Royalty Relief Suspension Act of 2006

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Will the Senator yield for a moment?

I send to the desk a modification of Senator Sessions' amendment that reflects the amendment offered by Senator Kyl. Since it has not been ordered yet, I believe it is the Senator's right to modify the amendment.

I ask unanimous consent he be permitted to modify his amendment.

Mr. President, at 2 p.m. there will be a vote on the Sessions amendment, as modified?

The yeas and nays have not been ordered?

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Will the Senator permit us to have a managers' package first?

Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Senator Inouye, I will present another managers' package. This contains amendment No. 4778, for Senator Smith, regarding airships; No. 4773, for Senator Dayton, regarding postdeployment support; No. 4766, for Senator Inouye, regarding a military history exhibit; No. 4760, as modified, for Senator Lott, regarding airdrop systems.

Mr. President, I withdraw the package.

Amendment No. 4802

Mr. President, Senator Kennedy's amendment remains the pending business?

I suggest the absence of a quorum. I withhold that request.

Mr. President, I think I can say with assurance, I am probably the only Member of the Senate who has had a traumatic brain injury in connection with a jet crash in 1978. I have deep respect for the researchers who are involved in this area. But really, this is an amendment to give the University of Chicago's research team $2 million.

The NIH has a substantial number of programs. I am told that through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a whole portion of NIH has an extensive traumatic brain injury program that supports basic, translational, and clinical research through grants and contracts through over 100 research teams and investigators.

In addition, we have $45 million in this bill that can be used. It is called the Peer Review Medical Research Program. This amount can come out of that $45 million if the Department of Defense needs it. It is up to them. To stay within our allocation, we had to notify Members who brought us requests for medical research that we had established this $45 million program, and from that the Defense Department can pick these suggestions that come from Members of the Senate, the Congress, too. The House will be involved in it obviously.

This is not a neglected area. We spent over $1 billion in research grants for studies in this area, particularly funding long-term research in traumatic head injury, head and spine injury, and epilepsy. This amendment deals with epilepsy and its connection with brain injuries.

In the past 3 years, an average of $430 million a year has been awarded for grants, contracts, and research by the National Institutes of Health clinics for epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and injuries to the head and spine. In the last 3 years alone we spent $1.29 billion in those specific efforts in this area.

In this current fiscal year Congress encouraged and directed the National Institutes of Health to expand basic and advanced research in brain injury rehabilitation. As I said, they told us they have an extensive program there. This is where this money should be taken, in the final analysis. We have been using over three-quarters of a billion dollars for research not associated with military programs in the past.

We have at least 20 amendments of the same kind that have also been suggested to us. The Senator from Pennsylvania has one. A whole series of people have come and said they want to have earmarks on the money we have in that fund. We have not done that because we believe the Department should take the money and spend it on research that is related to the demands of the military today.

Further brain injury research through the Department of Defense will reduce the funds available for military readiness and will ignore the valuable contributions made by NIH and other nondefense research entities.

I say to the Senator from Illinois, as we discussed in the committee, there is no question it is a good program. There is no question the University of Chicago should compete with other universities for the money that is available. For this to be earmarked here now means they no longer have to compete. As I said, NIH said there are currently over 100 separate contracts out there right now in addition to the $45 million we have in this bill. NIH has an enormous amount of money and the expertise of NIH and their clinical trials. The program they have for allocating money, I think, should not be obviated by an earmark here on the floor.

If it happens, if the Senate wants to adopt this amendment, then I can tell them in all fairness we are going to have to bring forth the amendments of the other Senators. Several of them, as a matter of fact, are from Senators who are up for election. We told them no. So I say to the Senate, if you want to adopt this amendment of the Senator from Illinois to give the University of Illinois priority on this money, then that is the judgment of the Senate. I oppose it, as I did in committee. I do think we have to stop using Defense money for contracts with universities and basic research at the suggestion of a single Senator. It is not something that should be done.

We have adequate money in this bill to cover this if the Department wants to do it. We have an overwhelming amount of money in the NIH area, if NIH wants to pursue having the University of Chicago do this epilepsy research, but this is not a military requirement.

All the Senator said about injuries that are coming from current military involvement is correct. But they are being met. Not one member of the military society came to us and said we need more money for brain research--not one. This is not something to be handled with an amendment on the floor, to give one university priority over all others in connection with the research money that is available under this bill.

Will the Senator yield? I will be pleased to have you point that out to me.

We have had $3 billion requested of our subcommittee for medical research. It is the largest growth area in this subcommittee's jurisdiction. More and more money for medical research was requested. We put $45 million into this program. I want to see that earmark.

Does this require unanimous consent?

Mr. President, those 1,700 or however many you have, soldiers, aren't going to the University of Chicago. This is simply a provision to take $2 million of the defense money for the University of Chicago for epilepsy research. As I said, we had a total of $3 billion in requests from this subcommittee for medical research from other Senators. We turned them all down. The Senator from Illinois wouldn't take ``no.''

I understand his position. His position is he now wants to say other items we allowed him to earmark in other portions of the bill would be changed in order to have this go to the University of Chicago.

Every Senator who asks for that money is going to come wanting to do the same thing. In other words, it will not make any difference. The money will be going to medical research instead of going to the needs of the military.

I didn't say it was for readiness. I said we could not have any more money going out of the Defense bill to take care of medical research when medical research is basically a function of NIH and the subcommittee that deals with Labor, Health, and Human Services. It is not our business.

I confess, I am the one who made the first mistake years ago. The Senator just reminded me. I am the one who suggested that we include some money for breast cancer research. It was languishing at the time. It was back in the 1980s. Since that time it has grown to $750 million that was involved, I think it was, in the last bill we had, dealing with medical research that had nothing to do with the Department of Defense.

With the shortage of money we have now, we are now over the budget by about $78 billion in emergency money. Don't tell me I am objecting to brain research. As I said, I have been the subject of brain research. But there is plenty of money there for it.

I notice the occupant of the chair suggests maybe I need a little bit more.

But as a practical matter, we cannot do this just for one Senator, and I have been a whip and I understand what it means to have access to the floor and make a demand. But this is not right. I say to the Senate, if we are going to vote this $2 million, I am going to go back and tell each one of the other Senators they should come and offer their amendments, too. They are very well-meaning amendments. I have to tell you, we have back injury. We have problems with regard to a whole series of items. Among the amendments proposed were tissue engineering; another traumatic brain injury study for a long-term concept of a study of that; vaccine health care centers; eye refractive surgery; hypothermia; hemostatic agents; traumatic brain injury research at several other universities.

One of the reasons we turned this one down is we could not in good faith take the one from the University of Chicago in Illinois and take down the others. We had neuromuscular research. I could go on and on.

The things all added up to $3 billion. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is $2 million, but it leads into, Why should we take this amendment of the Senator from Illinois and turn down all these other amendments? We turned them down, not because they were not worthy. We didn't turn them down because they were not necessary. We turned them down because this is not the place to fund them.

It is my position that the suggestion we are going to turn around and take it out of another provision in the bill that says why did we agree to that other provision, if it is not necessary? Why did we add it to the bill?

As a matter of fact, I don't recall those items where we did, but we did handle several amendments for the Senator from Illinois. We treated them the same as we did every other Senators with regard to research for medical purposes. This is the only one out of all of them where we said, no, that has been presented to the Senate.

