Keeping Americans Warm Act of 2007

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about members of the American family whom we all care about, and I think all of us do in this chamber and across America, but for whom we do not do nearly enough to support, and those members of the American family are pregnant women.

I remember, as so many others do in the life of the family the times my wife Terese learned that she was pregnant, and even through I, of course, cannot ever experience it directly, I knew and I know now through her and my sisters' experience that that moment is indelible, and it is unforgettable in the life of a woman, in the life of a family, the moment she finds out that she is pregnant.

For many women this is a moment, of course, of great joy. It is the moment where they learn they are pregnant and they appreciate the miracle of pregnancy. And perhaps it has been long awaited or in the case of a particular woman and her family, perhaps it is something of a surprise. But for many women, for many families, it is a welcome surprise.

Many of these women do not need help beyond what their families can provide them and what others may receive in terms of adequate support from our existing framework of support within this country, so they do not feel they have any great burden at that moment.

But there is another circumstance other pregnant women may face. And for those pregnant women, and for one, in particular, if we can imagine who that person is in the life, in our own lives, people we have known, for that woman the moment of discovery that she is pregnant unfortunately is not a moment of joy. For her it is a moment of terror or panic or even shame in some circumstances. She may be in a doctor's office or a clinic or she may be at home. But for her that moment begins a crisis, a real crisis in her life, in which she feels overwhelmingly and perhaps almost unbearably alone, all alone. She could be wealthy, middle income, or poor. Most likely, in our country, unfortunately, she would be poor. But whatever her income, that woman at that moment in that circumstance feels very simply all alone.

A pregnant woman may have an abusive spouse or boyfriend, for example, that person who is tormenting her at that moment, and that will continue.

At that moment for her, she is all alone with no help at all. Another pregnant woman may believe she cannot support or care for a new baby at this point in her life. She too is all alone. Another woman might believe her financial situation is so precarious that she cannot care for or raise a child. She may also feel alone and even helpless.

We know the staggering numbers in America today: 48 percent of all pregnancies are unintended; excluding cases of after miscarriages, 54 percent of those unintended pregnancies end in abortion.

The response: ``cannot afford a baby,'' is the second most frequently cited reason why women choose to have an abortion. And 73 percent of women having abortions citing this reason: ``cannot afford a baby,'' cite this reason as a contributing factor in their decision.

So a woman who is facing the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy, that may be a crisis for her, does not need, does not need a lecture from a politician and does not need a clinical reminder that she just has a simple choice to make. The choice is never simple, never, and this woman needs support and love and understanding. She needs to be embraced in a time of crisis in her life, not sent on her way to deal with this question on her own.

She needs our help and she needs us to walk with her, not only through the 9 months of her pregnancy, but also for the early months and years of her child's life. We in the Congress, both House and Senate, both parties, need to address this issue in a comprehensive way that meets those needs that woman has in her life.

Some Members in this body for years, and up to the current day, have initiated good efforts. We should applaud those efforts and support them. In some cases there is support for them. But I believe neither political party is doing enough for pregnant women in America today-- neither party.

While there is tremendous disagreement about how best to do this, there is one significant area of common ground. Despite all we hear in Washington, there is, on these questions, one area of common ground, one thing we all agree upon, and that is, we all want to reduce the number of abortions.

We all want to help as many pregnant women, as many families as we can. Many women who have had abortions do so very reluctantly. While choice is a term that is widely used in this debate, many women who face unplanned pregnancies do not feel, do not feel they have a genuine choice. And that is why for so many reasons I am introducing new legislation, the Pregnant Women Support Act. With this bill it is my fervent hope that a new dialog, a kind of common ground, will emerge on how we can reduce abortion by offering pregnant women real choices and real help.

Let me outline a couple of provisions of the bill. This bill will, first of all, assist pregnant and parenting teens to finish high school and prepare for college or vocational training. Next, it will help pregnant college students stay in school, offering them counseling as well as assistance with continuing their education, parenting support classes, and also childcare assistance.

Third, it will provide counseling and shelter to pregnant women in abusive relationships who may be fearful of continuing a pregnancy in a crisis situation. It will establish a national toll-free hotline and a public awareness campaign to offer women support and knowledge about options and resources available to them when they face an unplanned pregnancy.

