A bill to make available funds included in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program for fiscal year 2006, and for other purposes.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for as much time as I consume.

Mr. President, there is a lot of discussion this week in the Congress, in committees on which I serve and in other committees, dealing with the issue of the company that is owned by the United Arab Emirates, a Dubai company owned by a government called the UAE, managing six of America's major seaports. I wish to make a couple comments about that.

First, I introduced legislation this week that would simply disapprove the transaction. I don't think I need 45 days, and I don't need 45 minutes to make a judgment that it doesn't make any sense for our country to have a company owned by the United Arab Emirates managing six of America's major seaports. It doesn't make sense to me, and I will explain why.

In a time when our country is severely threatened by terrorism--and we read about it all the time that terrorists threaten this country--we understand that terrorists would love to commit another major act of terrorism inside the United States. Go to an airport this afternoon and try to board an airplane. You will find they want you to take your belt off. They want you to take your shoes off. They want you to take your wristwatch off. And then as you get through the metal detector, you see they have some 6-year-old spread-eagled against the wall, wanding that 6-year-old, or perhaps a Catholic priest, because they set off the metal detector.

We understand what is happening at airports. There is massive security. We have all these folks who are trying to get to their airplane, and yet we have them lined up in all kinds of ways because of security issues.

What about our seaports? We know our seaports are also a target for terrorists. We have over 5.7 million containers coming in on ships into our seaports.

The administration says it is concerned about a rogue nation or a terrorist group getting access to an intercontinental ballistic missile and putting a nuclear bomb on the tip of the missile and firing it at this country at

14,000 or 18,000 miles an hour. So we are spending, I don't know, somewhere around $10 billion this year to build an antiballistic missile system. Some of us think that is not a very wise expenditure because it is one of the least likely threats. Instead of worrying about the threat of an intercontinental ballistic missile coming at us from a rogue nation or a terrorist, a very unlikely threat, we should worry about a ship pulling up to a dock at 6 or 8 miles an hour with a container loaded on board that ship that contains a weapon of mass destruction, pulling up to a dock or a pier at one of America's major cities. Then we are not talking about 3,000 people dead; we are talking about tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people killed. Yet think of this: We only inspect about 4 or perhaps as much as 5 percent of all of those containers coming into our country.

We know that just after 9/11, when there was a lot of discussion about this, there was a fellow who tried to ship himself to Canada, someone who they thought was a terrorist, who loaded himself into a container and actually had a cot to sleep on and a water supply; he had a radio connected to a GPS monitor, a whole series of things. He was shipping himself in a container to the country of Canada. They happened to find that person. The assumption was that he was going to find his way into Canada in a container and come into this country across our border. We know the dangers that exist with these ships and the containers. Yet there is very little, frankly, very little seaport security.

I went to a seaport once. We don't have seaports in my State, but I toured a seaport and asked about security and asked about things, and I mentioned previously on the floor that I saw a container that had been taken off a ship and was being opened.

I said: What is in the container? Why is that being opened?

They said: That is a refrigerated container; that is just one we decided to open.

I asked: What is in it?

Frozen broccoli from Poland.

I said: How do you know what is in the middle of that container? I see what you have pulled off the end of it and you cut open some bags and found some frozen broccoli. But how do you know what is in the middle of that container? Well, we really don't, is the answer, and they inspect somewhere around 4 to 5 percent of those containers.

So with all of the potential threat at our seaports, we are now learning that a company owned by the United Arab Emirates has been cleared by the administration to provide management and, yes, security, because security is a part of management, at six major seaports in our country.

My colleagues, a number of them, have described the United Arab Emirates. It is not my intention to offend this country. The administration says they have been helpful to us with respect to the war on terrorism. I don't know the specifics about that, but if they have been helpful, we appreciate that. We do know, however, that two of the hijackers who crashed into our World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 were United Arab Emirates citizens. We know from the 9/11 Commission Report that the United Arab Emirates was a crossroads that helped finance the terrorist operations. We know that the United Arab Emirates ports were crossroads through which Dr. Khan of Pakistan moved substantial amounts of nuclear knowledge and material to North Korea and Iran and other parts of the world, and that will pose very much danger to us and to our children. So we know some things about the United Arab Emirates.

My colleague, Senator Hollings, whom I have described a few times on the floor and who used to sit at the desk right behind me, my colleague just wrote an op-ed piece, and he described the United Arab Emirates. He said that in some countries, women are allowed to vote. In the United Arab Emirates, neither men nor women are allowed to vote. There are a lot of questions about the United Arab Emirates.

Let me mention something from the 9/11 Commission Report as well, about the United Arab Emirates. On page 137, it describes in 1999 the fact that we had found Osama bin Laden, presumably, knew where Osama bin Laden was, and he was near a hunting camp in the Afghan desert being used by visitors of a Gulf State from the United Arab Emirates. On page 138, it describes how in 1999, once our intelligence had decided they knew where Osama bin Laden was, they were going to launch a military strike against him. Page 138 describes that on February 10, 1999, the military was doing the targeting to hit the main camp with cruise missiles. No strike, however, was launched. Osama bin Laden then disappeared.

The reason the strike was called off is that intelligence officials were worried that a strike against bin Laden would kill an Emirate prince, somebody from the United Arab Emirates. Part of the Royal Family was visiting with Osama bin Laden at the time, and our intelligence officials were worried that if they launched a strike against Osama bin Laden, they would kill someone from the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates. This is on page 138 of the 9/11 Commission Report.

My point is very simple. The United Arab Emirates may very well have been helpful to us in the fight against terrorism in the last couple of years, and if they are being helpful to us, good for them. This is not about offending the United Arab Emirates by saying that we don't want a company owned by that country to manage American seaports. I don't wish to offend the UAE, but neither should we be offending common sense. A whole reservoir of common sense would tell us that this country, given the fact that we are the No. 1 target for terrorists, ought to be managing our own ports, our own major seaports, and ought to be providing our own security and ensuring our own security.

If I might also make a couple of points. The Committee on Foreign Investment of the United States, which is made up of somewhere around a dozen agencies within the administration, studied this proposed port deal and said it was okay for the United Arab Emirates-owned company to manage our major seaports. Well, on February 27 we learned that the Coast Guard expressed reservations about the deal in a secret report that was made public this week, and here is what the report said. This is the Coast Guard. It says:

There are many intelligence gaps concerning the potential

for the UAE company's assets to support terrorist operations

that preclude an overall threat assessment of the potential

of the merger.

In fact, the Coast Guard referred to a large number of potential vulnerabilities, and then it listed them, and one of the intelligence gaps that the Coast Guard referred to was the fact that no one had checked the backgrounds of the people in charge of the UAE-owned company.

So when the secret Coast Guard report was made public this week--I believe by Senator Collins, who was holding a hearing at the time--the administration had the Coast Guard make another statement, and here is what the Coast Guard said on February 28:

Upon subsequent and further review, the Coast Guard and the

entire CFIUS panel believe that this transaction, when taking

into account strong security assurances by DP World does not

compromise U.S. security.

The Coast Guard obviously works for the President, and they made this statement dutifully in line with the administration's interests. But it is interesting. The Coast Guard's statement does not say that anybody checked the backgrounds of the officials of the UAE company. That was what the Coast Guard cited as one of the major vulnerabilities.

The highest ranking official in the Department of Homeland Security who reviewed this port deal is Assistant Secretary Stewart Baker. Assistant Secretary Stewart Baker told The New York Times on February 17 that the CFIUS review did not include any background checks on senior managers of the company. In fact, the review didn't involve gathering any information from outside sources like the New York and New Jersey Port Authority, because the committee kept the proposed transaction secret. In fact, Baker said the committee's investigation lasted just a couple of months, beginning in November, ending in mid- January, so there wouldn't have been time to do very thorough background checks anyway.

So here is what we have. We have the Coast Guard saying in a secret memorandum that there are real vulnerabilities here with respect to potential terrorism, and in that memorandum, they say one of the vulnerabilities is that no one had checked the backgrounds of the people in charge of the UAE company. So then the Coast Guard, when this becomes public, says: No, no, it is okay. We have pretty much been satisfied. And then the Department of Homeland Security official, the top official who did this, says: Well, no, we didn't check those backgrounds.

Question: How could the Coast Guard be satisfied when the conditions weren't met, when they had just said previously that there was a potential threat here? They said, ``There are many intelligence gaps concerning the potential for the UAE company's assets to support terrorist operations,'' and one of the bases for that is they hadn't checked the backgrounds of the people in charge. And then the Coast Guard says: But that is OK, now we are in sync with the administration on this. Then Homeland Security comes out and says: Well, we never did check the backgrounds of the people in charge.

This really gives you confidence that the transaction was properly vetted, doesn't it?

Let me just mention that in 2002, May of 2002, the U.S. Military Special Operations Command obtained a document produced by al-Qaida in which al-Qaida claimed to have infiltrated the United Arab Emirates. Referring to the UAE, the 2002 al-Qaida document, which was written in Arabic, says: We have infiltrated your security, censorship, and monetary agencies along with other agencies that should not be mentioned.

I have no idea whether there is any credibility here or not, but I do know that two of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE and the financing for the attacks flowed through UAE financial institutions. And it seems preposterous to me that the administration would just dismiss issues which were raised in a secret memorandum by the Coast Guard, even after there is an admission that the conditions that resulted in that concern about terrorism were never met.

The point is simple. This relates in many ways to the larger question of outsourcing, offshoring, contracting out the global economy. This global economy has galloped along. The rules, of course, have not kept pace. We now discover that in this so-called global economy, there are things which cause great concern. Among those would be deciding that America's seaports, largest seaports should be managed by a state-owned company, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. Does that make sense? Is the reaction of the American people so out of sync with common sense? I don't think so. I think the American people are in perfect sync with common sense, and the folks in the administration who did CFIUS and the folks in the administration who are now defending this are the ones who are out of sync with any common sense.

The President says: I have made up my mind. If the Congress passes legislation and sends it to my desk, I am going to veto it because I want the UAE company to be able to manage these ports. I say if you want to veto it, then go right ahead, but I think this Congress should pass legislation that says very simply that we don't want a state-owned company from the United Arab Emirates managing America's seaports. There are, in fact, security issues, national security issues that trump all of the other issues, and we don't believe that is appropriate. I have introduced legislation to do that, and we will see whether in the coming days and weeks we will be able to pass that legislation. I, frankly, think we will.

