First State National Historical Park Act

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia for his comments. Having served on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee with Senator Chambliss, we had a number of hearings on these issues. I agree with Senator Chambliss that there is no practical alternative to the process we are using. It is right and just to do so, to use the one, at least, we have been using at Guantanamo Bay.

To create trials in Federal district court using American rules of procedure such as Miranda and the exclusionary rule is not the kind of thing that ought to be done in this case. He has given a lot of thought to it, and I appreciate it. In essence, he is disappointed that the conference committee altered language we passed by an overwhelming majority in this Senate. That is exactly what I am going to talk about today.

I am disappointed that those in the leadership in this Congress, without discussion or debate, have decided to dramatically alter the amendment I offered that was accepted unanimously to the Homeland Security appropriations bill in this Congress.

On July 8, 2009, the Senate rejected, by a vote of 44 to 53--I think at least 13 or more Democrats voted this way--a motion to table the E- Verify amendment I offered to the Department of Homeland Security bill. After the motion to table was defeated, the Senate then unanimously accepted my amendment. The amendment made the program permanent, the E- Verify Program, which allows businesses to run virtually an instant computer check to see if the person who has applied before them is legally able to work in the United States. The amendment I offered would have made that E-Verify system permanent and it would have made it mandatory for government contracts. Some States have mandatory rules; businesses are voluntarily doing it. It would simply say: You are not going to get a contract from the taxpayers of the United States if you are not legally working in the United States. How simply is that? But the version of the bill reported from conference is dramatically different. It contains only a 3-year extension of the E- Verify Program and does not include any of the Federal contractor language. We passed a lot of stimulus money to try to create jobs for Americans this year, and it should be for lawful people, not unlawful.

This is the third time this Congress and the leadership in this Congress have either removed, changed, or blocked attempts to make this successful program permanent, against the overwhelming will of the American people, actually, and against the will of the Obama administration--at least in their verbal statements--and the express will of both the House and the Senate.

So this is how things happen. I think this is one of the reasons people are angry with Congress. Some people say they are angry at immigrants. I do not think that is accurate. I think they are angry at Congress for failing to take commonsense steps to create a lawful system of immigration and end the lawlessness that exists.

The mechanism is this: We pass it. Members of the Senate vote for it. They go home and say: I voted to make E-Verify permanent. I voted to make it apply to contractors. I am sorry it did not happen. Well, who makes this happen? Who changes the language? It is done in secret in conference in a nonopen way. They meet and just change it. They think nobody is going to know and they can just get away with it. It is the reason people are not happy with Congress.

In addition, the Democratic leadership on the conference committee-- and they are all appointed by the Speaker and by the majority leader. So the majority of both Houses, the House and the Senate, are clearly Democratic Members. I do not want to make this such a partisan thing, but I guess it is an institutional thing of frustration that our Democratic Members have voted for these reforms, for these good ideas, but yet somehow it goes into conference and it gets eliminated, gets undermined so it does not become law.

There were three other amendments stripped that dealt with immigration issues that had overwhelming support: A DeMint amendment that passed in the Senate called for completing the 700 miles of double-layer fence called for by the Secure Fence Act that we passed overwhelmingly some time ago, and that was taken out. A Grassley amendment that would have allowed employers to reverify employees through E-Verify was taken out. A Vitter amendment that would have precluded the rescissions of the no-match rule was taken out.

So together with the recent actions of this administration--and they have been sending mixed signals, but their actions sometimes speak louder than words. They have backed off of the detention policy. Now I see they are putting people illegally coming into our country in hotel and motel rooms. They watered down the 287(g) Program which allows local law enforcement to work with the Federal officials to help them identify those who are illegally in the country in a way that makes sense. It is a limited power, but it is very helpful. Those are some of the things this administration has backed off on.

So I think the conclusion we reach is that the majority in control of this Congress seems to be committed to blocking any congressional action that actually seeks and is effective in enhancing law enforcement. Some say: That is a harsh thing to say, Jeff. That is not true. I will just repeat it. If you know what the system is about, you know how the debate is going on in this Senate and in the House, you would be aware of the fact that E-Verify is very important and that it should apply to people who get government contracts. Why do they keep taking it out?

Back in February, two amendments were unanimously accepted to the House stimulus bill, the $800 billion bill that was supposed to create jobs in America. Those amendments related to the E-Verify Program. One was offered by Congressman Ken Calvert of California for a 4-year extension of the E-Verify Program. It was identical to the reauthorization language that passed the House on July 31, 2008, by a vote of 407 to 2. Another was offered by Congressman Jack Kingston, and it prohibited funds made available under this $800 billion stimulus bill from being used to enter into contracts with businesses that do not participate in this E-Verify system.

It is growing. Millions of checks are being done by this system. It is no burden on businesses. So it would say, if you did not use that system, you could not get this stimulus money to do things, build things with.

The provisions of the bill were both unanimously accepted without a vote by the House Appropriations Committee. Furthermore, the provision that extended the program was also overwhelmingly approved by the House last July by a vote of 407 to 2.

One of the main purposes of the stimulus bill was to put Americans back to work. It was common sense--common sense--to include a simple requirement that the people hired to fill the stimulus-created jobs be lawfully in our country and lawfully able to work.

I tried to offer an amendment, at that time, that incorporated both the House provisions in the Senate stimulus bill when the stimulus bill was being considered in the Senate, but it was blocked on three separate occasions by the Democratic leadership. I can only conclude from that they did not want it. I knew, if we could get a vote, we would have a bipartisan Democratic and Republican vote for it.

My amendment only incorporated the short 5-year extension, but I was not even allowed to get a vote. As I predicted at that time, once the bill went to conference, the conferees would strip the E-Verify provisions from the final version of the economic stimulus package without any open discussion or debate. That is exactly what they did. I hate to say it, but the actions seem to send a clear signal that our leadership wants to use taxpayers' money to employ people who are in this country illegally.