It will give women free sonogram examinations by providing grants for the purchase of ultrasound equipment. It will provide parents with information about genetic disability testing, including support for parents who receive a diagnosis of Downs syndrome. It will ensure that pregnant women receive prenatal and postnatal care by eliminating pregnancy as a preexisting condition in the individual health care market, and also eliminating waiting periods for women with prior coverage.

It will establish a nurse home visitation program for pregnant and first-time mothers as an eligible benefit under Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, what we refer to here as SCHIP. We know it means Children's Health Insurance.

One example of this home visitation program is the nurse-family partnership, an evidence-based program and national model in which nurses mentor young first-time and primarily low-income mothers, establishing a supportive relationship with both mother and child. Studies have shown this program to be both cost effective and hugely successful in terms of life outcomes for both mothers and their children. This legislation will increase funding for the Women, Infants and Children Program, known as the WIC Program, providing nutrition assistance, counseling and education, obesity prevention, breastfeeding support, prenatal and pediatric health care referrals, immunization screening and referral, and a host of other services for mothers and their children.

Next, it will expand nutritional support for low-income parents by increasing the income eligibility levels for food stamps. It will increase funding for the childcare and development block grant program, which is the primary source of Federal funding for childcare assistance for low-income parents.

Finally, it will provide support for adoption as an alternative to abortion and make the adoption tax credit permanent. I introduced this bill with the deepest conviction that we can indeed find common ground. I believe we can transform this debate by focusing upon the issues that unite us and not the issues that divide us.

As most people know who cover the Senate and understand what happens here and where candidates stand, most people know this already, but I am a pro-life Democrat, and I believe life begins at conception and ends when we draw our last breath.

I also believe the role of Government is to protect, enrich, and value life for everyone, at every moment, from beginning to end. I believe we as a nation

have to do more to support women and their children when they are most vulnerable, during pregnancy and early childhood.

I also strongly support, and have for years, family planning programs, because they avoid sometimes those dark moments when a woman, often alone, faces a pregnancy she feels she cannot handle. I also support family planning programs precisely because they reduce the number of abortions.

But that is not the issue I address today. Today, with this bill, I am focused on the woman who is pregnant, and I am asking myself, and I think Congress and the administration, as any Congress and any administration has to ask themselves this fundamental question: For that woman who is facing that crisis in her life, we have to ask ourselves, as a Congress and as a society: What more can we do? What more can we do to help her? That is the question we must continually ask. I think if we ask that question today, the answer, unfortunately, is: Not enough.

We are not doing enough. I believe there is more common ground in America than we might realize on these questions, if only we focus on how we can truly help and support that woman who wishes to carry her pregnancy to term and how we can give her and her child what they need to begin healthy and productive lives together.

For the past 34 years, unfortunately, the issue of abortion has been used mostly as a way to divide people, even as the number of abortions remains and still remains unacceptably high. We have to find a better way.

I believe this legislation, the Pregnant Women Support Act, is a part of that better way. I believe we must look toward real solutions to the issue of abortion by targeting the underlying factors that often lead women to make the decision to have an abortion. This is precisely what this act, the Pregnant Women Support Act, will do.

I really believe when it comes to this issue of helping a pregnant woman, we need to consider what our obligations are. I think we can state it very simply: We need to walk in solidarity with her, in her pregnancy, especially when it is an unplanned pregnancy, and we need to support her and give her all the help we can at this time in her life.

That is exactly what this bill does for women who may find themselves in a position where they are facing one of the most difficult situations in their life. The woman who has no one to turn to for advice, for counsel, or for support, we have got to be there for her at that moment and for a long time thereafter.

I truly believe there are few things more terrifying than the prospect of supporting another human being when you have no support of your own. Unfortunately, far too many women face that decision, face that crisis.

So I believe reducing the number of abortions should not be a partisan issue. It should not pit Republicans against Democrats. So what do I seek? I seek common ground, and I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in seeking real solutions that will unite us in providing life with dignity, before--before--and after the birth of a child, for a pregnant woman, for her family, and for her child. Surely, we must all agree that no woman should ever have to face the crisis of an unplanned pregnancy all alone.

Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleague from Texas for his comments about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and would like to expand on those a little bit more.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act we sometimes refer to as FISA or the FISA law. It is important we understand why we need to update this FISA law. In a word, it has to do with the fact that technology has moved forward faster than our ability to change the law. As a result, as the Senator from Texas just noted, we lost about two- thirds of the intelligence gathering on al-Qaida that we could have intercepted and were previously intercepting when it became clear we needed to change the law to keep pace with the advances in technology.

