Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Improvement Act of 2009

Mr. President, our intelligence community should never be forced to question whether our priority is protecting America's safety or protecting the privacy of terrorists. This bill makes clear to intelligence professionals that keeping our Nation safe is their highest responsibility and assures they have the tools needed to get the job done. That is why I am so pleased to join with my colleagues, Senators Lieberman and Sessions, in reauthorizing three FISA provisions--lone wolf, wiretap, and section 215--which would otherwise expire.

This legislation we have introduced today, without change, reauthorizes these three national vital security tools for 4 more years. While I believe each of these tools should be made permanent and Congress plays a dangerous game with national security every time we impose arbitrary sunsets, it is essential that the community's ability to collect lifesaving foreign intelligence should continue unimpeded.

Our bill also makes conforming changes to the disclosure requirements for national security letters in light of the Second Circuit's decision last year. These issues are so critical and so urgent to our well-being and security as a nation, nothing else will matter, even the current health care debate, if we fail in national security.

I have spoken before on this floor about the need for President Obama to make a decision about Afghanistan. I will not repeat those points today. But as our military, intelligence, and law enforcement professionals defend the United States and its allies in Washington, there is an effort afoot to make this fight much harder than it needs to be.

The U.S. PATRIOT Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act were passed overwhelmingly in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks. For years, terrorism was treated as a law enforcement matter.

Our Nation responded to terrorist attack after terrorist attack, to the deaths of our servicemembers and embassy personnel, with indictments and arrest warrants. As Congress failed to give our intelligence operators the tools they needed to act quickly, our terrorist enemies became even more emboldened and determined to strike our homeland. September 11 was a wake-up call.

Our driving mission appropriately, after that, became prevention and disruption of terrorist attacks at home against our troops overseas and against

our allies. That is why the legislation we passed provided the necessary tools. In 2005, the PATRIOT Act was reauthorized with minor changes, but three FISA provisions remained subject to sunset. Here is an opportunity for us to reauthorize these three vital provisions. There is little disagreement among people who know that these provisions should and must be reauthorized.

FBI Director Mueller testified before the Judiciary Committee that each is important to the FBI's work in national security and criminal investigation. But because of the enhanced information sharing rules and procedures, other community entities, such as the Counterterrorism Center, are often dependent upon information collected under these authorities. Their loss would adversely impact their ability to analyze and share important national intelligence information. As an example, if the FBI obtains a court order under FISA for a roving wiretap targeting a terrorist subject in New York, foreign intelligence information obtained there may be shared with the CIA, enabling them in turn to target associates overseas.

Events over the past few months underscore the importance of giving the FBI and other agencies all the tools and authorities they need to stay ahead. From the disrupted terror plots in New York and Colorado to those in Illinois, Texas, and North Carolina, we have seen firsthand why the FBI must have the flexibility to get the information they need as quickly as possible to prevent these attacks.

The benefit of our intelligence collection authorities, however, does not just benefit our own citizens. Just as overseas terror threats may impact our safety, threats posed by some within our country do not always end here. We learned two men in Chicago were conspiring with associates to commit terrorist attacks in Denmark. This case is a good example of how FISA authorities can save lives in allied countries. There is a belief among some that as long as the intelligence community eventually gets the information it needs, time is not of the essence. That is not true. Timing was everything, whether it was introducing an undercover agent to a target at the right moment or conducting surveillance at the right time. No intelligence collector is going to say that getting the same information 3 weeks later is good enough.

I cannot comment on specific tools that were used in foiling all of these plots. We know both from public and classified testimony and information that the tools provided that we are authorizing today have been invaluable to our efforts to stay ahead of the terrorists. As I mentioned earlier, the FBI's ability to obtain a roving wiretap under FISA will end this year unless Congress acts.

According to Director Mueller, the FBI has used the authority 140 times in the past 5 years. The ability to track terrorists even when they repeatedly use and dump their cell phones to avoid interception is, as Director Mueller testified, ``tremendously important.'' He also noted with all the new technology, it is nothing for a target to buy four or five cell phones and use them in quick succession. I couldn't agree more.

Our enemies know our laws better than some of us do. They understand the hoops and hurdles government must clear to catch up or stay ahead. Roving wiretap authority sends a clear message that the time-honored trick of frequently changing a cell phone will not work like it used to.

Obtaining a roving wiretap requires, first and foremost, that the FBI establish probable cause that the target is an agent of a foreign power. Some critics of this provision claim it allows the FBI to avoid meeting this standard as surveillance moves from phone to phone. That is not true. Each wiretap application is approved by a FISA Court judge. If a target changes his cell phone and the FBI moves to surveil the new phone, the court is notified. All of the protections for U.S. person information that apply to any other FISA wiretap also apply to roving wiretaps.

In short, while the authority is a tremendous asset for the FBI, it poses no additional civil liberties concerns. It should be renewed.

On business records, over the past 5 years, a rallying cry against these measures has centered on section 215, allowing the FBI to obtain business records such as hotel information or travel records upon a showing of the requisite burden of proof to a FISA Court judge. We have heard time and again the FBI is using this authority to spy on people's reading habits at the local library. This is simply highly charged rhetoric not supported by facts. While the FBI has used section 215 more than 250 times in the past 5 years, no library records have been obtained. But we do know that terrorists and their associates have used library Internet access to communicate with each other and, in the appropriate case, the FBI must have the ability to obtain any relevant records relating to that usage.

Congress should not pass any legislation that would allow terrorists to use libraries or any other public facility as a safe haven for their illegal activities. If we did that, guess where all the terrorists would congregate. Do you want them all in your libraries? I don't think so.

The inspector general of the Department of Justice conducted several audits of the FBI's use of section 215 and found no abuse of authority. These audits also considered the time it takes for the FBI to obtain a 215 order. The Director has testified that business records sought by terrorism investigations by the FBI are ``absolutely essential to identifying other persons who may be involved in terrorist activities.'' The records obtained under this authority are no different from what the FBI could obtain in a criminal investigation using grand jury subpoena authority. There is rarely any delay in obtaining a grand jury subpoena. DOJ should strive to ensure that section 215 court orders are obtained in a timely and expedient manner.

Given the vital information that can be obtained, I have asked the DOJ to take steps necessary to minimize future delays. As with roving wiretap authority, I believe section 215 has adequate measures already built in to ensure that the private interests of U.S. persons are protected. I have not heard any reasonable critique of this authority, and I believe it should be authorized without changes, without delay.