That is a harsh thing to say. But if you do not want that to happen, why don't we take some steps to do something about it? Why wouldn't we require people who get government money--taxpayers' money that is supposed to be designed to create American jobs--why wouldn't we want to at least take this modest step to try to see that people illegally here do not get those jobs?

Furthermore, in March, when I tried to offer an identical amendment to the Omnibus appropriations bill, it was tabled by a vote of 50 to 47. This proves to me there are some powerful forces out there somewhere still alive who want to block this important step.

It is important we permanently reauthorize this successful E-Verify Program, which is currently set to expire when the current continuing resolution ends. We should do it particularly now that we are in a time of serious economic downturn and unemployment.

E-Verify is an online system operated jointly by Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. Participating employers can check the work status of new hires online by comparing information from an employee's I-9 form--that is their employment form--against the Social Security and DHS databases. It is done like that. It takes just a few minutes.

E-Verify is free to businesses and is the best means available for determining the employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers, instead of the so many bogus numbers many of you have read about.

As of October 3 of this year--2009--over 157,000 employers, businesses, are enrolled in this program. This represents over 600,000 hiring sites nationwide. Over 8.5 million inquiries were run through the system in 2009 and over 90,000 have been run since October 1 of this year--in 20 days.

The Homeland Security Secretary--President Obama's Secretary--Janet Napolitano, has spoken highly of the E-Verify Program. She called the program ``an integral part of our immigration enforcement system''--an integral, essential part of our enforcement system. There is no doubt about it, in my view. Attempts to make the program permanent have been thwarted time and time again during this Congress.

According to Homeland Security, 96.1 percent of employees are cleared to go to work immediately under this online system, and growth continues at over 1,000 new employer users each week.

Of the remaining 3.9 percent of queries with an initial mismatch--so there are 3.9 percent who are not cleared immediately--of those, only .37 percent, about a third of 1 percent, were later confirmed to be work authorized. So it looks like about 80, 90 percent of the people who did not get immediate clearance--really, more than that--were not authorized to work legally in America. Only .37 percent of those

later were shown to be held up improperly--or not ``improperly,'' just being held up. Maybe they entered a wrong Social Security number by mistake.

Employers get an advantage. An employer that verifies work authorization under E-Verify has established a rebuttable presumption that the business has not knowingly hired an illegal alien.

Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate in the United States has jumped to 9.8 percent-- basically, double what it was a year or so ago. That is 15 million unemployed. This is the highest unemployment rate in 25 years.

Immigration by illegal immigrants has had a serious and depressing effect on the standard of living of lower skilled American workers. That is a fact, in my view. The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by the late civil rights pioneer, Barbara Jordan--and they had a big study of this--found that ``immigration of unskilled immigrants comes at a cost to unskilled U.S. workers.''

The Center for Immigration Studies has estimated that such immigration has reduced the wage of the average native-born worker in a low-skilled occupation by 12 percent or almost $2,000 annually.

In addition, Harvard economist and author of perhaps the most respected book on immigration--he goes into great detail of economic studies and information that he analyzed--Professor George Borjas, himself born in Cuba, has estimated that immigration in recent decades has reduced the wages of native-born workers without a high school degree by 8.2 percent.

E-Verify is working. In fact, the program is so successful that Secretary Napolitano recently said:

The Administration strongly supports E-Verify as a

cornerstone of worksite enforcement and will work to

continually improve the program to ensure it is the best tool

available to prevent and deter the hiring of persons who are

not authorized to work in the United States.

That is a strong, clear, good statement the Secretary has given, and it is common sense.

Recently confirmed Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas said:

I believe E-Verify is an effective law enforcement tool.

In February of 2009, Doris Meissner, former head of immigration under President Clinton, said:

Mandatory employer verification must be at the center of

legislation to combat illegal immigration . . . the E-Verify

system provides a valuable tool for employers who are trying

to comply with the law. E-Verify also provides an opportunity

to determine the best electronic means to implement

verification requirements. The Administration should support

reauthorization of E-Verify and expand the program. . . .

Alexander Aleinkoff--President Clinton's INS official and an Obama administration Department of Homeland Security transition official-- calls it a ``myth'' that ``there is little or no competition between undocumented workers and American workers.'' He is right about that. They can say this is not true all day long, but anybody who observes what is happening knows the large influx of low-skill workers pulls down the wages of hard-working Americans who did not get a high school diploma who are trying to take care of their families and survive in a competitive world. It is a fact. We need to understand that.

Even the distinguished majority leader supports the program. He wrote a letter in March of this year saying:

I strongly believe that every job in our country should go

only to those authorized to work in the United States. That

is why I strongly support programs like E-Verify that are

designed to ensure that employers only hire those who are

legally authorized to work in the United States, and believe

we need to strengthen enforcement against employers who

knowingly hire individuals who are not authorized to work. I

support reauthorization of the E-Verify program, as well as

immigration reform that is tough on lawbreakers, fair to

taxpayers and practical to implement.

This is one I hope we can all agree on. But I do not know how it came out that this language was gutted out of the conference report, once again.

Since 2006, 12 States have begun requiring employers to enter new workers' names into the system, which checks databases, including Arizona, which passed the law while our current Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, was Governor of Arizona. Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah have this system where their employers that have contracts in government work--actually any employers have to use the system before they are hired.

Secretary Napolitano has also said:

I'm a strong supporter of E-Verify. . . . You have to deal

with the demand side for illegal immigration, as well as the

supply side, and E-Verify is an important part of that.

In January of 2009, the Washington Post reported that Secretary Napolitano said:

I believe in E-Verify. I believe it has to be an integral

part of our immigration enforcement system.