In the Protect America Act we restored access to that information, and we are now back to collecting that information. But the Protect America Act expires on February 1. As a result, we are now back to reauthorizing that act in a permanent way. We need to do so because, again, if this authority lapses, we are back to where we were when we were losing two-thirds of the information that we should be gathering on al-Qaida.

It is not as if we do not understand this is a serious problem. Al- Qaida still exists. It has not been destroyed. We know what it has done. We know what it would like to do. We know they continue to plot. It is critical for us not to ignore the threat. Of course, the first step in dealing with it is to do the best possible job we can in monitoring communications between people who would do us harm.

We all agree that congressional oversight is important to the effort, and all of the legislation we have adopted has enhanced congressional oversight. That is a good thing. That is not in question. But you do not have congressional oversight so oppressive that the intelligence folks cannot collect the information they need to collect. We need to be careful that in redrafting FISA we do not actually impede our intelligence collection in the name of congressional oversight.

There are some problems with legislation that came out of our committee, the Judiciary Committee--some big problems--much less so with the bill that passed out of the Intelligence Committee. Even Members who objected earlier agreed, and I think have agreed, we can provide the necessary statutory authorization for the President to act, and I think most would agree we have to have such authorization in place to deal with groups such as al-Qaida. But their concern was we simply wanted to have congressional authority for it, and that is what the act has done.

We have to be careful that in granting the authority we do not attach so many conditions to it that, once again, it is impossible for the intelligence agencies to do the job we have mandated they do. As I said, the bill reported out of the Judiciary Committee, and to some extent even the bill from the Intelligence Committee, does tie down our intelligence agencies with too many limits on how they can monitor foreign intelligence organizations.

What we are really looking at is some of my colleagues' efforts to take away core responsibilities and authority that the President has to protect our Nation in gathering foreign intelligence.

Let me cite a couple of examples. The Judiciary Committee bill makes FISA the ``exclusive means''--that is the language--of gathering foreign intelligence absent express statutory authority. That is too narrow. In other words, what it is saying is, if another intelligence- gathering tool is not actually authorized by a statute, then it cannot be used to gather intelligence on a group such as al-Qaida.

One obvious example of this is grand jury subpoenas. They are authorized by rules of evidence, not by a Federal statute. The way the Judiciary Committee bill appears to be written, the United States could not even use grand jury subpoenas to gather information about al-Qaida. Obviously, that is not an intended result--at least I would hope not-- but it is one of the things that would have to be fixed if we were to consider the Judiciary Committee bill.

Another provision is in both bills, and it has been referred to as the Wyden amendment, named after my good friend and colleague from the State of Oregon. But as that provision is written, a warrant would be required for any overseas surveillance that is conducted for foreign intelligence purposes and is targeted against a U.S. person.

Under current law, however, a warrant would not be required for overseas surveillance targeted at a U.S. person if that surveillance is conducted strictly for a criminal investigation. So you have the anomaly where a much lesser standard exists for mere criminal investigations and the tough standard for the intelligence community to try to meet exists for gathering foreign intelligence against terrorists, when you want to be able to gather that intelligence and may need to do so in a very quick fashion in order to prevent an attack.

So the Wyden amendment would create the anomaly whereby U.S. overseas surveillance in the course of, say, drug trafficking or money laundering does not require a warrant, but foreign surveillance against a terrorist does. That is not a wise way to write the statute. It should not be more burdensome to monitor al-Qaida than it is to monitor a drug cartel. So that, obviously, would need to be fixed.

Moreover, many foreign terrorist organizations engage in both terrorism and ordinary criminal behavior such as drug smuggling or money laundering. This provision, unfortunately, creates the perverse incentive for U.S. agents to monitor a group for its criminal activities rather than on account of its terrorist activities. The provision literally makes it easier to monitor a group on account of its smuggling of marijuana than on account of the fact that it is a foreign terrorist organization. These kinds of artificial distinctions, obviously, make no sense and overly complicate the mission that is very difficult to begin with that we have asked our intelligence community to engage in.

