Veterans Health Equity Act of 2009

Mr. President, I rise to offer some thoughts and observations about the Presidency of George W. Bush as his time in office comes to a close. This is truly a time to thank God for our country, for our system of government, and for our liberty-- unparalleled in the history of the world.

President Bush served at a time of great challenge and even crisis for our country and I wish to focus on him both as a President and a person.

When America's Founders gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, it is said someone asked Benjamin Franklin, the Constitutional Convention's oldest delegate, what form of government was under construction. He famously answered: A republic, if you can keep it. James Madison defined a republic as a government which derives its powers from the people, a principle enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

One way we work to keep our Republic is by the people choosing those who will govern them. In his farewell address in 1837, President Andrew Jackson said:

But you must remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal

vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you

must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.

Elections and transitions of power are part of that vigilance; part of keeping our Republic in order that we might, in the words of the Constitution's preamble, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Every transition goes from something to something and is an occasion to look at what is concluded as well as what is beginning. With the inauguration of President-elect Obama around the corner and the flurry of confirmation activity in the Senate regarding his nominees and the intense focus on economic and other challenges, much of our attention is rightfully focused on the future. But we look to the future from a present shaped by the past. Only by understanding where we have been can we have the ability, perspective, and confidence to act today and plan for tomorrow.

Although a Presidency has a beginning and an end, it is simply part of the flow of events. Presidents inherit situations they did not create and create situations that they then leave to their successors. They may get credit for successes they did not produce and escape blame for failures that do not materialize until after they leave office. That is the nature of political life in America. While we focus on the individual--the President--I think it is more appropriate to speak of an administration--the Presidency.

There are hundreds and hundreds of people who serve at the pleasure of the President to develop and implement his agenda. All this makes very difficult even describing, let alone evaluating, something as multifaceted as the Bush Presidency. Some of President Bush's critics almost reflexively look at opinion polls, noting his approval rating has sunk. I do not have to tell anyone serving in public office about the allure as well as the danger of this particular reflex. Polls are snapshots, they are not motion pictures. The pollster is the photographer. He chooses the subject, the lighting, and the angle. He frames the shot and determines how the final picture turns out.

The Bush Presidency was book-ended by national crises--the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the financial crisis before us today. Not surprisingly, as the Washington Post pointed out a few days ago, President Bush enjoyed the highest approval rating in late 2001 and nearly the lowest in late 2008 in the history of the Post's reporting. Once again, that is the nature of political life in America and comes with the Presidential territory.

While President Bush's approval rating has many ups and downs, one thing has remained absolutely constant: His approval rating has been consistently higher than ours in the Congress. The Web site pollingreport.com shows that dozens of national polls in the last couple years have given Congress an approval rating in the tens, down to a measly 12 percent, while President Bush has never had one that low. We in the Congress have the advantage of getting lost in the crowd when we want to, blaming such dismal public sentiment on the institution, while insisting that as individual Members we are certainly much more popular. The President never has that luxury.

The polls do not ask whether Americans approve of his administration but whether they approve of him. President Bush knows it is tough to lead if you follow the polls. As he said in an interview last month, he did not compromise his soul to be a popular guy. George W. Bush is not leaving the Presidency with chapped fingers from holding them up to the political wind. His critics spin that as stubbornness, saying he wants to go it alone. I fully expect many of those same Bush critics will praise the next President for the very same thing.

One man's principle, I suppose, is another man's inflexibility.

But as President Bush said at Texas A&M University, popularity is fleeting but character and conscience are sturdy.

The only test that matters, he said, is going home at night, looking in the mirror and being satisfied that you have done what is right.

Politics, of course, is about disagreement and competing ideas, priorities, and policies. Conservative leader and thinker Paul Weyrich, who passed away last month, has written about what he called constructive polarization.

That is the idea that clearly defined, and clearly different, choices and alternatives can be constructive for the electoral and political process.

Disagreement and competition help us to focus and refine ideas, to work harder at finding the best solution.

But I regret to say that there is often today more effort at enraging than engaging, and that along with disagreement has come disrespect.

Too often an opponent is treated not simply as wrong but as rotten, and that is when the distinction between an office and the individual who holds it breaks down and political objectives take precedence over institutional principles.

I have seen that destructive trend over the last 8 years and I hope, for the sake of the next president and for our country, it does not continue.

I join President Bush who has said that the tone in Washington got worse rather than better during his presidency and I urge my colleagues, and all others who participate in so many ways in our political process, to do some real soul-searching about this.

In addition to looking at the polls, it is easy when looking back at a presidency to look no further than the most recent events.

The financial and economic situation has deteriorated so fast in the last several months, and the difficulties have spread so quickly and loom so large, that it is difficult to see anything that came before.

The truth is, however, that we experienced a record economic expansion before that downturn occurred, 52 months of uninterrupted job creation.

Another mistake in evaluating a Presidency is a simple one.

We act as if we know everything that can be known, that the jury could possibly have already come back with the verdict.

The jury is still out, and will remain there for a long time, which is why we more properly talk about history judging a President.

As President Bush put it in one interview, folks are still writing books analyzing President George Washington.

President George Bush is not going to worry about it.

President Harry Truman's own party discouraged him from running for re-

election and he left office with an approval rating even lower than President Bush will, yet today is mentioned among the twentieth century's best presidents, and one of my personal favorite Presidents of all time.

The facts of what President Bush has done, not to mention their effects, will not be fully understood or even known by most Americans for many years to come.

In evaluating a Presidency, we should also look not only at individual programs or neatly numerical accomplishments but also at the challenges than cannot be reduced to charts, graphs, or bullet points.

President Bush certainly came into office with goals to achieve, problems to solve, and situations to handle.

He had offered concrete proposals and made campaign promises.

There is a long list of bills he signed, programs he initiated, appointments he made, and other concrete achievements that can be measured and listed.

I will mention some of those in a minute.

But the President-elect has already shown us how quickly those promises get tossed on the cutting-room floor.

The Washington Post just reported that, before Mr. Obama has even taken the oath of office, his proposal for a tax credit for job creation, which he had touted on the campaign trail, has been dumped from the economic stimulus package now under construction.

But in addition to specific programs or proposals, President Bush has worked hard to get us to think differently, to shift paradigms, to re- order our understanding of America, the world, and our relationship to it.

That is more qualitative than quantitative, and perhaps it is harder to measure with numbers or notches on a board somewhere, but it is as much a part of leadership and vigilance that is necessary to keep this Republic as anything else.

We are in the eighth year since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

What a way for a President to begin his first term.

The world changed, and American changed with it.

Previous generations saw the struggle against global communism define much of what America did and how we did it.

Today, it is the struggle against global terrorism.

It may have begun in earnest with President Bush in office, but it will continue long afterward.

And so national security has defined the Bush Presidency.

Not simply the subject of national security, but the reality of national security. From retooling the Department of Justice and FBI, creating the Department of Homeland Security, revamping the intelligence community, to engaging dozens of other nations, and liberating millions in the Middle East, President Bush took bold steps to confront this new international menace.

In short, he led.

President Bush has sought to lead us to think differently about war and terrorism, and to understand both that terrorism is a global threat and that freedom is terrorism's worst enemy.

He has said throughout his Presidency that freedom comes from God and is a universal human right.

Freedom is better than tyranny, liberty is better than oppression.

I am so grateful that President Bush refused to accept this moral- equivalency nonsense that one way of life is just as good or bad as the next.

Not only does that view make no sense on its face, but with it no one would ever see liberation from disease, hunger, slavery, or deprivation.

That is a philosophical perspective, to be sure, and perhaps it is difficult to communicate in the 21st century, perhaps it does not lend itself to a text message or a posting on Facebook.

But where you start determines the road on which you travel and where you eventually arrive, both for individuals and nations.

President Bush told the American Enterprise Institute last month that a President's job is not only to tackle problems but to look over the horizon.

That is real leadership.

Let me move to some of those concrete accomplishments.

Though some may wish to forget it, I remember when so many dismissed President Bush's strategy in Iraq that we have come to call ``the surge.''

Once again, he was thinking outside the box, changing the way we think about dealing with challenges and problems.

The surge was more than simply sending more troops to Iraq, but implemented a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy.

It provided for one of the most dramatic comebacks in the history of modern warfare.

In less than 2 years, what some had said was a hopeless situation saw an 80 percent reduction in violence.

Cities and provinces whose names were literal synonyms for violence-- Ramadi, Fallujah, Baghdad, and others--are now largely free of al- Qaida's operatives.

And let me say at this point that President Bush has reaffirmed our sacred commitment to our veterans.

His administration has more than doubled funding for veterans' medical care, cutting the time to process disability claims almost in half and reducing homelessness among veterans by 40 percent.

It is, of course, much easier, much more natural, to think about what has happened rather than what has not happened.

This is true for many reasons, not the least of which is that we often simply do not know what has not happened. But think about this. We do know that America has not been attacked since September 11, 2001. That is 88 months.

I know that no one listening to me speak is foolish enough to think this is because the terrorists, the terrorist networks, the terrorist movement at work today have simply lost interest.

No one is foolish enough to think the terrorists have just moved on to other things.

No, they want more than ever to attack and destroy this country, if only because their first attack failed to bring us down.

It has not happened in more than 7 years.

President Bush's leadership has helped prevent another attack.

His leadership in creating an international coalition, in working with other individual nations, in transforming and redirecting intelligence and law enforcement agencies, has helped prevent another attack.

We have fought over these issues here in Congress, and I for one agree with President Bush that we must, for example, monitor international communication involving suspected terrorists if we are to protect ourselves.

Doing so is both necessary and constitutional, and I am glad President Bush stood firm on those principles.

President Bush has also helped protect us here at home by reducing the threat of rogue nations or groups launching a missile attack against the United States.

President Bush fielded an operational missile defense system, which will require additional investment and development.

But because of his leadership, we have already developed significant anti-ballistic missile capability both on the ground and at sea.

Also looking abroad, President Bush has led us to rethink how we approach foreign aid with a new model of assistance to other countries.

He signed millennium challenge account agreements with nearly a dozen African nations and put more emphasis on holding governments that receive our aid accountable for how they treat their people and whether they promote economic growth.

This approach actually invites competition, utilizes criteria, and requires progress, and it requires a strong link between our security objectives, accountability, and foreign-assistance funding.

Linking these together serves both American and foreign interests better and it took bold leadership to shift into this new way of approaching foreign assistance.

