Calling on the United States Postal Service to create a special exterior light display on March 4, 2008, to reignite public awareness and appreciation of the accomplishments of the New Deal and the legacy of those programs for our Nation today, and for other purposes.

I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I know my colleague Senator DeMint is here to offer what will be the first amendment to this bill. I thank him, because I know he initially had several amendments. It looks as though he has boiled it down to one amendment. I know Senator Inhofe and I are glad about that. I thanked him previously for calling me and saying that he was pleased with the way we treated the transparency of this bill.

I have been given a copy of the amendment by the Senator from South Carolina. I will listen carefully to his presentation, and I will have remarks afterward. Senator Inhofe may also have some remarks prior to Senator DeMint being recognized.

Senator Inhofe and I are hopeful we can get this completed. This is a bill that overall creates not one more penny of new spending. It will unleash into our economy, however, a billion dollars already budgeted for. That is why so many people are supporting this in real life: Construction companies, workers, transit operators. All of them have written to us. I will put those names in the Record. We are hopeful, if everybody cooperates today, we can get this finished. This bill isn't rocket science. It is very simply making technical corrections to SAFETEA-LU and in places where some projects simply couldn't go forward, replacing those projects without adding a penny of new spending. There is full transparency.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, again, I thank the Senator for his kind comments about the way we have handled this legislation.

This amendment is, first, wrong on its face and, second, it is going to kill the bill. Of all times to try and kill what I consider a mini- economic stimulus plan, this is not one of them. We have a lot of people out of work. Many people have called Senator Inhofe and myself, and others, saying this is an important piece of legislation.

I will read the names of those people, because I believe it is important that we show the breadth of support. It is a very simple piece of legislation, but it will correct some errors. It will say, as an example, in Oklahoma--and we have them in California--and for all these 500 projects, one leg of a project might not have been ready. Let's put the funds where they can be used now, where they are ready to go. Unleashing up to a billion dollars of funds right now means tens of thousands of jobs, and we have to rebuild our infrastructure. We are doing it within the confines of the moneys that were already authorized.

Again I have said this so many times, I am sure it is boring people, but I think it is important to note who has written to Senator Inhofe and myself to move this bill: the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, whose members include the Departments of Transportation for all 50 States; the American Highway Users Alliance, whose members represent millions of highway users; the American Public Transit Association; the American Road and Transportation Builders Association; the Associated General Contractors; the Council of University Transportation Centers; the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association; the National Asphalt and Pavement Association.

This is not one of these bills that is a matter of some intellectual debate. This means real jobs for real people and real infrastructure improvements for all the people of this Nation who count on us to keep their highway and transit systems moving.

What does Senator DeMint do? He would send this bill back to the committee, in essence killing the bill. We passed this bill out of committee on a bipartisan voice vote on June of 2007. Here we are, moving toward June of 2008. Why on Earth would we want to stop the forward progress of this legislation? We can't afford further delay.

I am sorry my colleague has left the Chamber, but Senator DeMint had several projects that he asked for in SAFETEA-LU. I ask unanimous consent to print a list of those projects in the Record.

All of these will bring jobs and improve transportation in the State of South Carolina. That is why I supported it, as did Senator Inhofe. That is why we all supported it. There is a number of projects contained here, 13 projects, $110 million, Senator DeMint has in SAFETEA-LU. Fortunately for Senator DeMint, none of his projects required any technical corrections.

Let's take one: Construction of I-73 from Myrtle Beach, SC to I-95, ending

at the North Carolina State line. Suppose something had turned up in the engineering and they had to stop it further toward Myrtle Beach, but they couldn't go ahead with the project until they made that technical change. Then Senator DeMint would find that the project was stymied. He is fortunate. He didn't have this problem. But a lot of us weren't so fortunate. We did have issues in our States where we had to make changes.

This legislation fixes nearly 500 descriptions for highway and transit projects. Without the changes included in the legislation, many of these projects will continue to be stuck at red lights. This isn't the time to slow down job creation. This is the time to unleash job creation. This technical corrections bill provides a green light that could unleash up to $1 billion in transportation projects. The funding has been approved before, so we are not increasing spending. Given the current slowdown in our economy, we simply cannot afford to allow these funds to remain unused.

At the appropriate time, I am going to move to table the DeMint motion. I think we are working on an agreement to have a vote on that motion at around 2 o'clock.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15 p.m. today the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the DeMint motion to recommit the bill, and that no further amendments be in order to the motion prior to the vote; that following the conclusion of the debate this morning with respect to the motion, it be set aside to recur at 2 p.m., with the time until 2:15 p.m. equally divided and controlled between Senators Boxer and DeMint or their designees; and that at 2:15, without further intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the DeMint motion to recommit the bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, since we have a lull in the conversation about the technical corrections bill--and the reason for that is, frankly, it is a very straightforward bill. We know of two other amendments. We are working with Senator Coburn on his amendment dealing with an investigation into what occurred in the Coconut Road project in Florida. We know Senator Bond has an amendment which is really not a technical correction. It goes to overturning a law that was passed which protects consumers when they are defrauded by furniture moving companies. That is his amendment. We hope he can come down here so we can get going; we can start to debate that.

But in the meantime, I have asked Senator Inhofe if he had any objection if I rose to pay tribute to 19 young Americans who were killed in Iraq who were either from California or based in California, and he had no objection to that. I don't know if I need to ask to speak as in morning business. If that is the appropriate thing, I ask unanimous consent to do so.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask my friend from Iowa if he wants to speak in morning business.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, Senator Grassley be recognized for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, first of all, I make a plea to my friends on the other side of the aisle. There are a couple of amendments out there. Senator Inhofe and I are anxious to get done with the bill. The bill is a mini-economic stimulus. It would release a billion dollars worth of projects for important highway and transit programs. It is a technical corrections bill that stays within the limits we set in terms of spending. When Senator Inhofe and I agree on something, it usually covers the spectrum. So we hope we will have a good vote.

I wanted to say something before Senator Barrasso leaves because he mentioned the President's goals. The President says we should halt the growth of greenhouse gases by 2025--``halt the growth,'' which means 18 years of nothing. What a pathetic response to a crisis that has united evangelical groups, scientists, businesses, and much of the world.

So I am just here to say--I am not going to have a debate with my good friend, whom I really enjoy as a member of our Committee, but I want to say this gives new meaning to doing nothing. When we have a crisis such as we have now and we have a small window to act and we wait 18 years, this is not talking about leaving the problems to the new President, like he is doing in Iraq. It means we are following a recipe for gloom and doom instead of looking at this problem and seeing it for what it is--an amazing opportunity.

It is interesting that my friend, Senator Grassley, is here, who is so strong on ethanol. Well, this is the kind of thing we are going to do so we can get off of fossil fuel. We have other opportunities, such as cellulosic. We have new ways of making cars.

I happen to drive a hybrid. It is amazing. I get over 50 miles per gallon. I sort of wave at the gas stations because I don't have to go there that often. These cars are getting better and better.

We have so many ways, but it is not going to happen if we simply say, by 2025 we will halt the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. We have to halt the growth very soon. I view it as a great opportunity for an economic renaissance in this country. If you look at Great Britain, they have cut their carbon emissions by 15 percent over the last 10 years or so. Their GDP has grown by 45 percent, and they have added 500,000 new green jobs.

I think rather than being so frightened and meek as the President is about this, we should be leading the world to this new great economic renaissance. America should be in the front, inventing these products. I know the President says he wants to invest in new technology. Unless you have a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, unless your proposal involves a cap so we get down to what is necessary to prevent catastrophe, then you are part of

the problem. You are not part of the solution. You are just making believe you are part of the solution.

I don't want to do any more than is necessary. I want to do what is necessary to reverse a real, serious, horrific problem for the world. As our intelligence community tells us, as our Pentagon tells us, if we do nothing, the ravages of global warming will be the cause of wars, will be the cause of droughts, will be the cause of famine, will be the cause of unrest, and will be the cause of refugees wandering around starving to death.

That is why so many churches have joined us, many of the great religions have joined us in this effort. We have a great group working here. I was a little bit surprised when the President sort of took on the Lieberman-Warner bill in his way. He didn't mention it by name, but he basically referred to efforts in the Senate and the dangers. Mr. President, I have been trying to get to see you on this issue. I have wanted to talk to you on this issue. I know the former Prime Minister of England, Tony Blair, spoke to you about this issue. He is coming to speak to me again. We need to work together. This should not be partisan.

Unfortunately, it is. When I and my staff were in Great Britain, we were meeting to understand what steps they have taken and how about a cap-and-trade system and the rest. What we found out was most remarkable. Each party, Labor and Conservative, was staking claim to the issue of global warming and saying to the other party: You are not doing enough. I turned to my staff and said: Oh, if I have one prayer, it is that we have a situation where that happens at home instead of this horrible fight. And if I have another prayer, it is that the Presidential candidates, Republican and Democratic, will argue over who has the best plan. That may happen, and that would be exciting. But I do not want to wait until then. I do not want to do nothing. I do not want to be part of the problem. I do not want my grandkids to say: Where was my grandma? At the moment they had a window to do something, they slammed it shut.