A colleague over in the House, Congressman Duncan, said something today that I believe is useful to repeat. He said:

People call this attitude protectionism. If that is what

they call it, then count me guilty of wanting to protect this

country's interests.

I always liked this so-called four-letter word, ``protection,'' the notion of being a protectionist on international trade. What is wrong with standing up for protecting this country's interests? Yes, economic interests, national security interests. What is wrong with that? Does anybody really think it makes sense to be outsourcing and offshoring all of this?

I believe we have the most sophisticated economy in the world. We have a wonderful education system. We have a lot happening in this country. And if we had no immigration restrictions at all and just had an open country, I tell you what, a fair part of the world would be headed in our direction. So it is a great place. And we don't have the resources in this great place of ours to manage our own seaports at a time when we see daily and weekly threats of terrorism against our country? We don't have the resources and we don't have the ingenuity and we don't have the capability to manage our seaports? What on Earth are they thinking about when they suggest that? Of course we do. It is just a matter of national will to decide that we want to stand up for the economic interests of this country and protect the national security interests of this country. That is what our responsibilities are.

I wish that I could, in this case, be supportive of the administration and the folks who reviewed this from CFIUS. But the fact is, in carpenter's terms you would call it a half a bubble off plumb, maybe a full bubble off plumb. This makes no sense at all. You are going to turn over our major seaports to a United Arab Emirates-owned company about which there are substantial questions about national security. I said before, it is nuts. There is no other way of describing it. So count me as somebody who is going to try, in every way possible, to scuttle this approach.

The interesting little dance that is going on here, because everybody wants to look as though they have been able to win, is: Now we have asked, the company has actually asked our country to extend the 45-day investigation. You talk about Byzantine. The United Arab Emirates-owned company is asking the United States of America to extend its investigation because they cut it off prematurely? It is bizarre. That is the only way you can describe it. I don't need 45 days; I don't need 45 minutes to figure out this doesn't make sense. That is why I introduced the legislation I introduced.

Contracting Fraud

Turning to another subject, and I will be brief, yesterday I introduced legislation with 28 of my colleagues. I will ask unanimous consent that Senator Cantwell be added to the piece of legislation.

The bill we introduced yesterday is about accountability in contracting. It is called the Honest Government and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006.

I have held seven hearings, chairing the Democratic Policy Committee, on the issue of contracting. It has been all over the newspapers in the last 4 or 5 years, the massive fraud, waste, and abuse in contracting. I will not go through all of it, but let me put a couple of things up.

This is Bunnatine Greenhouse, the highest ranking civilian official in the Corps of Engineers. She is in charge of all contracts in the Corps of Engineers, and virtually everything being done by contract in Iraq is going through the Corps of Engineers. She, incidentally, has since been demoted. The reason she has been demoted is this career official, who had great ratings and performance evaluations throughout her career, told the truth.

I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to the

contracts awarded to KBR [that is Halliburton, a subsidiary

of it] represents the most blatant and improper contract

abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional

career.

Bunnatine Greenhouse, the highest ranking procurement official in the Corps of Engineers is paying for it with her job, but thank God we have people with the courage to do this.

When you mention Halliburton, everyone thinks you are talking about the Vice President because he used to run Halliburton. This is not about the Vice President. This is about a company that got huge no-bid, sole-source contracts to do work in Iraq, and it is unbelievable--the whistleblowers from Halliburton described the waste. I will give an example. We had a witness who used to work for KBR--Halliburton. He used to buy things for them.

He held up two towels. He said, I was supposed to purchase hand towels for the soldiers. Here is the towel I would

have purchased. It would have cost $1.80 a towel, something like that. And here is the towel I did purchase. It cost triple that. Why? Because the company said to me I want you to purchase the more expensive towel so it has the company name embroidered on the towel that goes to the soldiers. Waste? Of course it is.

Mr. President, $85,000 trucks, brand new, were left on the side of the road to be trashed because they had a flat tire; $85,000 trucks were trashed and left to rot because they had a plugged fuel pump. Do you think that is not happening? Listen to the whistleblowers or the people who drove the trucks.

A guy named Rory, on behalf of Halliburton, runs a cafeteria and food service. We know there is one allegation of one billing for 42,000 soldiers being fed a day when in fact they were feeding only 14,000. Rory said they missed it by about 5,000 in the place he was feeding them, charging for 5,000 more than actually were eating. He said, By the way, we were feeding the soldiers food that had expired date stamps on it, and when we told our supervisors they said, No, no, feed it to them; an expired date stamp doesn't matter. Feed them to the soldiers. He also said the convoys bringing the food in would come under attack and our supervisors said you go through and pull out the bullets and shrapnel in the food, pull it out, and then we will feed the food to the soldiers. And by the way, if they are good bullets, save them for the supervisors for souvenirs.

Are these unusual circumstances? The answer is no. I could go on and talk about fuel delivery and water contracts, but that is enough, just to say there is massive waste and fraud and abuse going on with respect to contracting in Iraq.

By the way, this fellow in this picture testified, this fellow wearing this white striped shirt. These are hundred-dollar bills wrapped in Saran wrap. This is the way they paid contractors in Iraq. He said we told contractors in Iraq, when you come, bring a bag because we pay in cash. He said, we used to throw these around like footballs in the office, hundred-dollar bills, wrapped. They had a bill vault downstairs. So the contractors are told, bring a bag because we pay in cash. He said it was like the Wild West. Someone else said we do a contract, the American taxpayers are going to pay to get a building air conditioned in Iraq, that goes to a subcontractor, it goes to a local contractor, another little contractor, and pretty soon we pay for it. We get a ceiling fan where we should have gotten an air conditioner. It is like the Wild West. Bring a bag and we give you cash.

Finally, a man named Mr. Custer and a man named Mr. Battles. ``Sixty Minutes'' did a recent program on them. They showed up with virtually no money. Eventually, within a very short period of time--nearly 2 years--they got $100 million in contracts from the Federal Government. It is pretty unbelievable.

I have a chart that describes what one of the airport managers said about them.

This is the chart:

Custer Battles have shown themselves to be unresponsive,

uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war

profiteers. Other than that, they are swell fellows.

From the Baghdad Airport, Director of Airport Security. The allegation is, they took the forklifts from the airport, that belonged to the airport, took them to a hangar, repainted them blue, and then sold them back to the Iraq Provisional Authority.

My point is there is substantial abuse going on in contracting.

We have introduced legislation that has a number of components. No. 1, a piece of legislation that includes as its first section something Senator Leahy had offered in the last Congress: punishing war profiteers with substantial penalties. Those who would profiteer in a wartime situation are despicable and they ought to bear substantial penalty.

The bill cracks down on substantial cheaters. It restores a Clinton administration rule, a rule that was made during the Clinton administration on suspension and debarment. If you are a contractor and you have exhibited a pattern of overcharging the Federal Government or failing to comply with the law, basically you have been somebody who has cheated the Government and have a pattern of that, you are out. You are going to be debarred. You are not going to be able to bid again. When the present Bush administration took office they immediately rescinded that rule. We would restore that rule by law, requiring full disclosure of contract abuses.

Section 103 provides for greater transparency in contracting. It would require agencies to provide the chairmen and ranking members of the committees in Congress all contractor reports that found contractor misconduct, and put them on a Web site as well.

The bill would force real competition, no more no-bid, sole-source contracts. It would also ban corporate cronyism in contracting. No more circumstances where someone works in a certain area and then goes to the private sector and gets contracts in the same area for which that person worked in the government. It ends cronyism in key government positions.

This is pretty radical. We are daring to suggest that people who are being hired for key jobs ought to be qualified for them. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, used to be, I think, one of the stars of the Federal Government. My understanding is 7 of the 11 top positions in FEMA were filled by people who had no experience, just cronies. You want a job for Al or Ken or Vern or Mary? Stick them over there. So 7 of 11 positions were filled by cronies with no experience.

Then take a look at what happened, see what happened when Katrina hit the shores, the largest national disaster in our country's history, and you see a FEMA that is completely incompetent.

The stories are unbelievable. We had a hearing about that. We had a guy who drove an 18-wheel truck. He was supposed to haul ice in this 18-wheel truck for the Katrina victims, at FEMA's direction. He got a whole truckload of ice and away he went to provide ice to the victims of Katrina. The problem is, he didn't quite get there. FEMA had him drive around the country. He was sent to an airbase here and another place there, and he finally, after sitting at a military base for a long while--with hundreds of other trucks, by the way--he finally had to drive back to New York and offload his ice in New York. This is unbelievable.

By the way, I have asked the Department, FEMA agency, how did this happen? How did you spend taxpayers' money to have ice run around this country that should have gone to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and instead we end up paying tens of thousands of dollars and the ice never gets there?

I got a letter from FEMA this week which says: That wasn't our responsibility. That was the Corps of Engineers. FEMA has since corrected that with an e-mail that is disjointed, were they admit that the responsibility was theirs. Their recent reputation for incompetence is pretty well deserved. That is something I am going to the bottom of.

My point is, we need to decide, if we are going to put people in key positions to do key jobs, it ought not be cronies, it ought to be people who have some basic experience that would suggest they can do those jobs.

Finally, we will strengthen whistleblower protections. People who have the courage to blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse ought not be penalized, they ought to be applauded.

That is the legislation I introduced yesterday with 29 cosponsors. Senator Cantwell will be the 29th sponsor. I ask unanimous consent Senator Cantwell be added as a cosponsor of this legislation, which is 2361.

This is not Republican or Democratic, conservative or liberal. It is about being smart and doing the right thing. We have had a lot of circumstances in recent weeks and months where our country has dropped the ball. I mentioned the response to Katrina. I mentioned contracting in Iraq and a range of things. I believe we must do better than that.

Some of it stems from these big sole-source, no-bid contracts. That is too sweet a deal. What you need is competition. We do not want to have this Government favoring one company versus another with sole- source, no-bid contracts. That is an invitation for waste, in my judgment.

I know we have a pretty substantial schedule. I know Senator Frist has indicated his agenda, what he wants to bring to the floor of the Senate in the coming weeks and months. But let me say I hope we will have time to deal with this issue of honest government and accountability in contracting. That is a piece of legislation that is urgently needed to be passed.

I also hope, in the near future, whether it is 45 days or whatever the days, they are going to continue to review the question of whether the United Arab Emirates should be managing America's ports. Whenever that is done, my hope is we will have up-or-down votes here in the Congress about whether we think this makes any sense at all.