President Bush signed Executive Order 12989 last year. I think, in many ways, he was slow to come to realize how important creating a lawful system of immigration was. But he made some progress toward the end and he made this statement and took this action. He said:

Contractors that adopt rigorous employment eligibility

confirmation policies are much less likely to face

immigration enforcement actions, because they are less likely

to employ unauthorized workers, and they are therefore

generally more efficient and dependable procurement sources

than contractors that do not employ the best available

measures to verify the work eligibility of their workforce. .

. . It is the policy of the executive branch to use an

electronic employment verification system because, among

other reasons, it provides the best available means to

confirm the identity and work eligibility of all employees

that join the federal workforce. Private employers that

choose to contract with the federal government should meet

the same standard.

So President Bush issued that Executive Order, that private employers that choose to contract with the Federal Government should meet the same standard. Basically, what happened was, President Obama delayed it. They have since issued a policy that larger businesses should use the system, for which I give them credit. So the Federal Government should meet the same standard. He meant it should apply. The Obama administration has made, as I understand it, an executive order that requires larger businesses to use this system for the current time but not smaller businesses, and it is not a part of law.

Last June, when Homeland Security designated E-Verify as the electronic employment eligibility verification system that all Federal contractors must use, Secretary Chertoff--the Secretary of Homeland Security--said this:

A large part of our success in enforcing the nation's

immigration laws hinges on equipping employers with the tools

to determine quickly and effectively if a worker is legal or

illegal. . . . E-Verify is a proven tool that helps employers

immediately verify the legal working status of all new hires.

So some have argued it is too costly and too cumbersome. However, a letter to the Wall Street Journal from Mark Powell, a human resources executive with a Fortune 500 company, said it is free; it takes only a few minutes and is less work than a car dealership would do checking a credit score prior to selling a vehicle or taking a test drive.

Well, that is true. How else can we explain so many employers voluntarily signing up? I think the short-term extensions only discourage participation in the E-Verify Program and leave us with a lack of assurance in the future we need.

With regard to the contention that there are some mismatches, as I said, only .37 percent--less than 1 percent--of the people whose numbers don't check out are found to be improperly checked out. Truthfully, most of them got the right answer.

So I would conclude by saying a lot of progress has been made to make the system even better than it was. Over 60 percent of foreign-born citizens who have utilized this option and more than 90 percent of those phone calls have led to a final ``work authorized'' determination. I think we are on the right track. I think we should make this permanent. We absolutely should make it so that anyone who obtains a contract or a job as a result of government taxpayer money should be legally in the United States. If they are not, they shouldn't get the job. It should be set aside for American taxpayers. I thank the Chair.

Just before I conclude, once again, let me express frustration that what

was passed so overwhelmingly, somewhere behind closed doors--the same place they are meeting right now to write a health care bill. We don't know where they are or what they are talking about, but a group is meeting to try to cobble together the two or three or four bills that are pending out there with something they will bring to the floor, and nobody has even seen it yet. We are having too much of that. I think it is eroding public respect for the Congress, and I can understand why the American people are angry with us.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

The Senator has served in the House and the Senate and knows how conference committees work. Isn't it true that the majority of the Senate conferees would be appointed by the majority leader, and a majority of the House conferees would be appointed by the Speaker?

Isn't it a tradition that normally conferees appointed by those leaders tend to follow their lead in how they vote in conference?

The Senator had an amendment that was stripped out, as I did, dealing with the immigration issue. It seems to me odd that amendments receiving such high votes in both the House and the Senate would be stripped out of conference. Would you agree that is an odd thing to happen?

Mr. President, later today--in fact, as I understand, in a very short time--the Senate will vote on the conference report to accompany the fiscal year 2010 Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. This conference report spends approximately $42.7 billion, 6.6 percent above last year's bill. I am sure many American households would love a 6-percent increase in their budget but cannot afford it. The Federal Government can't afford it either.

Specifically, this conference report contains 181 congressionally directed spending items totaling over $269 million. As far as I can tell, none of these projects was requested by the administration, authorized, or competitively bid in any way. No hearing was held to judge whether these were national priorities worthy of scarce taxpayers' dollars.

By the way, as I recall, when we first started with the Homeland Security Appropriations bills, we had decided at that time there would be no earmarks. So the next time we didn't do them. Then there are a few more. Now there are 181 of them--181, totaling over $269 million. I do not need to remind Americans--I might want to try to keep reminding the appropriators--the Federal deficit now stands at $1.4 trillion. It is an all-time high. Americans are losing their jobs and their homes at record rates. What are we doing? We just keep on spending.

Let's take a look at some of the earmarks included in this conference report: $4 million for the Fort Madison Bridge, in Fort Madison, WI. How is that related to homeland security? There is $3.6 million for a Coast Guard Operations Systems Center in West Virginia. Why would the Coast Guard Operations Systems Center be located in a landlocked State? There is $200,000 to retrofit a college radio station in Athens, OH. Let me be clear here. This is to appropriate funds for homeland security. Obviously high on somebody's list is $200,000 to retrofit a college radio station. My, my, my.

There is $900,000 for the City of Whitefish Emergency Operations Center in Whitefish, MT. The population is 5,849. That comes out to $153.87 per resident which is paid for by my taxpayers and all American taxpayers.

There is $250,000 to retrofit a senior center in Brigham City, UT. The last time I checked, senior centers are important but they have very little relation to homeland security. There is $125,000 to replace a generator in La Grange Park, IL. I have to say, maybe there is something we don't know here. Maybe there is a reason why we need to retrofit a college radio station in Athens, OH; maybe there is a reason we need to replace a generator in La Grange Park, IL; maybe there is a reason why we have to spend $250,000 to retrofit a senior center in Brigham City, UT in the name of homeland security; maybe there is a reason to spend $130,000 to relocate the residents of 130 homes in DeKalb, IL. But we will never know because we don't have any hearings, we don't have any authorization. We just go ahead and spend the money-- 6.6 percent over last year. The original intent was there were not going to be any earmarks. Amazing.