I am glad my friend came to speak about global warming. I hope we can continue to work together to get him on board in a more aggressive way to do more, to do our job, to fulfill our responsibility. We would never take our grandchild, put him or her in an infant seat in the car, go to a parking lot at the supermarket and leave him or her inside with the windows closed and the Sun beating down. We would not do that because we adore our children and our grandchildren, and we want the world to be better. At least we want it to be as good as it was for us.

We are so lucky. We have lived through such golden years for ourselves and our families. We have the American dream. We saw Richard Nixon step to the plate and create the Environmental Protection Agency, and Presidents, Republican and Democratic, who have come after stand up--until now.

I say to my colleagues, we are going to have a moment come June. It is going to be a little bit different than today. Today Senator Inhofe and I are joined at the hip on this technical corrections highway bill. We are not going to be that way on global warming, but I hope we can have some bipartisanship, and John Warner has been leading the way. We need to do more instead of wait until 2025 to halt the growth of greenhouse emissions. That is too late. That is dangerously late. That is the equivalent of doing nothing.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I don't see the Senator from South Carolina here, and I don't want to presume to describe his amendment. That wouldn't be fair because he views his amendment as something that will help this bill and I view it as something that will kill this bill. Simply put, what he is saying is we need to recommit this bill to the Environment and Public Works Committee, and what he is basically saying is that we need to scrub out of this bill any changes that were made to projects.

Although Senator DeMint wasn't here at the time, I made the point earlier that in this SAFETEA-LU bill is $110 million worth of projects he requested. He was fortunate: all those projects seemed to be moving forward, and they do not need any technical correction. But many of us--many of us--don't have that experience. For example, Senator Inhofe explained a road project in Oklahoma where one portion of the project wasn't ready for funding and another was. So, yes, we make a technical correction. I have a similar project in my State where we have to make sure the project is changed a little bit or there are going to be some bad impacts on some of my people who live in those communities.

So there is really nothing nefarious going on here. We are just trying to get these projects moving. We are trying to give a green light to projects that are facing a red light. What that means is that about $1 billion worth of projects could actually get started--transit projects, road projects--and we think that, at this particular time when we are suffering a recession, the last thing we should do is try to bring this bill back to the committee because, effectively, that would kill it. So I have respect for my colleague's intention here, but, in essence, if he was being completely straightforward, he would admit this is going to kill this bill.

We know how hard it is to get bills up before the Senate. This bill actually passed when Senator Inhofe was chairman of the committee, but it has languished because we haven't had a chance to bring it to the floor. Senator Reid gave us time. It is a simple bill. I was hopeful it could be finished by now. I am grateful we are having a vote on at least one of the amendments--we know of another couple of amendments.

So that is really what I have to say. At the appropriate time, I am going to make a motion to table this motion, so I will return to do that, as I say, at the appropriate time.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I move to table the DeMint motion to recommit and I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Madam President, when I learned about this whole issue of what went on in a very devious way related to a highway project, I was very glad Senator Coburn called it to our attention. Where we are right now is the best way to handle this, and this is where there is a bit of a disagreement.

I am concerned, as I look at the Senator's solution here. Essentially, what he has is the House and Senate selecting Members to go on this special committee, and I believe that injects politics into it right away. We can all say we are going to be objective, and so on and so forth, but I think people get the sense, oh, that is a Republican, and he may feel one way; or she is a Democrat, she may feel one way; or I saw that person going to dinner with another Senator or another House Member this way.

I am chair of the Ethics Committee, so I know it is very hard to be totally objective, and you must be in this circumstance. But I think the appearance of a conflict of interest in setting up this committee is something I would rather avoid. So I think that Senator Coburn has done everything in his power to set up a way to investigate this that is fair, but my feeling is there is a better way to go.

As a matter of fact, I am going to offer an amendment to the underlying substitute, and I would ask the Parliamentarian if I need to lay aside the pending amendment in order to do that.

I send an amendment to the underlying substitute to the desk.

Do I need to ask for its immediate consideration?

Madam President, I thank the clerk for reading. That is it in its entirety. We call attention to the exact problem that occurred in the bill, the exact project, without naming it. It is explained here. We know it is the Coconut Road project.

This is not a sense of the Senate. This is a very direct amendment that says the Department of Justice shall review these allegations and they shall ascertain if a violation of Federal criminal law has occurred.

So what we do, by taking it into this realm, we take it out of the realm of politics. Senators selected by the Senate to be on this investigation committee of something that happened over in the House; House Members selected by the House to investigate, to me it injects politics into the process.

Secondly, if you read the Constitution and you see the speech and debate clause, you understand that this raises constitutional issues-- the Coburn amendment--as to whether one part of Congress can investigate another. I don't want to see this whole thing collapse like a deck of cards because we did something unconstitutional. We know that the Justice Department, when there is an allegation of improper behavior, we know when there is a possibility here of laws being broken, they have the clear obligation and responsibility, and now we are, in essence, telling them they must review this.

In our conversations, one of the things Senator Coburn was worried about was that the Department of Justice could not use the subpoena power. I have looked at that and what I have found is that is not true. In the case of the Jefferson investigation, it was because there was no warrant. That was the problem. There was some narrow issue involving that. Clearly, this investigation would be appropriate.

Also, we don't give up anything here, I say to my colleague. Consistent with applicable standards and procedures, that is what we say. The Department of Justice shall review, consistent with applicable standards and procedures. No new rules, no new laws, no new ways, and very clearly done.

Frankly, if I might say, I am so angry about this. I am so upset about this. I am sick about this. I think it is very possible people ought to go to jail here. A Senate and House committee can't send anybody to jail. They simply can't. They could make a referral to Justice, but they can't do it.

I am saying I think what we are doing here, by requiring that the Justice Department--by saying, ``They shall review allegations,'' I think is a much better way to go. It keeps politics out of this, it keeps constitutional questions about the debate clause out of this, and it gets to the heart of this, which is, if there was a crime, the person ought to go to jail or the people ought to go to jail.

Let's get right to the point instead of setting up some political committee. They will call hearings and the press will come and people-- Senators will make speeches and make their careers. I can just see this thing. I can see this coming. I want to avoid a circus. I want to put somebody in jail if they did something wrong. That is why I think this particular amendment I am offering is the way to go.

I do respect my friend. I certainly am looking forward to having votes on both of these, but I do think this simple amendment we have here will get to the bottom of this, which is where my friend wants to go. He wants to punish the people who have done something wrong. That is what I think we do here.

I will be happy to yield the floor because I see my colleague would like to respond.

Is that a question to me?

Madam President, let me just say to my friend, I am the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I am not the chair of the Judiciary Committee. I just want to say for the record, in defense of my committee members all, that we fixed this problem in this bill. We fixed the problem in the bill. Do I support the Justice Department going after the evildoers and putting them in jail? You bet I do. But--I hate to say it--in Environment and Public Works, that is not our role. I support what the Senator is trying to do here. So let's get that clear.

On page 86, here it is fixed, in section 110. I want to make that clear, that our committee did the right thing and fixed this problem.

My friend is right, there was a committee to look at the rules. But if all he is doing is looking at rules--and I know he is not--then what is the point? I want to look at what happened. My friend himself talked about fraud. The fact is, we better get to the bottom of this, and all this committee is going to do is look at rules. Frankly, I don't think it is doing much. I would much rather put people in jail. The proper way to do that is to call on the Justice Department to look at these crimes because, to me, it is the crimes that concern me. I think what they did, on the face of it, going in the dead of night, is certainly not allowed in our rules--at least my interpretation of the rules. That, to me, is not.

I tell you right now, in our committee we are pretty tough on this. We are not allowing people to change things.

Everything that is in this technical corrections bill--and that is why Senator DeMint praised us--is on the Web site for all to see. We believe in transparency.

What this is about is getting to the bottom of allegations of serious crimes--bribery. Bribery. That is why I do believe at the end of the day let's keep politics out of this issue.

I can tell you right now, the Senators who get on this committee are going to have the flashbulbs going off in their faces, they are going to make a big to-do about this, and they are not going to talk about rules, they are going to talk about crimes. The sad thing is, even if they got to the bottom of it, at the end of the day the committee cannot put anybody in jail. The Justice Department can.

The speech and debate clause is really clear. I know my colleague in the chair is a very prominent attorney. If you look at section 6, article I, it clearly says:

. . . for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall

not be questioned in any other Place.

