Home Health Care Planning Improvement Act of 2011

Mr. President, today, I am proud to introduce the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2011. The Justice for All Act, passed in 2004, was unprecedented, bipartisan criminal justice legislation. It was Congress's most significant step forward in many years to improve the quality of justice in this country and to improve public confidence in the integrity of the American justice system.

After several hearings and much work, with this legislation we continue the process of building on that foundation to go still further in making sure our criminal justice system works fairly and effectively for all Americans. Senator Klobuchar, Senator Franken, and Senator Harkin join me today as original cosponsors of this important bill, and I thank them for their ongoing support.

I also appreciate the involvement of Senators on the other side of the political aisle, including Senators Sessions and Grassley, who have participated in the development of this bill and provided valuable input. I am confident that this bill will pass with bipartisan support, as the original Justice for All Act did, and I look forward to working with Senators from both parties to reach that goal.

In 2000, I introduced the Innocence Protection Act, which aimed to improve the administration of justice by ensuring that defendants in the most serious cases receive competent representation and, where appropriate, access to post conviction DNA testing necessary to prove their innocence in those cases where the system got it grievously wrong.

The Innocence Protection Act became a key component of the Justice for All Act. The act also included vital provisions to ensure that crime victims have the rights and protections they need and deserve and that States and communities take major steps to reduce the backlog of untested rape kits and ensure prompt justice for victims of sexual assault. These and other important criminal justice provisions made the Justice for All Act a groundbreaking achievement in criminal justice reform.

The programs created by the Justice for All Act have had an enormous impact, and it is crucial that we reauthorize them. Unfortunately, the Judiciary Committee's hearings and recent headlines have made clear that simply reauthorizing the existing law is not enough. Significant problems remain, and we must work together to address them.

In too many communities around the country, large numbers of untested rape kits have been found, many of which have not even made their way to crime labs. It is unacceptable that rape victims must still live in fear and wait for justice. We must act to fix this continuing problem.

The original Justice for All Act included the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Reduction Program, which authorized significant funding to reduce the backlog of untested rape kits so that victims need not live in fear while kits languish in storage. That program is named after Debbie Smith, who lived in fear for years after being attacked before her rape kit was tested and the perpetrator was caught. She and her husband Rob have worked tirelessly to ensure that others need not experience the ordeal she went through. I thank Debbie and Rob for their continuing help on this extremely important cause.

Since we passed this important law in 2004, the Debbie Smith Act has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars going to States for the testing of DNA samples to reduce backlogs. I have worked with Senators of both parties to ensure full funding for the Debbie Smith Act each year.

As I have researched this problem of untested rape kits, there is one thing that I have heard again and again: the Debbie Smith program has been working and is making a major difference. I have heard from the Justice Department, States including my home State of Vermont, law enforcement, and victims' advocates that Debbie Smith grants have led to significant and meaningful backlog reduction, and to justice for victims, in jurisdictions across the country.

Unfortunately, despite the good strides we have made and the significant Federal funding for backlog reduction, we have seen alarming reports of continuing backlogs. A study in 2008 found 12,500 untested rape kits in the Los Angeles area alone, and while Los Angeles has since made progress in addressing the problem, other cities have now reported backlogs almost as severe. In 2009, the Justice Department released a report finding that in 18 percent of open, unsolved rape cases, evidence had not even been submitted to a crime lab.

That Justice Department study gets to a key component of this problem that has not yet been addressed. No matter how much money we send to crime labs for testing, if samples that could help make cases instead sit on the shelf in police evidence rooms and never make it to the lab, that money will do no good. Police officers must understand the importance of testing this vital evidence and must learn when testing is appropriate and necessary. In too many jurisdictions rape kits taken from victims who put themselves through further hardship to take these samples--rape kits that could help law enforcement to get criminals off the street--are sitting untested.

The bill we introduce today will finally address this part of the problem by mandating that the Department of Justice develop practices and protocols for the processing of DNA evidence and provide technical assistance to State and local governments to implement those protocols. The bill authorizes funding to States and communities to reduce their rape kit backlogs at the law enforcement stage by training officers, improving practices, developing evidence tracking systems, and taking other key steps to make sure that this crucial evidence gets to the labs to be tested.