I do not want to be accused of being against brain research or ignorant of the fact that there is an enormous number of brain injuries to our military people. As a matter of fact, I went out to Walter Reed to see one of our young people from Alaska who had a brain injury. But no one, again, has told me we need money in this bill for brain research beyond what is there already and beyond what is being made available by NIH.

I do say again, this amendment should not be adopted.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that Senator Salazar's amendment No. 4776 be placed before the Senate.

Mr. President, the managers of the bill are prepared to accept this amendment and ask that it be accepted on a voice vote.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, we have managers' package No. 2 back again. I wish to restate that request now. It applies to amendment No. 4778, for Senator Smith, regarding airships; amendment No. 4773, for Senator Dayton, regarding postdeployment support; amendment No. 4760, as modified, for Senator Lott, regarding airdrop systems; amendment No. 4796, for Senator Conrad, regarding weapons bays; and amendment No. 4771, for Senator Frist, regarding contracts.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that the Senate proceed to the consideration of this managers' package en bloc, and that they be adopted en bloc, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Now, what is the pending amendment, Mr. President?

Mr. President, I am appalled at some of the information that the Senator from North Dakota

has brought to us. I will join him, perhaps, in some specific amendment that might have some germaneness to this bill such as an authorization to shoot such people. I can't imagine that anyone would provide to troops in the field contaminated water. I can't believe that we are being charged for a sizable number of clinics and our taxpayers are paying for it and they are imaginary.

On the other hand, this is a provision that deals with Government contracting governmentwide. If we include it, we would have to have several subcommittees and the other body confer with us to try to write the amendment in a way that might be pertinent to the matter before us, and that is financing the Department of Defense.

I do think we should be indebted to the Senator for his research and what he is doing to try to bring honesty into Government contracting. But I am compelled to say that it is an amendment that should be taken to the Government Affairs Committee, and it should not be on this bill. It is legislation on an appropriations bill. I do make a point of order that it violates rule XVI.

Mr. President, before the Senator leaves, I am sure Senator Inouye is telling him the same thing. We will instruct our staff to start the process of establishing a series of hearings to investigate this fraud that he has brought to our attention. The Senator is a member of our committee, and we will be pleased to work with him on it. If it gets to the point where we need a commission per se to be outside of the Congress to do this investigating, we can look into that, too. I think we should start the process of investigating into these repeated reports we have had about fraud and corruption in connection with Government contracting, particularly that related to our war effort.

I thank the Senator for his work.

I don't think we need an act. We have authority under our existing rules today to do that investigation. As has been pointed out, President Truman used a subcommittee of the Congress at the time he did his investigations in World War II.

The Budget Committee chairman raises literally the things we have been thinking about and mumbling about for months now. We have in this bill a provision that says next year all of this should be within the budget. That, of course, we realize is next to impossible because of the inability to predict in advance--really 18 months in advance--what the costs are going to be to fight a war.

I believe the Senator should look at the changes that have been made since the war I was in, World War II. We had draftees. All of the equipment that was used, the transportation equipment was operated by people in uniform. All of the bases were operated by people in uniform. We didn't have security people; we did the guard duty. We didn't have people running the kitchens; we did it ourselves. I distinctly remember peeling potatoes for hour after hour.

All I am saying to the Senator is, the concept of handling war materials and emergency issues has gotten out of control. The Senator from North Dakota--I don't know if the Senator from New Hampshire saw his comments about some of the fraud and abuse that is involved in Government contracting.

It is fairly clear, because of the nature of the emergency, controls have been thought of after the fact. We are trying to bring it into some kind of perspective for the future.

As budget chairman, the Senator from New Hampshire is absolutely correct, I don't know how we could fold into the budget for next year and make everything involved in the fiscal year 2008 the concepts we are dealing with in terms of emergency funding right now.

However, I am also convinced that because of the way this conflict has changed and the nature of the conflict, as opposed to wars of the past, even the Persian Gulf war that we fought, we have no way of telling how much it is going to cost.

I want the Senator to know that those of us who handle the appropriations bills, particularly those regarding defense, would like to work with the Senator. There must be some way to put some controls over the way this money is spent.

I am appalled when I hear of some of the things the money is spent for in a redundant fashion which ends up not achieving the goals, but still have to spend the money after the goals are not achieved. It is difficult for us right now to get our hands on the way this war has been costed out and the way the money has been spent.

I don't think it is a political question. I don't think it is a matter of politics. I think it is a matter of practical application, some good money-handling propositions. We have run into that in terms of some of the money we have provided to the Iraq Government, also. I hope the Senator from New Hampshire is familiar with those.

I wonder whether the Senator has any suggestions on how we might help him in this endeavor.

I thank the Senator also.

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

Mr. President, the Dodd amendment raises an interesting issue of availability of additional money if needed. It in effect is reprogramming authority granted in advance to move money to meet necessity, if it occurs. On that basis, I think I would be willing to support it, but I think the Senate as a whole ought to vote.

Mr. President, I suggest that we agree on a time to commence this rollcall vote. Can we say it occur at 10 minutes after 5? Is that agreeable with Senator Inouye?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this vote be scheduled for 10 minutes after 5.

Is there any further amendment to be discussed at this time?

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask to rescind the previous order regarding the vote that is scheduled, and I now ask consent that at 5:15 today, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the DOD amendment No. 4819, with no amendments in order to the amendment prior to the vote; further, that the Senate then vote in relation to the Durbin amendment No. 4781, with no amendments in order to the amendment prior to the vote, and there be 4 minutes for debate equally divided between the votes.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I would like the Senate to know where we are. As of 4:35 this afternoon, we had 68 more amendments. I have asked the Parliamentarian to advise Senator Inouye and me tomorrow morning how many of them are subject to rule XVI. A great many of them are legislation.

I point out to the Senate that this bill must be conferenced and we must get this bill to the President in time for the money to be available at the end of the fiscal year. We cannot go over this year.

Amendments subject to rule XVI, when we go to conference, require us to confer with another committee on the House side in order to see whether the House will accept these nongermane amendments.

It is our intention to raise rule XVI against any amendment that the Parliamentarian tells us is subject to the rule. If some can be rewritten in a way not to do that, we can reconsider them.

I apologize to the Senator from Illinois. There is another vote scheduled.

Amendment No. 4781, as Modified

Mr. President, this is an important amendment. It is one to provide the University of Chicago with $2 million to conduct imaging research on the connection between epilepsy and brain injury.

This is not to directly help the soldiers who have been injured. As a matter of fact, this is not a neglected area. We put up a billion dollars in the last 2 years, and there has been substantial research on brain injuries.

There is a necessity for money for the treatment and care of those who have this problem, but we do not need more money for research. As a matter of fact, in the past 3 years, we averaged $430 million a year in grants, contracts, and research conducted by NIH. For 2006, we asked NIH to expand research on brain injury rehabilitation.

This money is not going to treat soldiers; it is going to the University of Chicago for an imaging research

project. We have 20 other amendments here that deal with the question: Should we use more money from defense for medical research? We have said no, we don't want any more money used for brain research.

There is $45 million in this bill that the Department of Defense can use for any research project in the health area it wants to. But to take more money now--this is a symbolic $2 million. If this amendment passes, we have to deal with the other 20. We have said no to everybody, not just to one amendment.