So our attorneys are saying the way this is set up, A, you have politics in it; B, you have a constitutional problem, probably; and C, it is a lot of hoopla, a lot of cameras, and at the end of the day we want to put people in jail. That is what we are talking about, really, at the end of the day.

Looking at the Senator's own document on page 5, he says the committee shall share its findings, share its documents, share its information, and so on, with various groups.

I just believe to be tough you have to get the Justice Department involved. When there is a knock on the door from the Justice Department, you will get to the bottom of this. That is what the Boxer amendment does.

I hope people who really want to be tough will do the tough thing, not set up some committee that is going to give Senators and House Members a chance to make political points, and the public will look at us and say this is just a great big show, but really get to the bottom of it and get the Justice Department into this now. There are reports that they are looking at some issues, but there is nothing to say that they are looking at this particular problem.

That is what I have to say. My friend is right to bring this up. I am glad. When the press said: What do you think? I said: Good for him for bringing this up. I am sorry we were not able to agree on the right approach, but I feel very good about the approach I have come up with here. I look forward to our colleagues voting on this at the appropriate time.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, if I might respond to my friend, No. 1, we do not cede a thing. We do not give up anything. As a matter of fact, we stay consistent with applicable standards and procedures, and this cannot be a fishing expedition. We say the Department of Justice shall review allegations of impropriety regarding item 462 in section 193(4)(C) of Public Law 109-

59, to ascertain if a violation of Federal criminal law has occurred.

The question is, to me: Will the people or persons who did something wrong be punished? At the end of the day, that is what I am about. I am not about big committee hearings and special committees and the rest. Listen, I am not about that. I am about: We have a lot of work to do for the American people. My friend used words--``fraud,'' he said. He said ``fraud.'' He already used it. And in his own resolution he says: If they find that there was such fraud, which he already thinks there was--which, by the way, I think it was worse than that, but that is what I think from what I know.

There needs to be proof here. I do not mean to leap ahead too far. He says he is going to refer it to the proper law enforcement. Why can't I say: Well, that is a bad precedent. I do not get it. The difference between what the Senator is doing and what I am doing is I am saying: It looks bad, as if there were a crime committed; we are not sure. Let's get right to the heart of it, and let's go after it.

Here, what my friend is doing, he says: Before we tell them to look at it, we are going to have these hearings. By the way, in his own words, he is going to put the findings on the Internet, he is going to publish them. I have been around here long enough to know what a circus is. I have been involved in a lot of investigations on a lot of committees, and what I want is justice done. I do not want political theatre. I want justice done. I will tell you why. When justice is done and someone goes to jail--we have seen a few people from the other side walk off to jail--that sends the best possible message.

I do not think it ought to be delayed by hearings. Sometimes what happens is, it holds up a Justice Department investigation when there are public hearings going on. I have been in that circumstance too. So I say, here we have two options. One sets up this elaborate committee, and the other one says: Let's get to the heart of this, go after these bad actors, put them in jail. I think that is the better way to go.

I guess I have said it a hundred ways to Sunday. I would stand on those remarks.

I yield the floor.

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schumer.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, the majority leader will be coming out shortly to let Members know what is happening. But I can tell everybody that this bill is being slow walked. This is a simple bill. This is a mini-economic stimulus bill. It would release $1 billion of highway trust fund moneys to build roads, to fix bridges, to run transit systems, and it got caught up in Presidential politics, investigations--everything you can think of--while the people wonder what we are doing.

This bill, simple as it is, would create about 50,000 new jobs at a time when we know--it is worse than a middle-class squeeze. It is really a middle-class struggle that is going on, and people are worried. They are worried about their homes, they are worried about everything, and this bill will create jobs.

So what we have is a classical slowdown, with Presidential politics being involved dealing with the gas tax that funds the highway trust fund. That is fine, but just let everybody know from where it is coming. The only amendments to this bill--the only amendments--come from the Republican side. I offered one as a side-by-side to Senator Coburn's, which I think is a good amendment. My amendment will not bring down this bill. Others will.

Here is where we are. We have a simple bill. It passed a year ago in the House. It passed, I believe it was June of 2007, under the leadership of Senator Inhofe. Actually, it was under my leadership but with the work of Senator Inhofe, both of us working together, bipartisan, bicameral.

I want to show you, Mr. President, who is strongly supporting this bill: the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials, that is departments of transportation officials of all 50 States; the American Highway Users Alliance, millions of highway users throughout the country; the American Public Transit Association, transit systems from across the country; the American Road and Transportation Builders Associations, more than 5,000 members of the transportation construction industry; Associated General Contractors, more than 32,000 contractors, service providers, and suppliers; the Council of University Transportation Centers, more than 30 university transportation centers from across the country; the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, companies producing more than 92 percent of crushed stone and 75 percent of sand and gravel used in the U.S. annually; the National Asphalt and Pavement Association, more than 1,100 companies that produce and pave with asphalt.

These are real people who are willing, ready, and able to build and rebuild our infrastructure, to build and rebuild our transit systems. This bill is a no brainer. Instead, it is caught up in all of these negotiations right now. Whether we vote tonight or not, we are going to find out soon enough from Senator Reid. But, Mr. President, let me say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Senator Inhofe and I really wanted to get them a good bill. Senator Inhofe and I really wanted to get this work done quickly. We did all our homework. We put everybody's name on the Web site, so we complied with the new ethical rules. Senator DeMint said he was very pleased with the standard we set for transparency.

These projects are ready to go. They are ready to go in Brooklyn, they are ready to go in Manhattan, they are ready to go in San Francisco, they are ready to go in Atlanta, and they are ready to go in Oklahoma. They are ready to go in every State of the Union. I say to all these good people who told us how much they want this bill to move: Please contact the Republican leadership and tell them to play Presidential politics another day with amendments that are not germane, with amendments that don't belong on this bill. Today pass this legislation.

There is too much talk around here and not enough action. We passed a stimulus bill. We did it in a bipartisan way, but we all know there is more to be done. This little bill will create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs in America, doing something that has to be done. But, no, we cannot finish it. We had one vote so far on an amendment by Senator DeMint. We defeated it, which was important because it was a killer amendment. It says to me people want this bill.

This is the status. We are waiting for some type of agreement. This whole thing is being slow walked. We look forward to hearing from the majority leader as to whether there will be any more votes this evening. But as far as this Senator is concerned--I know I speak for Senator Inhofe--we want to get this bill done. But people are slow walking this bill. We are going to do our best to see if we can get this logjam stopped. But at this point, we have not been able to do it.

Tens of thousands of jobs are in jeopardy, and 500 various transit projects already paid for are in jeopardy. What a shame we cannot go forward. What a shame we are in another slowdown by my friends from the other side of the aisle. It is very discouraging.

Again, as the eternal optimist, I will return to this place tonight, if we can continue working, or tomorrow after we come in after we pay our respects to the Pope.

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

Madam President, I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and at the appropriate place amendment No. 4538 be inserted into the Boxer substitute.

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

Madam President, I am on the floor this afternoon because a few years ago something happened in Congress that should never have happened. What happened is a bill passed the House and a bill passed the Senate. A bill that both Houses agreed to was changed before it went to the President. We do not know where it was changed or who changed it. We do not know the details of it. There has been speculation in the press, but we do not have any real knowledge of how this happened. But there is a principle, and the principle is, if we cannot trust what we agree to in both bodies of Congress will be sent to the President, then everything we pass has to be suspect.

This is a hard amendment to offer because there is a lot of angst around looking at ourselves and looking at the problems. But the one thing we do know is the American people expect the process to be one that is open, one that is accurate, and that when the President gets a bill, it truly represents what the Congress intended.

What actually happened? On the highway bill conference report passed by Congress, item 461, there were widening improvements for the I-75 corridor in Collier and Lee Counties in Florida. What actually went to the President was different. This was changed to Lee County only and for an interchange. Somehow that got changed. This money has been rejected three times by the citizens and their elected representatives in that area because they do not want an interchange. What they wanted was to widen I-75 in terms of hurricane evacuations.

As I said, we do not know how this happened. There is press speculation. We don't know if it occurred in the Senate. We don't know if it occurred in the House. What we do know is it did occur, and nobody can dispute the fact. And this bill, thanks to Chairman Boxer, corrects that and puts it back to what the original intent of Congress was, what Congress intended originally.

Some will say: Now that we fixed it, we don't need to do anything about it.

But the problem the American public has in terms of confidence in us is that we will do the right thing, and the right thing is to figure out how something such as this happened and make sure it never happens again and put in the safeguards so we know it will not happen again. I believe it is time for Congress to look at this issue and fix it.

Many of my colleagues say we are treading on dangerous water because if this occurred in the House, we are forcing the House to look at something, one body telling the other body to do something. We don't know where it occurred.

The amendment I am offering creates a committee of Members, four from the House, four from the Senate, that will look at this issue and make appropriate recommendations to the appropriate bodies; that is, the House Committee on Official Conduct and the Senate Ethics Committee or any law enforcement officers.