The sole expiring provision that has not been used by the FBI is the lone wolf definition of an agent of a foreign power, prompting some critics to demand its repeal. Under this definition, the FBI can obtain a FISA Act search or electronic surveillance against a non-U.S. person who is not readily identifiable with a particular foreign power.

We all should be familiar with the story of Zacarias Moussaoui, the 9/11 coconspirator who was identified prior to the 9/11 attacks. But the FBI could not connect him with a particular terrorist organization and, therefore, did not submit a formal request for a FISA search order. We know Moussaoui was ultimately convicted in the Eastern District of Virginia and is now serving a life sentence for his part in the 9/11 conspiracy.

If FISA had included a lone wolf provision, the FBI could have searched his belongings and possibly gained advanced intelligence about the 9/11 plot. Once again, Director Mueller has emphasized in his recent testimony that the FBI must retain the ability to target an individual who cannot be specifically tied to a particular foreign power. The Director specifically cited the Moussaoui case as a prime example. We should never again take the risk that another Moussaoui will be identified by the FBI but escape scrutiny to prevent an attack because he could not be tied to a specific terrorist organization.

I see the ``lone wolf'' provision as a necessary tool that will only need to be used in limited circumstances. It is kind of like those ``in case of emergency, break glass'' boxes that cover certain fire alarms and equipment. We need to keep these tools available for the rare situations where they would be needed.

As I mentioned earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported a PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill that makes a number of changes to section 215 authorities and other national security tools. I believe the Judiciary bill is deeply flawed, and I hope my colleagues will listen carefully and support our bill instead. There will be ample time down the road to lay out in

detail all my objections to the Judiciary bill, but let me just make a few key points.

I disagree strongly that there should be a first time ever sunset for national security letters. It is irresponsible to risk letting the law revert back to pre-9/11 status, where NSLs were largely underutilized because the burden of proof and approval levels were too high for an investigative tool.

The so-called abuses that are so often cited were actually related to something called exigent letters. Exigent letters are essentially a request to third parties, usually phone companies or Internet service providers, for immediate access to records, contingent upon a promise to provide a grand jury subpoena or a national security letter promptly.

It is important to understand that these exigent letters are not national security letters or grand jury subpoenas. While there is statutory authority for carriers to voluntarily provide the FBI with the contents of the communication if the carrier has a good-faith belief that an emergency involving death or serious physical injury requires disclosure of the communication without delay, the DOJ IG found that these exigent letter requests were issued on a routine, rather than an exigent, basis.

Interestingly, the people relying on the now corrected exigent letter problem to justify their proposed restrictions on NSLs are not calling for similar restrictions to be placed on grand jury subpoenas. They know better than to try that because there would be immediate and overwhelming objections from the Department of Justice and nearly every U.S. attorney in the country. We cannot go back to pre-9/11 days, when national security investigative techniques were significantly more difficult to use than ordinary criminal investigative techniques.

Setting aside the problems with the exigent letters, I have said, time and time again, that the errors identified by the DOJ IG were almost exclusively administrative. The FBI has acted quickly to correct these errors, and we should not respond by hamstringing their investigations.

I also disagree with requiring minimization procedures for both pen registers/trap-and-trace devices and NSLs. The FBI has been clear about the operational harm that will likely result if minimization procedures are required for the type of preliminary data, such as telephone toll records, obtained by these tools.

Aside from the basic problem of how the FBI would even go about minimizing this type of information, I do not see why it is necessary. We certainly would never impose these types of restrictions on grand jury subpoenas or other types of administrative subpoenas.

Supporters claim we need minimization procedures to protect U.S. persons, but they conveniently overlook the fact that the records we are talking about here are in the hands of third parties and are not entitled to the same type of protections that other information is subject to.

The constitutional protections were discussed in Smith v. Maryland, and the Supreme Court held we simply do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to these sorts of third-party records.

Ironically, because the FBI cannot tell from the type of information obtained by these tools if someone is a U.S. person, they would actually have to do more investigation and be more intrusive before figuring out whether the information should be minimized.

Finally, I have significant concerns about the change the Judiciary Committee bill makes to the notification period for sneak-and-peak search warrants--down from 30 to 7 days. These warrants, which are approved by a court upon a finding of probable cause, are an important tool in drug and certain terrorism cases. We know from the FBI--and I am sure if we asked the DEA, they would agree--that 7 days is not enough time before giving a target notice that a search was carried out. In a terrorism investigation, likely involving many overseas associates and evidence, it is unreasonable to have to disclose the investigation within a week, when other activities connected to that may be just beginning to be collected.

Depending on the type of information recovered from a search, testing and analysis may not even be done within 7 days. Are we going to risk blowing these investigations because of a random conclusion that 30 days is too long? I understand the government can ask for more time after the 7 days, but we do not have unlimited resources. We should not make our law enforcement agencies jump through more hoops when a court has already found that a search is proper in the first place.

I have other concerns about this bill, including the wisdom of a separate standard for library records, which I view as an even greater invitation for terrorists to use libraries to communicate with each other, and new reporting and auditing requirements. I have to wonder what additional administrative burdens these requirements will put on the FBI at the same time they are trying to focus on preventing and disrupting further attacks on our Nation.

Because of the significant operational concerns raised by the Judiciary Committee's bill, I believe that it should not be considered by the full Senate until the Intelligence Committee--as a whole--has had the opportunity to consider its implications for our national security, after hearing from Director Mueller about the impact of this entire bill on FBI operations.

There are many issues about the Judiciary bill--both classified and unclassified--that need to be addressed. The best venue in which to do that is the Intelligence Committee. Don't forget that three of the five crossover members from the Intelligence Committee voted against the Judiciary Committee bill. I would hardly call that a ringing endorsement. I believe full consideration by the Intelligence Committee would greatly improve the measures we will be acting on, on the floor.

Unfortunately, my efforts to give the Intelligence Committee the opportunity to weigh in on the Judiciary bill have thus far been unsuccessful. But at the same time, we cannot risk letting these crucial authorities lapse. For that reason, I have decided to cosponsor the legislation we are introducing today because, under this bill, I can categorically state it will have no provision that will have an adverse impact on intelligence community activities or operations.

It is not insignificant, in my opinion, that the bill we are introducing today is cosponsored by the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and by me, as vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Each of these committees has a role to play in safeguarding our domestic security. Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Sessions, and I all understand the stakes in failing to reauthorize these expiring provisions are high. The stakes in adding new and flawed provisions or creating unreasonable burdens are just as high. It serves no legitimate purpose to give the FBI or any other law enforcement or intelligence agency tools that are rendered ineffective because Congress imposes arbitrary conditions without fully appreciating their ramifications.