In addition to the earmarks contained in the conference report, Congress continues to fund programs that the President, as part of his budget submission, had recommended terminating or reducing. This is the President's budget submission. These are the requests of the President that certain programs be terminated because

they are unnecessary and unwanted and redundant. Remember, this is in the face of a $1.43 trillion deficit. We are still funding them, no matter what the President of the United States says and no matter what good sense says.

The first amendment I tried was to terminate a terrestrial-based, long-range maritime radio navigation system called the LORAN-C. The Bush and Clinton administrations sought to terminate the program. They tried. The current administration states in its budget that, although the program is not fully developed, it is already ``obsolete technology.'' This is what the President says:

The Nation no longer needs this system because the

federally supported civilian global positioning system, GPS,

has replaced it with superior capabilities.

Is there anybody who doubts that GPS is a superior capability?

The elimination of this program, according to the

President, would achieve a savings of $36 million in 2010 and

$190 million over 5 years.

Those are not my words, those are the words of the administration. So what have the appropriators done? They continued to fund it. When I offered an amendment to eliminate that obsolete technology that the Nation no longer needs, 36--count them--36 of my colleague also supported it. The majority party in the Senate did not support the administration's view that this program should be eliminated and this conference report continues to fund the program into next year, rather than cutting funding immediately--as we should have done a long time ago.

My other attempt to support the President's effort to eliminate wasteful government programs also failed. The administration proposed in its 2010 budget to cut the Over-the-Road Bus Security Program because the money was not awarded based on risk, as recommended by the 9/11 Commission, and the program has been assessed as not effective.

The appropriators have now gone against the recommendations of the 9/ 11 Commission, they have gone against the recommendations of the President of the United States, and we will continue to spend another $6 million. I offered the amendment to eliminate the program. The amendment was defeated by a vote of 47 to 51, so we will spend another $6 million that the administration says we do not need and that clearly is unnecessary to be funded.

During the Senate consideration of the bill, I filed a total of 28 amendments to strike earmarks and end funding for programs that the President had sought to terminate. Not surprisingly, my efforts were rebuffed each time by the members of the Appropriations Committee. The American people are tired of this process, they are tired of watching their hard-earned money go down the drain. Earlier this year, the President pointedly stated, and I quote him:

We cannot sustain a system that bleeds billions of

taxpayers dollars on programs that have outlived their

usefulness, or exist solely because of the power of

politicians, lobbyists or interest groups. We simply cannot

afford it. . . . We will go through our Federal budget--page

by page, line by line--eliminating those programs we don't

need, and insisting those we do operate in a sensible and

cost-effective way.

This is the document. The President went through it line by line. So we offered amendments to eliminate these programs. So of course the appropriators won again. They not only voted against my attempts to strike wasteful and unneeded spending, they also eliminated a provision that was supported by 54 Members of the Senate to mandate the completion of 700 miles of fence along the Southwest border by December 31, 2010. This elimination will only serve to weaken our efforts to secure the border. We know that fencing alone is not a panacea to every security issue on the border, but there is no doubt that increased fencing bolsters Customs border patrol efforts to secure our border.

Additionally, the other body's leadership added language that prohibits use of the funds in this act or any other act for the release of detainees held at Guantanamo into the United States, its territories and possessions. By extending this prohibition to U.S. territories and possessions, the conference report further restricts the release of detainees enacted into law in the supplemental appropriations act for fiscal year 2009. The conference report also restricts transfers of detainees from Guantanamo, limiting them to only transfers for the purpose of prosecution or detention during legal proceedings, and requires the President provide a plan to Congress 45 days prior to transfer. These provisions allow detainees to be tried for acts that amount to war crimes in Federal criminal courts and would authorize bringing detainees into the United States for that purpose.

I will continue to believe that war crimes--and by that I include the intentional attacks by civilians that resulted in the loss of nearly 3,000 lives on September 11, 2001--should be tried in a war crimes tribunal created especially for that purpose. The Military Commission's Act of 2009 is a result of extensive input and coordination with the Obama administration. It should be the vehicle for the trial for the horrendous war crimes committed against thousands of innocent American civilians, rather than bringing detainees from Guantanamo to the United States to face trial in a domestic Federal criminal court.

I am sure that many of my colleagues read with interest the views of former Attorney General of the United States Michael Mukasey in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, October 19, in which he opposes trial of these detainees who are suspected of being responsible for the 9/11 attacks in Federal criminal court. He says:

The Obama administration has said it intends to try several

of the prisoners now detained at Guantanamo Bay in civilian

courts in this country. This would include Khalid Sheikh

Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist

attacks, and other detainees involved.

The Justice Department claims our courts are well suited to the task. This is the former Attorney General of the United States who says:

Based on my experience trying such cases and what I saw as

Attorney General, they are not.

That is not to say civilian courts cannot ever handle terrorist prosecutions, but rather their role in a war on terror--to use an unfashionable phrase--should be as the term ``war'' would suggest, a supporting and not a principal role.

I ask unanimous consent the article from the Wall Street Journal by the former Attorney General of the United States saying, ``Civilian Courts Are No Place To Try Terrorists,'' be printed in the Record.

Finally, I hope we will have the opportunity to come back to this debate during the floor consideration of the Commerce-Justice- State appropriations bill in the context of the Graham amendment on this issue, which I am proud to cosponsor along with Senator Lieberman.

I am concerned, however, because I understand the administration will soon announce its decision on prosecuting the 9/11 detainees, and indications are the administration will seek such prosecutions in Federal criminal courts. Congress should have the opportunity to speak on this issue before the administration embarks on a course with which I and many law and national security experts strongly disagree.

I am also pleased this conference report does contain a provision that will allow the Secretary of Defense to prohibit the disclosure of detainee photographs under the Freedom of Information Act if he certifies that release of the photos would endanger U.S. citizens, members of the Armed Forces, or U.S. Government employees deployed outside the United States.