I understand that there will possibly be a second-degree amendment, and this ought to be offered and made, that the Justice Department look at this. That can certainly happen in due time, but there is this little issue of separation of powers. We have the responsibility in Congress to do what is right.

It is very interesting the debates we have had, especially in this Congress, about separation of powers and not wanting the executive branch to take power away from us. However, we are thinking about offering a second-degree amendment that would do that.

I believe in the people in this body. I believe we all do not like that this happened. I believe we all want to see that it never happens again. The best way to do this is to have an investigation, two Members appointed by the Speaker and two Members appointed by the minority leader in the House, two Members appointed by the majority leader in the Senate and two Members appointed by the minority leader in the Senate. So we have eight Members reporting back to us what happened and making recommendations to the appropriate committees, not necessarily to us.

As we all know, Senate ethics investigations, as well as House investigations in terms of official conduct, are not public. We don't know if something is going on regarding this issue now. But what we do know is something happened, and we ought to be about fixing it.

My worry is if we modify this amendment or we do not agree to this amendment, this is going to be the feeling of the American public: Is this political? Can we not control the rules of our own body in terms of enrollment?

It is interesting what Jefferson said when he talked about this in his manual. He described what should and shouldn't be done when a bill has passed both Houses of Congress.

The House last acting on it, notifies its passage to the other and delivers the bill to the Joint Committee on Enrollment, who sees it is truly enrolled in parchment. When the bill is enrolled, it is not to be written in paragraphs but solidly, all in one piece, that the blanks between the paragraphs may not give room for forgery.

That is, in essence, what happened in this case. Now, that is not a case for the Justice Department to investigate at this time. That is a case for us to investigate and look at our own rules. The fact is, something went terribly wrong on the way of a bill going to the President that was different than both Houses of Congress passed.

I understand the angst of someone coming from the Senate and saying this ought to happen, and I understand we don't want to get in a fingerpointing mode. But if the House agrees with this in conference, it will happen; and if they do not agree with this in conference, it won't happen. But what should happen in the Senate should be that we look at this so we can create the confidence that the American people deserve to have in this body to know that when we pass a bill out, that the bill we passed is actually the bill the President signs.

I am thankful to the Transportation Committee and Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe for clarifying this and fixing it. It is right that it should be done. It is right that the original intention of it should be done. But that is not good enough. That is not good enough for the American public. I understand the desire of the chairman of the committee to move this out of our hands and into the Justice Department's hands, but I have some problems with that. One is this idea of separation of powers. What other powers are we going to give up when we can't handle a simple investigation into what went wrong during the process of enrollment?

The second thing is, my legal staff tells me we cannot mandate to the executive branch what they will and will not investigate. So should they choose not to investigate this, we will have been no further down the road. But the 100-percent guarantee that it will get investigated is if we have Members of both bodies investigate this and come to a resolution so it does not happen again.

It doesn't matter whose bill it is, and it doesn't matter which party's bill it is. If a bill, no matter whose bill it is, is changed, it affects the whole country, and it affects the confidence in this body. This is an ethical issue for us, if in fact it involved the Senate.

The easy thing would be not to offer this. That is easy; you don't make other Senators uncomfortable with you; you don't have the chance that the House could be upset at what we are suggesting in a conference, if they agree to us jointly in investigating this. We could sweep it under the rug as if it never happened because we corrected it. But it did happen. And by not investigating it, it means it can happen again.

This is not without precedent. I believe in 1982 or 1992, this same thing happened and it didn't get investigated. It just got changed. So here we have it happening again, and only because of some very good work in the press were we made aware of it. Consequently, we ought to be the ones to fix it. We ought to take responsibility for our actions and we ought to correct the problem that happened with this, wherever it may be. If it happened in the House, the House should correct it. If it happened in the Senate, the Senate should correct it. But at least we ought to know the details of how and why, and then, if appropriate, a referral, if in fact that is justified. If it was a simple clerical error, we will know that. If it was more than that, we will know that.

The fact is, by not doing this, what we are saying to the American people is, oops, we had a mistake that is paramount to the quality and the clarity of how this body functions, and we believe it is not a grave error. Well, I happen to disagree. It is an entirely egregious error because it impacts every other piece of legislation.

If I as a Senator can no longer trust that the bills we pass in Congress, after they are enrolled, are exactly what we pass, then I now have to spend the time looking at every bill after it has been enrolled to make sure it matches. None of us has the time to do that. That is what we entrust the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House for.

So somewhere along the way, something changed. We need to know that. We don't need to play the same political games. We don't need to play a partisan game with it, because nobody knows for sure who did what. What we do need to do is to do the hard work of looking at what went wrong and making the appropriate changes.

I note there are several cosponsors, and the Presiding Officer is one. She has been a great addition to our body because she seeks clarity and transparency in what we do here; also Senator McCain and Senator Obama, as well as Senator Martinez and Senator Nelson of Florida. They are the two Senators where this had the most impact.

I don't come to the floor lightly saying we want to poke at people, but I do think it is important for the integrity of our body that we, along with the House, get to the bottom of it. It was my hope we could work this out without trying to refer it to the Justice Department. If in fact it needs to get there, it will get there after appropriate investigation.

To bypass us and give up our power to correct things that are wrong with our rules--not laws, our rules--seems to me to be the antithesis of what we have debated so many times in this Senate over the past 9 to 15 months about the executive power encroaching on the Senate. Now we are ready to give that power away for something that is duly ours and set a precedent

that we are going to ask the Justice Department to investigate us? We ought to be investigating ourselves.

We have the integrity, we have the quality, we have the people, and we have the goodwill of all the Senators of this body and all the Members of the House to do that. Because the institution is more important than any one of us. What we do for the American people has to be more important than any one of us. So it is my hope--I will not take much more time--the Senate will concur.

This is done with all sincerity. I am pointing a finger at no one. But I think if we do not do this, by a second amendment that takes it away, what we will have done is to abrogate our responsibility in terms of the clarity of our purpose and the quality of our work. And if we choose to do that, here is what we will find. We will find another notch down the confidence in Congress by the American people, if we refuse to look under our own bedsheets for our own bedbugs and give that responsibility away.

I appreciate the help of the staff of the committee. They have been very forthright in working with us. As I have said before, I appreciate Senator Boxer's cooperative attitude on this. We disagree on how best to handle this, and I understand her right as the chairman and as a Member of this body, but my hope is we don't give away powers that are ours. The separation of powers is a very important concept in this body, and to abrogate our responsibility and appoint it somewhere else, when we don't have the facts--that can always happen afterwards.

In fact, this amendment states that appropriate referrals will be made to both Ethics Committees of the House and Senate and to law enforcement, if necessary. So my hope would be that we could vote this eventually and look at it. I think it is paramount for the quality of our work.

Madam President, I reserve any time I may have, and I look forward to the comments of the chairman.

Madam President, first of all, I thank the chair for her words. I stated that this amendment language is based on a very big precedent established in 1992 in this body with a joint committee of Members of Congress to look at the rules in both Houses, to look at the processes in both Houses. There is a precedent. There is not a

problem with the debate clause. I think that is not a prudent argument to be against this.

The Justice Department will eventually get this if, in fact, we find out there was a crime. I also make the point that nobody knows right now where this occurred. At least I don't. Nobody knows what the facts are, so the assumption we are making that we would be involved in investigating the House is--we do not know that. At least I certainly do not know it, and I have kind of been looking at this for quite some time. So it is an assumption that we are going to have, necessarily, an investigation of the House. We may be having an investigation of the Senate.

The fact is, we have a good precedent for this. This was a Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, H. Con. Res. 192, in the 102nd, and it looked at everything. It didn't just look at one specific thing. So there is precedent for it.

More important is the separation of powers issue. What we are saying to the American public is we do not have the power to control our own body and that we have to ask the Justice Department to come in and do it. If there is a criminal violation, they certainly ought to be involved in that, but we do not know that yet.

First of all, these are the rules of the Senate. They are not law. We are asking them to investigate the rules of the Senate, not a law; therefore, we are giving power to the executive branch, we are asking the executive branch to come in. My great worry--there is no question, Senator Boxer's amendment will do this. It will get an investigation, if they will come and do it--there is no way we can force them to come and do it--and we will get to the bottom of it.

But I am worried about the integrity of the body, saying to the American public that we cannot police ourselves; we cannot do it; we do not want to take the heavy lifting it is going to take. And I do not believe a four-by-four panel of two Democratic Senators, two Republican Senators, two Democratic Congressmen, and two Republican Congressmen-- and this committee has the right to not do any of this in public if they do not want to. The committee totally gets to do this. Nobody wants a circus. I am even reticent that I am actually here making this point. I think it is a pox on our body that this happened, but I think it needs to be addressed.