The sponsorship of this legislation is also noteworthy because it sends a clear and loud message that giving our law enforcement intelligence professionals the authorities and tools they need to keep the country safe is not and should not be a partisan issue.

In the last Congress, we saw firsthand the negative impact of partisanship and pandering to extreme special interests. The FISA Amendments Act was supported by a strong bipartisan margin out of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Unfortunately, as the bill wound its way through the Senate and eventually the House, it became a political football. As a result, we came too close for comfort to losing the intelligence collection authorities we had worked hard to preserve.

I am hopeful we can avoid similar partisanship and political interests to take over what should be a straightforward legislative process. The surest way of doing that is to pass the bill we introduce today.

For years, we have hammered away at the notion that there should be walls between criminal and national security investigations. We have embraced the idea that the same tools that are used to capture drug dealers and child molesters should be available

to track terrorists and spies. While the idea has been generally accepted, the execution has been lacking. Our laws still impose unnecessary divisions between administrative and grand jury subpoena authority and national security letters. Those divisions are exacerbated by the Judiciary Committee bill, which imposes new unheard of requirements on national security letters and the FISA pen register/ trap-and-trace information.

Over the past 8 years, Congress has placed heavy demands on the FBI to be a full participant in the intelligence community. While the transportation has not been without some hiccups, they have come a long way since the days leading up to 9/11, when the word ``FISA'' was foreign to much of the rank and file FBI.

Now is not the time to saddle them with additional administrative burdens or to impose conditions on the use of certain tools so drastic they become useless. There are so many current and clear-cut examples of domestic terror threats before us. I have to wonder why anyone thinks this would be a good time to experiment with the vital authorities used to keep us safe.

The legislation we are introducing today will ensure our intelligence and law enforcement professionals can continue doing what they do best, without any additional restrictions. Our Nation has been fortunate not to have suffered a sequel to the 9/11 attacks. Some may call it luck, but much of the credit goes to the dedicated work of our intelligence and law enforcement professionals and the availability of these tools that we are reauthorizing in this bill.

We owe our thanks to the personnel who use them. We also owe them the recognition that their jobs are as difficult as they are, and we should not be taking any steps that will make their profound responsibility to protect this country any more difficult. That is why I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

I thank my cosponsor and our lead sponsor.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I sent to the desk earlier legislation that is cosponsored by myself and Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Kit Bond. In essence, it reauthorizes certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act which expire, if we do not act, on December 31 of this year. It is an important matter and I am proud to be working with the distinguished chairman of the committee that has oversight over homeland security, and Senator Bond, who is the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee and has worked on these issues for quite a long time.

I wish to be notified after 10 minutes, if you would, please.

In recent years, Federal agents have exposed a series of potentially devastating terrorist plots across our country. If successful, these planned attacks would have caused unthinkable harm and claimed the lives of countless Americans. In the years following 9/11, there have been constant attempts to strike again on American soil. There could have been a dozen 9/11's, perhaps, were it not for the skill and courage of those who labor in defense of our country and our countrymen, and were it not for the measures passed by this Congress that have finally given them the support and the legal and financial resources they need to combat the terrorist threat.

But unless Congress acts, these very measures will soon expire. Unless Congress acts, our agents will be stripped of some of the legal tools they have used to foil attack after attack on our homeland and to avert catastrophe time and again.

Three of the most critical national security provisions passed by this body must be renewed by December 31 of

this year. Those provisions are found in the USA PATRIOT Act, which has played an essential part keeping our families and communities safe for these last 9 years. It at last gave the intelligence community the capabilities it needed to detect and deter terrorism inside our borders.

These capabilities have long been used in routine law enforcement, but could not be used in national security matters. Why would we not pursue terrorists with the same tools we can use to pursue drug dealers and mobsters?

Anyone who has followed the news in recent weeks knows just how vital these tools are. Four major terrorist plots have been foiled in the last 6 weeks--four in the last 6 weeks.

Just yesterday, we learned that two Chicago men were charged with plotting to attack the facilities and employees of a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The planned attack included weapons and explosives. According to reports, one of the men admitted working with a Pakistani group which has been designated by our government as a foreign terrorist organization.

The government recently charged Najibullah Zazi with conspiring to use one or more weapons of mass destruction--specifically, explosive devices--against persons or property within the United States. The New York Times described the government's case against Mr. Zazi as ``a set of damning accusations'' that begin ``with explosives training in Pakistan followed by purchases of bomb-making materials in Colorado, experiments in a hotel room, and a cross-country trip to New York, which the authorities feared might have been the target of his attack.''

According to reports, Mr. Zazi was in contact with senior al-Qaida operatives, including the leader of al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Attorney General Holder has described Zazi's plot as one of the worst since 9/ 11.

In another case, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi stands accused of conspiring to set off an explosive attached to a vehicle at the base of the 60-story Fountain Place office tower in Dallas, TX. In yet another case, Tarek Mehanna was charged with material support of terrorism related to a plot to kill U.S. troops in Iraq, assassinate top politicians, and gun down shoppers in U.S. malls.

But these attacks never occurred. They never occurred because we had the tools in place to prevent them and because of the untiring agents who carry out their noble, often thankless mission day after day. But out of an abundance of caution, Congress created a time limit on some of these investigative procedures and tools, and in 2006 those authorities were renewed because it was clear they were working and were needed.

It is worth noting that even though these authorities had not been abused by our hard-working terrorism officials, numerous revisions to them were made in 2006. Then, we reauthorized the provisions, while also strengthening civil liberties protections. That 2006 legislation was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. It passed with 89 votes, among them our current President, who was a Member of the Senate; the Vice President, who was then a Member of the Senate; and the Secretary of State, who was then a Member of the Senate.

The PATRIOT Act is again up for renewal with three critical authorities set to expire. While we in the Judiciary Committee have been debating whether these expiring PATRIOT Act authorities should be approved for another 4 years, our agents are actively working hard to protect this country and its people from the constant threat of terrorism. Is there anyone in this Chamber who thinks that we should make it harder for our national security investigators to catch terrorists? Is there anyone here who believes the American people want us to make it harder for our investigators to catch terrorists?