I do not have to, nor should I have to, remind my colleagues about the seriousness of the fiscal crisis our Nation is facing. There is no better way to prove we are serious about getting our country back on the right path than by ending the wasteful practice of earmarking funds in appropriations bills, especially a bill as important as this one that provides for funding of our critical homeland security programs.

Our current economic situation and our vital national security concerns require that now more than ever we prioritize our Federal spending. But this conference report does not do that. We cannot continue to spend taxpayer dollars in such an irresponsible manner. So, obviously, I am unable to support this legislation. I encourage my colleagues to vote against it, and if it is passed, I urge the President of the United States to send a message that this is going to stop and veto this bill and every other bill that is larded down with earmarked porkbarrel projects. It is time for a change, a real change.

Finally, there are some angry people out there. They call them tea parties. They come to the townhall meetings in huge numbers. They write. They call. They e-mail. They Twitter. They tell us they are sick and tired of this. I urge my colleagues to vote no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act. I am joined in this effort by original cosponsors, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Carper, and Mr. Kaufman. Together we are committed to giving our states and

municipalities the tools they need to finally restore water quality in the Chesapeake Watershed and return this national treasure to its rightful position as one of the world's most important ecological regions.

Yesterday morning I stood on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, near Annapolis, Maryland, to outline the provisions of this legislation. I was joined by Martin O'Malley, Governor of Maryland and a tireless champion of the bay. Standing with him was Preston Bryant, Virginia's Secretary of Natural Resources, representing Governor Tim Kaine. Both states, which embrace the entirety of the Chesapeake Bay, were there to lend their support to this legislative effort. Two of my colleagues from the other body, Congressman Elijah Cummings and Congressman Chris Van Hollen, also joined us, noting that they intend to introduce a companion bill in the House of Representatives today. A powerful coalition of more than 100 local watershed organizations was there, too, to lend its support. And finally, we were joined by Mr. Luke Brubaker, a dairy and poultry farmer from Pennsylvania who is already demonstrating how local actions can result in real water quality benefits.

Today we take a major step forward in writing the next chapter in the history of one of America's most cherished and celebrated bodies of water--the Chesapeake Bay. The original English colony in Jamestown was settled on its shores. George Washington built his home overlooking one its great rivers. The War of 1812 was fought on its waters, and generations of Americans came to live off its bounty of oysters and blue crabs and rockfish. Harriet Tubman led a life of slavery and heroic freedom among its vast marshes, and James Michener wrote a saga celebrating its majesty.

Today, 17 million people live in its watershed. Its tributaries are home to three state capitals as well as America's center of government. The bay has been called a ``National Treasure'' by American Presidents ranging from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama. The United Nation's Ramsar Convention recognizes the bay as an ecological region of global significance. In Maryland it is the economic, environmental, cultural and historic heart of the state.

But, the bay and its watershed are in trouble.

By every scientific measure, the ecological health of the Chesapeake Bay is poor. The Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries are unhealthy primarily because of excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment entering the water.

These pollutants threaten not just the legacy we have inherited but also our future. The multi-million seafood industry is suffering from chronically small harvests. That is not all. Recreational fishermen, duck hunters, sail boat and power boat operators, bird watchers and others bring tens of millions of dollars into our economies annually. Business leaders and realtors tell us that healthy rivers and a healthy bay add immeasurably to their ability to attract a quality workforce and add value to homes.

At least one estimate suggests that the Bay's economic value to the region tops $1 trillion. The challenge before us is great, but so is the opportunity.

The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act gives the states strong new tools to restore the Bay and for the first time sets a firm deadline of 2025 for all restoration efforts to be in place.

The internal and final deadlines for action coincide with the Chesapeake Executive Council's timeline for Chesapeake restoration. Unlike earlier, missed deadlines, this one will become a legally binding part of the Clean Water Act.

The bill also significantly expands federal grants. The Chesapeake Restoration bill authorizes a new $1.5 billion grants program to control urban/suburban polluted stormwater, the only pollution sector that is still growing. Grants to the states, small watershed organizations, and for comprehensive monitoring programs are all newly created or expanded in the legislation. At least 10 percent of State implementation grants are set aside for Delaware, New York, and West Virginia. These headwater States have never been guaranteed any access to these funds in the past.

At least 20 percent of the implementation grants will go for technical assistance to farmers and foresters to help them access Farm Bill funds and implement conservation practices. The bill also requires the Environmental Protection Agency to build on the positive experiences of Virginia and Pennsylvania by establishing the framework for an innovative interstate trading program. As Mr. Brubaker recounted for us yesterday, farmers can partner with those who need to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus that they are releasing into the Bay. These groups can meet their legal obligation to reduce pollution by giving farmers the extra financial support they need to implement additional conservation practices on their agricultural lands. It is a classic win-win situation, and by 2012 it will be available throughout the six state watershed.

The bill codifies President Obama's Chesapeake Bay Executive Order, which requires annual Federal Action Plans across all federal departments to restore the Bay.

The basics of this bill are very simple, as most good ideas are. Scientists are telling us what the maximum amounts of pollution that the Bay can withstand and still be healthy. The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act sets a hard cap on pollution, and then we give the states until 2025 to reduce their proportional share of the pollution load. The states have maximum flexibility to reach these goals, but it still won't be easy. In the 25 years since the Chesapeake Bay program started, the number of people living in the watershed has exploded.

The population of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed has grown from 12 million when the Program started to over 17 million residents today. That is a 40 percent increase. And it is not just more people producing more pollution. The amounts of impervious surfaces, the hardened landscapes that funnel polluted water into our streams and rivers and eventually the Bay, have increased by about 100 percent over the same time frame. We are losing an astounding 100 acres of forest lands every day in the Bay watershed. Simply put, there are millions more of us, and the size of our impact on the Bay watershed has grown twice as fast as our population rate. Without the Bay Program, the health of the Chesapeake would undoubtedly be worse than it is.