My hope is that people will not take a partisan viewpoint on how they vote. My hope is they will think about the institution of Congress, they will think about the separation of powers, they will think about the difference between laws and rules of the Senate and rules of the Congress. Then, if a referral needs to be made to the Justice Department, we would do that, but that would most appropriately come from our Ethics Committees, not from this committee--after a referral from this committee to the Ethics Committee.

The chair of the Ethics Committee cannot say whether they are looking at this right now. They may be. They may not be. We do not know. The Justice Department cannot say whether they are or not. So we do not know what is happening.

The point is, something needs to happen. I worry that when we tell the American public we are not capable of looking into our own dysfunction, that, in fact, what it says is that we give up power to the Justice Department to look at how we enroll bills and whether we violated the rules under how we do it. I have a real concern with that. I have tremendous concern with that, especially since we made such a large issue of separation of powers in this Congress.

I will make one other point, and it is not to demean the Senator from California. If this were important to the committee, why was your amendment not part of the committee mark? If, in fact, the committee was enraged over this, why was this not a part of the original committee mark?

Why have we not addressed this in the original committee mark or the substitute? We corrected it--and I said, while the Senator was out, I was thankful that the problem was corrected. But the issue of how it got changed is not in the committee mark.

This amendment, this second-degree amendment, comes on the fact that we are trying to offer what I think is a cogent way that has precedent in both the House and Senate for solving this. That is probably just an oversight because I know the Senator cares deeply about this. I know she was upset about it. With everything they had to do to bring this bill to the floor as quickly as they did, that is probably what happened. But the fact is, we are at this point. If the body wants the Justice Department--if we want to give up that power to the Justice Department, the body will vote that, and that is fine.

The last point I will make, and I will not continue on a lot further, is this does not force the House to do anything. Let me tell you why. This bill will go to a conference committee, I believe, of which Chairman Boxer will be the head, and all the House has to say is: We disagree with this; we do not want to do this; we do not want to have a committee look into this. The House has that option, and if it does not agree to it, it will not come out of the conference committee and we will not do anything on it.

The same is true of her amendment in terms of the Department of Justice. But it is important for the American people to know whether something happens on it and whether we do it in a way that emboldens and strengthens the institution of Congress or weakens it.

Amendment No. 4540 to Amendment No. 4539

Before I yield the floor, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk. I ask for its immediate consideration.

I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Madam President, I will just make one comment.

First of all, the chair of the EPW Committee is very gracious. I appreciate her words, and I intended no disrespect for her in terms of her effort. I know she supports this effort to get to the bottom of it. But I would make a correction. We only say we should share with three people: the appropriate law authorities and the appropriate ethics committees of both the House and the Senate.

We did not envision a show. I would envision that the people who might be on this committee would take this very seriously; that, in fact, it probably would not be open hearings but, rather, closed, and that, in fact, we would get to the bottom of the problem.

But either way we get to the bottom of the problem, I am happy we are going to get there. I think it is important that we get there. As I outlined, I think the integrity of what we pass, no matter how we get there, as long as we can ensure the integrity, I will be satisfied we have done that. I am not sure we will get that.

The final point I would make is we will be setting a precedent. Let us not forget, we will be setting a precedent that the Congress says the Justice Department should investigate us. That is a big precedent. That is a big precedent. I am not a lawyer. I do not know if it has happened before, but I do not like that precedent. I don't like it at all. Because I think the integrity of this body is far greater than that. I think Members of this body are far above that, that we do not need the Justice Department to investigate us. I think we can investigate ourselves and we need to demonstrate to the American public that we do have the will and courage to do the disciplined thing and do the right thing and to solve the problem.

Then if a referral is needed to the Justice Department, we should give it. But I have great qualms, great worries about ceding to the Justice Department the power to investigate us. My own personal experience is, we do not know where they will go. We do not know that they will stick on us. The point is, this is a big precedent I would worry about setting.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, yesterday, the Secretary of Defense announced the 2008 Commander in Chief's Awards for Installation Excellence. These awards honor the best installation for each service. For the first time in the 23-year history of the award, the Air Force winner is a mobility base, Dover Air Force Base. Out of 117 Air Force installations, Dover AFB was chosen as the absolute best.

I cannot say that I was surprised. I believe they won because of the tradition of excellence imbued in each man and woman working at Dover.

It started in 1941, when the 112th Observation Squadron of the Ohio National Guard arrived to set up antisubmarine operations at the new Dover airfield. That mission and the others that helped America and her allies win World War II began an enduring tradition of excellence. In 1948, the airfield was officially named Dover Air Force Base and the Nation moved into its Cold War posture. Some may not know this, but for 7 years, 1951-1958, Dover was home to fighter squadrons defending American airspace.

In 1955, one of Dover's best known missions came to the base, the Aerial Port Mortuary. For over 70 years, the Dover team has given fallen Americans an honorable and compassionate homecoming. While it is only one mission on the base, every generation of air men and women stationed at Dover has taken pride in honoring America's heroes and ensuring the grace and dignity of their return to our Nation and their families.

By the late 1950s, Dover was transformed into a mobility base, under the Military Air Transport Service, which became Military Airlift Command, and eventually became Air Mobility Command. Since 1973, Dover has been home to America's largest military transport aircraft, the C- 5. Just last year, the Nation's second largest military transport aircraft, the C-17, was added to the base. As home to the Nation's great airlifters, Dover has always been busy--supporting American forces in every military engagement from Vietnam to Grenada to Panama to the first gulf war to the Balkans to Afghanistan and Iraq; supporting our Israeli allies with critical supplies during the Yom Kippur War; evacuating Americans from Iran in 1978; assisting with clean-up from the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill; assisting Central American nations, Turkey, and Taiwan that have experienced devastating earthquakes; providing humanitarian aid around the globe after major natural disasters; and supporting Presidential travel around the world. This dual mission, to provide lethal force and vital humanitarian aid, makes Dover critical to America's use of both hard and soft power and has made it all the more important that every generation serving at Dover carry on the tradition of excellence.

This year, Dover's tradition of excellence and the entire Dover team have been recognized with the Commander in Chief's Award. What does it mean to be the best base in the Air Force? It means that the entire Dover team has found innovative ways to make the absolute most of the resources they have. They have not only saved the taxpayers money, they have also given the warfighter more capability.

They have also been unstinting in giving back to the local community and the larger Delaware community. The Dover team is not just the air men and women serving on the base. It is also their families, civilians working on base, the businesses that support base operations and life, the State and local government that support base needs, and the entire Delaware military community working together to give the State and the Nation the very best.

Let me give you some examples from the seven categories that were considered in the competition. Keep in mind that all of these accomplishments occurred in 1 year. They were only possible because the people at Dover, despite full-time, 365/24/7 operations in support of Iraq and Afghanistan, constantly challenged themselves to do more and to do it better.

First, improvements to the infrastructure of the base and the working environment were considered.

Dover opened a state-of-the-art, $77.5 million Air Freight Terminal that increased cargo capacity and efficiency through Dover by 50 percent. The base also invested $53 million in a major runway improvement project and another $3.5 million to repair 183,000 square feet of taxiway, improving both the efficiency and safety of airfield operations. After a close analysis of their budget, the Dover team found $32 million to use for base improvements, including a $5 million renovation of a squadron operations building, C-5 recapitalization, and projects needed for the C-17 squadron setup. Thoughtful planning allowed Dover to keep the bed down of a new C-17 squadron on schedule because base personnel proactively made $780,000 necessary basic infrastructure improvements. In addition, they installed solar lights on the runways and reinforced the taxiway so that C-17 aircrews could do navigation training and combat off-load training.

Dover also improved security operations by installing over 450 removable bollards on the base, including some at the gate in a ``Lazy S'' curve to prevent reverse entry threats. The bollard installation reduced the force protection squadron's time spent on contracting by 50 percent, freeing them for security missions. Security was further enhanced by the installation of a $450,000 crash-rated airfield gate, U.S. Transportation Command's No. 1 priority for force protection, and by the use of radiological detection equipment to screen over 91,000 trucks in 1 year alone. This valuable equipment, valued at $150,000, was obtained by base personnel at no cost. In addition, by renovating the Security Forces firing range at a cost of $4.8 million, the base was able to increase the range's capacity by 15 percent and save 1,000 manhours per year.

Second, improvements to the quality of life on the base were considered.

Dover has pioneered Air Mobility Command's privatization effort for base housing. Dover built 240 homes in 2007 and was named the 2007 Outstanding Housing Installation Team-Privatized Location for the Air Force. The $250 million housing project is the benchmark for the command and will ultimately increase the housing standards for 980 families when complete in 2009. Dover's Services Squadron was recognized as Air Mobility Command's 2007 Youth Program of the Year and the Outdoor Recreation Program earned the Air Force's 5-Star Program Award. Quality of life for airmen was further enhanced by finalizing the design of a $13 million, 144-room dormitory that exceeds command standards and will be a model for other bases.