I agree with Congressman Hunter. Put me down on the side of wanting to protect this country's interests. I guarantee this: We will not be protecting this country's interests to continue down this road of offshoring and outsourcing and deciding this great country of ours does not have the capability to manage its own seaports. What are we thinking about? Of course, we have the capability. The question is, do we have the national will and enough common sense, is there a reservoir of common sense to finally have us doing the right thing?

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, another day is gone. The Senate has been unable to appoint conferees on the pension reform bill. I am terribly disappointed that is the case.

Forty-four million American workers are covered by private sector pension plans. They need our help. They can only get help if we have a conference with the House, a bill comes back here,

and it is approved by both the House and the Senate. Forty-four million people would have peace of mind.

Senate Democrats are ready to go to conference now so we can produce a pension reform bill that will improve worker retirement security. Throughout this process, Democrats have worked with Republicans. This is truly a bipartisan effort to produce a bill that passed the Senate with 97 votes. It wasn't until we got into a position of appointing conferees that the majority decided to, for lack of a better description, play games.

I have to, frankly, say--I haven't had this job a long time--it has never happened during the time that I have been leader. I don't remember it happening during the time I was assistant leader for 6 years.

I don't know when the last time was that we had a prolonged dispute about how many people are going to be on a conference committee.

Why are we seeing this now? Perhaps they are trying to stack the deck in favor of downtown interests--I should say some downtown interests. We should give the opportunity to the Senate to stack the deck in favor of the 44 million workers and not a few special interests down on K Street.

Yesterday, the distinguished majority leader said, and I quote:

We have two committees with equal stakes in this bill, and

they should have an equal number of conferees in the

committee. The conference committee should fairly represent

the two committees of jurisdiction.

I agree. This is precisely why I proposed a conference of eight Republicans and six Democrats instead of seven Republicans and five Democrats.

Under my proposal, four Republicans and three Democrats can be appointed from the HELP Committee, and four Republicans and three Democrats could be appointed from the Finance Committee. Remember, these numbers give the majority a two-vote majority.

The proposal I suggested establishes equal and fair representation to the two committees but for the fact we have 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats. We have acknowledged they should have a two-vote majority in this conference. But it is fair, eight Republicans, six Democrats; eight Republicans representing the Committee on Finance and the HELP Committee, six Democrats representing the Committee on Finance and the HELP Committee. My proposal established equal and fair representation of the two committees--exactly what the leader said we need to accomplish so we can at least get the conference underway.

We are ready to go. It is puzzling when the majority leader refuses to take ``yes'' for an answer. The proposals put forward by the majority leader only add to this confusion. It appears that seven Republicans are okay, eight Republicans are not okay, nine Republicans are okay but only if they have, not a two-vote majority, but now a three-vote margin.

So what conclusions could be drawn? At least two could be drawn. First, the majority leader and his supporters downtown do not really care about the equal and fair representation; they only care about stacked representation. Second, and most unfortunately, they apparently care more about stacking the deck than they do about completing action on this vital piece of legislation.

Remember, whatever suggestion I have made, I don't change the majority of the Republicans. They have a two-vote majority. The majority leader has an opportunity to prove these words wrong. What am I saying? That they care more about stacking the deck than they do about completing this important legislation.

If the distinguished majority leader believes what he said yesterday, we can go to conference today with equal and fair representation from the HELP Committee and the Committee on Finance. If he does not accept this offer, it indicates he believes the lobbyists on K Street are more important than the workers on Main Street.

Yesterday, I listened to statements by Senators Baucus and Conrad, the Democratic ranking members on the Committee on Finance and Committee on the Budget. What they said speaks volumes on what is wrong with this administration. I have trouble comprehending how the majority ignores these huge deficits. They are there. They are piling up. Why? We vote to approve these deficits.

In the pay-as-you-go system, if someone wants to spend some money, you have to have an offset. Those rules have been abandoned by this administration and this Republican-dominated Congress. I don't understand this. I always had in my mind that the Republicans were fiscally concerned about the status of our economy. Obviously, that is not true.

President Bush is the most fiscally irresponsible President in the history of our country. No other President comes even close. When this administration came to office, the Federal debt was about $5 trillion. We were running large annual budget surpluses. We were paying down the debt.

Alan Greenspan, the recently departed Federal Reserve Chairman, expressed concern during the final year of President Clinton's administration that the public debt was being paid down so rapidly that it may cause a concern to the financial markets.

Over the last 5 years, rather than reducing the debt, our Nation has suffered record deficits and gone on an unprecedented and dangerous borrowing spree. Total debt now stands at over $8 trillion, and we are being asked to increase it by another $800 billion, which will last, some say, for no more than about a year.

Compounding matters, the President's most recent budget makes matters substantially worse, leading to a $12 trillion debt by the year 2011. That is just as the first wave of baby boomers begins to retire.

Not only is the debt exploding at the worst possible time, increasingly we are borrowing from foreigners--Dubai, China, Japan. Since this administration took office 5 years ago, our country has more than doubled its foreign debt, increasing such borrowing by over $1 trillion. That is more foreign debt than we accumulated in the first 224 years of this Republic.

During the last 3 years of the Clinton administration, we paid off $200 billion in foreign debt. We paid it off. Given the explosion of debt in recent years, it is long past time for Washington to change course and adopt a new fiscal policy. All we are asking is that people be concerned about the future of our economy. Our Nation is at stake.

I had the good fortune of being able to serve for a number of years in this Senate with Pat Moynihan, Daniel Pat Moynihan, who will go down in the history of this country as one of its most outstanding Senators. He served in Democratic Presidential administrations, Republican Presidential administrations. He was a man who had a great intellect. He served during World War II. He was a great patriot and a great intellect.

Before he died, he said that he believed all this debt which was being accumulated, all the tax cuts, were not to help the wealthy; they would starve Government because the programs that some people in this administration hate, such as Social Security, which the President wanted to privatize in the 1970s, Medicare and Medicaid and other such programs, could not be attacked on a frontal basis. They could not do it directly. So by starving the Government, that is what has happened. And the Government is being starved. The American people are being starved with this huge debt.

At a minimum, this is a matter which deserves considerable debate in the Senate and an opportunity for all Senators of both political parties to participate. Unfortunately, there is reason to believe that some on the other side are doing everything they can to squelch this.

My friend, the senior Senator of the Committee on Finance, Mr. Grassley, is reported to have said--not reported; he said it--that he would like the debt limit to be extended but ``with the least debate.'' According to one news story, he said, ``I would like to see a bill on Thursday night just prior to recess.'' Those are code words for saying: Let's jam this thing out of here. It appears that is what the leadership intends to do.

I got a letter in December from Secretary Snow saying that the country's debt limit is going to be exceeded, and to do something about it. During the holiday season, I got to this letter. It wasn't suddenly given to us. It appears to me we should be spending some time on this issue. But we are not; we just shove it under the rug. It is only another $800 billion of taxpayers' money,

most of which will be borrowed from foreign governments, with no debate, no amendments, no public scrutiny, with no accountability for the massive debt we are imposing on future generations of Americans. That is not how this Republic, that is not how this Senate is supposed to work. It is not how our great democracy is supposed to function. We should be inviting public input, not trying to hide what we are doing because people are embarrassed of public reaction. We shouldn't be jamming things through Congress for political expediency.

The chairman of the Committee on Finance has said to extend the debt limit ``with the least debate,'' and, ``I would like to see a bill on any Thursday night just prior to a recess.''

If the majority believes that increasing our debt by about $800 billion is the right thing to do, they should be upfront about it. They should explain why they think more debt is good. They should explain why they think it is fair to force our children, our grandchildren, and great grandchildren to pay higher taxes, why it is right to increase our Nation's dependence on foreign creditors. Let them try to defend that. Maybe they can convince the public they are right, but I don't think so because most Americans know that increasing the debt is wrong. The baby boomers are about to retire. Under the circumstances, as almost any credible economist would tell you, we should be reducing debt, not increasing it.

I am appreciative of Ranking Member Baucus and Ranking Member Conrad. We have sent a letter to the majority leader urging him to allow a thorough and open debate on any legislation to increase our debt. The letter says that before we approve hundreds of billions of dollars in additional borrowing, we should adopt reforms to reduce the need for more debt in the future. In particular, we should reinstate the pay-as- you-go rules that proved so effective in promoting fiscal discipline in the 1990s. That meant if you want a new program, pay for it, take it from someplace else. When you finish, there has been no new debt to this country. And to show the cynicism of what is going on around here, we have been debating for more than a year the Republican's deficit reduction bill--that is what they call it--which increases the debt.

We should not allow our Government to go deeper and deeper into debt without full and complete debate. We believe we should be more fiscally responsible. All this will do is create more fiscal irresponsibility. It will create higher taxes on our children and a weaker economy for future generations.

The American public will see whether this vote takes place in the dark of night or in broad daylight. They will see that Democrats are not going to vote to increase this debt. This debt has been generated by President Bush and his Republican Members of Congress, and $8.2 trillion is not enough. My good friends on the other side--all 55--will have to belly up to the bar and vote to increase the debt of this country by $800 billion, or whatever figure is chosen, because Democrats are not going to do this. The votes are going to have to come from the Republican Party. We are not going to support this irresponsible Government we have in America today.

How can you run a business like we are being run here? When the credit cards run out, you cannot borrow more money from the bank. Instead, you go out and find the money--you rob the American people. How could you run your home this way?

If I can no longer manage on my salary, I can no longer pay for the style of living we have, I talk to my wife and children and say: We will have to cut back on things.

Not here.

Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act

More than 9 months ago, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. It was one of the rare victories in the House for bipartisanship. I felt good about that. It was my hope we would embrace the same spirit of bipartisanship in the Senate and pass this legislation, as well. It offers so much hope to untold millions of Americans and their families, people who suffer from these dread diseases.

After the House passed the stem cell bill, I spoke with my friend, the majority leader, about the need to take up this crucial legislation as soon as possible. At that time, Dr. Frist assured me he would consider the bill in the Senate by July. That was last July.

By the end of July, the majority leader still had not found time to schedule debate on the stem cell bill, so I moved to take up and pass the House bill on the Senate floor. It was objected to by the majority, but Senator Frist and I admire him for this, Mr. President--delivered a speech the next day in which he expressed support for Federal funding for expanded embryonic stem cell research. That was not easy for him to do. I admire him for doing it, and I appreciate it. In the speech, Dr. Frist said that the potential of stem cell research to save lives and ease human suffering ``deserves our increased energy and focus.''