The bill will also help us get to the bottom of this problem by calling for the development of a standardized definition of ``backlog'' covering both the law enforcement and lab stages and by implementing public reporting requirements to help us to identify where the backlogs are. It also takes steps to ensure that labs test DNA samples in the best order so that those samples which can help secure justice for rape victims are tested most quickly. It will also put into place new accountability requirements to make sure that Debbie Smith Act money is being spent effectively and appropriately.

The bill makes important changes to existing law to ensure that no rape victims are ever required to pay for testing of their rape kits and that these costs are covered with no strings attached. Senator Franken has been a strong advocate of this important provision, and I thank him for his help.

In the years since the Justice for All Act passed, we have also seen too many cases of people found to be innocent after spending years in jail, and we have faced the harrowing possibility that the unthinkable may have happened: the State of Texas may have executed an innocent man. We must act to ensure that our criminal justice system works as it should so that relevant evidence is tested and considered and all defendants receive quality representation.

The Justice for All Reauthorization Act takes important new steps to ensure that defendants in serious cases receive adequate representation and, where appropriate, testing of relevant DNA samples. As a former prosecutor, I have great faith in the men and women of law enforcement, and I know that the vast majority of the time our criminal justice system does work fairly and effectively. I also know though that the system only works as it should when each side is well represented by competent and well-trained counsel, and when all relevant evidence is retained and tested.

Sadly, we learn regularly of defendants released after new evidence exonerates them. We must do better. It is an outrage when an innocent person is punished, and it is doubly an outrage that, in those cases, the guilty person remains on the streets, able to commit more crimes, which makes all of us less safe.

This legislation takes important new steps to ensure that all criminal defendants, including those who cannot afford a lawyer, receive constitutionally adequate representation. It requires the Department of Justice to assist States that want help developing an effective and efficient system of indigent defense, and it establishes a cause of action for the Federal Government to step in when States are systematically failing to provide the representation called for in the constitution.

This is a reasonable measure that gives the States assistance and time needed to make necessary changes and seeks to provide an incentive for States to do so. Prosecutors and defense attorneys recognize the importance of quality defense counsel. It was persuasive to me when Houston District Attorney Patricia Lykos testified before the Judiciary Committee that it helps her do her job as a prosecutor when there are competent defense attorneys. I have also learned through this process that the most effective systems of indigent defense are not always the most expensive. In some cases, making the necessary changes may also save States money.

This legislation will also help ensure that the innocent are not punished while the guilty remain free by strengthening Kirk Bloodsworth Post Conviction DNA Testing Grant Program, one of the key programs created in the Innocence Protection Act. Kirk Bloodsworth was a young man just out of the Marines when he was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death for a heinous crime that he did not commit. He was the first person in the United States to be exonerated from a death row crime through the use of DNA evidence.

This program provides grants to States for testing in cases like Kirk's where someone has been convicted, but where significant DNA evidence was not tested. The last administration resisted implementing the program for several years, but we worked hard to see the program put into place. Now, money has gone out to a number of States, and the Committee has heard strong testimony that the program is making an impact. The legislation we introduce today expands the very modest authorization of funds to this important program and clarifies the conditions set for this program so that participating States are required to preserve key evidence, which is crucial, but are required to do so in a way that is attainable and will allow more States to participate.

The bill also asks States to produce comprehensive plans for their criminal justice systems, which will help to ensure that criminal justice systems operate effectively as a whole and that all parts of the system work together and receive the resources they need. The bill reauthorizes and improves key grant programs in a variety of areas throughout the criminal justice system. Importantly, it increases authorized funding for the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grant program, which is a vital program to assist forensic laboratories in performing the many forensic tests that are essential to solving crimes and prosecuting perpetrators. I appreciate Senator Sessions' longstanding support for this important program.

Finally, the legislation strengthens rights for victims of crime. It gives crime victims an affirmative right to be informed of all of their rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act and other key laws, and it takes several steps to make it easier for crime victims to assert their legal rights in court. I thank Senators Feinstein and Kyl for their leadership in this area and their assistance in developing these provisions.

In these times of tight budgets, it is important to note that this bill would make all of these improvements without increasing total authorized funding under the Justice For All Act and that many of these changes will help States, communities, and the Federal Government save money in the long term.