Keeping the Dover team, including families, healthy is critical to a high quality of life. Dover is the only base in the command with 100 percent of its pharmacy technicians nationally certified. In addition, the base was first in the command and third in the Air Force for flu immunization rates, at over 99 percent.

Third, efforts to enhance the productivity of the workforce were considered.

Dover has taken the lead role in reducing the time needed for Isochronal, ISO, inspections and, as a result, was made the regional center for all east coast C-5 Isochronal inspections in July of 2007. This is the first such regional facility in the Air Force. Historically, an ISO inspection took up to 38 days to complete. The 436th Maintenance Team reviewed the entire process to increase velocity while maintaining quality. This led the team to one record-breaking effort in which an ISO inspection was completed in only 13.2 days. These initiatives were also a key reason the 436th Maintenance Squadron won the 2006 Air Force Maintenance Effectiveness Award.

In order to reduce the time planes are on the ground, the 436th Maintenance Squadron did a complete review of how they maintained ground equipment. As a result, they were able to reduce the steps each mechanic takes from 763 to 73, saving 29.7 minutes per inspection, while reducing wait time by 34 minutes. They also saved 63.7 minutes per inspection or 26.54 manhours per year and vacated 17,660 square feet of floor space to be designated for other use. The cellular work design they came up with is considered the benchmark for such designs in the command and is a model of how the Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st century initiative and use of Lean Six Sigma, a process improvement approach first used in the private sector, can make better use of existing resources.

The Dover Operations Group improved throughput for aircraft by creating the only C-5 one-stop/jet-side service system in the Air Force. The Required Flight Manual, Flight Information Publications, weapons and tools needed by an aircrew for a mission are delivered directly to the aircraft. This reduces travel time by 20 minutes, allowing a 12-percent reduction in the C-5 launch sequence and providing more duty days for the crews to complete their missions.

Dover was able to reduce the amount of time needed to overhaul and rebuild C-5 jet engines, TF39, by 12 days, going from 75 to 63 days. The process improvement also allowed two production crews to be reassigned to other sections, regained five critical manning positions, and saved 36 manpower positions and $3.8 million in operating costs. On the whole, by reducing wasted motion for support equipment and tools, the 436th Maintenance Group has saved 73.3 annual man-days and expedited engine repairs so that they are done 5 days faster than the original standard and freeing 1,944 square feet of floor space for other work.

Another key initiative was the effort to ensure that Basic Post Flight inspections be done within 10 hours of mission completion. This initiative was begun in 2005 by the Dover Maintenance Group Commander and brought completion time down to 6 hours, a 40-percent improvement. The complete process review improved Home Station Logistics Reliability rate by 40 percent and overtime man hours were reduced by 75 percent. Overall, this means the team saved 23,000 labor-hours and $1.168 million. The mission benefits included the following: a reduced number of tail swaps, increased number of aircraft ready for flight, reduced number of late take-offs, and dramatically improved efficiency in the launch sequence of events.

The Dover team also ensured a seamless transition for the new C-17 squadron, ensuring that Dover's first C-17 was able to fly its first combat mission within 36 days of arrival. In the squadron's first month, they had a 100-percent on-time departure rate and a 99-percent mission capable rate.

In addition, once investigators were done with the 2007 C-5 crash scene, Dover personnel took the initiative to save and recover parts. Their efforts ensured that 127 parts were recovered, inspected, and restocked into the Air Force supply system, saving $7 million.

Fourth, increases in customer satisfaction or improvements in customer service were considered.

Today, Dover's key mission, or customer service, is to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-seven percent of the entire Department of Defense airlift requirement last year went from Dover. The 3rd and 9th Airlift Squadrons flew more than 8,000 hours, with more than 2,000 combat hours and 460 combat missions. The two squadrons combined airlifted 59.4 million pounds of cargo and more than 12,000 passengers.

Dover is the second busiest en route airfield in the Department of Defense. It supported 3,000 en route missions in 2007 with a 95-percent departure reliability rate.

In addition, Dover assisted America's diplomatic efforts and the State Department by supporting foreign military sales to 32 countries, handling 85 missions and 950 tons of cargo.

The Dover team also made sure that it provided the best possible services to military personnel and their families on base. Access to mental health care was increased by 35 percent, despite a 40-percent decrease in manning. This exceeded the command's goal for access by 20 percent. In order to keep basic operations functioning, the Communications Squadron answered 99 percent of their 2,700 assistance requests within 2 days. That is 4 percent better than the Air Force standard.

In an effort to improve safety and provide instantaneous responses to emergencies with existing resources, the Civil Engineer Fire Department teamed with the Medical Group to provide 24/7 ambulance service. The Medical Group Airmen who provide ambulance response are now co-located at the emergency call center at the base Fire Department.

Fifth, efforts to encourage bottom-to-top communication and team problem solving were considered.

Dover has been a true leader in implementing Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st century. The key to the success of this initiative to make operations more streamlined and ``lean'' has been clear communication and a team approach. In recognition of this excellence, Dover has hosted numerous training sessions for units from five major commands, Air Force senior leaders, and for the Royal Air Force. Dover instructors have trained 4,200 students in Basic Lean Awareness including a program at the First Term Airmen Center.

Dover is the first base in the command to have two fully qualified level-2 facilitators. These facilitators certified seven level-1 facilitators and trained another 20 level-1 students. They have successfully made operations more efficient in over 50 areas in just 1 year. In addition, Dover's trainers ensured that 210 future Ramstein Air Force Base and Charleston Air Force Base facilitators understood the basics of lean initiatives. These efforts won the Dover team praise from the Logistics Director at Air Mobility Command Headquarters.

Sixth, the promotion of unit cohesiveness and the recognition of outstanding individual effort was considered.

The Dover team won two Department of Defense, one Secretary of the Air Force, 12 Air Force, and 93 Air Mobility Command Awards in 2006. In addition, they won the 2007 U.S. Small Business Administration Award for the State of Delaware. One critical example of why these awards were won is in antiterrorism, where they won command honors for the ninth consecutive year for best

antiterrorism and force protection programs. Dover was able to obtain $1.2 million in Combating Terrorism Readiness Initiative Funds that it used to resolve installation vulnerabilities, resulting in winning the Department of Defense's Best Antiterrorism Operational Unit in 2006 and the Department of Defense's Best Antiterrorism Program Manager Awards for 2007. The Dover team won these awards by completing over 20 antiterrorism and force protection initiatives that created a hard target security signature. These efforts paid off by deterring Fort Dix terrorists from attacking Dover AFB. This event permeated Air Force culture and is commonly referred to as the ``Dover Effect.''

Seventh, the promotion of energy conservation and environmental safety, including compliance, remediation, and stewardship, was considered.

The maintenance squadron at Dover was able to dramatically improve the process for cleaning ground equipment while also making it more environmentally sound. Formerly all ground equipment had to be moved to a separate wash facility primarily used for aircraft. Through careful research, a completely self-contained wash system with zero environmental impact was selected, designed, and installed in the ground equipment facility. This decreased travel time from 190 hours to 12 hours a year, a 94-percent savings. This increased the capability and availability for ground equipment, alleviated contractual issues that had arisen with the old cleaning system, and reduced the chance for aircraft delays. The new process is environmentally friendly and captures, filters, and recycles all waste water.

Dover also received the 2006 Secretary of Defense Environmental Restoration Award for Best Environmental Restoration Program for its restoration of natural resources used to support the base's warfighting mission. Dover reached the Defense Department's environmental goals 4 to 8 years ahead of schedule. Activities at Dover Air Force Base which earned this award include, but are not limited to: obtaining regulator signatures on six Records of Decision for 39 sites in 6 months; achieving Response Complete status at 27 of Dover's 59 sites; opening up 54 acres of formerly restricted land for use in supporting the base's mission; and completing Remedial Designs and Work Plans for 17 sites in only 3 months.

In addition, Dover won the 2006 Air Force General Thomas D. White Environmental Award which recognizes the efforts of installations and individuals to improve environmental quality, restoration, pollution prevention, recycling, and conservation of natural and cultural resources. Dover is 6 years ahead of schedule in its environmental remediation program.

These are the areas that the selection committee looked at when it decided which base was the best in the Air Force this past year. It is obvious that in every area, the Dover team took seriously the challenge to improve base operations and the quality of life wherever possible. From the smallest process improvements to the largest investments in critical infrastructure, Dover personnel found ways to do more. The result is not just that they upheld the base's long tradition of excellence, they surpassed it. In so doing, they have truly given our Nation their best and have made me and every Delawarean proud. We have always known Dover is the best in the Air Force. It is time the rest of the Nation knew about your excellence.

Congratulations, Dover Air Force Base!