As I have said before, barely holding our own is not good enough. So merely fine tuning the Bay Program will not be good enough either. Fortunately, Federal, State and local governments, in cooperation with community organizations are standing up around our region to help renew the region's precious water resources.

We are focused on three major sources of water pollution: runoff from agricultural lands, effluent from wastewater treatment plants, and polluted stormwater runoff from the developed lands in our cities, towns and suburbs.

Last year we passed a Farm Bill that today is providing Chesapeake farmers with unprecedented financial support in putting conservation programs into practice. Two years ago we provided our farmers with about $8 million in conservation funding. In the past year, that figure went up to $23 million. This year it is growing to $43 million and next year it reaches $72 million--nearly a ten-fold increase in just 3 years.

Eight years of chronic under-funding for wastewater treatment plants changed dramatically in January. President Obama and the new Congress have teamed up to provide a 350 percent increase in Federal funding this year to up-grade and repair sewage treatment plants. The EPA funding bill that is now nearing final action will sustain that record investment into 2010. We need to make a major investment in our cities and towns, too, to combat the growing problem we have with polluted stormwater. That is why this bill authorizes $1.5 billion to provide the federal funds needed to really attack this problem.

All of us, States and cities, farmers and foresters, sewage treatment plant operators and new home builders, ardent environmentalists and average residents, want to do our part to have clean water flowing through our streams and rivers. All of us want a healthy Bay.

The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act gives all of the Bay States a clear and fully enforceable goal to clean up our waters

and restore our Bay by 2025. The bill also gives us the resources to get the job done and the tools to do so in a way that is flexible and cost effective.

The Chesapeake Bay is the heart of our region. It is where we work, play, farm, and enjoy the beauty and abundance of the natural resources that surround us. But as anyone who has experienced the shortage of blue crabs and oysters or read about ``dead zones'' in the water knows, the Bay continues to be in trouble. We've made great strides in the last few decades through the EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program. But we remain far from attaining the goals necessary to restore the Bay to a healthy state, one that can sustain native fish and wildlife and maintain the viability of our farmland and regional economy for the near- and long-term future.

Accomplishing these goals starts with the local implementation of the most innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective strategies for restoring and protecting water quality and vital habitats within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Everywhere I go there is a strong desire to see local streams returned to good health and the Chesapeake Bay restored to its former glory. People are ready to take action to control pollution, restore water quality and see the living resources of the Bay return in abundance.

The Chesapeake is a region steeped in history. Today, we add our own contribution to that storied past. With the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act, we are proposing the most sweeping legislative effort in the history of the Clean Water Act. With the firm commitments and cooperation from the communities across the 64,000 square mile watershed, we will restore the health, productivity and beauty of the Chesapeake Bay for generations to come.

Today marks the beginning of that legislative effort. It will not be easy, and we will need all of our best efforts if we are to be successful. But we cannot and will not come up short.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to join my distinguished colleague from Alabama, as well as our colleague from South Carolina, who will come to the floor soon to talk about this Department of Homeland Security Appropriations conference report and specifically the major provisions which had broad bipartisan support which were stripped out of the conference report in the dead of night. I wish to thank my colleague from Alabama for all his work on this issue in general, particularly the E-Verify system. I strongly support the E-Verify system. I strongly support expanding it aggressively. It is part of a solution. It is not the whole solution; no one item is. But it is an important part of the solution to get our hands around immigration enforcement, particularly at the workplace. So I thank my colleague for that work.

Absolutely, I will yield.

Absolutely.

I absolutely agree with my colleague.

I would point out in that vein, the Sessions amendment got broad support. When the Democratic leadership handling the bill on the floor asked to table the amendment, that was rejected 53 to 44. In a similar way, they attempted to table the amendment of our colleague from South Carolina, and that motion was defeated 54 to 44. My amendment was adopted by unanimous consent. Yet with that clear support from the Senate floor, the leadership on the other side apparently went to conference and took out those amendments in the dead of night. I find that worrisome. I find it worrisome in terms of the process. I find it worrisome in terms of immigration reform and where we are apparently headed.

Again, as I said, these were three significant amendments put in this bill on the Senate floor. All three have been stripped out of this conference report.

Let me focus for a minute on my proposal. When the bill was on the Senate floor, my amendment, which was Senate amendment No. 1375, was passed by unanimous consent. So literally no one in the entire body, Democratic or Republican, objected. Essentially, everyone agreed to put this amendment on the bill. The amendment was to prohibit funding to the Department of Homeland Security if they implemented any changes in a final rule requiring employees to follow the rules of the Federal Social Security no-match notices. This, as E-Verify, is an important piece of the puzzle. It is an important piece of the solution.

In August of 2007, the Department of Homeland Security introduced its no-match regulation. This clarified the responsibility of employers who receive notice that their employees' names and Social Security numbers don't match up with the records at Social Security.

So under the rule, employers receiving these notices who did not take corrective action would be deemed to have constructive knowledge that they are employing unauthorized aliens. So, in other words, the intent and the way the rule worked was very simple and straightforward. If records went in to the Department of Homeland Security, if a name and a Social Security number didn't match according to Social Security records, then the Federal Government would notify the employer and would say: Time out; you have a problem. You need to do something about it. If it is a mistake, we need to figure that out, but otherwise it seems as though you are hiring an illegal. So stop and either clear up the mistake or do not hire that person.

This rule provided employers with clear guidance on the appropriate due diligence they should undertake if they received that sort of letter from the Federal Government. So employers who received no-match letters would know they have a problem: Either their record keeping needs to be improved or they have hired illegal workers. The DHS no- match rule gives companies that want to follow the law a clear path to safety. Companies that prefer to ignore the problem or have chosen to run their business with illegal labor cannot be forced to act responsibly, so they do so at their peril under this rule. Since the Social Security letter leaves a clear record for DHS investigators to build a case against employers, it makes the entire system far more workable.