I urge my colleagues not to support this amendment. As a matter of fact, I move to table this amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

I announce that the Senator from Montana (Mr. Baucus and the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I may call up amendment No. 4781 for debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me for a few minutes to consider this amendment. It relates to traumatic brain injury. It is a very serious problem with soldiers who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. This amendment addresses the very real medical issues and problems they are facing with these serious wounds. Senator Obama shares my concern of this issue. That is why we are offering this amendment together today.

Our goal is to improve the treatment of the devastating injuries which are suffered by many of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Traumatic brain injuries can range from large, penetrating skull fractures to concussions which may not be immediately detected.

As of January of this year, the Department of Defense reported that nearly 12,000 members of the military have been directly or indirectly wounded in explosions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. President, I am going to display a chart at this moment which is painful to see. I talked it over with a man who has served in Iraq who commanded troops in Iraq who saw one of his soldiers suffer a very serious injury similar to the one I am about to show. I asked whether he thought it was appropriate for me to show this image on the floor. He said, Yes, it is important that the people of this country understand the kinds of injuries that our soldiers are experiencing and why this issue of traumatic brain injury is so important for us to discuss with this amendment.

This is an actual x-ray of an American soldier who has been the victim of a traumatic brain injury. Because of an explosion, one can see that a major portion of this soldier's skull was blown off. We are told that there are soldiers who have experienced injuries that are even more grievous, and they survived. Through the miracle of evacuation and medical treatment, they survive. They go through extensive surgeries, and some, this officer told me, end up wearing helmets for long periods of time during their recuperation until they can finally rebuild their skulls so they can start to go through rehabilitation and recuperation.

This is amazing when we see an image of an x-ray such as this and understand that many of our soldiers have been subjected to traumatic brain injury of lesser and greater extent and are now returning to the United States.

These brain injuries are often caused by bullet wounds or penetrating head injuries and can also be the result of blasts, obviously bombs, grenades, landmines, missiles, mortar, artillery shells.

In the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, traumatic brain injury accounts for 22 percent or more of injuries, a larger proportion of casualties than in any other recent war of the United States. It is a serious medical challenge for those who treat our soldiers, certainly for the soldiers who are victims of these injuries and their families.

With the frequency of attack by rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers are more likely to encounter an explosion. Improvements in protective devices, such as Kevlar helmets and body armor, may make the soldiers more likely to survive these terrible explosions.

More than 1,700 of those wounded in Iraq are known to have sustained serious brain injury--1,700 soldiers. Half of these injuries are severe enough to permanently impair thinking, memory, mood, behavior, and their ability to work.

This information I am sharing is from official documentation of the Department of Defense.

Mr. President, you may recall, however, that back in January, ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff sustained a traumatic brain injury from an IED when he was embedded with the Army's 4th Infantry Division in Iraq.

In a recent survey of 115 soldiers wounded from blast injuries, 62 percent had brain injuries, according to the Defense and Veterans Injury Center at Walter Reed.

According to a recent study by researchers at Harvard and Columbia, it is estimated that the cost of medical treatment for those individuals with brain injuries from the Iraqi war will be at least $14 billion over the next 20 years. In Vietnam and previous 20th century wars, brain injuries accounted for less than 20 percent of injuries.

The effect of these injuries range from short-term minor impairment to long-term serious disability. One of the common long-term residual effects of traumatic brain injury is the onset of epileptic seizures. These symptoms may begin months or even years after the injury occurs. The more brain tissue a soldier loses as a result of a brain injury, the more likely he or she is to develop seizures.

I can recall recently seeing another television show. There was a young woman, a beautiful young woman, who had volunteered to serve in the Army and was in Iraq. She was the victim of one of these blast injuries and lost a major portion of her skull. She had gone through numerous surgeries and long periods of recuperation. When you saw her on television, she looked perfect, beautiful as can be, perfectly normal, as if nothing had ever happened to her. It is a tribute to the men and women who treat our soldiers that they do return to this moment in their lives where they have a chance.

When she was asked what life was like, she said: It is still a battle every day, but it is one I am willing to face--double vision, pain, these are things which I am just going to work with.

Unfortunately, we know that these brain seizures are also a challenge for these victims. Recurrent late seizures are considered post- traumatic epilepsy, or PTE. Studies have estimated that over 50 percent of Vietnam veterans with penetrating head injuries acquired epilepsy as a result of their injuries.

The same statistics apply in Iraq. It means that we will have massive numbers of our soldiers in years to come who have suffered head injuries of varying degrees at least subject to the possibility of these seizures. Unfortunately, our veterans in Iraq and Afghanistan may face that future. I hope they do not, but it could happen.

Given the heavy incidence of closed head trauma in this war, which is less well understood, we may see even more cases.

The Army currently does not have a program focused on advanced traumatic brain injury diagnosis that will treat combat wounds and related ailments, such as PTE. Clearly, such a program would help the more than 1,700 soldiers with brain injuries sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army estimates that there is an annual investment gap of $20 million in research, development, test, and evaluation for improved diagnostics and other long-term rehabilitative treatments of traumatic brain injuries. These are the Army's own estimates: That they are falling short $20 million for what they need to deal with this serious problem.

Senator Obama and I are offering this amendment so that we can focus a small part of a large bill on defense funds, using them to acquire and use technology that can best diagnose, identify, and help us treat traumatic brain injury.

Currently, there is a promising technology called diffusion tensor imaging, DTI, that could help identify traumatic brain injury that might not be apparent. DTI is similar to an MRI, but it is twice as powerful in scanning the brain. DTI identifies damage to the white matter in the brain that frequently causes traumatic brain injury.

However, today DTI is currently used primarily to identify noncombat diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia, not for diagnosing combat-related injuries.

Before we can deploy this promising technology to help treat our soldiers who suffer traumatic brain injury, we need a greater understanding of how to use it more effectively. If this research isn't focused soon, we won't be able to deploy DTI technology to combat field hospitals or regional medical treatment facilities in places such as Baghdad or Landstuhl, Germany, that are very close to the scene of battle.

In order to reach the point where DTI can be deployed closer to combat, we need to fund a program that pairs the Army with premier brain institutes in America to focus primarily on diagnosing brain injuries sustained in combat.

The amendment that Senator Obama and I offer would do just that. It would allocate $2 million--$2 million--a significant sum for the average person, but in the context of this bill involving billions of dollars a very small amount. It would allocate $2 million to premier brain scientists at the University of Chicago where this research is underway and enable them to partner with the U.S. Army to test and evaluate DTI technology so that we can establish a standard of care for traumatic brain injury that would bring the advantages of DTI closer to the troops in the field.

This will allow us to immediately detect and treat the increasing number of traumatic brain injury cases caused by combat. In addition, these funds will allow the university to partner with the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and associated epilepsy advocacy to treat traumatic brain injury survivors with post-traumatic epilepsy.

As my colleagues can see, this project is directly related to the real-life needs of our soldiers who have served us so valiantly in Iraq and Afghanistan and other theaters. It is a small amount by the standards of this bill, but it could provide the promise of recovery for soldiers who face these traumatic brain injuries. It will go a long way toward treating what may be the signature wound of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I know this is not included in the bill as it comes before us. I hope, despite the debate in the committee, that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will consider this amendment.

Mr. President, $2 million seems a small price to pay to give these soldiers who have paid such a greater price for America, a chance for full recovery; $2 million doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount to bring the very best, modern technology closer to the battlefield so that our soldiers can be treated and treated effectively and treated quickly. I hope my colleagues will support our injured troops fighting this war by supporting this amendment.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it has been my honor to serve on the Appropriations Committee and on this subcommittee. It is an important subcommittee, one of the most important subcommittees in terms of our national defense.