I know Chairman Leahy has worked hard, as we all did, to try to come up with a PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill in the Judiciary Committee that could attract strong bipartisan support. I commend him for that effort. He really worked at that. We worked together at that. However, the bill that eventually emerged from the Judiciary Committee does not meet the key test for any national security legislation: first, do no harm. The bill reported by the committee would make the jobs of our national security officials more difficult. The Obama administration has raised serious misgivings about the legislation that passed out of the committee.

So, I think we need to make a fresh start. Let's go back and take the bill we voted so strongly for before, add the minor things that need to be added to it to make it better--to deal with recent court of appeals rulings--and then let's move that forward to make sure we get that done before the legislation expires on December 31.

The bill we introduced today represents the best parts of the legislation that emerged from the Judiciary Committee, the parts almost everyone agreed upon. I will go into some of these details later but would just say that I am honored to be able to participate in the filing of this legislation with two fine cosponsors, Senators Lieberman and Kit Bond.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Bond for his thorough analysis of the legislation that came out of the Judiciary Committee, and for bringing to bear on these great issues his vast experience as vice chair of the Intelligence Committee and his commitment to national security and protecting this country.

He and Senator Lieberman represent the best of this body. They have the ability to cut through ``flapdoodle'' and to get to the heart of matters, and I appreciate so much their leadership.

Senator Lieberman, the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has been so involved in all of these matters. From the beginning, he tried to identify, as the 9/11 Commission did, the deficiencies in our system and tried to work toward a new way of doing business--all consistent with our great heritages of liberty and civil rights.

I do think it is important to recognize that when Senator Lieberman asked the Director of the FBI: Is there one thing that we can do to help you do your job, the Director's answer was: Reauthorize the PATRIOT Act.

The bill we are introducing today represents the best parts of the legislation that emerged from the Judiciary Committee--the parts almost everyone agreed upon. Our bill renews the three expiring PATRIOT Act authorities: the rolling wiretaps authority, the business records provision, and the ``lone wolf'' section of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Our bill also fixes a deficiency in the procedure for challenging the nondisclosure requirements of a key national security tool, the national security letter.

Section 206, the roving wiretap provision, is a commonsense tool that is absolutely necessary in this day and age. It gives our agents the ability to monitor a terrorist's phone call, even when he switches phones. Director Mueller told the Judiciary Committee this authority was extremely important, considering how easy it is for terrorists to switch cell phones.

Without this authority, a terrorist would be able to switch phones and defeat any order an investigator might have to wiretap a certain telephone. As agents run back and forth to court to get repeated permissions to monitor telephone numbers, the suspect is able to avoid surveillance.

Let me note that, in 1986, Congress approved a roving wiretap statute for domestic law enforcement. As Senator Bond and Senator Lieberman said, so many of the provisions in the PATRIOT Act had already existed in the law for regular federal criminal investigations.

But it did help to create a system where national security matters could be handled expeditiously before the FISA Court, a Federal court that is experienced in these types of cases. The FISA Court maintains confidentiality without the possibility of leaks, and is readily advised on all the relevant case law involving terrorism matters.

So that is how the system works, and I think it is not at all unusual what we are proposing to do here in this bill.

Section 215--which my colleagues have referred to as the business records provision--allows agents and other Federal investigators to ask the FISA Court for permission to get certain business records. Generally, these records would be in the possession of third parties, not the individual himself or herself. Examples would include records in the possession of a phone company, hotel records, bank records, or car rental information. How important is that in a terrorism investigation? It can be absolutely critical because, for instance, terrorists often use cell phones and rental cars.

This is the type of information for which people have a diminished expectation of privacy. These are not their records, they are the rental car company's records. These are not their telephone toll records, they are the phone company's records. Everybody at the phone company or the car rental agency has access to these records. These records are not secret in the same way as something in your desk, in your home, or in your car, which would require the use of a search warrant to be obtained by law enforcement. That is why subpoenas have been issued for these types of records for years. The Drug Enforcement Administration can issue administrative subpoenas right now to obtain many of these types of records, including bank records and telephone toll records. These can be obtained by the Drug Enforcement Administration without any court approval at all.

So I want my colleagues to know that the allegation that the PATRIOT Act represents an unprecedented transfer of power to the national security investigators who are trying to protect us from terrorist attacks is not correct. The way things work in reality is that private banks, telephone companies, and motels would be perfectly willing to give records to investigators, and indeed they used to do that in days past without any subpoena because these records belong to them. But lawyers have gotten into it, and these entities have gotten worried. So very frequently today hotel chains and other companies expect a subpoena before they can turn over records pertaining to their customers. That is what section 215 is designed to deal with.

When investigating terrorism, time can be critical. Section 215 allows a court to order a company to turn over records in it possession. This key information is usually not in the possession of person under investigation, but in a third party's possession. Section 215 merely allows a court to order a business to do what is legally permitted to do anyway: help our officials pursue and catch terrorists. This is very similar--almost identical--to grand jury subpoena authority, which has been used by Federal prosecutors, State prosecutors, State attorneys general, county attorneys, and Federal investigators routinely for decades. This is not some sort of collapse of American freedoms and liberties.

The ``lone wolf'' section of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 is a commonsense provision we need to continue the fight against terrorists in the 21st century. Even though it has not been used yet, it is there to defend against a very real possibility, like the Moussaoui matter Senator Bond made reference to. It deals with the rogue terrorist who is not linked to a larger terrorist group, or at least where there is no proof of that link at a given time. In the past, the law required that national security agencies show a connection between

the terrorist and a terrorist group or foreign power in order to monitor him. This could cause a problem if a terrorist or a foreign agent left a terror group, perhaps because of a dispute. Let's say you have a lawful, court-approved wiretap and the individual being monitored says on it: You are not aggressive enough. You are too timid. I want to blow up this building in Washington, DC; you don't. Count me out. I am no longer a part of your group.

Well, since this suspect would be disconnected from a terrorist organization, under previous law he would not subject to key national security surveillance techniques. So, you can have a ``lone wolf'' under certain circumstances. In the Moussaoui case, investigators were not able to get a search warrant for his computer because it was felt that there was not sufficient proof that he was connected to a specific terrorist organization. This was even though Moussaoui's own activities created so much danger that an FBI lawyer went to great lengths to try to get approval to get that search warrant, but ultimately failed to do so. Had that search warrant been approved and that computer examined, many think 9/11 may not have occurred.

This ``lone wolf'' provision has had bipartisan support in the past. It was originally authored by Senator Schumer, our Democratic colleague from New York. It is a commonsense way to deal with this very real issue and should be reauthorized without delay.