In his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush introduced the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. I happened to have been very interested in that and worked hard to get that done, too, because--along with Senator Kennedy--we are the authors of these three anti-AIDS bills, so I take a great interest in what he has done and he is the first to have really done it.

This program focuses on both prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and care.

Billions of dollars have already gone to prevent the spread of HIV/ AIDS and opportunistic diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis that often kill people with AIDS.

This program has prevented HIV transmission from mother to child during more than 12 million pregnancies and provided antiretroviral drugs for nearly 2 million people, up from only 50,000 receiving such drugs when the program began.

PEPFAR has helped support care for nearly 7 million children and more than 33 million counseling and testing sessions for men, women, and children.

This program launched by President Bush, which was reauthorized last year with increased funding, is the largest international health initiative in history dedicated to a single disease.

Shifting the focus to right here at home, even though the downturn of the last year has been severe, it was preceded by a record 52 months of job creation.

Productivity in his first term grew at the fastest rate in more than half a century.

Before the recent spike, the average seasonally adjusted unemployment rate during President Bush's tenure was the lowest in 60 years.

President Bush cut taxes for every American who pays taxes, doubled the child tax credit to help American families, provided marriage penalty relief, and began phasing out the estate tax.

The roots of the current financial crisis extend before President Bush took office and his warnings went unheeded.

In April 2001, just 3 months in office, he warned that financial trouble at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have strong repercussions in financial markets.

In May 2002, he called for disclosure and corporate governance principles to be applied to those agencies.

In February 2003, the Bush administration warned that unexpected problems at Fannie and Freddie could immediately spread beyond the housing market.

Seven months later, the Treasury Secretary called for prudent minimum capital adequacy requirements for Fannie and Freddie.

In February 2004, President Bush called for stronger regulation of Fannie and Freddie because of their low levels of required capital, that is, subprime mortgages.

Warnings continued month after month, year after year.

The notion that the Bush administration sat by while the problem developed or, worse yet, fought increased regulation is simply a lie.

President Bush campaigned on education reform, having the courage to speak of what he called the bigotry of low expectations.

He delivered education reform with the No Child Left Behind Act, and I can tell you what a difference it has made.

One example is Dee Elementary School in Ogden, UT.

Nearly every student in that school is economically disadvantaged, more than 80 percent are minorities, more than 44 percent are learning the English language, and 10 percent are homeless.

Those are challenging demographics no matter where they are found.

At the beginning of the 2003-04 school year, only 13 percent of Dee Elementary third-graders were reading at grade level.

In just 5 years, after Dee Elementary was chosen to participate in the Reading First program, that figure quadrupled to 52 percent.

The school jumped from only the 9th percentile in fifth grade reading to the 43rd percentile.

And I am so proud to say that Dee Elementary has now met Adequate Yearly Progress standards for 3 consecutive years.

Lives are changed, hopes are kindled, and futures are brighter as a result.

Empowering teachers to help students meet higher expectations works, and that has become Federal educational policy under President Bush.

The educational achievement gap between White and minority students narrowed and both fourth and eighth graders achieved their highest reading and math scores on record.

I am hopeful that the new President's Secretary of Education will recognize and build on the reform-oriented approach of the Bush administration through supporting policies such as charter schools and school choice.

President Bush campaigned on Medicare reform, and he delivered with the Medicare Modernization Act, the most significant reform of the Medicare Program since it was created in 1965.

As a result of this law, 40 million Americans have better access to prescriptions and have choices in their health coverage.

It also provided for health savings accounts, which President Bush insisted not be limited solely to Medicare beneficiaries.

These accounts are portable and give people more choices and more ways to improve their lives.

I served on the House-Senate conference committee on this legislation and attribute its success to President Bush's leadership.

President Bush has challenged all Americans, and his own party, to change the way we address real human needs in this country.

This includes increasing the impact of nonprofit organizations, ending discrimination against faith-based groups that can provide services, and promoting volunteerism.

As a result, chronic homelessness has dropped by nearly 30 percent in just the last few years.

President Bush also advanced a culture of life.

Our Declaration of Independence recognizes that we are endowed by our Creator with an inalienable right to life.

That is a foundational principle.

In an interview a year ago, President Bush said that his belief that every human life has dignity has informed his policies and programs.

I do not understand where the compassion and commitment comes from for hundreds of programs and billions of dollars to help millions of people without believing that those people's very lives are worth protecting.

The conviction that life itself is sacred is the best foundation for liberty and prosperity, for human and civil rights.

President Bush shares that conviction and signed into law the ban on the horrific practice of partial birth abortion, which the Supreme Court has upheld.

He also signed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

President Bush also appointed judges who know their proper place in our system of government.

Our liberty depends on limited government, and that means government limited by a written Constitution that actually means something.

The Constitution cannot limit government if government defines the Constitution. President Bush appointed judges who know that this principle applies to them. This is one of the most important, and most long-lasting, results of President Bush's leadership.

Others believe that judges not only apply the law, but make the law they apply.

Others believe that judges should decide cases based on where their personal empathy lies, based on the political interests that can be served.

Others believe that judges should take sides in a case before those sides even appear in court.

That activist, politicized view of judging will destroy our liberty and I am glad that President Bush sided with America's Founders and appointed judges who will interpret and apply the law and leave politics to the people.

President Bush charted a new course for energy security.

This is another area which the recent financial crisis can easily obscure, but President Bush's first order of business was producing a major energy plan and task force.

That plan became the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

It included a proposal I authored called the CLEAR Act, which provided incentives for hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles.

President Bush's advocacy of plug-in hybrid vehicle technology resulted in passage of the FREEDOM Act, which I drafted along with Senators Barack Obama and Maria Cantwell.

And President Bush called for developing our Nation's unconventional fuel resources, including oil shale and tar sand.

Only the most willful denial or ideological distortion will buy the spin from environmental extremists that

President Bush has done nothing to protect the environment or to move us away from our dependence on oil.

At the same time, knowing that our current transportation needs depend on oil, President Bush has led the way to doubling domestic oil and gas production on public lands.

I could go on about issue after issue, listing one accomplishment after another, but my remarks today are intended to be more than just a factual recitation.

Many others are writing and analyzing the Bush presidency and record from many different perspectives.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have an editorial titled ``Bush's Achievements'' from the January 19 issue of the Weekly Standard printed in the Record following my remarks.

Before I close, I have to say a word about our wonderful and gracious First Lady, Laura Bush.

Her strength, dignity, and grace will leave a lasting mark on the role of First Lady.

She was a kind, steady presence, advocating for causes in her own right as the President led the Nation in his.

And in times of great tragedy, she was the voice and personification of comfort and kindness.

She confidently balanced the public and private aspects of life and family. Like her husband, Laura Bush was just what our country needed.

President Bush has been our leader, our chosen leader, for the past 8 years.

He has been a man of principle, conviction, and action.

He has had to tackle challenges, both here and abroad, that are difficult even to describe, let alone comprehend.

There have been many successes, and this has been a time of transition, adjustment, and change.

President Bush, as is his way, takes a very practical view of his contribution to America.

He says he will be remembered as someone who dealt with tough issues head on, helping our country protect itself, and who was unashamed about spreading certain fundamental values such as liberty.

At home, he says, he trusts individual Americans to make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

In his last State of the Union Address, President Bush said that our Nation will prosper, our liberty will be secure, and our union will remain strong if we trust in the ability of free people to make decisions.

Protecting America from outside enemies and strengthening America from within.

That is a legacy to be proud of, and I am so thankful for President Bush's leadership and courage and I pray for God's richest blessings for him, for First Lady Laura Bush, and their family in whatever lies ahead for them.

Let me close with a quote from President Theodore Roosevelt, whom I know President Bush admires.

President Roosevelt said this in Paris in 1910 and it expresses my sentiments about President Bush as his time in office ends.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out

how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could

have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is

actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat

and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short

again and again, because there is no effort without error or

shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great

devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the

best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and

who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while

daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those

cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

Exhibit 1

[From the weekly Standard, Jan. 19, 2009]

Bush's Achievements--Ten Things the President Got Right.

(By Fred Barnes)

The postmortems on the presidency of George W. Bush are all

wrong. The liberal line is that Bush dangerously weakened

America's position in the world and rushed to the aid of the

rich and powerful as income inequality worsened. That is

twaddle. Conservatives--okay, not all of them--have only been

a little bit kinder. They give Bush credit for the surge that

saved Iraq, but not for much else.

He deserves better. His presidency was far more successful

than not. And there's an aspect of his decision-making that

merits special recognition: his courage. Time and time again,

Bush did what other presidents, even Ronald Reagan, would not

have done and for which he was vilified and abused. That--

defiantly doing the right thing--is what distinguished his

presidency.

Bush had ten great achievements (and maybe more) in his

eight years in the White House, starting with his decision in

2001 to jettison the Kyoto global warming treaty so loved by

Al Gore, the environmental lobby, elite opinion, and

Europeans. The treaty was a disaster, with India and China

exempted and economic decline the certain result. Everyone

knew it. But only Bush said so and acted accordingly.

He stood athwart mounting global warming hysteria and

yelled, ``Stop!'' He slowed the movement toward a policy

blunder of worldwide impact, providing time for facts to

catch up with the dubious claims of alarmists. Thanks in part

to Bush, the supposed consensus of scientists on global

warming has now collapsed. The skeptics, who point to global

cooling over the past decade, are now heard loud and clear.

And a rational approach to the theory of manmade global

warming is possible.

Second, enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Along with

use of secret prisons and wireless eavesdropping, this saved

American lives. How many thousands of lives? We'll never

know. But, as Charles Krauthammer said recently, ``Those are

precisely the elements which kept us safe and which have

prevented a second attack.''

Crucial intelligence was obtained from captured al Qaeda

leaders, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,

with the help of waterboarding. Whether this tactic--it

creates a drowning sensation--is torture is a matter of

debate. John McCain and many Democrats say it is. Bush and

Vice President Cheney insist it isn't. In any case, it was

necessary. Lincoln once made a similar point in defending his

suspension of habeas corpus in direct defiance of Chief

Justice Roger Taney. ``Are all the laws but one to go

unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that

one be violated?'' Lincoln asked. Bush understood the answer

in wartime had to be no.

Bush's third achievement was the rebuilding of presidential

authority, badly degraded in the era of Vietnam, Watergate,

and Bill Clinton. He didn't hesitate to conduct wireless

surveillance of terrorists without getting a federal judge's

okay. He decided on his own how to treat terrorists and where

they should be imprisoned. Those were legitimate decisions

for which the president, as commander in chief, should feel

no need to apologize.