A decision was reached, probably before I was elected to the Senate, that we would dedicate funds within this appropriation for medical research. Some have questioned them over the years. I have never questioned them. I believe it is important that we pursue medical research, not only at the National Institutes of Health--which, incidentally is facing a cutback in medical research funds in this President's budget this year--but also when it comes to our military medical research. They are very competent. They have been very good. They have included in their research enormous opportunities, opportunities which relate directly to the soldiers in combat and opportunities which relate to them and their families.

Breast cancer research is included in this. I totally support it. I applaud it. I voted for it. There is no question about that. What I am talking about here is traumatic brain injury to soldiers. This is something that has become the signature wound of this conflict in Iraq. The amount of money which I am asking for, $2 million, pales in comparison to the millions and millions of dollars earmarked in this bill for universities, specific universities for specific medical research.

The Senator from Alaska cannot tell me that every dollar in medical research in this bill is peer reviewed. It is not. You know it and I know it. Decisions were made by the committee to earmark certain research at specific universities. I will tell the Senator, I didn't question that. I deferred to his judgment and the judgment of Senator Inouye on that.

Page 241.

It is page 241 that I refer the chairman to. What we are talking about here is $2 million. The Senator from Alaska has said we can't afford this. We cannot afford this medical research. It will be at the expense of our readiness, the ability of our soldiers to fight.

I am prepared to make the same offer I made to the Senator in committee. I am prepared to take $2 million--Senator Obama and I will-- from existing projects we alone offered in this bill, $2 million we will take out of those projects to go into this medical research for traumatic brain injury so you cannot make the argument that the $2 million is at the expense of anything else related to readiness.

These are dollars that only we requested, dollars given to us in the bill, and we believe this is a higher priority. So the argument that somehow we are taking money away from military readiness does not apply.

To argue that $2 million for traumatic brain injury should be disqualified because it would go to the University of Chicago? It turns out the University of Chicago is one of the premier institutes when it comes to this new technology. I am not going to argue about money going to any university if it is the right place to send it, and we believe the credentials of this institution stand up against the best in America--the best in the world. Isn't that what we want for our troops?

As far as being an earmark, I plead guilty, it is an earmark. But it is being discussed right here on the floor of the Senate, the exact dollar amount, the exact recipient, and the exact purpose. There is nothing that is being done here under cover of night. It should not be.

Why is it so hard for us in a bill of this magnitude, with all of this spending, to find $2 million for epileptic seizures from traumatic brain injury when we have so many of our soldiers returning with this problem? Wouldn't we want to at least err on the side of these soldiers to get them back, as quickly as possible, recovered, as close as possible to normal lives?

I don't understand it. I can't understand the opposition of the chairman. I am prepared--maybe it is best now to go ahead and do it. I am prepared to say we will take the $2 million out of existing projects in the bill.

Amendment No. 4781, As Modified

I ask unanimous consent to modify the pending amendment and send this amendment in its place to the desk.

I don't need consent to modify my amendment under the Senate rules.

That argument is gone. This $2 million is from our projects that only we requested, that we are prepared to give up for this medical research for the soldiers. Now what is the next argument? That we don't need it, when 1,700 of our soldiers have already suffered traumatic brain injuries? We are prepared to take it out of our own projects for soldiers who are going through this kind of an injury.

Why do you still resist it?

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I don't want to belabor this. I think we have covered most of the ground. But I will tell the chairman, the Senator from Alaska, the Army estimates annual investment gaps of $20 million in research, development, test, and evaluation for improved diagnostics and other long-term rehabilitative treatment of traumatic brain injury.

I am not making this up from whole cloth. This is the Army's own report. To suggest that we have all the funds we need in this area, to suggest they couldn't figure out what to do with $2 million just isn't backed up by the Army's own official statements about what is needed. They need $20 million. We are offering $2 million.

The Senator has argued that we are taking it from some other areas of the bill. Senator Obama and I are offering $1 million each from projects included in the bill, which will slow down their development but will put more money into medical research in traumatic brain injury. And, yes, the University of Chicago is a leader. I don't apologize for that. Wouldn't you want to go to a leading institution with $2 million for 1,700 soldiers facing traumatic brain injury?

I don't want to belabor the point other than to say to the Senator, whom I tried in the committee to reason with, that we are prepared to make sacrifices in other areas for what we consider to be a very important medical priority, and he wouldn't allow us to go forward. I tried here on the floor; I am trying now.

At some point, I would like to have my colleagues vote. I think traumatic brain injury is a serious issue. We need to put more resources into it. We need to give our soldiers the very best technology.

Senator Obama and I will offer this amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that Senators Menendez and Salazar be added as cosponsors.

I announce that the Senator from Montana (Mr. Baucus) and the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, Senator Obama and I have offered an amendment relating to medical research on traumatic brain injury. This is the x-ray of an American soldier who has returned from Iraq having suffered an explosive blast injury. Mr. President, 1,700 of our soldiers have returned with traumatic brain injuries. This is a very severe case, but this soldier, thank God, survived. But 1,700 soldiers have faced this injury, and 62 percent of the soldiers exposed to blast injuries have traumatic brain injury.

Senator Obama and I have taken money out of our own projects in this bill--a million dollars each--to put it into medical research at the University of Chicago so we can use the latest technology to diagnose and treat traumatic brain injury.

The U.S. Army has reported in their official documents that they have a gap of $20 million necessary for research for diagnosis and treatment of soldiers who have suffered these traumatic brain injuries. This does not take money out of the bill.

Today, we have added $1.8 billion in emergency spending. We just shifted $6.7 billion. We are asking for $2 million from our own projects for research for traumatic brain injury for these soldiers. Please, if you believe we should do everything we can to help these soldiers, I hope you will support the amendment.

Mr. President, I know that the chairman and the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and particularly this subcommittee are anxious to move this piece of legislation. I thank them for their work. This is perhaps one of the more difficult pieces of legislation to put together from the appropriations side. It spends an enormous amount of money at a time when we are engaged in wartime activities. There are many accounts that are in urgent necessity of being replenished and restored.

Let me say to the chairman and to the ranking member, I think they have done an excellent job with a very difficult piece of legislation. I appreciate their work, and I am privileged to serve on that subcommittee with them and understand the importance this bill will have for the U.S. military at a time when men and women are risking their lives because their country has asked them to do that.

I do want to make a point, however, today, as we pass an appropriations bill, and I will make the point understanding that the chairman and ranking member will recognize that this is not about how much money we appropriate but, rather, about how the money is used. I accept that in most cases that is a function of authorizing committees--oversight requirements of authorizing committees--rather than the Appropriations Committee.

But I do want to make the point now because we have spent a great deal of money, and will again spend a lot of money--most of it emergency funding outside of this particular bill--dealing with issues in Iraq and Afghanistan, when all around us we are seeing that a fair portion of that money is attached to allegations of misuse and waste and, in some cases, fraud.

I think all of us, especially those of us on the Appropriations Committee, wish very much to make certain that what we appropriate is used to support our troops, to improve the security of this country, is used wisely and prudently in support of the things that Congress has authorized.

I want to go through some things because I think it is important for all of us in Congress to understand the allegations of waste that have attended some of this spending. And it is important for all of us on the appropriations and authorizing committees to try to figure out: How on Earth do we deal with this? What do we do to put a stop to--not allegations--the waste of taxpayers' funding?