In another area the Judiciary Committee stripped provisions from the Intelligence Committee bill that protect from lawsuits those telecommunications companies that have assisted U.S. intelligence agencies. This is very wrong. These companies were asked by the United States to help monitor al-Qaida after the September 11 attacks. Being patriotic Americans who wanted to help the United States in responding to the threat, the phone companies agreed to provide the help, and now they are being punished with lawsuits that damage these companies' reputations and are very expensive for them to respond. These companies helped us after September 11. They are not going to help again if we do not protect them from these types of lawsuits. The Intelligence Committee bill included a provision in the bill to do exactly that. Yet that provision was stripped, as I said, in the Judiciary Committee. It took away the protection for those who helped monitor al-Qaida. We need to restore that protection for these folks who helped us.

The bottom line is, what is our goal? Do we want to allow our intelligence agencies to be able to use every legal tool at their disposal to track al-Qaida communications or do we want to again tie up our intelligence agencies in restrictions and procedures and then have some future 9/11 Commission--after, God help us, perhaps another terrorist attack--say Congress balled this up and included so many restrictions on intelligence gathering that they were not able to find out this attack was about to occur?

We have to enable our intelligence agencies, not unduly restrict them. Obviously, we need oversight to prevent abuses. That is included in the statutory language, and that is fine. But it does not make sense to impose other restrictions that primarily serve only the purpose of preventing us from collecting good intelligence. There is no excuse, in effect, for making the same mistake twice.

So, in summary, we are going to be dealing with the FISA reform on the floor of the Senate very soon. We need to. The authorization that currently exists expires on February 1. We need to have something in place before that occurs. The bill that came out of the Intelligence Committee by and large will provide the intelligence collection authority that is needed, although there are some problems with it as well. But the provisions that came out of the Judiciary Committee will not work. They will not allow our intelligence collection agencies to do their job properly and, as I said, create the anomalous situation where it is easier to go after intelligence on a criminal enterprise than it is against a terrorist organization. That cannot be.

So I hope my colleagues, when we bring this bill to the Senate floor, will consider the future, the threat of groups such as al-Qaida, and understand it is up to us to ensure our Nation can be protected and not make the same mistake we made before of unduly restricting our intelligence-gathering agencies in fulfilling the mission--the so very important mission--we have asked them to perform.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I thank our minority leader, Senator McConnell, for outlining the importance of the Peru Free Trade Agreement and the other trade agreements. We have 3 short weeks to get to work and do the work we have not done so far this year. I wanted to address three aspects of it.

First, for the intelligence community, we must act, and we must act now, to assure that the community has the ability and the tools they need to fight terrorists.

Over the last 30 years, the world has experienced a technological revolution, and our laws governing terrorist surveillance have not kept pace. The old 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that I will refer to as FISA was drafted to deal specifically with the technology in use at the time. This spring, a court ruled that because of the change in technology, the old FISA law severely limited our ability to collect intelligence. Essentially, it made us deaf to collection of vitally needed information.

Following that ruling, the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral McConnell, told Congress the United States was unable to conduct the critical surveillance of foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside our country because of the outdated law. It not only affected our ability to protect the United States, but it also threatened the safety and lives of our troops abroad.

In May I heard that directly from the commander of our Joint Special Operations in Iraq, who told me the limitations in the old law prevented him from capturing key information needed to protect our troops in theater. He could kill or capture a top al-Qaida leader, but he was not able to collect signals intelligence on them. The bottom line is that terrorists were able to use technology and our own outdated laws to stay a step ahead of us.

Congress acted. On August 3 and 4, fortunately, we were able to pass the Protect America Act. I was proud to be the lead sponsor of it because passage of this temporary law essentially put our national security forces back in the business of collecting the information they needed.

But this is only a stopgap measure and expires in February. It did not include all of the reforms we wanted.

I hope this week the Senate will move to pass a permanent fix, or at least a longer term fix, to our intelligence surveillance law. It is critical we act before we leave for the holidays to make sure that our intelligence laws will be up to date and we will not run into a deadline when we come back in January and have to rush through a bill at the end or leave our intelligence community deaf to the new collections they need.

We have two bills before us. Unfortunately, the Senate Judiciary Committee took the bill that came out of the Intelligence Committee and changed it so much that it would gut our intelligence surveillance ability. The committee ignored significant concerns expressed by the working level officials in the Department of Justice and the intelligence community, the very operators who know how the system works.