My amendment simply said we are going to keep that new rule in place. It is important for enforcement. It is important for workplace enforcement. It is important to get our hands around the problem of illegal immigration because of the common sense behind that concept. My amendment was adopted on the Senate floor unanimously, by unanimous consent.

As I said, Senator Sessions had an important amendment which he just talked about to expand the E-Verify system. That amendment was actually opposed by some, and there was a motion to table the amendment, but that motion to table was defeated 53 to 44. Similarly, Senator DeMint of South Carolina had an important immigration enforcement amendment. He will be coming to the floor to talk about that this afternoon. His amendment required the completion of at least 700 miles of reinforced fencing along the southwest border by December 31, 2010. Again, his amendment was opposed by some liberals on the Senate floor. They moved to table that amendment but, again, by a significant vote that motion to table was defeated 54 to 44.

So if these amendments are adopted by comfortable, if not unanimous, margins in the Senate, why are they being stripped in the dead of night in the conference committee report? Unfortunately, I think it is clear this Congress, under the Democratic leadership, and this administration want to take a very different approach to immigration, and they are not serious about any of these enforcement measures.

I think that is a shame because these three amendments and other good enforcement ideas I believe represent the common sense of the vast majority of the American people. To me, this harkens back to the major immigration reform debate we had in the summer of 2007 when a big so- called comprehensive immigration reform bill came to the floor of the Senate. It didn't have enough enforcement, in my opinion. It did have a huge amnesty program instead. So by the end of the debate, the American people spoke loudly and clearly. They said: No, we want enforcement. We want to do everything we can on the enforcement side first. We don't want a big amnesty.

That so-called comprehensive bill was defeated by a wide margin. After that seminal event, so many on the Senate floor, including many who had backed that bill, Senator McCain among them, said: OK, we heard the American people. We heard you loudly and clearly. We need to start with effective enforcement. We need to start with commonsense measures, such as a certain amount of fencing, such as E-Verify, such as the Social Security no-match rule. Yet when we put those commonsense measures in this bill, what happened? In this Congress, led by Democratic leadership, under this administration, it was just stripped out of the conference committee report.

Sure, it got big votes on the Senate floor; sure, it has widespread House

support; sure, the Vitter amendment was adopted by unanimous consent. We don't care. We are going to strip it out.

The message is loud and clear. The message is, we don't care what the American people have said. We don't care what they said in the summer of 2007. We don't care what they say over and over and over again about these issues--no-match, E-Verify, fencing--we are just going to oppose any of those commonsense enforcement measures.

I truly believe the second half of where the leadership in this Congress and this administration is coming from is the same thing as the second half of that immigration reform bill in 2007: a big amnesty program with little to no enforcement, a big amnesty program.

We need to listen to the American people. We don't need to play games and say we are supporting provisions and then have them stripped out of conference reports. We need to be more straightforward, more honest in what we are truly about in attacking this problem. Unfortunately, this conference report is an example of exactly the opposite.

I urge my colleagues to pay attention to what is happening because so many folks in this body are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They are saying: Oh, yes, fence, sure; E-Verify, absolutely; social security no-match, sure. Then they get certain leaders of the conference committee to do their dirty work and just strip those provisions. They are ignoring the will of the American people. They are rejecting commonsense enforcement, and according to many reports, the Obama administration and its leaders in the Congress are going to attempt another push for broad-based amnesty.

We need to listen to the American people and not play games. In particular, we need to stop this game playing overall. Senator Sessions, my distinguished colleague from Alabama, was right when he said these sorts of antics--talking out of both sides of our mouths on this issue, stripping so-called popular amendments from a conference committee report--these antics are exactly what is eroding confidence in Congress overall. This is exactly what the American people are so frustrated and, in fact, so scared about with regard to many other issues, such as health care.

I believe this is of real concern as we go into the health care debate because, quite frankly, what does it matter what we adopt on the Senate floor when the conference committee work is going to be handled, perhaps, just like this Homeland Security conference committee was. People can have little confidence based on our votes on the Senate floor. The conference committee work can be diametrically opposed to it on significant issue after significant issue, just as it was on no match, on E-Verify, on fencing.

We need to stop eroding public confidence in that way. We need to do what is, in fact, our first job in the Congress, House and Senate, which is to listen to the American people and, yes, represent the American people.

I am afraid this DHS conference report, with its significant omissions in the area of Social Security no match, E-Verify, and fencing, is a sign that this leadership in Congress and this administration are not prepared to do any of that. I lament that.

I urge all of our colleagues to come back together and demand progress on E-Verify, on no match, and on fencing, and to stop this game playing as we move to other crucial issues, including health care.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.

Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate has passed the Department of Homeland Security appropriations conference report. This legislation contains important funding for the Department of Homeland Security to carry out its various responsibilities. I commend Chairman Inouye and Subcommittee Chairman Byrd for their hard work on this legislation, and also for their support of a vibrant immigration program that fosters direct investment in U.S. job creation that is extended through this legislation.

The conference report we will pass today contains a 3-year extension for the EB-5 regional center program. This extension will bring badly needed stability to this program. Foreign investors who look to the regional center program must have the confidence that the Federal Government supports and believes in this program. Stakeholders that rely on financing through this program must have the predictability that this 3-year extension will help provide. As the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services expressed to the Senate Judiciary Committee during a recent hearing about this program, the biggest impediment to the EB-5 regional center program is its lack of permanence. I have long believed in the potential of this program as an economic engine for America's communities. Given the recent and rapid expansion in the number of approved regional centers around the country, it is clear that many Americans recognize this potential, as well.