Defending, all the way to the Supreme Court, Cheney's

refusal to disclose to Congress the names of people he'd

consulted on energy policy was also enormously important.

Democratic congressman Henry Waxman demanded the names, but

the Court upheld Cheney, 7-2. Last week, Cheney defended his

refusal, waspishly noting that Waxman ``doesn't call me up

and tell me who he's meeting with.''

Achievement number four was Bush's unswerving support for

Israel. Reagan was once deemed Israel's best friend in the

White House. Now Bush can claim the title. He ostracized

Yasser Arafat as an impediment to peace in the Middle East.

This infuriated the anti-Israel forces in Europe, the Third

World, and the United Nations, and was criticized by

champions of the ``peace process'' here at home. Bush was

right.

He was clever in his support. Bush announced that Ariel

Sharon should withdraw the tanks he'd sent into the West Bank

in 2002, then exerted zero pressure on Sharon to do so. And

he backed the wall along Israel's eastern border without

endorsing it as an official boundary, while knowing full well

that it might eventually become exactly that. He was a loyal

friend.

His fifth success was No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the

education reform bill cosponsored by America's most prominent

liberal Democratic senator Edward Kennedy. The teachers'

unions, school boards, the education establishment,

conservatives adamant about local control of schools--they

all loathed the measure and still do. It requires two things

they ardently oppose, mandatory testing and accountability.

Kennedy later turned against NCLB, saying Bush is

shortchanging the program. In truth, federal education

spending is at record levels. Another complaint is that it

forces teachers to ``teach to the test.'' The tests are on

math and reading. They are tests worth teaching to.

Sixth, Bush declared in his second inaugural address in

2005 that American foreign policy (at least his) would

henceforth focus on promoting democracy around the world.

This put him squarely in the Reagan camp, but he was

lambasted as unrealistic, impractical, and a tool of wily

neoconservatives. The new policy gave Bush credibility in

pressing for democracy in the former Soviet republics and

Middle East and in zinging various dictators and kleptocrats.

It will do the same for President Obama, if he's wise enough

to hang onto it.

The seventh achievement is the Medicare prescription drug

benefit, enacted in 2003. It's not only wildly popular; it

has cost less than expected by triggering competition among

drug companies. Conservatives have deep reservations about

the program. But they shouldn't have been surprised. Bush

advocated the drug benefit in the 2000 campaign. And if he

hadn't acted, Democrats

would have, with a much less attractive result.

Then there were John Roberts and Sam Alito. In putting them

on the Supreme Court and naming Roberts chief justice, Bush

achieved what had eluded Richard Nixon, Reagan, and his own

father. Roberts and Alito made the Court indisputably more

conservative. And the good news is Roberts, 53, and Alito,

58, should be justices for decades to come.

Bush's ninth achievement has been widely ignored. He

strengthened relations with east Asian democracies (Japan,

South Korea, Australia) without causing a rift with China. On

top of that, he forged strong ties with India. An important

factor was their common enemy, Islamic jihadists. After 9/11,

Bush made the most of this, and Indian leaders were

receptive. His state dinner for Indian prime minister

Manmohan Singh in 2006 was a lovefest.

Finally, a no-brainer: the surge. Bush prompted nearly

unanimous disapproval in January 2007 when he announced he

was sending more troops to Iraq and adopting a new

counterinsurgency strategy. His opponents initially included

the State Department, the Pentagon, most of Congress, the

media, the foreign policy establishment, indeed the whole

world. This makes his decision a profile in courage. Best of

all, the surge worked. Iraq is now a fragile but functioning

democracy.

How does Bush rank as a president? We won't know until he's

judged from the perspective of two or three decades.

Hindsight forced a sharp upgrading of the presidencies of

Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Given his achievements,

it may have the same effect for Bush.

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

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Madam President, I have been pretty outspoken in the last several weeks on the $700 billion bailout. I still believe historians will look back someday and say it was the most outrageous vote ever taken. It is the largest single expenditure in the history of the country.

To make matters worse, it was giving an unelected bureaucrat total power, usurping our powers, to make all decisions over the $700 billion with no oversight whatsoever. It had never been done before. It was unprecedented in American history. Nobody seems to care. It is mind- boggling to me to know that it happened, and now it looks as though we will be voting in the other body as well as here on a motion that would be hostile to the whole idea, but it will not pass. The money is going to be there anyway. The reason is, if the legislation that will be coming before the House and the Senate is passed, it still can be vetoed by the President, and it would be vetoed by the President. So all of a sudden he is going to have the second half of the $700 billion, the $350 billion laid at his doorstep to do with as he wishes.

I wouldn't want that for a Republican President or a Democratic President, for any President. It is not the way we are supposed to function. I believe it is a fait accompli. I don't see any way a resolution of disapproval is going to be effective, because I think it is going to pass the House and very likely could pass here. I am inclined to think it will not. Whatever the case is, it will become a reality.

That is bad for many reasons. It establishes a precedent. People look at large numbers, and it is difficult for the American people and for me to appreciate how much money is $700 billion. What I normally do when we deal with large numbers is, I take the total number of families in America who file tax returns and do the math. This turns out to be $5,000 a family. When I say it in those terms, which I have done quite a bit on talk radio as a wake-up call to the American people, then people do understand.

I have been a little critical of my own President, President Bush, because he has let this happen. This wasn't a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. It was the President's idea, in concert with the Democrats, making this happen. This vote took place on October 10. Ever since October 10, I have had legislation I have tried to get through saying that it is not going to be automatic. Accessing the second $350 billion should not be automatic, and we had legislation to keep it from being so until 2 nights ago when President Bush agreed to a wish list by our new President when he comes into power. It is going to happen. Again, this is unprecedented in American history. It has never happened before.

I have been critical of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Paulson, for telling us what he was going to do with the money and then turning around and not doing it. He did not tell us the truth. It is disingenuous. Nonetheless, it is something that looks as though it will be happening and it looks as though it will happen this week.

In defense of President Bush, if we take the total amount of deficits of the 8 years of his presidency from his own budget, add them up and divide by 8, it averages $247 billion a year. Compare that with what we are faced with right now with the new administration which has said it is going to be somewhere between $1.2 and $1.8 trillion. I think people will look at this and say that the Bush legacy is not going to be one of deficits, because it is nothing compared to the deficits we are projecting for the coming year, as proposed by the incoming President.

The reason I mention that is because I have somewhat accused President Bush of looking for a legacy. It occurs to me that George W. Bush has a legacy that may be unlike any other President in history. I call this the invisible legacy of President George W. Bush. I will explain in detail how I have come to this conclusion.

President Bush inherited a weaker America militarily. All of a sudden, after he came in, 9/11 occurred. So let's go back in history. When George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001, he was already behind the power curve when it came to the war on terror. As the 9/11 Commission confirmed, the United States was not on a wartime footing with al- Qaida, even though they were at war with us. While our country took its peace dividend, our enemies continued to train, plot, and test. It was a peace dividend, a euphoric attitude that the Cold War is over, and we don't need a military anymore. That is what we were living with at the time.

International terrorism took the forefront as bin Laden began his war against freedom and specifically against the United States. Afghanistan was used as a training ground for terrorists, and the Taliban regime allowed al-Qaida unfettered mobility. They took advantage of this in major attacks.

Look at what happened back in the 1990s. This was a predicate leading to 9/11, the worst tragedy in the history of America. On February 26, 1993, a car bomb was planted in an underground parking garage below the World Trade Center. This was the first World Trade Center attack. On June 25, 1996, the Khobar Towers were bombed by Hezbollah, with intelligence pointing to support by al-Qaida. That was 1996. We knew al-Qaida was on the run at that time. We knew of their abilities, the increasing sophistication in their terrorist attacks. On August 7, 1998, we recall what happened in Tanzania and Kenya and Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Our embassies were bombed. Links were at that time established with al-Qaida. In October 2000, suicide bombers used a boat to attack the USS Cole while it was moored in Yemen. It was

one we all remember well, and we remember how it happened. We know the terrorist links that took place at that time. The response of the United States was at best inconsistent.

Operation Infinite Reach included cruise missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan, but there was no real change. This inadequate response has been cited as a factor in emboldening al-Qaida's will to undertake more ambitious plans. That was simply kind of small. They had bigger plans. We know that now.

In Operation Restore Hope, we became entangled in Somalia. We remember that very well, with the naked bodies being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, and America finally woke up, but we did not do anything. We kind of let it happen. We directed our forces to stop all actions against Adid except for those required for self-defense. Well, that is not a very good message, not a consistent message with our behavior in the past. So we withdrew from the country shortly thereafter.

We also failed to remain vigilant of the Chinese.

Security at our national labs was deliberately destroyed. We did away with--and this happened actually in the first few weeks of the Clinton- Gore administration. They went through the energy labs and they stopped the wiretapping, they stopped the background checks they were conducting at the time. They stopped color-coded badges saying it was demeaning to have a color of a badge that was on a lower scale than somebody else's. So that is what happened. Of course, we know the results of that.

In 1995, we discovered that China had stolen our W-88 warhead plans. That was the crown jewel of our nuclear program, capable of attaching 10 nuclear missiles to a single warhead. But they had it. They got it. They got it because of a lack of security that was the policy of that administration at the time, and I was critical at that time.

I remember Bernard Schwartz of Loral Space and Communications. They were given a green light to improve the precision and reliability of China's satellites and nuclear missiles. To refresh our memories--I remember it very well--it required the President to sign a waiver, a special waiver, so the Chinese missile program would have greater accuracy. That happened during the 1990s.

China also gained the capability of accurately reaching the continental United States with missiles and targeted between 13 and 18 United States cities. I was critical of President Clinton for claiming, at that time--he said: Not one missile is pointed at American children, when in fact missiles were pointed at American children. That was happening during the 1990s.

Simultaneously, weapons of mass destruction proliferation throughout the world reached an unprecedented level. The Chinese Government learned that it could rely on our acquiescence. They transferred prohibited weapons technology to North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and other countries, threatened to absorb Taiwan, and intimidated our regional treaty allies, South Korea and Japan.

The vast Soviet Union nuclear stockpile became fair game for entrepreneurs, with over 40 kilograms of Russian-origin uranium and plutonium being seized since 1991.

Then remember Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, who began an international network of clandestine nuclear proliferation to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on March 12, 1993, and refused to allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites. And Libya further continued weapons of mass destruction research as a priority.