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

Mr. President, earlier this month, we honored the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Each year on this anniversary we get together and speak glowingly of Dr. King's life and work. These words are important; make no mistake. But even more important than honoring Dr. King with words is honoring Dr. King with action. Today, we have the opportunity to do that by passing the Fair Pay Restoration Act.

The right to equal pay for equal work is a fundamental right. Indeed, Dr. King was in Memphis on that fateful day in April 1968 to protest pay discrimination against African-American Memphis sanitation workers. We hope to have this legislation on the floor in the early part of next week. It involves overturning the Ledbetter case, a Supreme Court decision of recent times.

Forty years later, we are still fighting the same fight as Dr. King. We are still trying to empower workers to assert their civil rights.

Over the years, I have been proud to stand with the majority of the Congress for justice and fairness by passing strong bipartisan laws against pay discrimination. In 1963, we passed the Equal Pay Act. We followed that in 1964 with the landmark Civil Rights Act. Then we passed the Age Discrimination Act, then the Americans With Disabilities Act. Most recently, we passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991. All these laws protected workers from pay discrimination and have made our country a stronger, better, and fairer land.

These laws are just words on a page of a lawbook if workers can't get into court when employers break the law. To bring these words to life, we must today continue the work Dr. King started. This effort is necessary because last May the Supreme Court undermined the fundamental protections against pay discrimination. In the Ledbetter decision, the Court imposed serious obstacles in the path of workers seeking to enforce their rights.

Ledbetter was a textbook case of pay discrimination. Lilly Ledbetter, whom I have had the honor to meet, was one of a few women supervisors at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company plant in Gadsen, AL. She worked at the plant for almost two decades, consistently demonstrating that a woman can do a job traditionally done by men. She put up with teasing and taunting from her mail coworkers, but she persevered and consistently gave the company a fair day's work for what she thought was a fair day's pay. What she didn't know, however, was that Goodyear wasn't living up to its end of the bargain.

For almost two decades, the company used discriminatory evaluations to pay her less than her male colleagues who performed exactly the same work. The jury saw the injustice in Goodyear's treatment of Ms. Ledbetter and awarded her full damages. But five members of the Supreme Court ignored that injustice and held that Ms. Ledbetter was entitled to nothing at all--nothing at all--saying she was too late in filing her claim.

Under the rule in the Ledbetter case, Ms. Ledbetter would have had to file her claim within a few months of when Goodyear first started discriminating against her. Never mind that Ms. Ledbetter didn't know about the discrimination when it first began. Never mind that she had no means to learn of the discrimination because Goodyear kept salary information confidential. Never mind that Goodyear's discrimination against Ms. Ledbetter continued each and every time it gave her a smaller paycheck than it gave her male colleagues. The rule imposed by the Supreme Court reversed decades of precedent in the courts of appeal, it overturned the policy of the EEOC under Democratic and Republican administrations, and it upset the Nation's accepted definition of what is right.

This chart shows that the paycheck accrual rule was the law of the land prior to Ledbetter. In all these areas, these are the courts of appeal decisions that would have helped Ms. Ledbetter to recover. These areas are the areas where the EEOC demonstrates the paycheck accrual rule under EEOC policy, as well as these others. This small area in here shows what is now known in the Supreme Court decision as the Ledbetter decision. But this is the way the law of the land had been for years prior to this judgment and this decision.

The rule imposed by the Supreme Court reversed the decades of precedent in the courts of appeal, it overturned the policy of the EEOC under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and it upset the Nation's accepted definition as to what is fair and right.

The Court's decision turned back the clock on civil rights. Every year, thousands of workers suffer pay discrimination. The Ledbetter decision will hurt workers alleging discrimination of every kind: Sex, race, national origin, age, and disability. This chart shows 5,700 pay discrimination charges that have been brought. These here are on disability, discrimination on the basis of disability, after we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. The dark green is on gender discrimination. The lighter green is on race discrimination; discrimination on the basis of race. This is national origin in here: 588. This is discrimination on age. All these cases--5,700--are based upon the pay discrimination that has crossed the country.

This is a real challenge. This doesn't represent the hundreds of thousands--hundreds of thousands--of cases of people who don't know about it. This is what is happening in this country. This is what is going to continue to happen unless we overturn the Ledbetter decision.

The Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter gives employers free rein to continue to discriminate and leaves workers powerless to stop it. The result defies both justice and common sense. We must act to restore the decency and fairness to our Nation's civil rights laws.

The bipartisan Fair Pay Restoration Act will restore the clear intent of Congress. That is the legislation we will have on the floor to act on this next week. It provides a reasonable rule that reflects how pay discrimination actually occurs in the workplace. It links the time for filing a pay discrimination claim to the date a worker receives a discriminatory paycheck--not when an employer makes a discriminatory decision. Workers shouldn't have to be mindreaders in order to protect themselves from discrimination. Workers who aren't allowed to share information about their wages shouldn't be rendered powerless to combat discrimination. This bill recognizes that workers who receive a discriminatory check today should not be out of time to file a claim simply because the employer managed to hide its illegal behavior initially.

This legislation holds no surprises. It puts the law back to what it was on the day before the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision. So we know this legislation is fair and it is workable. There would not be any unexpected consequences. Courts would not be overwhelmed. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has said this bill would not increase litigation costs by much and businesses would not be blindsided. We are restoring what the law was previously. Most importantly, the Fair Pay Restoration Act makes employers accountable for violating the law. Under the Supreme Court's rule, if an employer can keep its discriminatory ways secret for 6 months, it gets a free pass. Do my colleagues hear me? If they are able to keep this secret that they are discriminating on any one of these bases--any of the bases we have mentioned, including age or disability, national origin, sex or race-- in any of these areas, if they are able to do that and keep that a secret for 6 months, the employers get the free pass.

They can continue to discriminate and its victims are powerless to stop the unfair treatment. It only makes sense that, if the violation continues, the right to challenge it should continue. No one should get a free pass to break the law.

The Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter took us backward in time. It takes us farther away from our ideal of a fair and just workplace for all Americans. We have too much progress still to make, and we cannot afford a step back. With this legislation, we can at least make up the ground we have lost.

That is why this legislation has such widespread support. This chart indicates the various groups. A wide array of civil rights groups, labor unions, and religious and disability rights groups support this legislation. It includes the American Association of People with Disabilities. AARP understands what is happening in terms of age discrimination; Business and Professional Women understand the discrimination taking place against women; NAACP; the United Auto Workers and other labor organizations, too; National Congress of Black Women; Religious Action Center understands the moral implications of this issue; U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce, and others. They all support this legislation. Many businesses also support the bill, including the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce, as I said. All companies that play by the rules and treat workers fairly should support this legislation.

Workers have lived for almost a year with the inequity of the Ledbetter decision. It is time to stand up for the right to fair pay. As Dr. King said so eloquently after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

Many people felt that after the passage of the civil rights

bill, we had accomplished everything. We didn't have anything

else to do and we would miraculously move into a new era of

freedom.

But when we opened our eyes, we came to see that the civil

rights bill, as marvelous as it is, is only the beginning of

a new day and not the end of a journey.

If this bill is not implemented in all of its dimensions,

it will mean nothing, and all of its eloquent words will be

as sounding brass on a tinkling cymbal. We must take this

bill and lift it from thin paper to thick action, and go all

out, all over this Nation, to implement it.

It is time to hold employers accountable for their unlawful conduct. It is time to turn the clock forward on civil rights, instead of backward. It is time to pass the Fair Pay Restoration Act.

A final comment. This is a remarkable woman, Lily Ledbetter. Here is her quote:

And according to the Court, if you don't figure things out

right away, the company can treat you like a second class

citizen for the rest of your career. That isn't right.

She played by the rules. She worked hard and provided for her family and was being discriminated against. Here she is again:

I hope that Congress won't let this happen to anyone else.

I would feel that this long fight was worthwhile if, at least

at the end of it, I knew that I played a part in getting the

law fixed so that it can provide real protection to real

people in the real world.

We hear a lot of speeches in this body about the importance of work and paying people fairly. We hear speeches on both sides of the aisle about this. Here we have the classic example of a hard-working, decent, fairminded woman, who is trying to provide for a family, is playing by the rules, and she is getting shortchanged on the basis of doing equal work but not getting equal pay. She finds that out and pursues her rights and receives damages, under the rule of law in most of the States; and the Supreme Court, by a narrow margin of one, makes a decision that because she didn't know about it at the time this was started, when there was no chance in the world she would know about it because pay records are kept confidential, she is going to lose out on the fair pay she is entitled to under the protection of the law we have passed.

This body has gone on record time in and time out about fair wages for their work. We are going to have another opportunity in the next week to see whether we are going to continue this.