I thank the many law enforcement and criminal justice organizations that have helped to pinpoint the needed improvements that this law attempts to solve. Numerous organizations including the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the National District Attorneys' Association have expressed strong support for this bill.

Today, we rededicate ourselves to building a criminal justice system in which the innocent remain free, the guilty are punished, and all sides have the tools, resources, and knowledge

they need to advance the cause of justice. Americans need and deserve a criminal justice system which keeps us safe, ensures fairness and accuracy, and fulfills the promise of our constitution. This bill will take important steps to bring us closer to that goal.

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

Mr. President. I rise today with Senators Webb, McCaskill, Tim Johnson, Manchin, Ben Nelson, and Conrad to introduce the EPA Regulations Suspension Act of 2011. We are introducing this legislation for a simple but enormously important reason. At a time when our economy is finally headed toward a recovery, the last thing we want to do is add new burdens to American companies that could result in them cutting jobs or being less productive in the global marketplace.

In fact, I believe that the fate of our entire economy, our wide and varied manufacturing industries and our workers, especially our coal workers, rests in part on the decisions we make here in Washington. One thing we should never do is put the fate of an entire industry into the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency.

My legislation is simple and reasonable. It requires that for 2 years the EPA can take no regulatory action, regarding carbon dioxide and methane emission from stationary sources. During that time no facility can be subjected to any requirement to obtain a permit or meet a New Source Performance Standard under the Clean Air Act with respect to carbon dioxide or methane. At the same time the legislation specifically allows for the widely-supported motor vehicle emission standards to continue moving forward.

At the beginning of this year regulations came into effect that say if a company wants to retrofit an existing or build a new power plant, or factory, they now have to find ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Later this year the EPA will propose expanding these rules to cover existing stationary sources that are not expanding their operations. The impact of these rules is that companies will sit on the sidelines and opportunities for innovation and job creation will be lost. Because of these new rules companies won't build that new factory. They won't build that new power plant. And so they won't employ some of the millions of Americans who are out of work. That is why I believe these regulations need to be suspended.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I believe that climate change is an important issue and Congress should and will address it working collaboratively with the administration and the private sector.

But the lead should come from Congress and not the EPA. Congress, unlike the EPA, can craft proposals that reduce greenhouse gases while simultaneously protecting our economy. Most importantly, Congress is directly accountable to the people whose lives we impact.

We are capable of tackling this great challenge in a way that supports rather than undermines our economy and our future.

But the process has to work. It has to be open. It has to be truly bipartisan. It has to acknowledge the fact that all of our States use energy in very different ways. It has to protect our economy. This will not be achieved overnight, but it is possible.

Technology can be a solution to this problem. West Virginia is poised to lead the effort on clean energy technology: because we know energy. We know coal. We know natural gas. We know Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS as few others do. We are coming to know wind and we have great potential in learning how to use our geothermal resources as well.

The fact is, we in West Virginia know and embrace what too many others either don't understand or refuse to see, which is that our Nation and countries around the world are dependent on coal. That is not something that will change when half the globe is struggling to rise out of poverty.

In this country we get almost half our electricity from coal. That will not change anytime soon. Globally countries such as China and India continue to increase their usage of coal as they develop their economies.

To fight climate change we can't just choose to stop using coal. Even if we in the United States did, the rest of the world wouldn't; and the problem would continue. Instead we must find the technological solution that allows us to use coal, while reducing its impact on the Earth and her people.

I know that there are many on the Republican side of the aisle who believe it does not go far enough. There are many on my side of the aisle who believe it goes too far in tying the EPA's hands. Ultimately I believe this is good legislation because it is an achievable compromise. Too often in this body we seek to score political points on issues rather than solve problems that the country is facing now.

And right now our Nation's manufacturing and industrial sectors are facing the prospect of overwhelming EPA regulation. Regulation that makes it harder for them to put America back to work. While many might think this is not the perfect solution it is a solution that I believe we can and should move early this year.

One piece of the debate that is often missing in our discussions is to keep our focus on people and all the problems, including the problem of climate change, that affect their future.