Now, despite the increase in terrorist activities around the world and the growing signs of a direct threat to this country, we essentially broke our intelligence community through the lack of funding, an inadequate number of linguists, and no interagency cooperation.

I have to say this. My predecessor to this job was former Senator David Boren. David Boren's young son Dan is a very talented young man now serving in the House of Representatives. I was in the House and came to the Senate in 1994. I took his seat.

He at that time was chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the Senate, and he made the statement to me--he called me up, and he said: Inhofe, I want you to try to do something I failed to do during the time I was chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. He said: We have all these agencies--the FBI, the NSA, all the defense intelligence agencies--and none of them talks to each other. Then I found out later on that was so true. He said: You have to get this done. That has to be a high priority. I told him it would be. We were not able to do anything until George W. Bush came in.

If this was not enough, with the demise of the Soviet Union, our military was essentially neutered to counter a ``perceived'' diminished world threat. I remember so well this euphoric attitude that everybody had: The Cold War is over. We don't need a military anymore.

The Clinton-Gore administration cut the defense budget by 40 percent, reducing it to its lowest percentage of the GNP since prior to World War II. As a result, President Bush inherited a force half the size of the military in 1990.

Now, as our forces decreased in size and capability, deployments and deployment times increased. We have all seen the results. We now have 15-month deployments. They used to be 9-month deployments. We have these because he inherited this military that was undersized for the threat we are facing.

I have a chart in the Chamber I will show as documentation of this fact. During the Clinton years--and I do not say this to denigrate the administration; I am saying we have to understand how we got in the position we are in today and that we have been in since 9/11. If you take the black line on the chart--this is during the Clinton administration--if he had taken the military budget as it was at that time and had the increase for inflation, it would have been this black line going up, shown on the chart. Instead, the red line shows what his budget request was. If you take the difference between the red line and the black line, that is $412 billion reduced from when he took office.

That is how we got into this position. We downgraded our military, and a lot of people believed the threat was not there anymore because the Cold War was over, not looking at the new asymmetric threats, which are much greater.

I sometimes look back wistfully at the Cold War. Things were predictable back then. We knew what the Soviets were going to do--the Soviets, not the Russians--and we knew what their capabilities were. These were known things, known behavioral patterns. It was totally different than what we have today.

So the programs, the modernization efforts, and the equipment replacement costs were literally kicked down the road and left waiting in the wings. This happened to our modernization program. It happened in many areas. This has been very demoralizing to most of us who believe we have to keep America's national defense strong.

We saw countries coming up with better systems than we have. We have, for example, the artillery piece, the best one we have today now that we are modernizing. But we did not have that at that time. We had one called the Paladin. That was World War II technology. You have to get out and swab the breach after every shot.

There were five countries at that time, including South Africa, that made a better piece than we had, and we are still using this today. It was not until a very courageous general, GEN John Jumper, came up and admitted, in 1998, that the best strike vehicles we had--the F-15 and the F-16--were not as good as some of the SU series being developed in Russia and actually were being sold to the Chinese--we know of one sale where they bought 240 SU-30 type of vehicles--again, better than anything we had.

So, again, that is where we were before George W. Bush was elected.

Now enter President George W. Bush.

Starting with his first budget submission after inauguration, he proposed increases in defense spending and focused his Pentagon team on reform. He started with recognizing and revitalizing the military for the post-Cold War world it now faced. He provided the military with the funding required

to develop force structure and modernize its aging force. So he was getting in there and starting to do something about the modernization program.

Then, of course, 9/11 happened. Well, 9/11, we all know about that. We know what a tragedy it was, with the most significant attack in America in our history. It came at a time when we had a downsized military, downsized by about 40 percent. So he was saddled with trying to respond to this situation, and he did.

He asked Congress for new authorities and began to implement sweeping changes in our national security policy. In this new policy he declared a war on terror. This is what he said--I want to read the quote from back at that time:

We will direct every resource at our command--every means

of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of

law enforcement, every financial influence, and every

necessary weapon of war--to the disruption and to the defeat

of the global terror network.

That is what he said at that time. Then he outlined the country's strategy. He said:

First, we're determined to prevent the attacks of terrorist

networks before they occur. . . .

Unlike it was on 9/11.

Second, we're determined to deny weapons of mass

destruction to outlaw regimes and

to their terrorist allies who would use

them. . . .

Third, we're determined to deny radical groups the support

and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. . . .

Fourth, we're determined to deny militants control of any

nation.

And he did. He asked Congress for the PATRIOT Act--listen to the things he did--the PATRIOT Act to break down walls between Government agencies. That is getting back to what David Boren observed many years ago back in 1994 that had to be done.

In October of 2001, he initiated Operation Enduring Freedom to dismantle the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which is harboring al- Qaida. Bombing runs and Tomahawk missile strikes were launched.

In October of 2001, President Bush established the Office of Homeland Security. This was a coordinating effort that corrects the problem that was called to my attention in 1994, so everything would be coordinated and everyone would know what everyone is supposed to be doing.

The 9/11 Commission was formed and he began implementing its recommendations, including intelligence reform, which included establishing the Director of National Intelligence. There you have it. That is the key. One Director over all intelligence: military intelligence, domestic intelligence--and it worked.

On March of 2003, President Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom, preemptive attacks against Saddam Hussein, a gathering threat to the United States, who was reportedly developing ties with our enemies and who openly praised the 9/11 attacks.

I remember that very well because in the first gulf war--which we should have gone ahead and taken care of Saddam Hussein at that time; we did not do it, and there are some reasons it could not be done--I happened to be privileged to be with nine other people on the first freedom flight that went into Kuwait after the war was over. Now, it was so close to the time the first Persian Gulf war was over that there was still burning off the fields, and there were a lot of them. The Iraqis did not know the war was over, the ones who were in there.

I remember so well one of the parties who was going over was the Ambassador from Kuwait to the United States and his daughter. I think she was around 7 years old. What they wanted to do was go back and see what was left in Kuwait of their mansion on the Persian Gulf. We got back there, and I remember going back to see their mansion, only to find out Saddam Hussein had used this for one of his headquarters. They took the little girl up to her bedroom--she wanted to see her little animals and all that--to find out it had been used as a torture chamber, with body parts stuck to the walls around there. This is what we were looking at at that time.

Well, President Bush established the National Counterterrorism Center to assist in analyzing and integrating foreign and domestic intelligence acquired from all U.S. Government Departments and agencies--so, again, putting this all together.

He established the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, in the Department of Homeland Security, to provide a single Federal organization to develop and deploy a nuclear detection system to thwart the importation of illegal nuclear or radiological materials.

In order to consolidate terrorist watch lists and provide around-the- clock operational support for Federal and other governmental law enforcement personnel across the country and around the world, President Bush created the Terrorist Screening Center to ensure that Government investigators, screeners, and agents are working with the same unified, comprehensive set of information about terrorists.

He transformed the FBI to focus on preventing terrorism.

He strengthened the Transportation Security Administration through screening and prevention. He improved border screening.

All of these things he did in a very short period of time that had to be done and had never been done before.

He expanded shipping security through container security initiatives. He developed Project Bioshield to increase preparedness against chemical, biological, and radiological, or nuclear attack, potential attack against this country. Finally, he aggressively cracked down on terrorist financing with many international partners. Over 400 individuals and entities have been designated pursuant to Executive order, resulting in nearly $150 million in frozen assets and millions more blocked in transit or seized at the borders.

President Bush also rallied international support to fight terrorism with a coalition of more than 90 countries. We didn't do this alone. He brought in neighboring countries, other countries with the same problems that we had, and the same exposure. This coalition of nations has actively worked to synchronize diplomatic intelligence, law enforcement, economic and financial and military power to attack terrorism globally. One man did this. This is George W. Bush.

The result of all of these efforts is what I refer to as the Bush invisible legacy. Now, why is this an invisible legacy? I am going to show my colleagues things that were out there that could very well have happened to the United States of America--and some would have happened--but since they didn't happen, that legacy is invisible because they never happened. That, to me, is going to go down as one of the great legacies of any President in the history of the United States.

There has not been another attack on this country since 9/11, and do not think this was due to a lack of effort on the part of terrorists. In fact, there have been many attempts. I am going to give my colleagues a partial list of the attacks that were stopped as a result of all of these policies and programs I just outlined that our President--current President George W. Bush--was responsible for.

First, December of 2001: This is the first post-9/11 plot that was thwarted. It was the capture of an al-Qaida operative named Ali Salih Mari in the United States who was targeting water reservoirs and the New York Stock Exchange at that time. Also, he was targeting--he had his programs outlined in documents that we found through all of these efforts to attack our various military academies. He offered himself as a martyr to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Of course, we know he was the mastermind of 9/11. Anyway, all of this was planned, but I believe Bush policies stopped the attacks.

I have to say at this point that I have served on the Intelligence Committee. I served for a number of years--ever since 1994--on the Senate Armed Services Committee. So I have been involved in these issues. We know this had a lot to do with stopping some of these potential attacks.

Remember Jose Padilla. He is the guy who had the dirty bomb plot, an American citizen accused of seeking radioactive-laced dirty bombs to use in attacks against America. Again, this was a Bush program that brought him down.

The 2002 aviation plots: An al-Qaida leader in Southeast Asia known as Humbali recruited several other

operatives of Asian origin. The plot was derailed in early 2002 with international cooperation. The Library Tower is the tallest building west of the Mississippi. It was among the 25 tallest buildings in the world. There was a written program about how to bring this building down, and our policies--the Bush policies, primarily--stopped that from taking place.

In September of 2002, Lackawanna Six: We all remember that. The FBI thwarted the locally recruited terrorist cell, the Lackawanna Six, by the capturing of Juma all-Dosari in Afghanistan and a subsequent interrogation while in prison in Guantanamo Bay. By the way, I disagree with the current attitude toward what is going to happen at Guantanamo Bay. I have had occasion to be there, probably more than any other Member. I can remember so well early on, those who were in prison, incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay actually had better treatment, better living quarters, and better health attention than our own troops did at that time. I think it is going to be imperative that whoever wants to close that down ask: Where are all of these people going to go?

Six American citizens of Yemeni origin were convicted of supporting al-Qaida after attending a Jihadist camp in Pakistan. Five of the six were from Lackawanna, NY. The six were arrested and convicted. They are out now. They performed terrorist attacks. They were very specific. They are gone. I think the new Bush programs at that time were primarily responsible for that.