Finally, our bill fixes the problem found by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of Doe v. Mukasey. That case addressed the legal standard courts use to review nondisclosure requirements: for example, where a motel would be required not to tell a terrorist staying there that it has given records to the FBI. The Second Circuit held that the legal standard at issue was too deferential to the government. Our bill would fix this problem in the same manner, almost word for word, as the legislation that emerged from the Judiciary Committee in the past few weeks. In other words, we have given more protection to civil liberties, as the court suggested.

So as the recent slew of terrorism arrests makes so painfully clear, the threat of violent Islamic extremism is severe and ongoing. We cannot afford to let our guard down for a single moment. The threat is too great and too real and the stakes too high.

Our agents risk their lives every day to investigate terrorist plots and prevent another attack against the United States. Congress must move with the same urgency to reauthorize these lifesaving provisions before they expire. I believe this bipartisan bill is basically the same bill as we approved before and provides a commonsense and noncontroversial path to a timely reauthorization, and I hope my colleagues will support it. We simply need to get busy and get this work done.

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

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

Mr. President, this health care debate is one of the most important debates we have ever had in this country. We are talking about one-sixth of the American economy. We better get it right because if we do not, this economy will never be able to recover. If we go down the wrong path and we spend too much time building the government at the expense of the individuals in this country, we will never be able to change it. So this is a very important time, and I am calling upon all my colleagues in both the Senate and the House to try to work together so we can come up with a program, a system that literally will work.

We can build upon things we already agree upon. Things such as preexisting conditions should be covered, automatically covered. That is a very difficult issue; it is not something you can just say glibly. The fact is, we have to resolve this problem so people will not just wait until they get sick to buy insurance because they have a right to do so under any new policy we are coming up with. But they should be able to get into the insurance market now.

Having said that, there are many on the other side who would like to have what they call a public plan or what I

call a government plan. The problem with the government plan is that the central force would be right here in Washington, filled with bureaucracy, filled with expenses, filled with all of the clogs that occur in Washington, DC. And we will not be solving the individual problems of the various States, each of which has its own demographics. I have often pointed out that Utah's demographics are not the same as New York's or California's or those of Massachusetts. But neither are New York's the same as those of Massachusetts or California. Each State has its own demographic problems.

Utah is considered one of the top three States in the delivery of health care. There is a good reason for that; that is, we thought it through and we basically bring health care closer to the people. We already have an exchange in Utah which is working to a large degree. It is just starting, but the fact is, it has been embraced and accepted by people. We would bitterly resent a one-size-fits-all Federal Government program to resolve all problems.

This business of making sure preexisting conditions are covered is fraught with all kinds of difficulties if we do not do this right. There are all kinds of expenses if we fail to observe the past and, I might add, all kinds of bureaucratic problems if we do not work together to get this problem solved.

On the other hand, are we going to go to a system where government tells people they have to buy insurance, whether it be a public plan or otherwise? I am not sure constitutionally that the government has that kind of power. If the government has that kind of power, to tell people they have to have insurance even if they don't want it--and that includes the public plan insurance--then what limitations are there on government? What happens to all the freedoms we all take for granted? What happens to the liberties we have embedded in the Constitution?

These are important issues. They are not issues you just brush aside because one side or the other wants to have the Federal Government take over all control of our health care system.

I might add, I think most of us agree there should be transparency in the system. If we had transparency over all of the hospitals, all of the physicians, and we could tell which ones are great, which ones aren't, we could make our own decisions as to where to go for particular types of care, especially very serious care. I think most of us would like to provide a system where our constituents could do that.

What about medical liability reform? As a former medical liability defense lawyer, I defended doctors, hospitals, nurses, and health care providers who needed defending, many of whom did not commit negligence but were finding themselves suddenly in court in front of juries that may be empathetic to somebody who did not have a good result even though there was no negligence involved. I estimated 25 years ago that, in unnecessary defensive medicine, we are probably wasting upwards of $300 billion a year.

That sounds very high. But I am finding more and more people are starting to come to the conclusion that we waste an awful lot of money on what is unnecessary defensive medicine. We all want defensive medicine because we all want the doctors to do what they should do. Our advice to the doctors back in those days happened to be, if somebody comes to you with a common disease or injury, you cannot afford to just give them--tell them to just do the minimum. You better have every test and every procedure you possibly can in your history, so if you ever do get sued, you will be able to say you went way beyond the standard of practice in the community and did everything you possibly could to try to help this person with their problems and that you should not have liability because of that.

Well, I have to say we can go on and on. It was interesting to me, when I first asked Dr. Elmendorf, who heads our CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, what does unnecessary defensive medicine cost us, Dr. Elmendorf came up with an extremely low figure over 10 years. I think it was something like $10 billion.

I chatted with him and I said: That cannot be so. I explained to him what my experience was and the experience of almost anybody who has any experience in this field, and he went back. He said: Well, I am going to go back and review it. He did go back and review it and came up with a figure of $54 billion over 10 years, just for Federal Government unnecessary defensive medicine. So it is much more than that if you add in everything else and extrapolate it all out.

We should be able to save some of these dollars. That also would help us to be able to pay for real health care that needs to be done.

We know the health care reform bill has been basically written in the office of the majority leader. While we do not know what this bill will look like, because it apparently has been written in the secrecy of the majority leader's office, and by very few people, by the way--and the same over in the House--every indication is, it will be similar to the bill reported out by the Finance Committee earlier this month.

That bill, which would drastically change the very fabric of an industry that affects every American in the most personal way and represents one-sixth of our economy, contains roughly $409 billion in new taxes that are going to be passed on to the average taxpayer. Many Utahns are asking me who is going to have to pay these new taxes? Unfortunately, I have to tell them that it will not just be the wealthiest among us, but middle and even lower income American families as well.

Perhaps the most solid promise that President Obama made during his campaign was that ``no [one] making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase!'' He further pledged that the 98 percent of Americans earning less than this amount would not see any tax increase on income and savings. Let me repeat that: The President promised that 98 percent of Americans earning less than $250,000 would not see any tax increase on income and savings.

The majority leader is preparing a partisan proposal to which he hopes to attract at least a modicum of Republican support. Thus far, however, he has no takers from my side of the aisle, and support from some on his side appears to be waning. Perhaps a major reason for this is that everyone knows the bill would break the President's promises not to raise taxes on average Americans. That is not the only thing it would do.

The Finance Committee product offers a cornucopia of revenue raisers that would fund health care reform. Some of these provisions include direct taxes on lower and middle income wage earners, while others would hit average families indirectly through penalties, fees, and higher costs.