Now, Senator Frist is a surgeon, a transplant surgeon, one of the pioneers. When he started doing this transplant surgery, most people thought it was an experiment that was doomed to failure. I have spoken to Senator Frist. He personally would travel on little airplanes with a heart that had been taken out of one human being. He would take that heart and transplant it in another human being.

Now, since he did that, they have certainly come up with easier and better methods of transporting human hearts. But that is what he did. And he, coming from a different perspective than I, believes that stem cell research will save lives, it will help us, it will ease human suffering. I am not a scientist, but I believe that, also.

But after he gave this remarkable speech--and I know he received criticism from certain political folks--we returned from the August recess, and he still did not find time to debate this important legislation. He found time to do a lot of other things, like drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. He found time for the Majority's budget, a budget that leaders of the faith-based community and major religious institutions said was immoral. He found time to give sweeping liability protections to the drug industry. But he could not find time to keep hope alive for millions of Americans counting on the promise of stem cell research.

In December of last year, the majority leader asked consent to take up and pass the House-passed cord blood bill. Now, we all supported the cord blood bill, but we did not want to do that because we wanted to consider the cord blood bill and the stem cell bill together. That is what the House did. But in an effort of bipartisanship and in an effort of hope and faith in the process here, we said go ahead and do that.

When we passed the cord blood bill, Senator Frist expressed his commitment to the stem cell bill, but he did not bring it to the floor. He asked the proponents of stem cell research to support his request to take up and pass the cord blood bill in exchange for a commitment to consider the stem cell bill early in the 2006 session.

At that time, Dr. Frist explained:

It is going to take some time that I will give on the floor

of the Senate early in the year and have committed to do so

because of its importance. It is important to address that in

order for that research to be amplified. Much of that

research needs to be amplified for cures that may occur 5 or

10 years down the road.

That is a statement from Dr. Bill Frist. Three months have gone by. We are now into March 2006 and still no time has been scheduled to consider the House-passed stem cell bill. We all know this is a short legislative year. We have less than 3 weeks remaining in the work of this period and a short work period in April. Before you know it, it will be May and an entire year will have passed since the House finished this bill.

Mr. President, recently I was in Las Vegas with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department SWAT team for a demonstration of their new mobile command center, which is really state of the art. When the demonstration was over, I saw a man in a wheelchair. I walked over and introduced myself and asked why he was in a wheelchair. He said: I was a motorcycle officer, and somebody ran a red light and hit me. He has been paralyzed from the waist down for 5 years. He said to me: You know--he grabbed his leg--I am getting a little bit of feeling. I hope that is the case. But he said: Stem cell is my only hope.

Now, he does not know anything about stem cells other than what people have told him. He is not a scientist. He is a police officer. He works in an office now. But he has hope. He has hope. As Dr. Frist said:

Much of that research needs to be amplified for cures that

may occur 5 or 10 years down the road.

He has been 5 years in a wheelchair. He is willing to wait a lot longer.

One year may not seem like a lot of time to some of us, but it is an eternity, I am sure, to some people out there who are so sick with some of those diseases where stem cell research could help. Diseases and conditions like spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's.

Last Sunday, ``60 Minutes,'' the public affairs program on CBS, ran a segment on embryonic stem cell research. They featured a woman named Suzanne Short who is paralyzed from the neck down who was hit by a drunk driver almost 25 years ago. Here is something she said about her hope for stem cell research:

Whether I walk or not, I really don't care. And, yeah, if I

do that's great. But . . . if you could just wake up one

morning and not have to wait for someone to come in my room

and get me out of bed, I could at least transfer myself into

my own wheelchair, be amazing. I'd be completely independent.

That is what she said. She has waited more than 24 years for help. Now we need action in the Senate. She should not have to wait longer.

Mr. President, less than a month ago, my friend died, Jeanie Sherman, Jeanie McCall. She was paralyzed from the waist down. She wrote the most, to me, heartrending letter about her experiences in a wheelchair for all those many years.

Every day we delay consideration of this legislation is a day we deny hope to the hundreds of millions of Americans who suffer from these devastating illnesses and conditions that have no cure--diseases such as cancer, as I have indicated, Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, and heart disease, even Lou Gehrig's disease.

There are a number of very important issues that this body ought to consider this session, but few are as important to the American people as stem cell legislation that could provide medical breakthroughs that would benefit hundreds of millions of people.

So, Mr. President, I know that we are crammed for time here, but I would hope we can find time early this year to debate stem cell research. We have to keep hope alive.

Mr. President, first of all, I think you would have appreciated what I said about you. I do not think there is anything disingenuous about what I said. I talked about your pioneering transplant surgery. I talked about your courageous statement on the Senate floor about the need to do something about the stem cell research and how difficult it was from a political perspective for you to do what you did.

So my point that I made here is that we need to find time to work on stem cell research. I did not say we should do it tomorrow. I said we should figure out a time to do it this year. There is nothing disingenuous about what I said. And there was nothing that I said during my statement on stem cell research that was disrespectful to you. I recognize the burden you have trying to juggle things to get time here. But this is an issue that we have to figure out a way to move forward on.

Mr. President, as I said in my statement, the distinguished majority leader said that we would bring this up early in this session. I am not critical of its not having already been brought up, even though I would rather have done that than--I hate to bring up the ``A'' word--asbestos. There are other things we could be doing. As I said, I am willing to work with the majority leader. We still have time until we get out of here to set aside some time to do stem cell. We are ready to move forward on stem cell research. As I said when we agreed to pass the cord blood bill, we wanted to keep the cord blood bill and the stem cell bill together. That is what the House did. We agreed to pass the cord blood bill with the understanding that the majority leader would schedule time early this year to consider the House-passed stem cell bill.

We wanted to move the two bills together. A number of my people didn't want to separate them, but we took you at your word and the cord blood bill is now the law. That is what I said in my earlier statement. We cannot pass stem cell research unless there is a bipartisan effort to move it. That is why I didn't demand in my statement that we take this up instead of debt limit or instead of lobbying reform. I am saying that we have a lot to do, but stem cell ought to be a priority.

Mr. President, if I could respond to the distinguished majority leader, there is no question that the majority of this Senate feels that asbestos is a difficult, very complex problem and should be addressed. But the bill that came before the Senate was a bad bill. That is why now and before this, but now especially, a group of Senators is working on a bipartisan basis to come up with legislation to address that issue. Sure, it is important. That was a bad bill, and the Senate treated it so.

First, let me say, moving on beyond stem cells, I guess, but so the record is clear, yes, we did object to the unanimous consent agreement because it was for six or seven bills. What we proposed--

Yes. What we proposed is that we work on the stem cell bill and the cord blood bill. That is what the House did, and there was no reason we couldn't do the same.

I have given several statements this week on pension reform. I believe that we should move forward. I have given all the statistical numbers. People who are watching this would tend to agree that seven Republicans is OK with the majority. Eight is not. Nine is, if there is a three-vote margin. I am saying that we should have a conference. The Senate, whether it is fair or unfair, has worked for 224 years. These conferences ordinarily are fairly easy. It is fairly easy to go to conference. What we are saying is, let's have another Republican and another Democrat or two more Republicans and two more Democrats. There will still be a two-vote margin that the Republicans have. Why can't we go to conference? That is what every one of my statements has said.

I have said that and I gave reasons. What are the reasons for this? I gave an example yesterday about some of my trial experience. Are you trying to--juries usually come up with the right result, not always for the right reasons, but they usually come up with the right results. So do conference committees. So I am saying, let's go to conference. I am willing on my side to make choices as to who should go. But I say that we have the HELP Committee and we have the Finance Committee. Both have jurisdiction on this matter. I don't think it is asking too much to have three Senators representing the Finance Committee, three Senators representing the HELP Committee. That is what I am asking, rather than five.

Well, I could have gone into more detail, but I talked quite a long time anyway. What I was complaining about is the inordinate amount of time that we spent dealing with certain issues-- and I did mention specifically the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And the pharmaceuticals, I thought they got a sweetheart deal with the provision that was inserted in the DoD Conference report in the middle of the night without any debate. I think I have a right to complain about how that bill was handled. I thought the Appropriations Committee, had they not been burdened with the ANWR thing, we could have been out of here weeks earlier than what we were, but that held things up for a long time. I have a right to complain about that.

I would say that the left side or right side of the aisle is according to where you are standing in this building. This side of the aisle takes no back seat to what we have tried to do with avian flu. We have pushed this very hard. We pushed it because we were told that it is not a question of if, it is a question of when.

We understand the seriousness of this. That is why we worked so hard to get the administration to also recognize this.

The majority leader, I know he is a prominent physician, and that is what I stated in my statement here. In the DoD bill, people are concerned about a provision that was placed in the bill without the opportunity to debate it that offers sweeping liability protections for the drug industry without compensation for victims who are harmed by reckless wrongdoing.

This is not the time to debate this in its entirety. I mentioned this with a number of other things. But I would not be doing my job if I did not come and talk about how I feel, how we feel, representing what the minority feels about the needs to go to conference on the pension bill. That is an obligation I have. I think I am right. But the fact that I disagree with the majority doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with me. I think we are right.

I had an obligation to come and talk about the debt limit. That is important that we talk about that. I believe I had a right and an obligation to come and talk about the situation dealing with stem cells. I think anyone that would read my statement about stem cells, that wasn't a statement where I was

saying let's draw a ring here and have somebody go in one corner and somebody come out the other and start slugging. I think this is one of the most important things that we need to do this year. I was pleading for time to have it done.

As far as cooperation, that runs both ways. We are in the minority. We understand that. But times change around here. Someday we will be in the majority, and we will be back in the minority. That is one of great things about our country. That is one of the great things about the Senate.

The Senate is here to protect individual Senators who represent States. Sometimes these rules are cumbersome. I see on the floor the distinguished junior Senator from Mississippi who was the majority leader and minority leader in years past. He has written a book about how difficult it is. But it is the Senate. It has worked well for our country. I hope when the books are written about my tenure here that it will be one where people will say: He tried to get along with people, tried to get some things done. I have no problem with the majority leader coming to the floor and saying: What did you say? Because he can look at the record and see what I said. I don't mind staff running notes to him saying things, parts of what I said. But there was nothing in any of my statements that should be cause for alarm, other than alarm that I believe there are certain things we need to do: Specifically, debate on the debt limit; two, get a conference appointed for the pensions; and get a time set so we can debate stem cells.

I will take it, 9 to 7. You will have a deal.

Will the Senator yield?

That is what I said earlier. During my tenure as leader and assistant leader, I never remember this happening. That is what I said before you came here.