In May of 2003, we had the Brooklyn Bridge plot: An American citizen was charged with plotting to use blow torches to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge. After being introduced to al-Qaida operatives, New York and Federal authorities intercepted a plan to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting suspension cables, as well as potentially derailing a train en route to Washington, DC. Iyman Faris was arrested, brought to justice, and was successfully stopped.

In June of 2003 in Virginia, a Jihad network that was taking place, 11 men from Alexandria, VA--just south of here--trained for Jihad against American soldiers and were convicted of violating the Neutrality Act, a conspiracy. Eleven Muslim men were charged in the U.S. district court in Alexandria with training with and fighting with a group that was associated with al-Qaida. Several members of the group were found to have trained for future attacks by using paint ball facilities in the Northern Virginia area. It was stopped. The Bush policies were primarily responsible for giving us the resources to stop attacks such as those I am outlining.

In 2004, August of 2004, the financial centers plot: This was the Indian-born leader of a terror cell who plotted the bombing on the financial centers. His name was Barot. He plotted a ``memorable black day of terror'' via a dirty bomb that targeted financial institutions in New York, Washington, DC, and in Newark. Barot was arrested at his home in Pakistan with the cooperation of others, but again, these were the Bush policies and resources that we used to make this happen.

In August of 2004--the same month--a Penn Station plot: This was James Elshafay and two accomplices who sought to plant a bomb at New York's Penn Station near Madison Square Garden during the Republican National Convention. The New York City Police Department's intelligence division helped to conduct an investigation leading to their arrest, again, using the policies that President Bush had put in place.

The same month, the Pakistani diplomat assassination plot: We all remember that. Two leaders of an Albany, NY, mosque, Yassin and Mohammed Hossain, were charged with plotting to purchase a shoulder- fired grenade launcher to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat. An investigation took place by the FBI, and all of these other agencies coordinating under the single leadership of the new system put in place, they stopped it. With the help of an informant, the perpetrators of that plot have been brought to justice. Again, that was stopped.

August of 2005, Orange County, CA, a terror plot: Seven people were involved and were arrested in Los Angeles and charged with conspiracy to attack Los Angeles National Guard facilities and synagogues, several synagogues. The plan was there; it is in writing. We know it was going to happen. Kevin James allegedly founded a radical Islamic prison group and converted Levar Washington and others to the group which was known as the JIS. After Washington and Patterson were arrested for robberies, police and Federal agents began a terrorist investigation where the search of Washington's apartment revealed a suspicious target list.

We had a list of targets in Orange County that were going to be brought down. Again, these policies weren't available to us before the Bush administration, and we were able to stop that.

December of 2005, the gas lines plot: Michael Reynolds was arrested by the FBI in December of 2005 and charged with being involved in a plot to blow up a Wyoming natural gas refinery, the Transcontinental Pipeline. That is a national gas pipeline that goes from the gulf coast to the east coast and into New Jersey. I believe it is owned by the New Jersey Standard Oil refinery. Reynolds was convicted for providing materials for supporting terrorists and soliciting a crime of violence. Again, we used the new resources that were available because of our President, George W. Bush.

In April of 2006, the U.S. Capitol and World Bank plot: Syed Haris Ahmed and another one whose name is Ehsanul Islam Sadequee from Atlanta, GA, were accused of conspiracy, having discussed terrorist targets with alleged terrorist organizations. They met with Islam extremists and received training and instruction on how to gather videotape surveillance of potential targets in the Washington area. Their targets happened to be the U.S. Capitol--right here where we are standing today--and the World Bank headquarters. They were the targets and, again, we were able to intercept this and to bring them to justice under these new policies that were put in place by our current President.

We had Narseal Batiste, and he had six others who were involved in a Sears Tower plot. They were arrested in Miami and in Atlanta in June of 2006 for being in the early stages of a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago as well as FBI offices and several other buildings. Arrests resulted from an investigation involving an FBI informant and all of the rest of them working together with the new resources they had, and they were brought to justice. Again, this was the new system we had in place.

July of 2006, New York City, the train tunnel plot: It is frightening to think this could have happened. There were eight suspects, including Assem Hammoud, an al-Qaida loyalist living in Lebanon. They were arrested for plotting to bomb the New York City train tunnels. He was a self-proclaimed operative for al-Qaida. He admitted that he was with al-Qaida when we brought him to justice, and he admitted to the plot. He is currently in custody in Lebanon and his case is pending. Two other suspects are in custody in other locations. The bottom line is it didn't happen. It was precluded from happening as a result of the new resources that were put in place and the coordination of all of our intelligence committees.

In March of 2007, a skyscraper plot: This was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was the mastermind of 9/11 and the author of numerous other plots confessed in court. People think of him as only 9/11. He also had plans in writing to destroy skyscrapers in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, as well as a plot of an assassination of Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II. Again, that was stopped.

In May of 2007, the Fort Dix plot: This was another one. I will not go into detail, but this was one where the Fort Dix six were thought to be leaderless. We found that they were a homegrown cell of immigrants from Jordan, Turkey, and Yugoslavia and they had ties to al-Qaida. They were stopped, the plot was stopped, and they were brought to justice. I believe this was due to the new programs that were put together by the Bush administration.

June of 2007, the JFK plot: Suspects planned to hit fuel farms and a 40-mile aviation field supply pipeline. Specifically, they targeted the symbolism of JFK, seeking to invoke an emotional

reaction, saying it is like killing the man twice. We all know and remember that, and we were able to stop it.

I think the bottom line has been that there hasn't been another successful attack on this country since 9/11. It didn't just happen. What this administration has accomplished in the last 5 years is phenomenal. In the aftermath of 9/11, he brought us together as a nation, prevented our enemies from striking again, and captured many who would have tried. President Bush woke the Nation so we could begin to deal aggressively with the threats that were facing us.

Because of President Bush, we no longer treat terrorists like common criminals but as enemy combatants. We no longer turn a blind eye to nuclear proliferation by negotiating without the real threat of military action. We fully funded a readiness-challenged, cold-war- equipped, and organized military that had suffered from a decade of no modernization. We have removed threatening regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, freeing 50 million people. We have weakened the al-Qaida network and its affiliates. We have disrupted terrorist plots and built a coalition of more than 90 nations to fight terrorism. We have transformed our approach to combating terrorism after the 9/11 attacks.

So we ask the question: Would all of these terrorist attacks have been successful? Obviously, no, but I honestly believe--it is my judgment from having the background of years of serving on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, that some of these-- to me, it is not conceivable that none of these would have occurred. I believe this invisible legacy--keep in mind, it is an invisible legacy of George W. Bush because they didn't happen. If they didn't happen, they are invisible, but nonetheless they were stopped.

The bottom line is this: The New York Stock Exchange was not bombed, the military academies were not bombed, the Brooklyn Bridge was not bombed, New York and DC financial centers were not bombed, Penn Station was not bombed, Los Angeles synagogues were not bombed, and New Jersey Standard Oil refineries were not bombed.

The transcontinental pipeline was not bombed. The World Bank was not bombed. The Chicago Sears Tower was not bombed. New York City train tunnels were not bombed. JFK Airport was not bombed. And our Nation's Capitol Building was not bombed. Clearly, the Bush invisible legacy may go down in history as perhaps the greatest legacy in history. I know people don't want to give credit where credit is due. This is something that took almost all of his energies at a time when otherwise something could very well have happened. It is my honest judgment that had it not been for his changes in our intelligence process, that one or more of these terrorist attacks would have been successful. I believe that in my heart. I think history will treat that as the case. Clearly, the Bush invisible legacy may go down as the greatest legacy in history.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an Oklahoman editorial dated January 13, 2009, and a Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2085.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I am the leadoff speaker today in what will be a substantial conversation on the Fair Pay Restoration Act. It has been otherwise known in the community and in the media as the Lilly Ledbetter bill, which we hope to bring up for a vote tomorrow to advance this bill. What this legislation will do is to overturn the Supreme Court decision that essentially mitigated the ability to file lawsuits for equal pay for equal work.

Mr. President, I am not new to this bill, and neither are you. We counted you as one of our strong advocates when we had our vote last year on April 23.

The person who has been one of the leads in the Senate has been our very good colleague, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. As we know, Senator Clinton is about to assume other responsibilities. I have taken up this bill as the lead sponsor, along with many of the women in the Senate and the very good men. I thank Senator Clinton for her leadership and her advocacy on behalf of women and on behalf of civil rights and on behalf of fairness and justice. She has been a great advocate, and we are going to miss her.

I also thank Senator Kennedy and his staff, Senator Kennedy for his leadership in trying to right the wrong the Supreme Court decision created. Senator Kennedy has been a stalwart on this bill and is also one of the original sponsors of the remedy we are bringing before our colleagues today.

You might recall that in April we had our vote on the Lilly Ledbetter bill. You might recall it was a very intense and emotional debate. Most of the women of the Senate came on the floor. We were dressed in red because that was the color of the women's movement and Mrs. Ledbetter herself wore red. We lost that vote by essentially two votes. As everybody left the floor, they thought it was over. But I knew it was not over because we were not going to let it be over. We were going to continue the fight. I said to my colleagues then, when we lost the vote, we would come back and fight another day, and that day is here. We said very loudly, clearly, firmly, and resolutely that we wanted to be sure women receive equal pay for equal work, equal or comparable work. We wanted to change the law books so women would feel it in their checkbooks.

I reminded our colleagues, because there had been a fantastic miniseries about John Adams, that Abigail, one of our heroes, had written John when he was busy writing the Constitution--she was busy running the farm and keeping life going--and she said: John Adams, when you write that Constitution, remember the ladies because if you forget us, we will foment another rebellion.

I said on the floor on April 23 that we, in the spirit of Abigail Adams, were ready to foment another revolution if we were going to be denied the opportunity to pursue equal pay. I then said we were going to fight, and I asked the women of the Senate--I asked the women of the Senate and women all over the country--to suit up, get ready to fight. Put your lipstick on, and let's foment another revolution.

Wow, the revolution came, and it is more than I anticipated. The revolution came in one of the most dynamic primaries our country has ever seen. The revolution came when people said loudly and clearly, at every primary and every caucus across this country, that they wanted change. They chose a new standard-bearer in President-elect Barack Obama. In that, with Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, we have the leadership the American people want. In their leadership, working on a bipartisan basis in the Congress, we want to bring about change, and therefore one of the first bills we bring to the floor of the Senate is one that makes sure women have equal pay for equal or comparable work and they have access to the courts and appropriate legal process to be able to pursue their concerns and their complaints.