If your employer offers you a higher cost insurance plan, your taxes will likely rise under this plan. If you have a flexible spending account or a health savings account, your taxes will likely rise. If you or your family use a medical device costing more than $100, such as a hearing aid or an insulator, or if you purchase prescription drugs, the cost of those items will likely rise.

And ironically, in a bill that is designed to lower the costs of health care, the cost of health insurance itself is likely to rise under this plan. And if you do not have insurance, the cost of not having health insurance will rise because the bill will impose a tax if you do not get insurance.

My friends on the other side of the aisle will probably paint this rise in penalties, fees, and higher costs as Republican hocus-pocus. But do not take it from me or my colleagues; take it from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Looking first at the direct taxes on the middle class, the Democrats' bill declares war on savings accounts for health care. For example, the bill would limit the amount that employees can set aside of their own money into flexible spending accounts. In addition, over-the-counter medicine would no longer be qualified expenses for FSAs and health savings accounts, unless you have a doctor's note. Lastly, the proposal includes an increase from 10 percent to 20 percent for the penalty for withdrawals that are not used for qualified medical expenses. All together, this means that employees could be facing a 55-percent Federal tax on a bottle of aspirin. I thought we were trying to make health care more affordable, not more expensive.

This year, 35 million employees participate in employer-sponsored, employee-funded flexible spending accounts. These accounts provide relief for the ever-increasing amount of health care that families must pay out of their own pockets. How does cutting back on FSA accounts lower the costs of health care? These accounts are not just provided to the wealthy. On the contrary, the average income for flexible spending account participants is just $55,000 per year.

Another clear increase on taxes for middle income families is the raising of the threshold for the itemized medical expense deduction from 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income to 10 percent. This tax deduction is already means-tested so that it only kicks in when medical expenses are catastrophic or nearly so. This is not a tax benefit for the wealthy. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that in 2013, approximately 11.5 million taxpayers would be affected by this proposal. Of that number, about half have incomes less than $75,000.

Perhaps even worse are the indirect tax increases in the bill. One of the most troubling ones to me is an unprecedented fee levied on entire segments of the health care industry, including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and health insurance. While these fees would be paid by corporations, they will ultimately be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices or on to employees in the form of lower pay, or even layoffs. Under this plan, the cost of everything from contact lenses to hearing aids to thermometers would rise for consumers, creating one more unfair burden on middle income families seeking affordable health care.

And if you decide to either not have health insurance or if you need a more expensive plan than is allowed, the Democratic plan would raise taxes on you, even if you do not make anywhere near $250,000 per year. This is part of the so-called individual mandate, which requires individuals to obtain health care coverage or pay an extra tax. The amount of tax could reach as much as $750 per uninsured adult. Some may say this is simply a penalty for not doing what Uncle Sam wants you to do, but let us face it, it is nothing more than a new tax.

There are at least two provisions in the Finance Committee bill that raise serious constitutional questions. First, is the transition relief for the high-cost insurance plans that is granted to 17 yet-to-be determined States. This means that a different tax rate will apply depending on where you live. Second, is the individual mandate itself. The constitutionality of the mandate, as pointed out by the Congressional Research Service, has never been addressed. We are treading into new waters. Are we just going to simply ignore these serious constitutional questions?

Again, President Obama promised from the beginning that he would not raise taxes on the 98 percent of Americans who make less than $250,000. Unfortunately, the Democratic proposal we will soon be debating would break that promise. We are all for real health care reform, everybody, Republicans, Democrats and Independents, but not all of us are willing to pass it on the backs of middle-income taxpayers. At a time when we have trillion-dollar-plus deficits and an unemployment rate nearing double digits, this would be a colossal mistake.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am going to continue on a point that the Senator from Kentucky made, and that is tax increases. I want to be a little more specific about how the health care reform bill is going to very dramatically increase taxes--particularly for groups of people with under $250,000 a year in income, which group President Obama has promised would never have their taxes increased.

On September 12, 2008, in Dover, NH, candidate Obama said:

And I can make a firm pledge: No family making less than

$250,000 will see their taxes increase--not your income

taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes,

not any of your taxes.

You can see on the chart that quotation. It is very firm, very clear. Well, I believe we are at the point of abrogating that promise.

President Obama's pledge has also been repeated by the President and his advisers numerous times since candidate Obama has been in office. However, the health care reform bill reported out of the Senate Finance Committee is loaded with tax hikes on ``the middle class.''

President Obama, however, has defined the middle class as those making under $250,000. Candidate Obama stated that ``if you are making less than $250,000, then you are definitely somewhere in the middle class.''

President Obama's budget tracks this definition by preserving the current income tax rate structure for families under $250,000 and singles under $200,000. And the Democratic leadership

budgets adopted President Obama's definition of the middle class.

President Obama and congressional Democrats have adopted this definition of the middle class in the context of health care reform.

As evidence, on August 3, 2009, President Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs said:

Let me be precise. The President's clear commitment is not

to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year.

In his Portsmouth, NH, townhall meeting, the President--referring to ways in which to pay for health care reform--said this:

It should not burden people who make $250,000 a year or

less.

The congressional Democratic leadership have made similar commitments. So the question is: When health care reform comes up, will it not increase taxes for people making under $250,000? Will the promises that the President made as a candidate be kept by the bills that may become law? I don't want to refer to this Senator's judgment of this. I want to use the words of the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office. These are people who are experts-- nonpartisan--and nobody questions their judgment. They are intellectually honest. They are not Republicans or Democrats.

According to these official scorekeepers--Joint Tax and the Congressional Budget Office--the Finance Committee bill contains over $500 billion of taxes, increases, fees, and penalties on individuals and businesses.

The Joint Committee on Taxation testified that a significant percentage of these tax increases, fees, and penalties will be borne by the middle-class taxpayers--those making under $250,000.

Joint Tax also performed a distributional analysis of three tax provisions of the Senate Finance Committee bill for the year 2019--when these provisions are fully in effect. In other words, Joint Tax and the Congressional Budget Office look ahead 10 years. So we are talking about between now and 2019.

The three provisions that Joint Tax made distributional analyses of are: the advance refundable insurance premium tax credit; second, the high cost plans tax, also known around here as the Cadillac health insurance plans--and that is the tax connected with it; third, the medical expense deduction tax increase.

The Joint Committee on Taxation found that, on average, by 2019, singles making over $40,000 a year, and married couples making over $75,000 a year would have a net tax increase under the Finance Committee bill.