There are so many examples it is hard to know where to start. But because there have been so few oversight hearings on the bulk of these issues, I think it is important to describe what we are hearing. Taxpayers in this country have been asked to provide taxpayer funding through appropriations, and here are some of the examples: contracts that are signed, sole-source, no-bid contracts that extend for some long while.

And because they are sole-source, no-bid contracts, and they are cost-plus, the taxpayer has been fleeced.

These are stories not from someone who alleges to have seen something, these stories are from people who worked for the contractors, whistleblowers: $85,000 trucks, brandnew $85,000 trucks abandoned beside the road to be torched because they had a flat tire; $85,000 trucks abandoned to be torched because they had a plugged fuel pump; a case of Coca-Cola, $45--that is the charge to the American taxpayer--two plates of breakfast, $28 a plate; feed 42,000 soldiers a day--and it turns out they were feeding only 14,000 soldiers a day; they missed it by 28,000 in the charges they made to the U.S. Government--leasing SUVs, $7,500 a month.

Hand towels, providing hand towels for our troops, the buyer who was asked to buy the additional hand towels for our troops in the war theater said: Here are the hand towels I was going to purchase. And here are the hand towels I was asked to purchase. And the hand towels I was asked to purchase by my supervisor included the embroidered name of my company, which doubled the price of the hand towels. So when I complained about that, the answer was: It doesn't matter.

This is cost-plus. We are the only contractor. The taxpayer will pay the bill. Cost doesn't matter.

The list is endless and goes on and on and on. Food service to the troops: A man named Rory, who actually worked in the food service kitchens, in Iraq, of the contractor--an employee of the contractor-- said: We routinely got food that was stamped ``expired,'' date-stamped ``expired.''

He said: Our supervisors said it doesn't matter. Feed it to the troops. It doesn't matter. Just feed it to the troops.

He said: We were repeatedly told by our supervisors, don't you dare speak to a Government investigator or a Government auditor. If they show up and you talk to them, you are going to be fired. If they show up and you talk to them, and you are not fired, you are going to be sent to the most hostile area we can find to send you.

The fellow named Rory, who showed up and spoke about this, who was an employee and described all of this, in fact, did speak to Government investigators about what he saw happening to the American taxpayer, and he was sent to Fallujah during the hostilities. That is what happened to him.

More recently, we have a whistleblower, or several of them, who have come forward to say: We are spending money for a contractor to provide water to our troops at all of the bases in Iraq. That is the money we are spending to provide water to our troops.

I want to show you some memoranda and some discussions back and forth about what has happened to that spending. This is an internal report written by Will Granger, who works for the company that has the contract to provide water to all the U.S. bases in Iraq. Will Granger is the top employee for Halliburton on the ground in Iraq. Here is what Will Granger said in his report:

No disinfection to non-potable water was occurring at Camp

Ar-Ramadi for water designated for showering purposes.

Incidentally, this is water that the troops use to brush their teeth and wash their face and shower.

This caused an unknown population to be exposed to

potentially harmful water for an undetermined amount of time.

The whistleblowers came forward who were also involved in the delivery of this water. And they said: By the way, the nonpotable water--that is water you do not drink, but water you brush your teeth with and take showers with, and so on--the nonpotable water was more degraded, more contaminated than if they would have taken raw water from the Euphrates. This is from the whistleblowers.

Now, when this became known, the internal report that we had from Mr. Will Granger--again, from the same company--said:

The deficiencies of the camp where the event occurred is

not exclusive to that camp; meaning that country wide, all

camps suffered to some extent from all or some of the

deficiencies noted.

Now, while all this going on, the company, Halliburton, said: None of this happened. You are wrong. None of this happened.

My point is, the discussion of this came from employees of the company itself and from an internal memorandum that was leaked, an internal memorandum written by the top official on the ground in Iraq in charge of water.

Will Granger, the man I am speaking of, the man in charge, while his company in Houston was saying publicly, and said it repeatedly, that none of this happened, none of this happened, Mr. Ganger's report said this:

This event should be considered a ``near miss'' as the

consequences of these actions could have been VERY SEVERE

resulting in mass sickness or death.

We are spending money on these contracts. Then we have whistleblowers come forward to say there is a waste of money--tragic waste of money. Then we have whistleblowers come forward to say that the companies that are getting these contracts--in this case for water--are not treating the nonpotable water properly, which is a danger to the troops. And the company says: Not true. Just not true.

Then we discover the internal memorandum that the company received from that company's person on the ground in Iraq, and the guy says:

The consequence . . . could have been VERY SEVERE resulting

in mass sickness or death.

Shortly after this, by the way, a young woman who is serving in Iraq, an Army physician, wrote me an e-mail, and she said: I have read about this sort of thing. I want you to know it has happened in my camp. And I had my assistant go track the water line to see what kind of water they were bringing into the base that is called nonpotable water, and it, too, was contaminated, and it, too, is of degraded quality and more contaminated than raw water, the raw water you would get from the Euphrates River.

So the question is: What are we getting? What are we getting for the money we are spending? Where is the accountability?

Now, some of these have been Halliburton. And I know the minute you talk about Halliburton, somebody says: Ah, that is a political attack on the Vice President. The Vice President is not at Halliburton. This is not about the Vice President at all. He used to work for that company, but this is not about him. It is about a company that received large no-bid contracts, sole-source contracts, and the allegations are almost unbelievable about what has happened.

Now, there are others. Some of them are with a RIO contract, Restore Iraq Oil contract, others with a LOGCAP contract. But let me give you some other examples: Custer-Battles--two guys show up in Iraq, one named Custer, one named Battles, and they decide: We want to get in on some of this. We want to get in on some of this activity.

Before that ended, Custer and Battles had received over $100 million in contracts from our Government. Among the contracts was one to provide security at the Baghdad Airport. There were no flights going in and out of the Baghdad Airport, so presumably they did a pretty good job of that, except they took the forklift trucks that existed at that airport, put them in a shed someplace and repainted them blue, and then sold them back to the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was us. That is an interesting way to do business.

And, by the way, here is a picture of $2 million wrapped in Saran Wrap. I know this fellow. This fellow showed up here in Washington, DC. This picture was taken in Iraq in a building.

He was the guy holding a portion of this money. He said: Our message in Iraq was, Bring a bag; we pay in cash. If you are a contractor, bring a sack; we pay in cash.

This is $2 million, 100-dollar bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. They used them to play football in the office, throwing bricks of 100-dollar bills around. It was like the Wild West, he said. This particular $2 million went to Custer Battles, a company that showed up with no experience, took forklift trucks from the airport, repainted them, sold them back to the American taxpayer, called the Coalition Provisional Authority. The CPA is us, the Coalition Provisional Authority. That was created by Donald Rumsfeld. He signed the creation of the CPA. It was us. So Custer Battles gets a contract for airport security.

Here is the Baghdad airport director of security talking about Custer Battles. He wrote it to the CPA.

Custer Battles have shown themselves to be unresponsive,

uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative, and war

profiteers. Other than that they are swell fellows.

Something else that happened with this contract. They were supposed to provide trucks. The problem is, they supplied trucks and the trucks didn't work. Couldn't get them started. They didn't run. The Custer Battles company said: We just said we would supply trucks. We didn't guarantee they were going to run. They didn't have to be operational.