The revolution is here, and the votes are coming. We are going to vote tomorrow on cloture on the motion to proceed. Later on, we are going to have complete debate on the bill itself. We know there are colleagues who offer alternatives, but that is part of the revolution-- to have great ideas, engage where there are differences of opinion, and then, at the end of the day, have the votes. We are looking forward to this. It is a day long in coming.

This year, this new Congress and this new President bring us not only a new year, but it also has created a new economic reality. The economy is tanking, with no end in sight, retirement accounts are plummeting, home values are sinking, and unemployment is surging.

This is not news to women. Women who are in the workplace today know how hard it is to get and keep a job. What we also know is that in good times or bad times, women are discriminated against in terms of the pay they receive. Right now, today, in the 21st century America, women still earn only 76 cents an hour when men receive a dollar an hour. There are women who pursued remedies.

In May 2007, the Supreme Court made an outrageous decision. They said women cannot get equal pay for equal work unless they file a complaint 180 days from when the discrimination

began. Women do not always know when discrimination began. They meant from the very first day that you get a paycheck that discriminates against you, within 180 days, within 6 months, you are supposed to know that and file a complaint. We would love to be able to do that. But this decision does not reflect the reality of the workplace.

What is it that we know about the workplace? You can talk about anything in the workplace. Often, politics are discussed in the lunchroom; religion is talked about at the computer; sex is often discussed at the water cooler; but salary is never discussed. How many people really know the salary of their coworkers? Women do not go around asking men: How much are you paid, and pull out a little pad. They presume that if they are doing the job side by side with male coworkers, they are getting equal pay. They don't know that. Then what happens if the male counterpart gets a raise? The guys have been out at a ball game. They say: Don't worry, we will take care of you. But the women don't know that. You have to know it the day you get the paycheck and he gets the bigger one. How are you going to know that? Snooping? Men get raises and promotions, but women are often overlooked and undervalued.

What we saw in the Supreme Court decision was that it was a backward step for women and it violates the very concept of fairness and justice. The Supreme Court decision was so outrageous that our beloved and esteemed Justice Ginsburg took the unusual position of reading her dissent from the bench. Usually, Justices do not do that. She said in her dissenting opinion that the Court did not get it, that they do not understand the realities of the workplace that would prohibit women from knowing exactly when the discrimination started. She called upon Congress to fix it, and that is what this bill does. Our bill restores the original language that existed before Ledbetter.

Along the way, President Bush heard about our legislation. He threatened to veto it. On January 20, we will have a new President, and he will not only sign it, he campaigned with Lilly Ledbetter and made a promise to the American people. When President-elect Obama, who by then will have taken his oath of office and will be President Obama--this will probably be the very first piece of legislation he will sign. What a sweet day for women all over America. But we have a legislative road to go on.

A lot has been said about Lilly Ledbetter, but people are busy and they might not remember her whole story. What a gallant and courageous woman. She fought the system, and on her own time and with great risk, she took on the challenges of the workplace. She turned to the courts and began her fight. She fought two different times, once against sexual harassment and the other time against unequal pay. What you need to understand is when she began her fight to get equal pay, she was then sexually harassed because she followed her legal opportunities and rights. So she was doubly punished. She was punished in the workplace in her paycheck and she was punished in the workplace because she dared speak out.

Lilly Ledbetter did not work at some microbusiness. Lilly Ledbetter worked at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. She worked there for 19 years and by all accounts was an outstanding employee. She did not know when the disparity developed, whether it was on the first day she was hired or over the many years she was there. But she found out and took it to court. A jury found that Goodyear had discriminated against her and awarded her $400,000 in backpay. When they did, Goodyear then took this all the way up to the appellate court. Each time, this woman pursued her remedies, often at great risk and great financial and personal hardship. Finally, because Goodyear, every time she won, took it to a higher court--that is their prerogative. But you had little Lilly Ledbetter against this giant corporation, with tons of lawyers and tons of legal resources. Finally, they had the Supreme Court on their side, and the Supreme Court said someone cannot sue their employer over unequal pay if that person doesn't file the suit 180 days from the day the discrimination began.

As we said earlier, the Supreme Court just didn't get it. How many people know the salary of their coworkers, especially in the first 6 months on the job? What if you are hired at an equal rate with your male counterpart but he gets a raise every few months and you don't? The decision was terrible. As I said, Justice Ginsburg said, ``In our view, the Court does not comprehend or is indifferent to the insidious way in which women can become victims of pay discrimination.'' She encouraged us to fix it.

As I said, women continue to earn 77 cents for every dollar. Women of color get paid even less. So Lilly Ledbetter is not an isolated incident.

Now, there is opposition to this bill because people make profits off of discrimination; if you pay women less, you make more. I mean, we are providing a subsidy to these businesses that discriminate.

Over a lifetime, it not only affects your current paycheck, but it affects your Social Security and your retirement in terms of lower lifetime earnings. The Supreme Court now even makes it harder for women workers to close this work gap.

I am going to have more to say about this, but I want to say that we now know the situation in the workplace, women are paid less generally. We want to be sure that if you are paid less specifically, you have an open courthouse door that will have an open mind to the fact that discrimination might exist. We want to have a fair playing field for you to file this complaint.

This bill will amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so that the time for an employee to file a wage discrimination suit runs from the date of the actual payment of a discriminatory wage, not from the time of hiring. That means that employees can sue employers based on discriminating paychecks. It does not limit the time a worker can seek the remedy.

I want to be clear, though, it does not change the statute of limitations. What it does is, under the Supreme Court decision you would have to file your complaint within 180 days of when you were hired. Here, you can file it within 180 days of your last paycheck when you found that discrimination, you believed discrimination existed. We are going to be debating this bill. I have many colleagues who want to speak on it. There are many in this Congress who have been very strong advocates, but our leading advocates are the two wonderful women from the State of Washington who I know are eager to speak. Both are on the floor, and the lead on this working with us in the Health and Education Committee is, of course, the senior Senator from the State of Washington, a part of our leadership team, the dynamic and intrepid Patty Murray. I yield the floor for her.

Mr. President, we will be turning to the Senator from Washington in a moment. I can't let the remarks that have been said not be clarified in terms of facts.

First, when this bill moves forward, there is an agreement between both leaders, the majority and the minority, that there will be amendments. In fact, one of the premier amendments will be offered by the Senator from Texas, who has an alternative view. She will have the opportunity to offer her amendment. As I understand, there is no restriction on amendments. Speaking for the Democratic leader, there is no intent on our side to fill the tree.

The debate is being led by the women in the Senate. Among ourselves, we have dinner once a month. We get together on a bipartisan basis. We have pledged among ourselves--and it is unofficial, not an oath--that we are going to be a zone of civility in this institution. The way we will debate will, first of all, always try to allow amendments. We will proceed with intellectual rigor, have our discussions based on fact. Yes, philosophy will enter in, but it will not be ideological. Nor do we intend in any way to be tart or demonize.

We have listened to two speakers on this issue, myself and Senator Murray. There has been no demagoguing. We spoke with passion because we know Lilly Ledbetter. We mourned for her when her husband passed away. We listened to stories of sexual harassment because she stood up for herself. But we are not in the demonizing business. I can assure my colleagues, this discussion will be debated by men as well as women. But the women of the Senate intend to have this be a model of civility. That is one thing.

The second thing is hearings. This is January 14. There have been no hearings on this bill in this session. But it is exactly the same bill voted on in the last Congress on which there were two hearings held: one in the HELP Committee on January 24, 2008, and the Judiciary Committee on September 23, 2008. It is the same hearings. We would have the same witnesses. We would bring in Lilly, et cetera. The differences of opinion on how to achieve the goal of ending discrimination, for example, between the Hutchison approach and the approach here will afford her ample time. We know our colleague, Senator Specter, has some flashing yellow lights about the bill. He, too, will offer his amendment. We know the lawyerly way in which he proceeds, and so on.

We are ready for debate and discussion. I don't think we have been inappropriate in the process. We held our hearings last year. We are going to offer wide latitude in the offering of amendments here. The whole mood is one that is upbeat and looking forward to spirited debate.

Having said that, I didn't know if my very civil colleague from Wyoming wanted to comment. I just wanted to have those particular facts on the record.

Mr. President, we would now like to turn to another strong advocate for ending discrimination, someone who has completed her first 2 years in the Senate and is part of that zone of civility to get the job done. We would like to hear from Senator Klobuchar.

Mr. President, we also want to be able to call upon one of our newest colleagues, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, from the State of New Hampshire. Though new to the Senate, she is certainly not new to the issue. She has been a strong advocate for fairness and justice and an advocate for ending discrimination her whole life and her whole career. She recently, of course, was Governor of New Hampshire, and now brings all that wealth of experience, know-how, and commitment to the Senate. This is not her first speech. It is her second speech. We are eagerly awaiting her words on this issue.

I thank the Senator very much. We look forward to her hard work and advocacy for people who have been left out, pushed out, redlined and sidelined.

This concludes for today the number of women who wished to speak on this legislation. Senator Boxer is chairing a hearing, and I could go through others. I believe Senator Clinton just finished her confirmation. No, just kidding, but it seems like that. So we are going to conclude this part of it. We will be on the floor tomorrow, when we have a vote on cloture on the motion to proceed, at which time we hope to be able to do that, so we can actually get down to the business next week of debating the amendments, as has been promised, and moving to final passage next week. We will be doing that after the inauguration of Barack Obama. I look forward to further discussion on this bill.

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

Mr. President. I rise today with Senator Ensign to introduce legislation to ensure that Federal Title I education funds are targeted to help our Nation's neediest students learn.

Title I provides assistance to virtually every school district in the country, serving over 12.5 million children in low-income schools, including about 3 million California school children.

Although it has always been the intent of Congress for Title I funds to be used for academic instruction and instructional services, the Federal Government has never provided clear guidelines for how these important dollars should be used.

This lack of Federal guidance has become especially clear now, as States are struggling to comply with the Title I accountability standards established under ``No Child Left Behind''.

While State administrators of Title I are directed by law to meet these specific requirements, they have been given little guidance as to how to ensure that they are in compliance with the law.

I believe that the Federal Government is responsible for making this process as clear as possible to States and school districts.

This legislation would define Title I direct and indirect instructional services.

It would set a standard for the amount of Title I funds that can be used to achieve the academic and administrative objectives of this program.