Again, if you are single and making over $40,000 a year, or married and making over $75,000 a year, your taxes are going up, on average, under the Finance Committee bill. We have two charts up here that make that very clear.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle may say that the Finance Committee bill lowers people's taxes. Let's look at that. This may be a little bit true for some taxpayers. But for middle-class taxpayers, their taxes will go up. Further, Joint Tax--the official congressional tax scorekeeper--said so.

So if the President signs the Senate Finance Committee bill, or some of the financing measures in that bill, into law, the President would break that campaign pledge.

The President then would be raising taxes on families making $250,000 and singles making $200,000. Now that we have established that the Finance Committee bill raises taxes on the middle class, I would like to dig a bit deeper.

In looking to 2019, Joint Tax data leads to the conclusion that 77 percent of the burden of the tax increases in the Finance bill would be borne by middle-class taxpayers. In 2019, out of these taxpayers making under $200,000 who are affected by the three provisions mentioned above, 54 percent of them will see tax increases. In other words, 46 million middle-class families and individuals would pay higher taxes under the Finance Committee bill, contrary to what the President has said.

Joint Tax data also finds that middle-class families who file joint returns are very dramatically affected. Specifically, in 2019, over 64 percent of middle-class families filing joint tax returns would face a significant increase, and these families, obviously, make less than $250,000 a year.

Once again, I have charts that will show the different divisions of people falling into those income categories.

Another way to look at this is, there are four groups of middle-class taxpayers who are treated differently under the Finance Committee bill. The first is a group of 14.5 million who will receive refundable tax credits. These refundable credits represent government spending and not tax relief. That is the judgment of these official scorekeepers, not this Senator. In 2019, this government spending amounts to $77 billion alone.

In the second group, some of the 25 million will see some tax relief. However, a substantial number of those 25 million in this second group will not see any tax relief under the bill.

The third group, made up of 46 million middle-income taxpayers, will bear a large tax increase.

A fourth group of 83 million will have a tax increase from provisions in the bill that Joint Tax has not yet analyzed, so I cannot go into depth about that group.

For example, Joint Tax has not yet provided distribution analysis on the effect of the fees on health insurers that will be passed through and medical device manufacturers.

I ask for 5 additional minutes.

Because we do not have that analysis, we do not know how many of those 83 million will face tax increases. For instance, many of those 83 million buy health insurance themselves or their employers buy it for them, and they will bear the burden of the new insurance fees in the form of higher insurance premiums.

During the Finance Committee debate, some Senators of the majority party described the Finance Committee bill as providing a net tax cut. Let's look at what is a net tax cut because the official scorers would not determine that is what it is.

To understand whether these claims are accurate, one has to figure out what is meant by the words ``tax reduction.''

The premium tax credit under the bill is refundable. That means tax return filers receive the tax credit, even if they have no income tax liability. If a tax filer has no income tax liability, how can their taxes go down? Joint Tax does not describe that as a tax reduction. Instead, Joint Tax says these filers receive a Federal benefit.

Joint Tax also tells us that 73 percent of the $453 billion in the refundable tax credits for health insurance is, in fact, pure and simple, government spending. That leaves just 27 percent--or $122 billion--that might legitimately be called a tax reduction, and we see it on the chart.

Meanwhile, as mentioned above, there are over $500 billion in tax increases--$\1/2\ trillion is another way of saying it. Even if we add in the meager small business tax credit of $23 billion, which is the only other tax benefit in the bill, this bill contains a net tax increase of over $350 billion.

Because the refundable insurance premium credit is called a tax credit, Democrats have argued the entire $453 billion is a tax credit. However, Joint Tax and the Congressional Budget Office scores 330 billion of that $453 billion as pure and simple government spending.

Colleagues on the other side of the aisle argue that such government spending is actually a tax cut. However, Joint Tax scores this as government spending, not tax cuts.

An outlay results when the tax credit is larger than an individual's income tax liability, if any. That individual simply receives a check from the Internal Revenue Service. Sending a check to an individual who pays no income tax cannot credibly be called a tax cut. Some colleagues argue that the refundable tax credit offsets payroll taxes. However, payroll taxes are meant to be paid so individuals can receive benefits from Social Security and Medicare later in life.

Even if you agree that individuals should not have to pay payroll taxes but should also receive Social Security and Medicare benefits, that rationale cannot be used over and over. It should only be used once.

We already have a number of generous refundable tax credits. The child

tax credit, the earned-income tax credit, and the making work pay credit are all refundable tax credits.

The insurance premium credit in the Finance bill is added to that list. Therefore, this same payroll tax cut rationale has been used four times to claim that this government spending is actually a tax cut. Joint Tax scores these outlays as government spending, not as a tax cut. That is not this Senator saying that; it is the professionals in Joint Tax who say it is government spending, not a tax cut.

The interesting thing about the refundable tax credit for health insurance is, it does not go to the individual or family. Instead, this Federal tax benefit goes from the government directly to the insurance company providing health care coverage. That is a check from the Federal Government made out to your insurance company dated, signed, sealed, and delivered directly to that insurance company.

I remember hearing President Obama criticize sending money directly to insurance companies. On October 4, before his election, in Newport News, VA, then-Candidate Obama criticized Senator McCain's health credit for health insurance by saying these words:

But the new tax credit he is proposing? That wouldn't go to

you. It would go directly to your insurance company--not your

bank account.

That is what the President said in that quote. If Candidate Obama was against it then, how is President Obama for it now? But that is what is in this legislation.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the role nuclear energy can play in moving our country toward a more secure energy future. For some, news that a Udall is speaking favorably about nuclear power will come as a stark and perhaps unpleasant surprise. But I also believe public and expert opinion on the risks and benefits of nuclear power has changed.

The environmental and energy security challenges that we faced in the 1970s, when that decade closed in the shadow of Three Mile Island, have changed significantly. When my father Mo Udall campaigned for President in the New Hampshire primary in 1976--and the Presiding Officer remembers that era--and when he was asked about the controversial Seabrook nuclear facility, no one had climate change on their list of environmental concerns.

Today, more than 30 years on, we have a less parochial and more global view about the challenges of energy security, climate change, and the problems associated with carbon-based energy production.

Given the economic, national security, and environmental threats our current energy system creates, we need a comprehensive and cleaner national energy policy. In this regard, clearly, nuclear energy has emerged as an important player in our search for a stable and domestic energy source that has less greenhouse gas emissions.