My point is this, this goes on day after day, month after month. It is not the fault of the appropriators. It has nothing to do with the appropriators. It is about accountability. And in most cases, that would come from authorizing committees and from a Congress that would say: Wait a second. When we hear about nonpotable water that is more contaminated than raw water from the Euphrates River, a Congress would say, wait a second; you can't do that to American troops, and begin an immediate investigation. Yet you see very little activity to look into these issues.

On behalf of the taxpayers and on behalf of those of us who are appropriators, including the chairman and ranking member and the entire committee, I think all of us, the Congress, the Department of Defense, all of us need to expect more accountability and soon. We are spending an enormous amount of money.

I have mentioned previously that in the early 1940s, Harry Truman believed there was substantial waste. He put together the Truman committee, formed by Congress, a bipartisan committee. I am sure there was a great deal of teeth gnashing down at the White House because the President was of his own party. But the Congress, with that bipartisan committee, rooted out a great deal of waste, fraud, and abuse through the Truman committee. I have tried previously on three occasions to pass such legislation here in the Senate. I have not been successful.

I think it is time--and I only take the time to speak as we appropriate money--for all of us to expect more from those committees with the responsibility to hold accountable those who spend this money. I have seen precious little energy and far too little activity to respond to these issues.

I have talked about food and water to troops. There are many other issues. I will not go through them all today. The issues are sufficient that we need to take a hard look at what is happening.

Last Friday I met with a doctor from Iraq. He wanted to go look at the 142 health clinics that were to be restored and rehabilitated and created in Iraq, 142 health clinics with the money we appropriated in the U.S. Congress. This Iraq physician went to the health minister of Iraq and said: I would like to track the money and see what is happening with these 142 clinics.

The health minister said: No, you don't understand. Many of these clinics are imaginary.

I said: Are you sure? You are sure that is what he said.

Oh yes, I am sure. Many of these are imaginary clinics. They don't exist.

It turns out 20 clinics were rehabilitated or created of the 142 that were supposed to have been rehabilitated or created. Only 20 were done and all the money is gone. Why? How? Who cares? Does somebody care? That is the question for this Congress.

I don't mean in any way to suggest that my colleagues, the chairman and ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, bear responsibility for this. That is not the case. It is the case, however, that we need to be much more aggressive on other committees with oversight responsibility. Oversight is a significant legislative responsibility. It has gone unfulfilled in this Congress and a couple of Congresses preceding it.

I have an amendment that I noticed. I understand that the amendment itself is not germane on an appropriations bill. A point of order would lie against it. I would expect my colleagues would insist on a point of order. But the amendment would punish war profiteers, crack down on contract cheaters, and force real contract competition so that we finally can do what we should for the American taxpayer and bring down these costs.

I had filed it as No. 4805. I ask unanimous consent that we set aside the pending amendment in order to have 4805 considered.

I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I use this opportunity when we appropriate money to make the point. It is not the responsibility or the burden of a couple people who have put together a good appropriations bill to bear the responsibility for a lack of oversight that exists and the lack of oversight that exists in the entire Congress. I only raise this because I think it is critically important that all of us understand.

There is far too much waste and fraud and abuse in some of these contracts. I recognize that wartime is different. There are times during wartime when you do things you might not otherwise do. You might not be quite as efficient or effective. Some money may be wasted. But this seems like hogs in a trough when you see what is going on.

We are spending so many billions. We added $18.2 billion for reconstruction in Iraq, and the grunting and shoving and moaning of hogs at the trough trying to find some of that money. I mentioned Custer Battles. Two guys would show up with hardly a taxi fare, get $100 million in contracts, and now we discover the American taxpayer has been fleeced for much of that. The water isn't going to clear up until you get the hogs out of the creek. We need to find a way to address these issues, most especially those raised with food and water to troops.

Let me say to Senators Stevens and Inouye, I want to work with them. I know they want the same result I want with respect to these issues. That is the only reason I raise this today. This burden also falls on some authorization committees and others that really need to do a much better job with respect to oversight.

My hope remains that at some point we will be able to pass my amendment--I expect to offer it again, and I think that will be the fourth time--to create a Truman-type committee that sinks its teeth into these issues and says: We will not put up with this. We won't put up with waste, fraud, and abuse.

I will be back again. I thank my colleagues for their forbearance as I discuss these things and know that they share with me an interest in trying to deal with them in an effective way on behalf of our troops and on behalf of America's taxpayers.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me then work with my colleagues, Senators Stevens and Inouye, and see if I can find a way to write this approach in a way that does not have a point of order lying against it and in a way that begins some kind of inquiry. I very much appreciate the cooperation and interest.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I wanted to speak briefly about the status of the budget relative to defense spending, really more for the purpose of information for my colleagues, because we are getting into a process where there is tremendous confusion over how much we are spending and where it is coming from and how it is being spent as a function of what has been the administration's view that they can fund this war out of emergency supplementals ad infinitum.

Traditionally when you fund a war such as this--I guess there isn't much tradition, and hopefully it won't be a tradition for war. But if you look back over the wars we have fought as a nation that have gone on for a while, they have usually started out with significant commitments of emergency funds. There is no question about that. It is essential to get the troops in the field and get them what they need.

Over time, in both the Korean war and the Vietnam war, which are probably the best examples to look to, the operation and funding of the war has been folded into the regular order where the authorizations have gone through the Defense Department, have gone through the Defense authorization committee and on to the Appropriations Committee, and there has been some significant congressional oversight.

In the Korean war, 77 percent of the cost of that war was funded through the regular budget. In the Vietnam war, about 72 percent was funded through the regular budget.

This war we are confronted with now is as big and as significant a threat as we have ever faced because of the fact that, regrettably, the people who wish to do us harm have shown their willingness to kill Americans. They have stated their purpose is to destroy our culture. They have said that if they can get their hands on a weapon that will kill thousands of people, they will use it against civilian populations, and they have shown their willingness to kill civilians, Americans on American soil.

So this is a war that must be fought aggressively. I congratulate the President for the aggressiveness with which he has gone after terrorists around the globe and the fact that he has taken the fight to them. I have supported that effort. But I also remain concerned that we, as a Congress, have a role here, which we have to some degree abrogated, and that is the role of oversight as this effort goes forward--maybe not so much in the day-to-day operation of the war, which should be left to the generals and the people on the ground, the officers and men and women fighting this war, but to the issue of how the Defense Department structures its core purposes in the context of being in a war.

In fact, for the first couple of years of this effort, when supplementals were coming up--and they came up at the rate of $50 billion, $60 billion--there appeared to be an almost physical disconnect between the dollars being used on the war-fighting effort and the dollars being used for the core purposes of national defense. One could ask the question: Was the core purpose of the Defense Department, which was costing in the vicinity of $300 billion to $400 billion at the time, 2 or 3 years ago--

was a large percentage of that being used to fight the war or was a large percentage being used to maintain traditional operations within the Defense Department? It appeared that the two were decoupled in many ways.

What evolved is a process where, essentially, we have a core defense budget, on which we have overlaid an entirely separate appropriations process and budget, called emergency appropriations. We have now had 4 years of experience, and we are averaging about $90 billion a year of emergency appropriations that are outside of the basic budget process and which are being spent on the war-fighting effort. For the first 2 years of this effort, the Defense Department refused to send up any number at all relative to what this would cost. That didn't make a lot of sense because we knew we were going to have to pay something with soldiers in the field. At the urging of the Congress 2 years ago, we put into place a $50 billion--for lack of a better term--``holding'' number to try to cover and identify what that cost was going to be in the context of the entire budget.