It would ensure that the majority, 90 percent, of Title I funds are used to improve academic achievement by stipulating that a school district may not use more than 10 percent of these funds for administrative or indirect instructional services.

By setting a standard for the amount of funds that school districts can spend on administrative or indirect services, we ensure that the majority of Title I dollars are used by districts to help improve student academic achievement.

Furthermore, by defining direct and indirect services, all States can apply

the same standards for how Title I funds are used nationwide.

Examples of permissible Direct Services are: employing teachers and other instructional personnel, including employee benefits; intervening and taking corrective actions to improve student achievement; purchasing instructional resources such as books, materials, computers, and other instructional equipment; developing and administering curriculum, educational materials and assessments.

Examples of Indirect Services limited to no more than 10 percent of Title I expenditures are: business services relating to administering the program; purchasing or providing facilities maintenance or janitorial, gardening, or landscaping services or the payment of utility costs; buying food and paying for travel to and attendance at conferences or meetings, except if necessary for professional development.

Current law on Title I is much too vague.

It says, ``a State or local educational agency shall use funds received under this part only to supplement the amount of funds that would, in the absence of such Federal funds, be made available from non-Federal sources for the education of pupils participating in programs assisted under this part, and not to supplant such funds.''

Basically, it says that Title I funds are to be used for the ``education of pupils.'' This is too ambiguous.

The U.S. Department of Education has given States a guidance document that explains how Title I funds can be used.

Under this guidance document, only two uses are specifically prohibited: construction or acquisition of real property; and payment to parents to attend a meeting or training session or to reimburse a parent for a salary lost due to attendance at a ``parental involvement'' meeting.

We should give the Department, States, and school districts clearer guidance in law.

During consideration of ``No Child Left Behind,'' I worked hard to get my bill defining appropriate Title I uses included in the Senate version of the bill.

Unfortunately, during conference consideration, that language was stripped out and in its place language was inserted directing the General Accounting Office to report on how States use their Title I funds.

In April 2003, GAO released the report that Congress directed them to submit on Title I Administrative Expenditures.

What GAO found is that while districts spent no more than 13 percent of Title I funds on administrative services, these findings were based on their own definition ``because there is no common definition on what constitutes administrative expenditures.''

Therefore, the accounting office could not precisely measure how much of schools' Title I funds were used for administration.

Because uses of Title I funds are not defined consistently throughout the States, the accounting office created its own definition by compiling aspects of State priorities to complete the report.

The very reason I worked to define how Title I funds should be used-- to create consistency and distribution priority nationwide--became the definitive aspect preventing GAO from effectively drawing conclusions to their report.

The report highlights two concerns that I have with the lack of universal definitions in the Title I program: the lack of Federal guidance on effective uses of Title I funds; and the government's inability to accurately measure whether the academic needs of low- income students are being met.

This bill takes some strong steps by balancing the needs for States to retain Title I flexibility and providing them with the guidance needed to administer the program uniformly throughout the country.

My reasons for introducing this bill are two-fold: First, I believe that States must use their limited Federal Title I dollars for the fundamental purpose of providing academic instruction to help students learn.

Second, I believe that it is nearly impossible to achieve this fundamental purpose without providing a clear definition of what is considered an instructional service.

Federal funding is only about 8 percent of the total funding for elementary and secondary education and Title I is even a smaller percentage of total support for public schools.

That is why it is imperative to better focus Title I funds on academic instruction, teaching the fundamentals and helping disadvantaged children achieve.

It is critical that Federal guidance be provided to ensure that Title I funds go where they are needed most--improving the academic performance of low-income children.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Accelerated Retirement of Inefficient Vehicles Act.'' This legislation is cosponsored by Senators Susan Collins and Charles Schumer. A companion bill is also being introduced today in the House of Representatives by Mr. Israel and Mr. Inslee.

Let me first acknowledge the important role of one of my colleagues, Senator Salazar, who initiated much of the thought and drafting for this legislation at the end of the last Congress. I thank him for his leadership, and I thank him for letting us take up the work needed to move this bill forward as he begins to transition into his new role with the incoming Obama administration.

Last Congress, we successfully enacted legislation--which I authored

with Senator Snowe and others--to improve the fuel efficiency of America's fleet of new cars, trucks and SUVs by 10 miles per gallon over 10 years, or from 25 miles per gallon to at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

But the fact is that we face real challenges with trying to encourage drivers to trade in their older, less fuel efficient vehicles for a cleaner and more fuel efficient vehicle--particularly in this tough economic climate.

This bill is designed to address that problem.

First, let me explain this legislation.

This bill would establish an incentive program at the Department of Energy to provide a voucher, or coupon, of between $2,500 to $4,500 to a consumer who trades in an inefficient, used vehicle for a much more efficient car, truck, or SUV.

The traded-in vehicles--which must be then dismantled or scrapped-- must meet the following requirements; have a fuel economy of no more than 18 miles per gallons, be in drivable condition, and have been registered for at least the past 120 days.

To receive the benefit of the coupon, purchased vehicles must exceed Corporate Average Fuel Economy, CAFE, Standards for that class of vehicle by at least 25 percent and have a suggested retail price below $45,000.

The size of the coupon varies based upon the expected oil savings created by trading in the vehicle.

The voucher program will be set up to provide larger credits to new, more recent vehicles that would otherwise be on the road for many more years, while older ``clunker'' models would be eligible for smaller credits.

The bill specifies that during the first year of the program, vouchers will be issued for the following amounts: For model year 2002 and later: new vehicle: $4,500, used vehicle: $3,000, transit fare credit: $3,000. For model year 1999-2001: new vehicle: $3,000, used vehicle: $2,000, transit fare credit: $2,000. For model year 1998 and earlier: new vehicle: $2,500, used vehicle: $1,500, transit fare credit: $1,500. In each subsequent year, 2010, 2011, and 2012, the model years would be advanced by 1 year.

Vouchers would be eligible for redemption for up to 2 years after the date of issuance, and no individual would be eligible to obtain more than one voucher in any 3-year period.

Dealers, dismantlers and scrap recycling facilities would also be eligible for a payment of $50 per vehicle, or an alternative amount to be specified by the Secretary of Energy.

Simply put, this legislation offers a unique opportunity to both stimulate automobile industry sales and reduce vehicular oil use, creating a win-win policy for all involved.

As we know, our Nation's automobile industry is in serious trouble.

Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford have all asserted in their recent viability plans that their dire financial situation is a direct result of the collapse in automobile sales.

The new car sales rate has dropped to less than 11 million vehicles sold annually, compared to the 16.2 million vehicles sold in the United States in 2007.

The major Detroit and Japanese carmakers all reported double digit sales drops for December. General Motors reported sales dropped 31 percent; Ford Motor Co. reported a drop of 32 percent; Chrysler LLC reported sales plummeted 53 percent; Honda Motor Co. said its sales fell 34 percent; Nissan North America said its sales fell 30 percent and Toyota Motor Co. said its U.S. sales fell 37 percent.

Bottom line: The automobile companies are all in trouble because far fewer people are buying automobiles.

According to J.D. Power and Associates, this has produced dealer lots full of vehicles that can't be sold. Over the past year the number of days that a vehicle sits on a lot has almost doubled.

The problem is most severe for Chrysler, GM and Ford. Their vehicles all sat on dealer lots for in excess of 100 days last year.

By encouraging automobile sales, this legislation would go a long way to addressing the significant troubles that America's once mighty car industry now faces.

While emergency bridge loans help auto companies make payroll, only stimulating automobile sales will cure the disease that confronts the automobile sector.

By creating a voucher system for the purchase of a vehicle with certain attributes, this legislation would stimulate sales at precisely the right moment.

Perhaps that is why General Motors went out of its way to endorse this kind of program in its recent Viability Plan, recommended ``tax credits for scrapping older, higher-carbon emitting vehicles.''

This legislation would also assist owners of the least efficient vehicles who are least likely to trade their cars in for something more efficient.

The trade-in value of inefficient vehicles has plummeted, making a trade-in financially difficult.

In a November 2008 analysis, Kelley Blue Book concluded: ``[T]his year's vehicles with the lowest retained value include vehicles that are not fuel friendly with large V-8 engines. . . . These gas misers . . . will only maintain 20 percent of their original value after five years of ownership.''

Bottom line: The legislation is stimulus of the most important kind. It would provide incentives for new vehicle sales, incentivize the trade-in of inefficient vehicles, and reward consumers who want to reduce their oil use and carbon footprint.

This proposal also provides important benefits for the environment-- and addressing the challenges of climate change.

I have been a long time champion of increasing fuel economy standards, and I was extremely proud to have authored the new fuel economy law with Senator Snowe, which was enacted by Congress and signed into law in December 2007.

But new CAFE standards will not take effect until model year 2011. They cannot make up for our failure to increase standards for the past 3 decades.

The bill we are introducing today would target the very vehicles that CAFE standards are unable to reach: older fuel-inefficient cars, trucks and SUVs

It will provide incentives to consumers who wish to buy the most efficient vehicles available during the 2 years before the new CAFE standards will require improvement.

It will provide incentives to remove the most inefficient vehicles that would have never been part of the fleet had Congress acted to increase CAFE standards 5 years ago.

The result is considerable oil savings and significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

According to analysis by the non-partisan American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, ACEEE, by 2013 this legislation would prompt the trade in of between 500,000 and 1 million of the dirtiest, least efficient vehicles on the road today.

As a result, by 2013 between 40,000 and 80,000 fewer barrels of oil per day will be burned; between 6.6 million metric tons and 13.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year will not be emitted.

This is the equivalent of removing between 1.1 million and 2.2 million cars from the road.

In our current economic and environmental circumstance, there are few opportunities to both help the automobile industry evolve and improve the fuel economy of the fleet.

This idea--providing consumers with an incentive to trade in their inefficient vehicle for something far better--will stimulate the economy and save oil, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

I strongly encourage the Obama administration and the Appropriations Committee to authorize and fund this proposal in the stimulus.

I am committed to advancing the goals of stimulus and fuel savings, and have put what I believe to be the best proposal to meet these goals.

I understand that within the details of this idea, there may be different views. I am open to suggestions that improve the structure of the program proposed by this legislation, and ask my colleagues to communicate their thoughts soon.

Finally, I hope non-related matters--such as trade policy--will not prevent my colleagues from supporting this legislation.

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

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009.

I commend my colleagues who support this comprehensive public lands bill, and I thank Chairman Bingaman for his leadership. He and his staff should be congratulated for their perseverance and patience in shepherding this important bill through the legislative process.