Mr. President, first of all, I thank the majority leader for his considerable effort, patience, and perseverance in bringing this legislation to the floor on the basis of the commitment which the leader made in December prior to our adjournment that we would have this legislation to increase low-income fuel assistance for those States that clearly need it, given the rising prices of home heating oil and natural gas, given the fact that we are in the midst of the winter, and given the fact that this has a major impact on families across the country.

I hope we will get beyond today, beyond the cloture vote and be able to secure the additional funding that is so essential to so many of the States and to so many individuals and families who depend upon it. It is absolutely critical that we provide these funds for this fiscal year in order to prepare for the summer and also to address the contingency necessity of providing additional funding this winter.

I am joined in my efforts and I wish to thank my colleague, Senator Coleman, my colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, Senator Grassley, Senator Sununu, Senator Specter, and Senator Santorum, as well as Senator Smith and Senator Kerry. I express my deep appreciation for their support.

I first want to address some of the criticisms that were engendered last week because I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretation about exactly where we stand today and what the facts are.

First of all, my underlying bill shifts the funding from fiscal year 2007 to 2006. There is an additional $1 billion for the purposes of ``contingency'' funding, otherwise known as emergency funding for emergency purposes. So it is budget neutral. We are just advancing it 1 year because of the unusual circumstances and because of events between rising oil prices and a difficult winter which have eroded the value of the low-income fuel assistance. This would help to make it more consistent with the authorization level because of the dire need in so many States across the country, including my own.

It does nothing to modify how those funds are disbursed to the States. The Senate decided 1 month ago when it passed the Deficit Reduction Act that 25 percent of the $1 billion would be appropriated through a formula funding and 75 percent would go to emergency contingency funding.

The Congress decided--including the Senate, and it became law just a month ago--that the President would continue to have the emergency funding capability in order to disburse that part of the funding, 75 percent to those States that needed it at that moment in time because there was an emergency. Emergencies are just that--emergencies.

What the critics are saying about my approach is they now want to change it for the first time ever and take away the capability of having emergency funding under the low-income fuel assistance. It doesn't make sense. Because the States are facing an emergency, they ought to be able to have their funding. That would be taken away by the Kyl amendment, and it would be distributed to States irrespective of whether they need it, irrespective of the fact that no emergency occurred in their State.

I understand that under the low-income fuel assistance program, you have part emergency and part formula. That is what it is all about.

All my underlying bill says is advance the funding from 2007 to 2006 for $1 billion. So we are not increasing the net level of funding for low-income fuel assistance. We have already agreed to it in the budget. It is not increasing spending. It is budget neutral. I don't change the way it is distributed. I am doing just exactly what was dictated by the U.S. Senate, and it became law in the Deficit Reduction Act a month ago.

Now we are saying let us change the entire formula, let us change the entire approach through the Kyl amendment by distributing all of the funds through a formula and we will have no emergency funding.

Let me remind my colleagues that just last fall, we had four States that benefited from the emergency funding as a result of the hurricane. Alabama received $2 million; Florida, $1.35 million; Louisiana, $12 million; Mississippi $11.75 million--exactly because it was an emergency. The President had the authority, had the discretion to disburse those funds from the contingency funds under the low-income fuel assistance program. Under the Kyl amendment, the President wouldn't have that capability. It would be given to States that didn't experience the hurricane, that didn't have an emergency. We would not be able to have any emergency funding if we passed the Kyl amendment.

I hope the Senate will continue the way in which we have approached it in the past. I hope we pass the underlying bill at the very least to advance that funding.

Emergency contingency funds exist because we cannot predict the weather, whether it is in the South or the Northeast or the West. We can't predict. That is why we created an emergency fund under low- income fuel assistance. Now, for the first time ever, we take away that capability.

I think it is important for my colleagues to understand what is at stake. All of the funding under low-income fuel assistance would be distributed according to a formula. There would be no separate funding for emergency purposes as we provided in the gulf last fall. So four States were able to benefit from the emergency distribution as a result of the President's action.

We need that discretionary capability because we are not weather forecasters. We do not know what will happen in America wherever it is going to happen. This is not a regional program. This benefits all 50 States. In fact, in January 2005, in looking at the distribution, all 50 States historically have benefited at some point from the emergency funding.

Unfortunately, on Thursday night there was a chart distributed in the Senate that was misrepresentative of the facts. Even the Congressional Research Service said it was misleading. The fact is, it did not portray the facts. It showed a distribution of the funds in January 2005 according to the emergency funding at that moment in time. But if you looked at it in February or March or April or this year, it might be radically different because the emergencies might have occurred elsewhere. That distribution was for that moment in time because of the emergencies

that resulted. That is not a constant pattern of distribution. It was a misleading chart. I don't blame my colleagues for voting for the interests of their respective States, absolutely. But I want my colleagues to realize and understand that chart was misleading. It does not represent what the emergency funding is all about. We cannot predict an emergency. So there were emergencies back in January 2005 that represented those distributions, but that is not the way it happens all the time because we do not know when the emergencies are going to occur.

I regret that chart was distributed on the basis that it represents how these funds are circulated and dispensed according to the States. They are dispensed according to need and necessity. That is what the emergency funding is all about.

It is important to realize the value of the low-income fuel assistance program overall. In fact, it is one that many of the States have come to depend on, rightfully. I was in the House of Representatives when we first created this program during an energy crisis back in 1979 on the essential basis of helping to mitigate people's fuel bills, particularly for the low income and those who are disadvantaged who cannot possibly pay for the total cost of their oil bills, or in the summer for air-conditioning bills. We know it has profound implications on people's budgets, their inability to meet the rising costs, and especially so this year with 30 to 50 percent increases in their energy bills. That is in addition to the increases that occurred last year that were 20 to 30 percent.

My constituents in the State of Maine cannot meet those rising prices. We are just attempting to hold them harmless with this funding, to hold them harmless to last year to maintain the status quo. What is the status quo? It is about meeting maybe a quarter of their fuel bill during the winter. Maybe. That depends on the rising price, and as we know, it has been an unpredictable pattern of rising prices. It is a very different thing when we have a price for a barrel of oil at $29 compared to where we are today, with a fluctuation anywhere from $61 or $66 for a barrel of oil. That has a major impact on a family's budget. The value of low-income fuel assistance today from where it was back in the mid-1980s has declined to 19 percent of the real value of this program based on what we have provided under low-income fuel assistance.

Back in the 1980s it represented, in real terms, 50 percent to families across this country. Now it has declined to more than 19 percent.

There was a survey recently conducted that illustrated this situation and why this program is so critical to so many families in my State and across America. It illustrated this point. It is tragic. It said that 73 percent of households would cut back and even go without other necessities such as food and prescription drugs and mortgage and rent payments to pay for heat. We have seen that illustrated in the State of Maine. We have had some very dire and tragic situations where people have had to be hospitalized because of hypothermia.

People say it is a mild winter. I invite Members to come to Maine and tell me about it. It has been a very cold winter.

But this is also about the price. In the State of Maine, the price has risen 30 to 50 percent in addition to the price increases last year. Yet the funding for low-income fuel assistance has maintained the status quo. So there has been an erosion of support for families who depend upon this program just barely to meet, perhaps, a quarter of their overall fuel bills depending on the price.

That is why I have asked, along with my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Coleman, my colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, and so many others who have cosponsored this legislation, to advance the funding by 1 year. It has already been provided for. It is budget neutral.

I heard one possibility of using TANF funds to pay for this. Let me remind my colleagues, under the law, TANF funds are to go for families with children. It does not allow for the use of TANF funds for any other purpose. If States do so for ineligible individuals or families, the State is penalized up to 5 percent. Using TANF funds cannot be allowed for low-income seniors, for example, who otherwise are not eligible under the TANF law.

I remind my colleagues that it is important to look at the facts and how the law works and what the implications are. I hope we can get beyond the regionalization of this low-income fuel assistance program bill and look at what is in the best interest of America, irrespective of where the necessity lies. Whether it is in the North, East, South or West, is it a need? Is it vital? Is it important? That is what this legislation is all about.

That is why, in the wisdom of the Congress and the President, we established the contingency fund for emergency purposes so the President would have the discretionary authority to distribute those funds on the basis of need at that moment in time. The other funding is distributed according to a formula. I don't change any of that. I do not change existing law. I do not change what this Senate and the House passed that became law a month ago. I do not change that.

The amendment offered by Senator Kyl changes all of that and places 100 percent of the funding under the low-income fuel assistance program on a formula basis so there is no emergency funding.

I hope my colleagues would vote for cloture so we can proceed. Whether we have amendments remains to be seen. But I am prepared to work with my colleagues, those who have differences of opinion regarding this legislation, to work it out, work it out for their State and what is in the best interest of their State, our States, and for all of America. This should not be a North, South, East, West issue. This should be an issue on the basis of what is right, what is fair, what is required, and what is needed. That is what this is all about. An emergency is an emergency. That is what the emergency funding is. That is what this contingency funding is.

I impress upon my colleagues how important it is. It would be a dramatic departure to accept the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona to redistribute all of the funds through a formula and have no capacity whatever for the President to distribute it on an emergency basis.

I remind my colleagues this is not just about Maine or the North, it is about the South and the East and the West. This shouldn't be about a compass. This should be about America.

I hope Members will look at the facts. The facts are we distributed funding under the emergency contingency fund last fall to help those States in the gulf as a result of the hurricanes for four States, including Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. We gave them $15 or $14 million distributed by the President, rightfully, in response to an emergency.

Taking the emergency funding and distributing it on the basis of a formula means that States are going to receive funding when there is no emergency. How did that make sense? That was not the intent, ever. The intent was to maintain the separate funding for this capability. That is what it was all about.

Eleven States have totally obligated their winter heating fund for this winter, including my own State: Arkansas, California, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, and many of the other States. In fact, 34 Governors have written requesting this additional assistance. They are facing a crisis because applications are up and the funding is down. Increases of at least 20 percent are expected in 15 States alone.

The funds expended for the low-income fuel assistance is equivalent to the amount Congress allocated in 1983. That was 23 years ago. What about the price of a barrel of oil? It is important to my State of Maine where 84 percent of the people qualify for low-income fuel assistance, and the State in general is around 80 percent; 80 percent for those dependent on home heating oil. A barrel of oil in 1983 was $29.

By the way, the price should be going down as we go away from winter and toward the summer. But there is a dramatic change this year. The price is actually going up. And the future price for oil is much higher in January of

2007. That should raise a serious concern among all Members about the potential for price increases with respect to home heating oil and natural gas.