A cleaner energy economy will spur innovation in and accelerate the shift to clean and domestic energy sources. It will create a new industrial sector, employing millions of Americans in the research, development, manufacturing, sale, installation and servicing of new energy technologies. And it will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil from unstable regions of the world.

Moreover, like it or not, we must address the climate challenge we face. My State of Colorado is already seeing the indirect impacts of carbon pollution in the form of a devastating bark beetle infestation that is killing our forests.

Looking beyond environmental concerns and as we face perhaps our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, we also need an ``all of the above'' solution to jump-start our economy. That means continuing our development of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass, as well as traditional energy resources like coal and oil, and cleaner fuels like natural gas.

That also means we should continue to invest in energy efficiency and conservation technology. And that means that nuclear energy and new nuclear power plants must be a part of the mix.

As I said earlier, a growing number of skeptics and even opponents of nuclear power are taking a second look at this industry. I count myself among them, and these are some of the reasons why:

First, in the last few decades, the performance and safety record of nuclear plant operations in the United States has greatly improved. Safety is and always must be the No. 1 priority at nuclear facilities. There is always more we can do on safety, but the industry has built a good record and we should recognize that fact.

Then there are the environmental benefits to nuclear power. Unlike fossil fuel plants, nuclear plants do not emit appreciable amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury or particulate matter. That means they cause less acid rain, as well as fewer asthma complications and other health ailments.

Further, nuclear plants release minimal amounts of carbon pollution. In fact, nuclear power plants are one of the few low-carbon, large- scale sources of baseload power that we know how to build today.

Let me note that carbon-capture and storage technologies at coal and natural gas plants could also potentially provide low-carbon baseload power at large scales too. And it is very important that we build these first commercial CCS plants and do all we can to develop economically viable carbon-capture and sequestration technologies.

I have long been a supporter of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and I will continue to be. But the scale of the energy changes we must make dictates that we be open to the widest variety of energy options, particularly those with domestic potential and those with cleaner emissions. In other words, there is no silver bullet that will solve all of our energy challenges; we are going to need, in the parlance of the West, silver buckshot. Examining all the pros and cons, I have come to the view that nuclear energy is a part of that silver buckshot.

I know there are many who remain skeptical of nuclear power, including good friends of mine. Nuclear power is not trouble-free. No energy source is. I hope we can all agree, however, on our clean energy goals: more jobs, greater energy security, and a cleaner environment for our children.

Supporters and opponents of nuclear power share another concern in common. Neither knows for sure how much new nuclear plants are going to cost. We have a new licensing process that has never been tested. We have not ordered a new nuclear plant in three decades. Many nuclear technology components, for at least the first wave of nuclear plants, will likely be manufactured in other countries, and the future cost of construction materials is unknown. These uncertainties, along with others, led the National Academy of Sciences to estimate that electricity from new nuclear plants would likely cost in the range of 8 to 13 cents per kilowatt hour, which is a considerable span. Given the large potential of nuclear energy, however, we need to build new nuclear plants over the next decade.

This first wave of new plants will go a long way toward telling us whether new plants can be built on budget and on schedule in the United States. I hope the answers are yes and yes, and that the final cost of electricity is at the lower end of the uncertainty range. I say this because if nuclear energy is to survive as a viable option, it will need to compete against other low-carbon technologies in the long run.

Some may object to the building of new nuclear plants before we have a long-term solution to the question of what to do with nuclear waste. It is true we do not have a permanent solution right now. It is also true that the answers about the viability, both environmental and political, of Yucca Mountain as a permanent waste facility continue to elude us. I fully acknowledge that as a Member of the House of Representatives, I shared these concerns and voted accordingly. But uncertainty about a long-term and permanent solution to waste storage is not a reason to halt nuclear power. I am confident that we have the technical capabilities and knowledge to safely and responsibly store nuclear waste for the required time periods. This is not a technology problem. It is a challenge to find a fair and safe path forward, and I support the President's intention to appoint a blue ribbon commission to make such a recommendation.

In the meantime, dry cask storage provides a safe, proven option for at least 100 years. We have time to get this right, so let us not rush into anything out of a false sense of emergency.

Let me turn to another subject tied to nuclear power production, and that

is reprocessing. It has been suggested that we should build commercial scale facilities in the United States to reprocess our spent fuel as France and Japan do. I do not believe that makes sense. Why? First, the French system of reprocessing is not a comprehensive waste management strategy, and so far the benefits from that approach have been fairly marginal. In other words, they have not solved their waste challenge with reprocessing. Secondly, we do not need to recycle spent nuclear fuel to enable the expansion of nuclear power in the United States and elsewhere. Uranium supplies are sufficient to support a worldwide expansion of nuclear power during this next century. Third, the international proliferation risk associated with reprocessing is a concern. The process used in France creates separated plutonium which could be diverted for weapons production. I do not want to see separated plutonium in any country but especially in those that are unfriendly to us. And we are in a weaker position to try and dissuade those countries from reprocessing if we are doing it ourselves.

My conclusion is that a near-term decision to deploy reprocessing facilities would be unwise and unnecessary. I do support research into advanced proliferation-resistant technologies, though none of those will be ready for deployment anytime in the near future. In general, our goal should be to keep nuclear power as low-cost and proliferation- resistant as possible.

To that end, today I am introducing a bipartisan bill, the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Improvement Act of 2009. This bill, which is cosponsored by Chairman Bingaman and Ranking Member Murkowski, authorizes the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct research into modular and small-scale reactors, enhanced proliferation controls, and cost-efficient manufacturing.

We are going to be debating clean energy later this Congress. I know several of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would like to see a strong nuclear title. I hope we can come to a reasonable compromise that advances nuclear power and allows us to finally put a price on carbon pollution. That will give the energy sector the certainty it needs to begin planning and building our clean energy future and to begin creating clean energy jobs.

Nuclear plants to date provide jobs for thousands of Americans, and new plants would provide thousands more. New plants would also generate millions in tax revenues for State, local, and Federal governments struggling with large deficits from the economic downturn. Nuclear power's energy security and environmental benefits have earned this industry an important place at the table. It is my hope we can build some nuclear plants over the next decade to create jobs and build a cleaner, more secure tomorrow.

I invite all of my colleagues, from both sides of the aisle, to join Senator Bingaman, Senator Murkowski, and me in cosponsoring the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Improvement Act of 2009.

One of my energy fellows, Matt Bowen, is leaving my office to join the Department of Energy. I thank Matt for his work in my office, including on the bill I am introducing today, and I wish him well at the Department of Energy. We have been well served as a country by Matt Bowen's patriotism and work ethic.