The Senate Judiciary Committee ignored the concerns of its own minority members. The bill was voted out on a straight party line. The good news is there is another option. Earlier this year, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted out a bipartisan bill to update FISA. After the members of our committee had months and months to study this program, most of our committee members went out to the agency to see how it worked, to see the layers of protection built in to make sure it stayed within the law. We put together, Chairman Rockefeller and I, a bipartisan agreement which added more protections to the constitutional rights and the privacy rights of American citizens. We worked with the intelligence community representatives and the Department of Justice lawyers to make sure it would work.

This bill we reported out of the Intelligence Committee gives our intelligence operators and law enforcement officials the tools they need to collect surveillance on foreign terrorists in foreign countries planning to conduct attacks inside the United States or against our troops, our allies. It is the balance we need to protect our civil liberties without handcuffing our intelligence agencies. I hope we can do the right thing and bring that bill to the floor.

Now while we are working together to get our intelligence community the tools they need, our military needs Congress to provide the funds to get them the equipment, supplies, and fuels they need in the field. We have got men and women fighting for security in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and our own security. Regrettably, the Democratic leadership in Congress wants to hold these funds hostage to a far-left agenda which does not represent anything more than a sliver of popular opinion in this country. There is no excuse for stalling much-needed funds for American troops. These are American troops fighting in the field, and we are not giving them funds.

By kowtowing to the far left moveon.org and the Code Pink constituency, some of the leaders of the Democratic Party in Congress who have control of it are playing a dangerous game with the safety of our troops in the field and the readiness and morale of our troops here at home.

The latest partisan move comes despite the good news out of Iraq. Even the media, who has been opposed to our involvement in Iraq, is recognizing that as a result of the new Petraeus strategy, a surge on the counterinsurgency, working with the Iraqi security forces, our forces together with the Iraqis have been successful in eliminating key terrorist safe havens and hampering the enemy's ability to conduct coordinated attacks. There has been a consistent and steady trend of progress over the last 6 months.

There are positive stories describing Baghdad's marketplace coming back to life. All over the place violent attacks in Iraq are falling. Even some of the war's loudest and strongest opponents in the House have acknowledged the signs of progress. But despite this, the leadership has failed to give us the opportunity to improve the funds our troops need in the field.

With only a few legislative days left, our soldiers, sailors, our airmen, and marines cannot afford more of the partisan delay. We have got men and women risking their lives, and we are denying the funds they need for support. That is unthinkable. That is unthinkable. We have got to abandon the far left's strategies of retreat and defeat and allow our troops to do their jobs.

Peru Free Trade Agreement

While we are talking about winning the war, there is also the war that is the soft war, the war of economic progress and opportunity. That is why, as Leader McConnell said, the free trade agreements are so important. We have the opportunity to help countries that are less developed get the free markets, the economic opportunity, the democratic chances to influence their government that we treasure and that have helped make our country successful.

One of the most important things we can do is adopt the free trade agreements. We have four agreements pending. If enacted, these four pending FTAs would expand market opportunities between the United States and countries that have nearly 126 million consumers.

Today's vote on the Peru FTA is very important. I urge us to support that. This will generate U.S. exports, create jobs, enhance the well- being of farming communities such as those I represent in Missouri. Ask these farmers and the small businesses how important these agreements are. Opening these markets would boost U.S. farm exports by $1.5 billion. Under the Peru FTA, more than two-thirds of current U.S. farm exports will become duty free. Tariffs on all farm products would be eliminated in 17 years.

The FTAs are vitally important. When FTAs are defeated, it is bad news for progressive government supporting the United States. In particular, it would be a blow to President Uribe in Colombia, who has been successfully fighting the leftist FARC terrorists, curbing illicit drug production. He is the most important counterweight to the anti- American vitriol of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Chavez was rebuffed by students in his own country. We have an opportunity to establish good working relationships with Peru, with Colombia, with Panama, to show the leaders of the opposition in Venezuela that there is a better way than Hugo Chavez and his blind adherence to the Castro model in Cuba.

Every President since World War II, Republican and Democrat, has fought to reduce the kind of trade barriers that triggered the Great Depression of the 1930s. This administration has followed that example. I hope that in addition to Peru, the leadership of Congress will seek approval of free trade agreements and pass them for South Korea, Panama, and Colombia. It is vitally important not only for free trade between those countries but for our standing in leading for security, peace, and freedom in Latin America.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the last 2 weeks we have been back in our States visiting with our constituents and reporting to them on the work of the Congress. I did the same. I was in Texas traveling across our State. People would ask me almost everywhere I went what is happening in the Congress, and specifically the Senate. I am sorry to say I had to tell them: Not much is happening. Here we are, 2 months into a new fiscal year and we have yet to pass 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills that literally keep the lights on and instead are working on a continuing resolution, or on auto pilot based on last year's budget and appropriations bills.