In an effort to make this program an integral part of our immigration system, I offered an amendment to the Homeland Security appropriations bill on the Senate Floor to provide for its permanent authorization. That amendment was overwhelmingly adopted. Unfortunately, the conference committee did not retain that permanent authorization, and once again, irrational immigration politics got in the way of good policy. Instead of making permanent a program that has created thousands of American jobs and brought more than $1 billion of capital investment into our communities since 2006, the conference was compelled to sacrifice this opportunity for no legitimate reason. However, it is still heartening to know that over the next 3 years the citizens who are working to better their communities through the regional center program will be able to do so without the fear of constant interruption and uncertainty.

I want to take a moment to commend all of the resourceful business people who have turned to this program to finance key economic development projects in their communities. Despite the hurdles that have continually hampered the efforts I have led to renew the program, the stakeholder community has not only continued to work hard on improving local economies across the country, but has directly engaged Members of Congress to ensure that this program does not wither away. As a result of their efforts to retain a strong extension in the conference report, I am confident that many more Members of Congress have a better understanding of this program's potential and importance in their own communities.

These stakeholders all deserve thanks for the jobs and capital investment they are bringing to their communities. In Vermont, people like Bill Stenger at Jay Peak Resort and Win Smith at Sugarbush Resort have used the EB-5 program to keep Vermont's ski industry a vibrant and foundational part of the Vermont economy. As a direct result of the EB- 5 regional center program and in a very difficult economic environment, dozens of subcontractors in Northeastern Vermont are hard at work on a project financed through the EB-5 Regional Center program. And in an effort to build on these successes, the State of Vermont is actively involved in working to expand the business sectors covered by Vermont's regional center so that technology firms and other diverse Vermont business enterprises can market their investment opportunities to a global audience. My efforts will continue in support of the regional center program. I look forward to helping Vermont and States across the country realize the full potential of this program through a permanent authorization.

I am also pleased that the conference retained an important measure to correct a serious inequity in immigration law commonly known as the widow penalty. Prior to the corrective amendment contained in this legislation, a foreign national widow or widower of a U.S. citizen was put into the untenable position of not only losing their spouse but losing their lawful permanent residence and path to U.S. citizenship. To underscore the nature of this injustice: In cases where a marriage was entered in good faith and without any fraud or ill intent, if the U.S. citizen spouse passed away during the period of conditional residency, the immigration agency took the position that the widow or widower no longer had standing to become a lawful permanent resident. This is wrong, and for a society that places such great value on family, a truly unfortunate position. The amendment in this legislation, which I and other Senators worked hard to ensure was retained in the conference report, will end this injustice.

The conference report also contains an amendment to extend a visa program that allows individuals from around the world dedicated to working on behalf of their religious faiths to come to the United States to do just that. I am pleased that the efforts I and others made to ensure this measure was retained have resulted in its adoption.

Finally, I commend the conference committee for rejecting an amendment that would have done little more than waste taxpayer dollars and cause further harm to the rights of property owners and the environment along our southern border. The conference committee wisely rejected an amendment that would have, in effect, required the Department of Homeland Security to tear down and rebuild hundreds of miles of barriers between the United States and Mexico that have already been constructed, at enormous expense to taxpayers. The Secure Fence Act, a piece of legislation I strongly opposed, directed the Department of Homeland Security to build border fencing and other barriers as a response to illegal border crossings. The Department carried out this legislative command during the Bush administration and constructed pedestrian fencing with vehicle barriers and other infrastructure. The amendment that was rejected by the conference committee would have compounded the negative effects that attended the border fence's original construction, and wasted taxpayer dollars in the process. I commend the conference for its wisdom in not accepting this amendment.

Mr. President, I commend the Senate for enacting the Leahy-Cornyn OPEN FOIA Act--a commonsense bill to promote more openness regarding statutory exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA--as part of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, H.R. 2892. This FOIA reform measure builds upon the work that Senator Cornyn and I began several years ago to reinvigorate and strengthen FOIA by enacting the first major reforms to that law in more than a decade.

The Freedom of Information Act has served as perhaps the most important Federal law to protect the public's right to know for more than four decades. The OPEN FOIA Act will help to ensure that FOIA remains a meaningful tool to help future generations of Americans access government information.

The OPEN FOIA Act will make certain that when Congress provides for a statutory exemption to FOIA in new legislation, Congress states its intention to do so explicitly and clearly. In recent years, we have witnessed a growing number of so-called ``FOIA (b)(3) exemptions'' in proposed legislation--often in very ambiguous terms--to the detriment of the American public's right to know.

During a recent FOIA oversight hearing held by the Judiciary Committee, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, Tom Curley, testified that legislative exemptions to FOIA ``constitute a very large black hole in our open records law.'' The Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coalition of media groups dedicated to improving government transparency, has identified approximately 250 different statutory exemptions to FOIA that are used by Federal agencies to deny Americans' FOIA requests. This is an alarming statistic that should concern all of us, regardless of party affiliation or ideology.

By enacting the OPEN FOIA Act, Congress has taken an important step towards shining more light on the process of creating legislative exemptions to FOIA, so that our government will be more open and accountable to the American people. I thank Senators Lieberman, Graham and Cornyn, and Representative Price, for working with me on this measure. I also thank the distinguished chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees--Senators Inouye and Cochran and Representatives Obey and Lewis--for their support of this open government measure.

President Obama--who supported the OPEN FOIA Act when he was in the Senate--has demonstrated his commitment to enacting this measure, as have the many FOIA, open government and media organizations that have tirelessly supported this measure since it was first introduced in 2005, including OpenTheGovernmnet.org, the Sunshine in Government Initiative, the National Security Archive and the American Civil Liberties Union.

I have said many times before--during both Democratic and Republican administrations--that freedom of information is neither a Democratic issue nor a Republican issue. It is an American issue. I commend the Congress for taking this significant step to reinvigorate FOIA and I urge the President to promptly sign this provision into law.