Let me finally say we are going back to the previous law. This isn't a new, bold idea carving out terms of the future. This is the way the law was. We are restoring the law, restoring the protections. This should have passed unanimously. How can Members of this body say no to restoring the law to what it was in the overwhelming majority of the jurisdictions of this country, on the fundamental issue of fairness that applies to virtually all workers, applies to men and women of color, men and women of disability, men and women of age, applies to national origin, and applies across the board? What are we afraid of?

We will have the chance to take this up and to take action on it and to call the roll, and the American people will understand who in this body is for fairness and treating American workers right, and who is for going back in terms of the Nation's fundamental commitment to decency and honoring hard-working people, who should be entitled to equal pay for equal work. We will find out when we call the roll the early part of next week.

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

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak today on an issue that is on the forefront of most Americans' minds this week, and that is the issue of tax day. Yesterday was the filing deadline, April 15, which comes around every year, and for most Americans it is greeted with a great deal of trepidation and anxiety.

April 15 represents the annual call of Uncle Sam, the tax collector, knocking on the doors of hard-working taxpayers, and it highlights the real tax burden that is placed on American families.

This year, Americans will work 74 days to pay their Federal taxes, 74 days to pay their Federal tax burden alone. In order to pay State and local taxes, Americans will work an average of 39 additional days. What that means is that the typical hard-working, taxpaying, law-abiding American in this country will have to work an average of 113 days to pay taxes in 2008.

If we look at a calendar, that pretty much takes care of the months of January, February, March, and April, up to the 23rd of this month. If you think about it, every American is still working this year to pay the tax man. They have not gotten to that point in the tax year when everything they make can then be dedicated to the expenses they have for their families, for their children's education, for retirement, for fuel costs--all the things we deal with in our daily lives. We are still at a point on the calendar where none of what we make can be applied to those necessities of life because we are still at a point on the calendar where everything we earn and make in this country is dedicated to paying the tax man. Literally 113 days of the calendar year of this year up until April 23, which will be next week, is dedicated to pay the tax man.

What does that mean? Another perspective: If you put it into an 8- hour work day, taxpayers are going to work 1 hour and 37 minutes every single day to pay Federal taxes, and an additional 51 minutes to pay State and local taxes.

Put that into perspective. All other categories of consumer spending pale in comparison to the annual tax burden. In fact, Americans only need to work 60 days to pay for annual housing costs, 50 days for health and medical care, 35 days to pay for their annual costs, and 29 days to pay for transportation.

So the expenses most people deal with in their every-day lives, whether, again, that is the cost of housing, health care, food, or transportation--all are basic necessities--pale in comparison to the number of days the American taxpayer works every single year to pay their tax burden.

That is a pretty remarkable chart, I think you would have to say, when you look at the tax burden and the number of days you have to pay relative to the things we spend the rest of our money on.

This year, the statistics are probably better, if you can imagine that, than they were a few years ago. In 2000, before the historic tax cuts took effect, taxpayers had to work an all-time high

of 123 days to pay their tax burden. We have gone from 123 days down to 113 days.

In that same year 2000, a record 33.6 percent of the Nation's income was dedicated to paying taxes. After the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, Americans were able to work an average of two fewer weeks to meet their Federal tax burden. That is why we find the average American working 113 days to meet their tax liability as opposed to 123 days a few short years ago. That is attributable to the tax relief that was enacted in 2001 and 2003.

Aside from paying taxes, filling out tax returns is a burden in and of itself. We have a Tax Code that is out of control, out of date, and is imploding under its own weight. The U.S. Tax Code spans over 54,000 pages. Some of the current provisions of the code were created 40 years ago. Each year individuals, families, and businesses spend needless hours poring over IRS forms and regulations trying to make sense of the endless exercise of filing taxes. In fact, in total, taxpayers dedicate over 6 billion hours to file their taxes and spend over $140 billion a year in compliance costs.

I read a story a couple of days ago that those who still fill out their own tax returns take an average of 34 hours to do so. That is almost a week. That is a workweek almost for most people to comply or fill out the tax return--for those who still fill out their own tax returns.

Bear in mind that a lot of Americans have gotten to the point where it is so complex, burdensome, and complicated they turn it over to a tax preparer. For those who still fill out their tax returns, 34 hours is the average they spend in complying with the Tax Code in this country.

Ironically, the complexity and uncertainty of filing taxes is only amplified by congressional action. Since 1986, we have made--I say we, the Congress--have made 15,000 changes to our Tax Code, or approximately 2 every single day. Many of these changes focus on 1- or 2-year extensions of expiring provisions.

For example, last year, Congress was unable to extend the alternative minimum tax until the IRS had published its 2007 tax return forms. Because of this delay, 13.5 million taxpayers had to wait until February 11 to file forms relative to the alternative minimum tax.

Only Congress can create a complex tax provision, such as the alternative minimum tax, and actually make it more complicated by extending it after the IRS publication deadline.

Unfortunately, the congressional leadership is simply either oblivious or unsympathetic to the tax burden on American families. Last month, the Senate Democrats called for the largest tax increase in American history. Under the Democratic budget, the reduced individual tax rates are set to expire in 20 months.

As millions of Americans have now finished coping with this year's April 15 deadline, I think it is important to point out that this deadline is going to be even more painful under the Democratic budget that passed the Senate earlier this year.

If the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are not extended, on January 1, 2011, the 10-percent tax bracket will expire, the tax bracket that was put into effect that impacts low-income earners, lowers their tax liability and took literally millions of American taxpayers completely off the tax rolls. The 25-percent tax bracket that currently applies to earners in that tax rate bracket is going to go up to 28 percent. The 28- percent tax rate will increase to 31 percent. The 33-percent tax rate will increase to 36 percent. And the 35-percent tax rate will increase to 39.9 percent.

On top of the increased tax rates that will happen on January 1, 2010, unless we take steps to extend and prevent those tax cuts from expiring, the increased child tax credit will expire as well. Families with children are going to see their tax burden increase substantially when the $1,000 tax credit is reduced to $500 after the year 2010.

Additionally, the marriage penalty is reinstated. The 3l million filers who report dividend income and the 26 million filers who report capital gains income also will see their taxes on their investments go up.

Finally, the death tax will be reinstated at pre-2001 levels of $1 million. In other words, you can exempt $1 million worth of your income, the wealth you acquired over the years, from the death tax liability. If we think about how that impacts small businesses, farmers, and ranchers--and I can share that as someone who lives in a rural State where we have a lot of farm and ranch families. We have a lot of people with lots of assets, lots of land, lots of equipment, but they are very cash poor. When you take $1 million anymore, with land values being what they are in a place such as even my State of South Dakota, you are going to have an awful lot of people who are going to be hit very hard by the death tax when it becomes reinstated at a $1 million-level exemption.

Attach to that a maximum statutory rate of 55 percent--which, incidentally, is one of the highest death tax rates in the world. So literally you are going to have for people now who worked their whole lives--small businesses, farmers, ranchers--to accumulate some things to pass on to the next generation, all but $1 million of that would be taxed at a rate as high as 55 percent.

Think about the impact that is going to have on family farm and ranch operations in this country and many of our small businesses, which is where most of the jobs in the country are generated.

In total, the average family is going to see their taxes increase by roughly $2,300 per year. That is enough to buy several months of groceries or several months worth of health care.

It does not have to be this difficult. Congress can work in a bipartisan manner to fix our broken Tax Code and to ease the tax burden for families and small businesses.

Commissions have been convened, hearings have been held, studies have been published, and yet another tax day has passed without comprehensive tax reform.

Streamlining our Tax Code will strengthen our economy, it will improve the competitiveness of our businesses, and it will greatly ease the tax burden for all American families.

The problem is not that Washington taxes too little. The problem is that Washington spends too much. The American people, when they start spending virtually a third of their year to pay the tax burden that is imposed on them at the Federal level, the State level, and the local level, we are asking way too much and imposing way too much a burden on the working men and women in this country and those small businesses that are creating the jobs and those who are trying to pass on those operations to the next generation so we can keep family farms, ranches, and small businesses in the family, contributing, creating jobs, and paying taxes. With a confiscatory death tax, which will happen if we do not take steps to extend the tax cuts, we are going to see a lot of those farms, ranchers, and small businesses go by the wayside.

I hope the sentiment in this body, the Senate, and the House of Representatives will change to the point that we recognize the importance of extending the tax relief that was enacted in 2001 and 2003 so we do not see these steep increases in income rates and return of the marriage penalty and a decrease in the per-child tax credit, dividend, and capital gains income being taxed at much higher rates, and the death tax being reinstated. If we are successful in extending those tax cuts, I think we will see an economy that, although experiencing an economic downturn right now, will improve, will start to grow again and create jobs. If we allow these tax cuts to expire, I think it is ``Katy, bar the door'' in terms of the adverse economic consequences and impact it will have on this economy and on the working men and women of this country and the entrepreneurs who make it work.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.