A barrel of oil in 1983 was $29; today it is at least $61 a barrel. That is a difference of $32. We are basically losing the value of low- income fuel assistance because the funding has remained the same. It has declined to about 19 percent of the real value of what it represented when we first created the program almost 27 years ago when I was serving in the House of Representatives.

I have offered the underlying bill to advance the funding based on the recent formula. I do not change the funding. It is 75-25, 75 for emergency and 25 percent on formula. I am prepared to offer a 50-50 that would actually allow many States to gain or stay the same if we want to talk about the formula but do not do away with the emergency funding. That would be the first time ever under this program, and we will not have the capability and the President will not have the authority or the prerogative to respond to those States that are in an emergency crisis, as was the case last fall with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That is the major departure, historically, from how we have obligated funds, both to formula and for emergency.

Mr. President, 54 percent of my colleagues have voted for an increase in funding for low-income fuel assistance last year, requiring 60 votes. That was requiring 60 votes. We worked very hard. We got 66 votes last week on proceeding to this vital issue.

So I hope my colleagues will support this cloture motion so we can move beyond and get to the heart of the matter, so we can discuss the differences and the implications of the underlying bill versus the amendments offered. I am prepared to work with my colleagues in any way to work it out. It is not, in my view, a matter of North versus South, East versus West or whatever. It is not sectional interests we are talking about.

What we are talking about is doing what is right for whoever needs this program and depends upon it in a moment in time. That is what the emergency funding provides. It gives us that flexibility and that capability that will be done away with by the Kyl amendment. I truly regret there was this chart that was distributed last week because it gave an erroneous picture of the accurate distribution of funding because with emergency funding you cannot have a fixed picture because it depends on the emergency. And unless someone around here is a soothsayer, there is no way to know how that funding will be distributed.

Yes, it was distributed at that moment in time that way. That is precisely because there were emergencies. But you do not know what the emergency is going to be a year from now, a month from now, 6 months from now. We are coming upon the hurricane season again. God forbid if anything else happens. The fact is, we need to have that flexibility, as we did last fall. We need to have that capability similarly for our States that need it, in Maine and the other cold-weather States currently.

If we need more funding, I am all for it. But I know there is resistance by many to increasing the funding, regrettably. But this has fallen far short of the real value of this program, as I illustrated. We have not provided a real increase in the low-income fuel assistance program since it was created back in 1979 during my first term in the House of Representatives.

Those are the facts. So I urge my colleagues to vote to proceed to the final consideration of this bill.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Thank you, Mr. President.

I just want to make a couple points, and then I will reserve the remainder of my time.

The Senator from Illinois mentioned Senator Reed, and I, too, would be remiss if I did not mention Senator Reed from Rhode Island, who has worked mightily on this issue and seeking increases in low-income fuel assistance and, in fact, has worked on that throughout the last year and this year as well. So I thank him for all of his efforts in that regard.

Finally, regarding low-income fuel assistance contingency funds, under the law--I would like to read it to my colleagues because I think it is important to understand the purpose that was underlying the design and how this program would allocate the funding in emergency situations. The low-income fuel assistance contingency funds are released at the discretion of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I quote from the law, the law we all supported:

. . . to meet the additional home energy assistance needs of

one or more States arising from a natural disaster or other

emergency.

That is the purpose of the contingency fund that is currently in law. That was supported by this Senate, by the House, and became law. It is what the White House wants. The President wants it. He wants to continue that authority and flexibility to be able to respond to emergencies when they arise. We have no way of predicting when they might arise. Therefore, it is important to have those funds set aside for exactly and precisely that purpose.

The funding distribution is not altered under the underlying legislation that is pending before the Senate. It would be significantly altered by the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona because we would no longer, for the first time in the history of the low-income fuel assistance program, have emergency funding capability, none whatsoever. So where we have provided millions of dollars to Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Florida as a result of the hurricanes last fall, we would not have that capability in the future. We do not have any capabilities.

I want to reiterate the fact that the graph that was distributed last week fundamentally misrepresented the allocation of funds. That was for one snapshot in time because emergencies existed at that moment in time. So if your State got that kind of money at that moment in time, it does not mean you get it the next time unless you had an emergency. That is what it is all about. You want your State to have the benefit of emergency funding under this program when an emergency arises, in the event it is necessary. If it is not, then you do not need that funding at that moment in time.

We have the formula capabilities under the low-income fuel assistance program to provide and distribute the money to various States. That is another part of the program. But to do away with the emergency capabilities under this program, for the first time ever, is a dramatic departure from where we have been in the past, a dramatic departure even in the alteration of the funding formula, as represented by the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona. It would be a dramatic departure in all respects, and it would have implications all across America.

Let me remind my colleagues. I quote:

[It is] to meet the additional home energy assistance needs

of one or more States arising from a natural disaster or

other emergency.

As I said earlier, 34 of our Nation's Governors have recognized the crisis and have written to the Senate and House leadership respectively and said: Despite significant State contributions to emergency relief funds or supplementing existing State-Federal programs, with the record cost of energy nationwide, the Federal fiscal year 2006 funding for LIHEAP reflects a net decrease from the previous year's total. Exactly, because of the rising prices. That is what it is all about. It has been the status quo, as I said, for funding under LIHEAP, essentially since it was created, but most especially since 1983. That is a long time ago.

I think we ought to do what is right. It will benefit all of our States depending on the need and whether an emergency arises. Then we have the formula to distribute the other funding according to the States and to a formula upon which we have all agreed. And it is fair and equitable. What is underlying all of this is to do what is right for all of America, for all of our States, and not to pit one State against another, one region against another. That is not what this is all about. This program is for all 50 States based on formula and based on emergencies.

I hope we will not significantly alter this in a way that removes emergency funding capability that the President now has and what we certainly need and depend on in the event that occurs in any one of our States.

So with that, I reserve the remainder of my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I commend Senator Coleman for his leadership and all the efforts he has made in regard to the pending legislation.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to my colleague, Senator Collins from Maine.

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

Mr. President, in news reports last evening and this morning there was a suggestion that some sort of deal was being reached in the Congress, between the Congress and the administration, on the issue of the Dubai

Ports World Company managing six of America's large seaports. Let me point out there is no deal that I am aware of, but if there is a deal, it is being made by people who have not consulted many of us in the Congress.

In any event, I think this proposal still lacks basic common sense. I want to speak about it for a couple of minutes.

In the Wall Street Journal, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mr. Chertoff, says: ``U.S. ports takeover''--again, by the Dubai Ports World, the United Arab Emirates-owned company--the head of our Homeland Security Chertoff says: ``U.S. ports takeover would tighten grip on security.''

So he actually makes the case, the head of our Homeland Security agency, that allowing the management or the takeover of our six major port facilities, seaport facilities, would strengthen America's security. That is an unbelievable statement. I will describe why he says it. He said:

Assuming the deal would go through, we intend to have a

deep look into their practices, certainly in the U.S. ports.

That is a direct quote. That is almost unbelievable. So they apparently haven't had a deep look into their practices before the deal goes through. This is a circumstance where most of the American citizens understand what is being proposed and very strongly react to it in opposition.

This country is the subject of many terrorist threats. We understand that terrorists from around the world want to strike inside this country. We have all this security in this country--some judged to be quite good, some very deficient. Go to an airport and see what happens when you want to board an airplane. You are going to have to go to a line and you are likely to have to take off your shoes and you are probably going to have to take off your belt and wristwatch and then they are wanding some little 6-year-old boy, spread eagle against a wall someplace because he set off the buzzer. So all of that happens before you get on an airplane. Why? Because airport security is very important.

So is seaport security. We don't have seaports in my home State, but we are recipients of those containers that come on ships into our seaports. Somewhere between 5.7 million and 5.9 million containers a year come into our seaports at 5 or 6 miles an hour to go into the dock where those containers are lifted off by that crane and trucked off all across the country. All of us are recipients of what is coming into our seaports.

Seaport security, frankly, is miserable; 5.7 to 5.9 million containers come into this country and 4 to 5 percent is inspected, all the rest is not inspected, and we believe somehow we are protecting our country?

You will recall shortly after 9/11, there was a fellow from the Middle East, from Egypt I believe, who decided to put himself in a container, get it nailed up and put on a container ship, shipping himself to Canada. He had all the amenities you would need to travel in a container: he had a cot, a GPS locator, a radio, apparently, and a heater. He was in a container on a ship. He was a fellow they thought to be a terrorist shipping himself into Canada in a container for the purpose of coming into the United States.

So seaport security is critically important. We have had vote after vote in the Senate to improve seaport security but the majority doesn't want to spend the money to do that.

Now, with respect to the issue of seaport security, we are told that a United Arab Emirates wholly owned company called Dubai Ports World has been approved by something called CFIUS, one of those God-awful acronyms, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. They have approved the takeover and management, which would include security, by the way, of ports, six major seaports in this country, including New York and New Jersey and Baltimore and New Orleans, and so on.

CFIUS, which is 16 or 18 of the agencies of the current administration getting together, said they think this will be just fine, so they approved it. They approved it without even the 45-day extension you would normally have if someone expressed some concerns about it.

Now Mr. Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, says our security will actually be better if the United Arab Emirates company takes over our ports. Chertoff says, ``U.S. ports takeover would tighten grip on security.''

I don't know. Maybe he's not drinking the same water most Americans are drinking. I don't know how you come to this conclusion. Allowing a United Arab Emirates company to manage our ports is going to manage and improve our security? I don't think so. That doesn't make any sense.

Let me describe the United Arab Emirates. I will do it in terms that do not suggest this is a bad country. That is not my point, although I must say that two of the hijackers who attacked this country on 9/11/ 2001 came from the United Arab Emirates, a substantial portion of the financing for those terrorist attacks came through the financial institutions of the United Arab Emirates, Dr. Kahn from Pakistan, who was moving nuclear materials and nuclear knowledge and knowhow around the world, did that through the UAE ports. There are serious questions to be asked.

But let me make another point; that is, the relationship of the United Arab Emirates to Osama bin Laden. The 9/11 report described a circumstance in which we had discovered, in 1999, where Osama bin Laden was at that time and our country was attempting to target Osama bin Laden. This is in early 1999. The CIA learned that Osama bin Laden could be found at a camp in the Afghan desert, and the U.S. military began to plan a strike against that camp. But the strike was called off because Osama bin Laden was apparently being visited by members of the royal family of the United Arab Emirates.

