admirable public servants--many of whom, by the way, I would likely disagree with on any number of important policy issues--the administration has failed to be forthcoming in this process. Mr. President, I share the concerns that have been expressed by some of my colleagues on the Committee regarding the administration's failure to respond satisfactorily to requests for documents and information relating to this confirmation. The administration declined to produce requested documents and information, apparently because they do not believe the requested information is relevant. Quite frankly, that is not for the administration to determine. Not only does the administration's rationale fail to respect the Congress as a co-equal branch of Government, it also speaks of bad faith and contempt for the role of Congress in the confirmation process.

Finally, Mr. President, during the committee's consideration of this nomination, Senator Sarbanes reminded all of us of the history of the position of the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He listed the names of all 24 public servants who have held the office. Twenty-two of those twenty four were confirmed by unanimous consent, or with unanimous votes, or with voice votes. One was confirmed by a vote of 89 to 3. The most controversial Ambassador in our history was confirmed by a vote of 81-16. We have been represented by some very direct, opinionated, colorful characters at the United Nations. But we have never sent a figure so polarizing, or one with credibility so tattered, as the nominee before us today. John Bolton does not have the support of a single Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He does not have the support of a majority of that committee. I do not understand why the administration is insisting upon thrusting such a troubled nominee into such a sensitive and important post. From achieving real reform of the UN to rebuilding US credibility to creating a solid global coalition to combat terrorism, the stakes at the UN are as high as they have ever been. If the President had chosen a public servant of impeccable judgment, the committee and the Senate would have rallied around that selection, eager to work in partnership with a nominee capable of, and committed to, mending frayed relationships, encouraging real burden-sharing, and nurturing a strong international coalition to fight terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. John Bolton is not that nominee. I urge my colleagues to reject this nomination, and let us work together to quickly confirm a different nominee--one who represents the President's views but also has the skills, the record, and the confidence of the Senate required to be an effective ambassador. We can do, and we should do, much better than John Bolton.

I yield the floor.