I guess I was a little embarrassed to tell them that the approval ratings

which we have seen on the Rasmussen poll and others, the Gallup poll and others, appears to be well deserved. It is not a partisan matter. It is not that Republicans like what is happening and Democrats do not like what is happening, or vice versa, or independents like what we are doing. The fact is, no one seems to be satisfied. Given the 11 percent or so approval rating, I have to believe that in large part it is due to the fact that we simply have not taken care of our business.

Nowhere in the rest of America could people fail to do as much as we have failed to do in the Senate and survive. Whether it is your family budget or it is the small business, you could not get away with it. Only Congress can get away with it, I guess, to the extent it has, the failures and inaction.

There are two areas particularly I want to talk about in the next few minutes, where this has grave national security implications.

First, as Secretary Gates, the Secretary of the Department of Defense, has told us, if they do not get emergency supplemental funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are going to have to begin to give people notices that they are going to run out of money in February. But they have to issue the notices 60 days in advance, which means by December 15 there are going to be lots of folks who are going to be getting pink slips just in time for Christmas because the Senate has failed to act on an emergency supplemental request to fund our troops.

Frankly, I do not think we ought to be in that position. No. 1, it is completely inconsiderate of the families and the individual circumstances of those individuals who are doing their best to support our men and women in uniform.

Secondly, it is completely unnecessary. If we would simply take care of our business and quit playing political games by tying deadlines to the appropriation of emergency funds to support our troops, we could fund our troops and continue to have the debates here in the Congress about what our policy ought to be.

Those debates are important. I respect people with different opinions than mine. But we should not be doing it at the expense of our men and women in uniform or putting in jeopardy the jobs of people in civilian clothes who support our men and women in uniform, by tying the appropriation of this emergency funding to these deadlines to the emergency funding. I hope we will get this done and get it done quickly.

Also, we have, in fact, a middle-class tax increase getting ready to come into full flower with the so-called alternative minimum tax. Unless we act, the 6 million people who currently pay this tax today will grow to 23 million next year. So that is another victim, those taxpayers are another victim of our inaction and failure to act in a responsible way when it comes to getting our work done.

I want to join my colleague from Missouri, the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, as well as my distinguished colleague from Arizona, and focus a little bit here in the next 5 minutes or so on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

As most Americans who have followed our debates here know, our ability to listen in on conversations between terrorists and to stop further terrorist attacks on our mainland and our homeland, as well as over in Iraq and Afghanistan, depends on a robust intelligence- gathering capability.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was a law passed back in 1978, back in a different era, which served our purpose then and made sure that no intelligence gathering, no wiretaps could occur against Americans. But the fact is that law has needed updating, has been updated from time to time. But we need to make clear that when it comes to monitoring communications between terrorists and foreign nations, it is not necessary to prepare a mound of paperwork and have an army of lawyers process it through a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to get a permit to do so.

We have, as we all know, passed a temporary measure which will expire in February. But we need to act on this permanently and not continue to jam all of our business into the last few weeks and put people in doubt, particularly in the intelligence community, of whether they will have the capability to detect and deter future terrorist attacks by employing this capability.

Before we passed a temporary patch, I think, in August--or before we broke for the August recess--because of a ruling by a judge and because of changes in technology, it had been reported in the press that we had lost about two-thirds of our intelligence-gathering capability. Fortunately, we were able to fix that on a temporary basis.

But there are also other important parts of this legislation such as how do we treat the telecommunications carriers that did what they were asked to do in the security interests of the American people and cooperated with the Federal Government? Are we going to provide them the legal protection they are entitled to under the law or are we going to hang them out to dry and make them liable for lawsuits and damages, perhaps, and jeopardize the intelligence that we have gained with their cooperation?

That is the wrong way to treat these telecommunications carriers. We ought to not reward them but at least do our duty with regard to these citizens, corporate and individual alike, who cooperated with the U.S. Government in gathering intelligence and not punish them by hanging them out to dry and making them the subject of numerous lawsuits and litigation.