I would like to speak first about one of the bill's provisions, which has major implications for California; and that is, the legislation to implement the historic San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement, which I have sponsored with my colleague from California, Senator Boxer.

This measure would restore California's second longest river, while maintaining a stable water supply for the farmers who have made the San Joaquin Valley the richest agricultural area in the world.

Once enacted, this bill would bring to a close 19 years of litigation between the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Friant Water Users Authority, and the U.S. Department of the Interior. And it does so within a framework that the affected interests can accept--and have all agreed to.

The Settlement has two goals: to restore and maintain fish populations in the San Joaquin River in good condition, including a self-sustaining salmon fishery; and to avoid or reduce adverse water supply impacts to long-term Friant water contractors.

Consistent with the terms of the settlement, I expect that both of these goals will be pursued with equal diligence by the Federal agencies.

This historic agreement would not have been possible without the participation of a remarkably broad group of agencies, stakeholders, and legislators, including: the Department of the Interior; the State of California; the Friant Water Users Authority; the Natural Resources Defense Council on behalf of 13 other environmental organizations; and countless other stakeholders who came together and spent countless hours with legislators in Washington to ensure that we found a solution that the large majority of those affected could support. Without this consensus, the parties would no doubt continue the fight, resulting in a court-imposed judgment--one which would likely be worse for all parties.

I spoke at greater length about the purposes and benefits of this legislation during my statements upon introduction of the omnibus lands bill and when introducing the San Joaquin River Settlement legislation in December 2006 and January 2007 in previous Congresses.

I would like to take a moment to highlight several important changes that were made to this version of the legislation--which improved upon the initial bill, first introduced in December 2006.

First, the legislation reflects an agreement reached in November 2008 to ensure that the implementing legislation is pay-go neutral, which means that the restoration program allocates no more in direct spending than it brings in.

The agreement also protects the rights of third parties. These protections are accomplished while ensuring a timely and robust restoration of the river and without creating any new precedents for implementing the Endangered Species Act.

Similarly, there is no preemption of State law and nothing in the bill changes any existing obligations of the United States to operate the Central Valley Project in conformity with State law.

Second, the bill incorporates amendments made by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in May 2008 to enhance implementation of the settlement's ``Water Management Goal'' to reduce or avoid adverse water supply impacts to Friant Division long-term water contractors.

It also includes provisions approved by the committee that will increase the amount of upfront funding available for the settlement by allowing most Friant Division contractors to accelerate repayment of their construction cost obligation to the Treasury. In exchange for early repayment, Friant water agencies will be able to convert their 25-year water service contracts to permanent repayment contracts.

Now, I would like to speak at greater length about the legislation's substantial protections for other water districts and private landowners in California that were not party to the original settlement negotiations.

I think it is important to note that these protections have been agreed to by all of the settling parties as well as the third-party water agencies in the San Joaquin Valley who requested them, and that they will be accomplished while ensuring a timely and robust restoration of the river.

Section 10004(d) requires that the Secretary of the Interior identify; first, the impacts associated with the proposed action or actions; and sSecond, the measures that will be implemented to mitigate those impacts.

Sections 10004(f), 10004(g) and 10004(j) protect third party water users by clarifying that implementation of the settlement will cause no involuntary reductions in contract water allocations to long-term CVP contractors--other than Friant contractors--by making it clear that the bill does not, except as actually provided in the settlement and this bill, modify the rights and obligations of parties to existing water service, repayment, purchase, or exchange contracts, and by specifying that the rights and obligations under what is known as the Exchange Contract--with downstream districts--are not modified.

Further, section 10006(b) makes it clear that the bill does not preempt State law or modify any existing obligation of the United States under Federal reclamation law to operate the Central Valley Project in conformity with State law.

Some third parties had expressed concerns about potential conflicts between the provision of flows under the restoration program, and the rights of the exchange contractors to water from the San Joaquin River.

The Bureau of Reclamation has provided a letter that complements the language in the legislation and explains that such a conflict is extremely unlikely, but should such a conflict

arise the Bureau will continue to make water available to the San Joaquin River exchange contractors consistent with its contractual requirements.

I will ask to have the letter, dated November 6, 2008, from Mr. Donald Glaser, regional Director of the Bureau of Reclamation for the Mid-Pacific Region of California, to Mr. Steve Chedester, executive director of the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors Water Authority, be printed in the Record.

Concerns about potential damage to downstream farmers and landowners from water seepage resulting from interim restoration flows under the settlement are addressed by section 10004(h).

That section directs the Secretary, before releasing interim flows, to prepare an analysis of channel conveyance capacities and the potential for seepage, describe an associated seepage monitoring program, and evaluate possible seepage impacts and mitigation measures for impacts that are significant.

The section also directs that interim flows may only be released to the extent they will not impede completion of the channel restoration work or exceed downstream channel capacities.

And finally the section directs the Secretary to reduce interim flows if necessary to address material adverse impacts from groundwater seepage that the Secretary identifies through the Secretary's monitoring program.

Some of the third-party agencies have expressed concerns about the effectiveness of a fish barrier in the San Joaquin River near the confluence of the Merced River in preventing the upstream migration of anadromous fish prior to reintroduction of salmon and implementation of the restoration flow program.

This concern has been addressed in part with the addition of section 10004(i)(4), which calls for an evaluation of the temporary fish barrier, and the funding of fish screens and facilities under certain circumstances.

To further address the concerns regarding the effectiveness of the fish barrier, the Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Fish and Game have exchanged letters confirming their willingness to cooperate in the operation and evaluation of the Hills Ferry Fish Barrier during the interim flows period.

More specifically, these letters discuss future efforts by these agencies to achieve a barrier program that effectively prevents unintended upstream passage of salmonids during the interim flow period.

I applaud these efforts and look forward to their successful implementation.

I will ask to have the agencies' letters, dated December 22, 2008, from Mr. Jason Phillips, Program Manager, Bureau of Reclamation; and January 5, 2009, from Jeffery Single, Ph.D., Regional Manager, California Department of Fish and Game, printed in the Record.

Third parties had also requested that actions to increase the channel capacity in Reach 2B of the river be prioritized. The legislation directs the Secretary to implement the channel improvements that are listed in paragraph 11 of the settlement necessary to achieve the restoration goal.

Among the highest priority restoration improvements identified in the settlement are modifications to increase the channel capacity of Reach 2B of the river. I am pleased that work in that reach will be a priority for the restoration program and as a result will also address the third party concerns.

Finally, Section 10011 of the bill provides that the Central Valley Spring Run Chinook Salmon reintroduced into the San Joaquin River will be classified as an ``experimental population'' under the Endangered Species Act.

This section also makes clear that it establishes no precedent with respect to any other application of the Endangered Species Act, ESA.

It also provides that the Secretary of Commerce shall issue a rule under section 4(d) of the ESA which shall provide that the reintroduction of the spring run salmon under this section shall not impose more than de minimis water supply reductions, additional storage releases or bypass flows on unwilling third parties.

In closing, in addition to the protections listed above, I wish to highlight one further provision of the settlement that reflects some of the significant themes of this historic agreement.

In paragraph 13(h) of the settlement agreement, the settling parties agreed that the Secretary of the Interior should apply to the State of California to protect the restoration flows from Friant Dam to the Delta, subject to existing downstream diversion rights.

In my view, this underscores that this settlement is intended to conform to State law and that the Interior Department will seek appropriate actions by the State Water Resources Control Board to ensure that the water released for the settlement is controlled and managed from Friant Dam to the Delta to accomplish the restoration goal and water management goal purposes.

The Bureau of Reclamation has made significant progress on environmental and engineering studies necessary to implement the settlement.

Passage of the legislation will allow the agency to undertake specific programs and projects to implement the settlement's restoration and water management goals.

For example, with approval of the legislation, interim flows can begin this fall as scheduled, once a required environmental study is completed.

These limited water releases will provide essential information on channel capacity, fishery needs and water recovery opportunities as well as potential third-party impacts, such as seepage, and measures that may be needed to mitigate them.

The information will be used to shape other important aspects of the restoration goal program, such as the release of full restoration flows, scheduled to begin in 2014.

Passage of the legislation also will allow the Bureau to take immediate steps toward achieving the water management goal, including undertaking a project to restore the water-carry capacity of the Friant-Kern and Madera Canals and the installation of pump-back systems on the canals to help recapture water losses resulting from the settlement.

In addition, the agency is charged with implementing a cost-sharing program for local groundwater recharge and recovery projects that will help mitigate water losses.

Before I conclude, I would like to also briefly discuss the other 19 California bills in the omnibus legislation approved today.

First, wilderness provisions: The three wilderness bills in this package would together protect a wilderness about 735,000 acres of land in Mono, Riverside, Inyo, and Los Angeles Counties, and within Sequoia- Kings Canyon National Park.

The bills include three additions to National Wilderness Preservation System: Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wilderness, Riverside County Wilderness, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Wilderness.

This package of wilderness bills would help expand lasting Federal protection for some of California's important natural resources.

Second: water project authorizations.

In the West, drought, population growth, increasing climate variability, and ecosystem needs make managing water supplies especially challenging.

The nine California water recycling projects included in the omnibus bill offer a proven means to develop cost effective alternative water supply projects.

The water projects in the bill would fall under the auspices of the Bureau of Reclamation, and include San Diego Intertie feasibility study, Madera Water Supply Enhancement Project authorization, Rancho California Water District project authorization Santa Margarita River project authorization, Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District project authorization, North Bay Water Reuse Authority project authorization, Prado Basin Natural Treatment System Project authorization, Bunker Hill Groundwater Basin project authorization GREAT Project authorization, Yucaipa Valley Water District project authorization, Goleta Water District Water Distribution System title transfer, San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund, and Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program.

Together they will help our State reduce its dependence on imported water from both the Lower Colorado River and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta.

Third: other public lands bills to help preserve California's historic legacy.

These include: Bureau of Land Management: Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians of the Tuolumne Rancheria land exchange; Forest Service: Mammoth Community Water District land conveyance; National Park Service: Tule Lake Segregation Center Resource Study

There is an old saying when it comes to water: Whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting over.'' There is no area where this has been more the case than the future of the San Joaquin River.

The passage of this omnibus legislation means we are one step closer toward resolving the longstanding conflict over the future of the San Joaquin River.

This is a bill whose time is long overdue, and I strongly urge my colleagues in the House of Representatives to promptly join us in approving this critical piece of legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that the letters to which I referred be printed in the Record.