In fact, let me read to you from the 9/11 Commission report. You will find this in the booklet published by the 9/11 Commission:

No strike was launched.

This is the strike against Osama bin Laden whom our Intelligence Committee said they had discovered. They knew where he was.

No strike was launched. . . . According to the CIA and

defense officials, policymakers were concerned about the

danger that a strike would kill an Emirati prince or other

senior officials who may be with bin Laden.

That is on page 138 of the 9/11 report, the former CIA Director George Tenet explaining why an attack against Osama bin Laden at a Afghan camp was called off said:

You might have wiped out half of the royal family in the

United Arab Emirates in the process, which I'm sure entered

into everyone's calculation in all of this.

The administration says the UAE has been helpful to our country in the fight against terrorism. If they have, and there is some evidence they have since 9/11, then this company appreciates that. But that appreciation, in my judgment, should not and will not extend to inviting the United Arab Emirates-owned company to manage America's seaports. It just defies common sense.

The administration says: What about offending the United Arab Emirates by saying no? We would offend this country by saying no? What about offending common sense by saying yes? Most of the American people understand. They understand if you are going to have security in this country, security includes the United States deciding to provide security at its seaports. The United States can't manage its seaports? I don't understand that.

I was interested in a piece yesterday in the Washington Post by Sebastian Mallaby. I don't know Sebastian Mallaby, but he is a pretty good reflection of those who are pushing this issue, saying that those who oppose having the United Arab Emirates company manage our seaports are demagogs. He said:

The demagogs are poised to strike again.

He said:

If demagogs can turn a tiny ally such as Dubai into a

villain, you can bet they will do that with China.

He's talking about China trade.

The Dems will next play the China card.

One of the things he points out, he says we have a trade deficit with China. He doesn't seem to care much about that. But he says if we are going to get serious about dealing with the trade deficit, we need to get serious about balancing the Federal budget. This person must have missed Economics 101. We did balance the trade deficit under the final years of the Clinton administration and the deficit continued

to rise. We keep hearing these folks say the reason we have a trade deficit is because we have a fiscal policy budget deficit, which is not true. We actually created a surplus here before President Bush took over, and the trade deficit continued to rise. Now we have the highest trade deficit in history and a substantial portion of that trade deficit is with the Chinese.

It is interesting to me, all of these columnists, of course, tend to be apologists for public policies that don't work. But to suggest that somehow those who stand and oppose the management of American ports by a United Arab Emirates company are demagogs is elitist and it is wrong.

The so-called group called CFIUS, which, by the way, almost turns down nothing. They have reviewed lots and lots of proposals, and they have approved them all, virtually. I think they disapproved eight of them out of many proposals. But the Coast Guard had written a classified memo to CFIUS--on February 27 that was disclosed publicly by Senator Collins, I believe, at the hearing. The report said the following:

There are many intelligence gaps concerning the potential

for the UAE company's assets to support terrorist operations

and that precludes an overall threat assessment on the

potential DPW and P&O Ports merger.

In fact, the Coast Guard restored a large number of potential vulnerabilities. That is directly from the Coast Guard's memorandum.

One of the so-called intelligence gaps that the Coast Guard referred to was that no one had checked the backgrounds of the people in charge of the UAE company that would manage our ports. So when the Coast Guard's secret report was made public, the administration said the Coast Guard ought to say something pleasant. So the Coast Guard came out and issued a statement the next day saying:

Upon subsequent and further review, the Coast Guard and the

entire CFIUS panel believe the transaction, when taking into

account strong security assurances by DP World, does not

compromise American security.

Interesting--the Coast Guard statement doesn't say anybody had checked out the backgrounds of the officials at the UAE company. That is what their secret memo had said represented the vulnerability. But the highest ranking official in the Department of Homeland Security, who was part of this group and who reviewed this port deal, said this:

The CFIUS review did not include background checks on the

senior managers of the company.

It is quite clear the Coast Guard, in a classified memorandum, expressed concerns about the terrorist threat, about vulnerabilities as a result of the takeover of American ports by a UAE-owned company and then the Coast Guard, when the classified memo became public, was ordered--the Coast Guard, of course, works for the President, the Coast Guard said something softer, but the Department of Homeland Security's ranking official, Stewart Baker, quite clearly said:

The CFIUS review did not include background checks on the

senior managers.

This is a fascinating description of trying to put a patch on a hole that is too big. None of this adds up very much.

I do want to make another point. This is about offshoring and outsourcing, and so on. The question is, Why would we be contracting with a foreign government, essentially--through a foreign company they wholly own--to manage our ports? This is the new global economy, we are told. If you don't get it, you are an isolationist, xenophobic stooge who can't figure it out. This is all part of the global economy.

President Bush went to India last week. If you are asking the question: How is it that the management of American seaports should be done by the United Arab Emirates company and you don't understand it, you won't understand what the President said last week in India either. What the President said in India, in several speeches, was you need to understand this global economy of ours. He said things have changed. This is about outsourcing of jobs.

I have some quotes from the President. The President says, about globalization: I guess generally outsourcing--you know outsourcing is not bad. People do lose jobs as a result of globalization, and it's painful to those who lose jobs, but the fundamental question is how does a government or society react to that? One of two ways. One is to say losing jobs is painful, therefore lets throw up the protectionist walls and the other is to say losing jobs is painful so let's make sure people are educated so they can find or fill the jobs of the 21st century.

I have news for the President. Those 21st century jobs for educated Americans--he was visiting them in India. He was looking at them. He's looking at the engineers who are now working at jobs American engineers used to have. Why did those engineering jobs go to India? Because you can hire an engineer in India for one-fifth the cost of an American engineer. So the solution is not to say let's have an American lose his or her job and then get better educated. How better educated than going to school to get a degree in engineering and then losing it to somebody in the country of India who is able to work for one-fifth the price?

So he said:

You don't retrench and pull back. You welcome competition.

Understand globalization provides great opportunities.

It is fascinating to me, the people who always talk about this are people who will never be outsourced. The President of the United States is never going to be outsourced. Do you think they are going to move his job to India? I don't think so--or China or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka or Indonesia? I don't think so.

Our first great purpose is to spread prosperity and

opportunity to people in our own land and to the millions of

people who have not known it.

How does that fit, spreading prosperity and opportunity by moving American jobs to China and to India?

How does it spread prosperity and opportunity by deciding that a United Arab Emirates country will come and manage American seaports? How does that spread opportunity?

The President says the United States will not give into protectionists and lose these opportunities. So the President, very much like the columnist, Mr. Sabastian Mallaby from the Washington Post, all use the same language. It is code language. They all understand it. It is elitist language: protectionist, building walls, isolationist xenophobes.

We have a trade deficit of some $720 billion. Every single day, 7 days a week, all year long, we actually import $2 billion more in goods than we export to the rest of the world. Every single day, 7 days a week, we sell $2 billion worth of our country to foreigners.

I am not suggesting we shouldn't trade. I believe expanded trade is beneficial. But I am suggesting that we have a backbone, nerve, and a little will to stand up for our country's economic interests.

Can we not tell China, for example, that they can't have a trade relationship with us that has a $202 billion surplus every year? Last year it was a $202 billion deficit with China. Do we not have the nerve to say to China trade is mutually beneficial, a two-way street, that is the way we insist on it, and if they are going to sell to us then they are going to buy from us? Don't we have that nerve and will. If not, why not?

The same is true with others, especially Japan. With Japan it has been a couple of decades where we have had very substantial deficits year after year after year. And our country doesn't have the nerve or will to do anything about it.

We still have folks walking around thumbing their suspenders and puffing on their cigars talking about globalization and how wonderful it is. No one ever lost a job to outsourcing--it is just American workers who lose those jobs.

It is not just the jobs that are gone. It is the jobs left here that become priced by the China price--downward pressure on wages, downward pressure on benefits, stripping away retirement benefits and health care benefits. That is what is happening all across this country.

The issue I started talking about--the issue of managing an American port by a United Arab Emirates firm--wouldn't even have been discussed here 20 years ago. It would have been laughed at. Are you kidding me? Are

you really serious? We will have America's ports managed by the United Arab Emirates given the climate we face today?

Twenty years ago, you wouldn't be talking about a $700-plus billion trade deficit. Things have changed a lot.

We have a President who cheerleads now for that trade strategy despite the evidence--all of the evidence year after year--that this is a bankrupt trade strategy. It is bankrupting this country. It is selling part of America piece by piece of every single day. All of these things relate.

I only wanted to speak briefly--it turned out not to be so briefly-- about those who announced to the press or those who talked to the press resulting in news stories last evening that there is a deal in the works; perhaps the United Arab Emirates company could buy an American subsidiary and actually run the ports through a U.S. subsidiary. There is no deal in the works that I am aware of.

I have introduced legislation that would overturn this decision. In one way or another we are going to vote on these things. I believe there are other colleagues who believe the same.

We are going to go vote on these things no matter what kind of deal somebody else comes up with. I think there needs to be a good healthy dose of common sense expressed on some of these issues, and that is certainly lacking on trade, on national security, and on port security.

I hope, perhaps, we can get those before the Senate soon.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the ethics and lobbying reform bill we will be considering this week.

Over 100 years ago, at the dawn of the last century, the Industrial Revolution was beginning to take hold in America, creating unimaginable wealth and sprawling metropolises all across the country.

As factories multiplied and profits grew, the winnings of the new economy became more and more concentrated in the hands of a few robber barons, railroad tycoons, and oil magnets. In the cities, power was maintained by a corrupt system of political machines and ward bosses. In the State of New York, there was a young Governor who was determined to give government back to the people.

In his first year, he had already begun antagonizing the State's political machine by attacking its system of favors and corporate giveaways. He signed a workers' compensation bill, and even fired the superintendent of insurance for taking money from the very industry he was supposed to be regulating.

None of this sat too well with New York's powerful party bosses, who finally plotted to get rid of the reform-minded Governor by making sure he was nominated for the Vice Presidency that year.

What no one could have expected is that soon after the election, when President William McKinley was assassinated, the greatest fears of the corrupt machine bosses and power brokers became true when that former Governor became President of the United States and went on to bust trusts, break up monopolies, and return the government to its people.

His name, of course, was Theodore Roosevelt. He was a Republican. Throughout his public life, he demonstrated a willingness to put party and politics aside in order to battle corruption and give people an open, honest government that would fight for their interests and for their values.

I think today we face a similar crisis of corruption and a similar crisis of confidence. I believe we need similar leadership from those in power as well.