The Defense Department still at that time took the position that it had no number for that, so $50 billion didn't need to be put in. It turned out that they exceeded the $50 billion by about $40 billion. Last year, because we put in $50 billion before, the administration sent up the base defense budget of about $400 billion and put $50 billion in because, as it was represented by the Assistant Secretary of Defense before the Budget Committee, because he said the Congress had done it the year before, he could not estimate whether that would be the cost of the war. They put that in because Congress had already done that, so they were trying to track what Congress did. This didn't make a lot of budgetary sense again, so we put in the budget what had been the average for this supplemental effort to fight the war, which was $90 billion.

The new Budget Director--and I give him great credit, and I appreciate the fact that he has convinced people at the Pentagon to go along with this--stated very openly that now the supplemental that they expect in the next budget cycle will be somewhere in the vicinity of $110 billion to $120 billion, which is at least a number we can work on, a number that has been put forward and appears to be realistic.

I guess the point is this: Where do we stand with all these numbers floating around? Do we have any control over this? Is this a lot of operational activity that is being basically sloughed off on the emergency accounts so that we end up with the core budget of the Defense Department not being correctly reflected and authorized, and, of course, that account clearly isn't authorized relative to war fighting and is difficult to reflect.

I tried to put this together. This chart reflects the situation as I see it and the Budget Committee sees it. I put these numbers out so people can get a sense of where we are going and what we are spending because this is becoming a fairly significant item of the Federal activity and is obviously critical to our capacity to fight this war and be successful.

Since 2001, we have had this core budget of the Defense Department which, as you can see, rose from $297 billion in 2001, where the Defense Department had been radically cut back by the Clinton administration and was suffering underfunding. Ironically, I would call in the last year and a half of the Clinton Presidency--he acknowledged publicly that he disproportionately cut the Defense Department and was starting to retool it and refund it. The core budget has gone from $297 billion--which was a low number, below what they needed--up to $430 billion. That includes the appropriations for the Defense bill and for military construction.

The supplementals in the postwar period, as we dealt with the Iraq situation and Afghanistan situation, are the red numbers. They have gone from $79 billion to $88 billion, to $79 billion, and last year--or the year we are presently in, it is estimated to be $125 billion. Now we are looking at 2007.

This is a number that I think needs to be at least publicly stated so we know what is happening around here. We have the core budget of $430 billion. On top of that, we have a supplemental within this bill-- before the 2007 is even passed and the year has even begun, this is a supplemental within the bill of $42 billion to basically fight the war. Then $8 billion came out of money, which last year there was an across- the-board cut in spending generating about a $9 billion savings--more than that, but of that across-the-board cut, about $9 billion was not spent. That came down to about $8 billion being available. And it is now transferred over to this Defense bill. It could have gone to the Defense bill or the HHS bill, whatever bill came to the floor, or it could have been applied to deficit reduction.

On top of that, last night there was a $13 billion add-on to this bill in emergency spending to basically refund the Army and the Marines, who are in desperate shape in the area of equipment due to the harsh climate of Iraq, and this money was critical. And then the President's representative, Mr. Portman--and I congratulate him--has said the full cost of this year's emergency supplementals will be about $110 billion. So we can presume that we are going to get at least another $60 billion in emergency supplemental as we head into 2007 and, regrettably, I suspect that will be conservative. It means we are going to essentially have a $553 billion budget in the defense area, even though you could argue that the stated budget is $430 billion in the defense area.

These are just numbers and they are facts. I think it is important we understand what is happening. I guess the bottom line of all this is we have set up a two-track process of budgeting and spending around here. One is subject to the proper review process, which is the authorizing process followed by the appropriating process. That is the $430 billion. And the other part in here essentially has no controls and comes at us from the White House and the administration, where they unilaterally make the decision as to the dollars. I don't think that is healthy.

There is no question that the Defense Department probably needs this money. But the purpose of the Congress should be in oversight of the use of the money. So I am hopeful, because it appears that this process of these large supplementals has become the modus operandi for both the administration and the Congress. We should take a hard look at this. We need to consider the fact that maybe there is a better way to do this, where Congress can intersect a little earlier on how we are going to spend this money, so that we put the same review into this money that we are putting into the base budget, so we can be sure that the money going to the emergencies of fighting the war--and it is critical that our soldiers have what they need in the field--is not being used actually for the purpose of replacing core defense opportunities or defense needs and, thus, being a way around congressional scrutiny of core defense obligations.

There are a lot of weapons systems being purchased which have outyear procurement issues. I heard the second ranking member of the Defense Committee say that of the nine major systems--I think he said seven systems were in issue as to how much they were costing and whether they would be delivered on time. If you are going to properly oversight that, you want to make sure that those dollars are not suddenly flowing through the emergency process and thus not being subject to review.

So we have a problem as a Congress, as to how we deal with the reality of having troops on the ground who have to get support from us--and no one here would not support them--but at the same time have a defense budget and an actual budget process that is fundamentally broken relative to our capacity to oversight these dollars as they are coming up and being requested.

I don't have the answer, to be very honest with you. But I am trying to outline the issue so that people are aware of it. I honestly don't think there are probably five people in the Senate who understand this number. What we are dealing with is not a defense number of $430 billion, not a defense number of that plus the $42 billion supplemental in it or plus the $8 billion or plus the $13 billion. It is a defense number of somewhere around $553 billion and going up. It may be, and probably is, money we are going to have to spend. I suspect I will vote for all of it. But I would like to have more

confidence than I have right now that we have not set up a two-track budget process, where we essentially focus on one set of numbers and allow another set of numbers to pass through here as if they are going through in the night on some shadowy boat.

Yes.

Mr. President, first off, my admiration for the Senator from Alaska is immense and is extremely deep on the issue of defense policy and how we should fund our Defense Department. If the Senator from Alaska says we need something, the odds are I am going to say we need to fund it. People, such as the Senator from Alaska who have the expertise around here and have had it for a long time--the Senator from Virginia, for example, who chairs the Armed Services Committee and members of that committee--are not getting much of a window of opportunity to be players in how these budgets are evolved. We are just getting them presented to us and claimed they are an emergency and basically they have gone outside the budget process.

We have to set up some process that allows the Senator from Alaska, as chairman of the subcommittee that appropriates, and which allows Senator Warner as chairman of the full Armed Services Committee to intersect this activity a little earlier in the process so they can have their input in it, much as they would the core budget.

The Senator from Alaska spent a lot of time putting together this base budget of $434 billion. I know he did. That emergency money comes in here with a bang--here it is today and the Senator has to appropriate it tomorrow--a situation from the administration. Granted, it is a war and there is going to be some need for that type of activity, but there is also a way to anticipate some fairly significant percentage of that, I would think. I think a little more openness and cooperation from downtown on that might be helpful.

I don't have the answer. I am just raising the red flag of concern. I would rely greatly on the Senator's expertise and the expertise of others around here who have the history and knowledge of the Defense Department to figure out how we as a Congress can engage more effectively and not have this second budget moving along which is really sort of shadowing.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, on this subject, I thank the chairman of the Budget Committee and Chairman Stevens for their observations. Early on, I urged the administration to budget for the war, and they said: It is hard to predict what will be needed. I said: That is true, but the one thing we know for certain, the right answer is not zero. And that is what the administration was sending up in their budgets: Zero, no money. Obviously, that wasn't right.