Just one quick example: When Joseph Anzack was kidnapped by al-Qaida on May 12 while serving in Iraq and killed a few weeks later, you have to wonder if the paperwork that took roughly 10 hours to complete, along with a group of lawyers before an authorization to monitor communications which directly implicated his kidnappers would have saved his life. On that date, May 12, he and Alex Jimenez and Byron Fouty were kidnapped. But a 10-hour delay in getting the FISA paperwork done may have cost Joseph Anzack his life, and may have severely hampered the continuing efforts to find Alex Jimenez and Byron Fouty.

While the Protect America Act that passed in August, as I said, provided a temporary fix to the problem, it will expire in February. I just ask our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, why are we delaying the passage of this important fix to this temporary act? Isn't it important enough to make sure we do everything possible not to hamper our intelligence-gathering capability? We are, in fact, a nation at war, and we ought to act like it. That means arming our intelligence community with the tools they need to detect terrorist communications and to deter future terrorist attacks.

I know 9/11 seems like a long way off in the minds of many, and many have acted as if it never happened, but the fact is, unless we have robust intelligence-gathering capability, and unless the Senate acts promptly to permanently grant the power to our intelligence community to detect these communications, we are at grave risk, and we should not be as a result of Congress's inaction.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Keep Americans Warm Act, which provides an additional $1 billion in emergency home heating aid under the highly successful Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, otherwise known as LIHEAP. Most importantly, this $1 billion in emergency home heating assistance would be in addition to the overall fiscal year 2008 appropriations for LIHEAP.

I am delighted this bill enjoys widespread bipartisan support from across the political spectrum. As a matter of fact, this legislation is being cosponsored by 23 of my colleagues--16 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and 1 Independent.

I would like to recognize all of the cosponsors this morning: both Senators from Minnesota, Mr. Coleman and Ms. Klobuchar; Senator Obama; both Senators from Maine, Ms. Snowe and Ms. Collins; both Senators from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Kennedy; Senator Brown; Senator Lugar; the senior Senator from the great State of Vermont, Senator Leahy; Senator Smith; Senator Bingaman, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee; Senator Sununu; both Senators from New York, Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Clinton; Senator Casey; Senator Mikulski; Senator Menendez; Senator Stabenow; Senator Lieberman; Senator Cantwell; Senator Biden; and Senator Boxer.

Mr. President, the reason this legislation is being cosponsored by so many of my colleagues is simple: Skyrocketing home heating prices in New England, the Northeast, and the Mideast, are already stretching household budgets beyond the breaking point.

In the wealthiest country on the face of the Earth, not one family should go cold this winter. That is not what America is supposed to be about. Not one senior citizen should have to choose between heating their homes or paying for their prescription drugs.

I am afraid if we do not act, and act aggressively, that is what is going to happen all across this country. While the official start of winter is still about 3 weeks away, home heating prices in Vermont and in other parts of the country are already going through the roof.

According to the Central Vermont Community Action Council, many Vermont families have been paying an incredible $3.47 a gallon for heating oil and as much as $3.71 a gallon for kerosene this year. Nationwide, heating oil prices are already up 90 cents from last year, or more than double from where they were 4 years ago. Further, the price of kerosene has also increased by 50 cents a gallon from last year.

These rapidly rising energy prices right now are bad enough; but the overall projections of what people will pay for energy over the course of this winter is frightening.

The National Energy Assistance Directors Association has projected that the typical household using heating oil will pay $2,157 to heat their homes this winter--a 47-percent increase from what they paid last year. Those using propane will pay $1,765 this winter, or 30 percent more than what they paid 2 years ago.

Before we got back into session this week, the debate over LIHEAP was between an 11.6-percent increase from last year, as included in the fiscal year 2008 Labor-HHS conference report, and the President's budget proposal of a 21-percent cut--cut--from last year.

While the level of funding for LIHEAP included in the Labor-HHS conference report is a good starting point, even if this level eventually becomes law, it would still be 31 percent below the $3.2 billion provided in fiscal year 2006.

Making matters worse, the President vetoed the Labor-HHS conference report, insisting on a $379 million cut to LIHEAP, among other things.

We hear a lot of talk in Washington about family values. Well, to my mind, a family value is that we do not let our fellow Americans go cold when the cost of home heating oil is exploding.

I thank all my colleagues. This legislation has brought forth widespread bipartisan support from Senators all across this country. Let us be aggressive and pass this legislation so that in this great country nobody goes cold this winter. Thank you.