The American people are tired of a Washington that is open only to those with the most cash and the right connections. They are tired of a political process where the vote you cast is not as important as the favors you can do. They are tired of trusting us with their tax dollars when they see them spent on frivolous pet projects and corporate giveaways.

It is not that the games that are played in this town are new or surprising to the public. People are not naive to the existence of corruption. They know that over the years it has worn both a Republican and a Democratic face.

Moreover, the underlying issue of how extensively money influences politics is the ``original sin'' of everyone who has ever run for office, including me. In order to get elected, we need to raise vast sums of money by meeting and dealing with people who are disproportionately wealthy. This is a problem that predates Jack Abramoff.

So I agree with those on both sides of the aisle who believe we should not let half measures and partisan posturing on campaign finance reform derail our current efforts on ethics and lobbying, but I also think this is an issue and a conversation we are going to have to have in the months to come--the conversation about campaign financing. That is not, however, the topic that is before us this week.

While people know that both parties are vulnerable to these problems, I do not think it is fair to say that the scandals we have seen most recently under the current White House and Congress--both legal and illegal--are entirely predictable or the standard fare. They are worse than most of us could have imagined.

Think about it. In the past several months, we have seen the head of the White House procurement office arrested. We have seen some of our most powerful leaders of both the House and the Senate under Federal investigation. We have seen the indictment of Jack Abramoff and his cronies. And, of course, last week, we saw a Member of Congress sentenced to 8 years in prison for bribery.

Now, there are some in the media who dismiss these scandals by saying: Everybody does it. The truth is that not everybody does it. We should not lump people together--those of us who have to raise funds to run campaigns but do so in a legal and ethical way with those who invite lobbyists into their offices to write bad legislation. Those are not equivalent. And we are not being partisan by pointing that out.

The fact is, since our Federal Government has been controlled by one party, this kind of scandal has become, unfortunately, a regular order of business in this town. For years now, some on the other side of the aisle have openly bragged about stocking K Street lobbying firms with former staffers to increase their power in Washington--a practice that should stop today and never happen again.

But what is truly offensive to the American people about all of this goes far beyond people such as Jack Abramoff. It is bigger than how much time he will spend in jail or how many Members of Congress he ends up turning in. It is bigger even than the K Street project and golf junkets to Scotland and lavish gifts for lawmakers.

What is truly offensive about these scandals is they do not just lead to morally offensive conduct on the part of politicians; they lead to morally offensive legislation that hurts hard-working Americans.

When big oil companies are invited into the White House for secret energy meetings, it is no wonder they end up with billions in tax breaks while most working people struggle to fill up their gas tanks and heat their homes.

When a committee chairman negotiates a Medicare bill one day, and after the bill is passed is negotiating for a job with the drug industry, it is hardly a surprise that industry gets taxpayer-funded giveaways in the same bill that forbids seniors from bargaining for better drug prices.

When the people running Washington are accountable only to the special interests that fund their campaigns, it is not shocking that the American people find their tax dollars being spent with reckless abandon.

I have to point out that since the current administration took office, we have seen the number of registered lobbyists in Washington double. In 2004, over $2.1 billion was spent lobbying Congress. That amounts to over $4.8 million per Member of Congress.

How much do you think the American people were able to spend on their Senators or Representatives last year? How much money could the folks back home, who cannot even fill up their gas tanks, spend on lobbying? How much could the seniors forced to choose between their medications and their groceries spend on lobbyists? Not $4.8 million--not even close.

This is the bigger story here. The American people believe that the well-connected CEOs and hired guns on K Street who have helped write our laws have gotten what they paid for. They got all the tax breaks and loopholes and access they could ever want. But outside this city, the people who cannot afford the high-priced lobbyists and do not want to break the law are wondering: When is it our turn? When will somebody in Washington stand up for me?

We need to answer that call. Because while only some are to blame for the corruption that has plagued this city, we are all responsible for fixing it.

As you know, I am from Chicago, a city that has not always had the most stellar reputation when it comes to politics. But during my first year in the Illinois State Senate, I helped lead the fight to pass Illinois' first ethics reform bill in 25 years. If we can do it in Illinois, we can do something like that here.

But we have to pass a serious bill that has to go a long way toward correcting some of the most egregious offenses of the last few years and preventing future offenses as well. This is not a time for window dressing or putting a Band-Aid on a problem to score some political points. I think this is a time for real reform.

I commend the work the two committees that have dealt with this issue have already put in under the leadership of Senator Lott and Senator Dodd, Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins. I want to note that the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was originally sponsored by those of us on this side of the aisle, has 41 cosponsors and, I think, established a good marker for reform. I commend my leader, Harry Reid, and his staff for their hard work in putting it together.

But real reform means making sure that Members of Congress and senior administration officials are dealing with this in as thoughtful and aggressive a fashion as is possible. Let me give you some examples of some provisions that are already in, but also some provisions I would like to see included.

Real reform means making sure that Members of Congress and senior administration officials wait until they leave office before pursuing jobs with industries they are responsible for regulating.

I understand that former Congressman Billy Tauzin has said he was not negotiating for a job with the drug industry at the same time he was negotiating the Medicare bill, but the fact is this: While he was a Member of Congress, he was negotiating for lobbying jobs with not one but two different industries that he was responsible for regulating-- the drug industry and the motion picture association.

That is wrong. This should not happen anymore. Real reform means ensuring that a ban on lobbying after Members of Congress leave this office is real and includes behind-the-scenes coordination and supervision of activities now used to skirt the ban. Real reform means giving the public access to now secret conference committee meetings and posting all bills on the Internet at least a day before they are voted on so the public can scrutinize what is in them. Real reform means passing a bill that eliminates all gifts and meals from lobbyists, not just the expensive ones. And real reform has to mean real enforcement because no matter how many new rules we pass, it will mean very little unless we have a system to enforce them.

I commend Senators Lieberman and Collins for their efforts to create such an enforcement mechanism through an independent office of public integrity. While this proposal doesn't go quite as far as my proposal for an outside ethics fact-finding commission, it is still very good, and I am looking forward to working with them to try to get it included in the bill that has been marked up. But to truly earn back the people's trust, to show them we are working for them and looking out for their interests, we have to do more than just pass a good bill this week; we are going to have to fundamentally change the way we do business around here.

That means instead of meetings with lobbyists, it is time to start meeting with the 45 million Americans who don't have any health care. Instead of finding cushy political jobs for unqualified buddies, it is time to start finding good-paying jobs for hard-working Americans trying to raise a family. Instead of hitting up the big firms on K Street, it is time to start visiting the workers on Main Street who wonder how they will send their kids to college or whether their pension is going to be around when they retire.

All these people have done, our constituents, to earn access and gain influence is to cast their ballot. But in this democracy, that is all anyone should have to do.

A century ago that young, reform-minded Governor of New York, who later became our 26th President, gave us words about our country that everyone in this town would do well to listen to today. Here is what Teddy Roosevelt said back then:

No republic can permanently endure when its politics are

corrupt and base . . . we can afford to differ on the

currency, the tariff, and foreign policy, but we cannot

afford to differ on the question of honesty. There is a soul

in the community, a soul in the Nation, just exactly as there

is a soul in the individual; and exactly as the individual

hopelessly mars himself if he lets his conscience be dulled

by the constant repetition of unworthy acts, so the Nation

will hopelessly blunt the popular conscience if it permits

its public men continually to do acts which the Nation in its

heart of hearts knows are acts which cast discredit upon our

whole public life.

I have come to know the Members of this body and know that the people who serve here are hard-working, thoughtful, and honorable men and women. But the fact is, the entire Congress has been marred and is under a cloud. Our consciences have been dulled by the activity of the few. We have to make certain we are sending a strong signal to the American public that we are no longer going to tolerate that kind of activity, that our conscience has been sharpened, and we are willing to take the steps necessary to restore credibility to this August body.

I hope this week we in the Senate will take the first step towards strengthening this Nation's soul and bringing credit back to our public life.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of greater funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP.

As I have traveled around Illinois this winter, I have heard from many low-income families and senior citizens about the burden of rising heating costs. These families are being forced to spend considerable portions of their incomes on gas bills, and many of them simply cannot afford it. Some families are having to keep their thermostats low just so they can buy groceries. It is essential that States have the funding they need through LIHEAP to help these families pay their heating bills during the cold months.

That is why, last year, I joined a number of my Senate colleagues in sending a letter to the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee requesting $3 billion in funding so that low-income families, disabled individuals, and senior citizens who live on fixed incomes have access to affordable energy when they need it most. We also asked that advance funding be allocated in the budget for LIHEAP. This would allow States to plan more economically in preparing for the winter heating season by purchasing fuels during the spring and summer months. Unfortunately, our request was denied.

Months later, during consideration of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress reauthorized the LIHEAP program from fiscal year 2005 to 2007, providing for a yearly appropriation of $5.1 billion. However, in the fiscal year 2006 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Act, Congress provided $2.2 billion for LIHEAP funding-- the same allotment

given to the program in fiscal year 2005. During Senate consideration of several bills in the final weeks of 2005, I voted for a number of amendments providing more funding for LIHEAP, but those amendments were defeated.

Funding for LIHEAP has remained level for the past 20 years, but energy prices are at an all-time high. According to the Department of Energy, DOE, natural gas prices in the Midwest were expected to rise between 69 percent and 77 percent during the winter heating season. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association estimates that for families using natural gas, heating bills would average well over $1,500 per consumer, an increase of over $600 per consumer as compared to the winter of 2004-2005. As a result, we have seen an unprecedented rise in requests for LIHEAP assistance across the country. In Illinois, requests in 2005 were up 41.4 percent from the year before. That is nearly a quarter of a million Americans asking for help in my State alone.

I think we often forget how much our working families need this program, and just how heavy the burden of heating one's home can be these days. In a thank-you note to the staff at Illinois LIHEAP, a woman in Lake County, IL, wrote:

Having you help me and my mother this year with our utility

bill was a godsend. It was over my head and I didn't know

what I was going to do . . . My mother is on oxygen 24-hours

a day, and we couldn't be without electricity, so you see it

was a matter of life and death also for me.

I commend Senator Snowe for her tenacity in pushing this legislation, and I commend Senator Jack Reed for his longstanding commitment to this issue.

I hope my colleagues will recognize the importance of this problem and support this measure, as well as greater LIHEAP funding in the future. With natural gas prices increasing so severely, more Americans than usual are expected to apply for LIHEAP assistance in paying their heating bills.