Budgets are about making an estimate of what the costs are going to be. Unfortunately, early on, the chief spokesman for this administration dramatically understated what this war would cost. I remember very well Larry Lindsey, who was the chief economic adviser to the President, said this may cost over $100 billion. The Vice President of the United States chastised him publicly--at least that is my recollection--and suggested that this war would not cost more than $50 billion.

Here we are and the war has cost over $300 billion so far, and the administration is still not budgeting appropriately for it. They are dramatically understating in their budgets what this war is really going to cost. What that does is denies the Congress the ability to oversee these expenditures, and the result is we are going to see more scandals, we are going to see more wasteful spending, we are going to see more circumstances in which our troops do not receive the equipment they ought to receive because this money is being handled in a way that is outside the normal process in which a budget is sent up here that does not really represent the spending plan at all. And then it is followed by what is called an emergency supplemental bill that has very little chance for review, very little chance for scrutiny, very little chance for oversight.

What the chairman is saying is there is a reason for a budget process, and the reason is to give Congress the chance to try to make certain that money is not wasted.

Is it a perfect process? No, we all know that. We know it is a very imperfect process. But we know it is the best we have, and if we don't follow it, we are then vulnerable to waste and abuse, and that is a serious concern for every one of the Members.

The Spreading Disaster of Drought

Mr. President, I now wish to speak on a different matter. It is a matter of an emergency in my State and increasingly a matter of emergency in other States as well, and that is the spreading disaster of drought that is enveloping the central part of our country.

Ironically, last year, my State had massive flooding. These were the headlines from a year ago: ``Rain Halts Harvest''; ``Heavy Rain Leads to Crop Diseases''; ``Beet Crop Could be Smallest in 10 Years''; ``Crops, Hay Lost to Flooding''; ``Area Farmers Battle Flooding, Disease.''

These were the headlines from last year.

In North Dakota last year, every one of our counties was declared a disaster because of abnormal wet weather conditions, something we are not very used to in North Dakota, but that is what we were experiencing last year. Pictures such as this were very typical

last year: Massive flooding in which farmsteads were surrounded by water. And in fact, in North Dakota last year, we had over 1 million acres that couldn't even be planted; 1 million acres that could not even be planted in my State last year, and then hundreds of thousands of additional acres that were planted but then flooded out. So farmers got no production.

Fast forward to this year and what is happening now. This is the drought monitor that comes out on a weekly basis. What this shows is the center part of the country is now in very serious drought. The color code for those watching on TV is: Yellow is abnormally dry, the light tan is moderate drought, the darker tan is severe drought, the red is extreme drought, and the dark brown is exceptional drought.

One can see all of my State is now in drought. All of South Dakota is now in drought. All of Nebraska, all of Kansas, and all of the Presiding Officer's State are in drought, and virtually all of Texas-- not quite all, but virtually all.

What is dramatic is how this has spread. Last year, it was just the south central part of our State. Now the entire State is in drought, and much of it is in extreme drought. That is the red part of this chart. And one part is in exceptional drought, that is beyond extreme-- exceptional drought.

There was an article in one of our major dailies saying that the Dakotas are now the epicenter of a drought-stricken Nation. It indicated that more than 60 percent of the United States is in drought, and it says the experts say that the dry spell is the third worst on record. Looking at the drought from 1999 to 2006, the drought ranks only behind the 1930s and the 1950s.

This is an extraordinarily serious situation in my State. We put together a chart that just shows the month of July. These are the days that were over 90 degrees in Bismarck, ND, the capital city, my hometown: 23 days over 90 degrees. Rainfall is less than 20 percent of normal. We are a pretty dry area to begin with, but 20 percent of normal? In my lifetime, I have never seen anything like this. I didn't live in the thirties. I did live in the fifties, but I was so young I probably didn't really know what was going on in terms of weather conditions.

I thought I had seen it all, but last Sunday in my hometown, it was 112 degrees--112 degrees in Bismarck, ND. I have never seen anything approaching that. I am not talking about the heat index here. I am not talking about when they add a bunch of things together. I am talking about the temperature in my hometown last Sunday was 112 degrees with rainfall 20 percent of normal.

This is a situation that is becoming dire, and if we look at the 10 days leading up to that, on the 10th of July, it was 96 degrees; the next day it was 101; the next day 105; the next day 94; the next day 102; the next day 105; the next day 106.

In North Dakota, typically you might have a couple of days that are 100 in the summer, but you don't have day after day, and you certainly don't have a day that gets to be 112.

In July, Senator Dorgan, Congressman Pomeroy, the Governor, and I went together on a drought tour. This was in early July. This is what we saw in pastures in North Dakota. There is nothing there. There is nothing for the cattle to eat.

Now we have seen as the days have gone by that the ground is actually cracking. It is so dry the ground is cracking. This is an extremely serious situation.

Here is a map of North Dakota and our counties. The red counties are ones that have already been approved for emergency CRP haying and grazing. One can see it is widespread across our State and growing.

But what is striking is when you go out and look at the crops. This is southern Burleigh County. This is where Bismarck, my hometown, is located, the capital city of North Dakota. This is a cornfield. You know what they used to say--knee high by the 4th of July? This isn't boot high by the 4th of July. There are hardly any plants that have even emerged. They will produce nothing, absolutely nothing.

During our drought tour, a man came up from South Dakota who runs the Herreid livestock auction ring in north central South Dakota. He said: Senators, I want to alert you to something that is happening. It is a real warning signal. He said: In July we would normally be selling a couple of hundred head a day. The last 3 or 4 days we have been selling thousands, thousands of head, because there is no feed.

The Senate has taken action before. We took it on the supplemental appropriations bill and we said we needed to provide disaster assistance. There is a need to take it here. Seventy-two Members of the Senate said: Don't take it out, we ought to provide disaster assistance. The President said no. If there is any disaster assistance, he would veto it.

I hope the President is watching carefully what is happening, what is developing. I just had the independent bankers of my State in my office. They told me if there is not assistance, 10 percent of the people they lend to will go out of business by the end of this year--10 percent of the farmers and ranchers of my State. This is a catastrophe of stunning proportion. It is getting worse each and every day.

We are experiencing temperatures that are unprecedented and a lack of rainfall that has only happened twice before in our history--in the 1930s, the Dust Bowl days, and the 1950s.

I take the time of my colleagues to raise this issue on the Defense appropriations bill. I recognize full well this has nothing to do with the Defense appropriations bill. This does have to do with a crisis among the people I represent, so I have taken a few moments of the time of the Senate to alert them to what is happening and to tell them that a group of us, on a bipartisan basis, from the States affected, are writing the leadership, Republican and Democratic, of this body to alert them that when we return in September it will be our effort on every vehicle that moves to put on disaster assistance.

This is a group of Republican Senators and Democratic Senators who are from the affected regions. We will do everything we can to minimize the financial request that is made, but we have to say to our colleagues this is a crisis. When it gets to be 112 in July in Bismarck, ND, and rainfall is 20 percent of normal, that is headed toward a catastrophe--a catastrophe for literally tens of thousands of people in my State.

It extends way beyond the border of North Dakota. I have talked to colleagues here from Montana who report to me their State is in drought, as are Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado--so many of these States being affected--and, of course, Wyoming as well. I have talked to colleagues from many of these States who report to me that they are seeing in their States what I am seeing in mine. This drought is intensifying and the prospects for a calamitous growing season are growing.

I thank my colleagues for their patience.

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