My focus is on protecting the hard-working people I represent--people who changed my life when I was born anew in the coalfields of West Virginia at the age of 26. These people, their work and their lives matter. Any regulatory solution that creates more problems for them than it fixes; and causes more harm than good in their lives is no solution at all. EPA regulation of greenhouse gases does just that.

So that, Mr. President, is why I have introduced this legislation today. I hope that this body will act on it quickly, for we do not have time to waste. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise before you today with Senators Snowe, Leahy, Wyden, Johnson and Kerry to introduce important legislation--the Guardians of Freedom Act of 2011--which will make the Chief of the National Guard Bureau a member of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This legislation will strengthen our national security both abroad and here at home.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff does an outstanding job providing support to the Secretary of Defense and performing oversight of military personnel and resources within the Department of Defense. However, it lacks the voice of the Chief of the National Guard Bureau who represents more than twenty percent of the uniformed service members.

This is important because each member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a military adviser to the President, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense. In that role, they may offer their advice and opinions to the President, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, or the Secretary of Defense. And, as we all know, the National Guard has important homeland security responsibilities in addition to national defense responsibilities.

As the former Governor of West Virginia, I cannot say enough about the importance of the National Guard. The National Guard is always there. Whether it is flooding, snow storms, tornadoes, or other disasters, the National Guard comes to the rescue of communities in every State throughout our Nation. And, I would bet that there is a member of the National Guard living in every single congressional district and every single community in our country. These citizen- soldiers are our Governors' emergency force.

Unlike our active-duty forces, the National Guard has both a State and Federal mission. Now I'm not taking anything away from our active- duty or reserve forces as they have always performed, and will continue to perform, in an outstanding fashion. However, the National Guard is unique in that it serves each State's Governor in addition to the President and Commander-in-Chief.

The National Guard's State mission includes responding to natural and man-made disasters as well as domestic emergencies. They have been called to respond to hurricanes, floods and snow storms. They serve next door to each of us.

Among the National Guard's Federal responsibilities is providing homeland defense and defense support to civil authorities. The National Guard accomplishes its Federal mission through a variety of programs. One of those programs is the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, or High-Yield Explosive Teams, which respond to incidents and support local, State, and Federal agencies as they conduct decontamination, medical support, and casualty search and extraction.

Last year's Quadrennial Defense Review acknowledged that the Department of Defense must be prepared to provide appropriate support to civil authorities. One key finding of the Quadrennial Defense Review was the recognition of the need to field faster, more flexible chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosives events consequence management response forces. As a result of this finding, the National Guard will build a Homeland Response Force in each of the 10 Federal Emergency Management Agency regions. These 10 Homeland Response Forces will provide the needed response capability. These are just two of the many ways in which the National Guard works directly with the homeland security community as the central connection between the Federal Government and State and local officials. And, I would be remiss if I did not mention that a primary training unit for these Homeland Response Forces is the West Virginia National Guard's Joint Interagency Training & Education Center.

These Federal programs, along with the National Guard's State mission, clearly illustrate the National Guard's unequivocal role in protecting our home front. And, it goes without saying that our Guard members make tremendous contributions to military operations outside of the United States.

Today, tens of thousands of Guard members train with first responders and protect life and property here at home, while also engaging in combat operations in far-off, dangerous locations--including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since September 11, 2001, our National Guardsmen have been called upon to deploy abroad at a higher rate than ever before. At the same time their domestic and State missions have expanded. Given the National Guard's role in defending our country, it is important that the National Guard be resourced and equipped to fulfill its dual mission.

Our Guard members must be assured of the ability to meet their obligations to their Governors, their next door neighbors, and to our Nation as a whole. In order to do that, the National Guard's voice must be heard at the highest levels of our government.

By making the Chief of the National Guard Bureau a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Guardians of Freedom Act of 2011 will guarantee that the National Guard is a part of the discussion as the Nation responds to threats both foreign and domestic. It also makes certain that the concerns of the Nation's Governors are considered when resources are scarce. And it will build upon the relationship developed between the active-duty forces and the National Guard, a bond has been strengthened as a result of the ongoing operations.

Before I end my remarks, I want to acknowledge Major General Allen Tackett, the Adjutant General of the West Virginia National Guard for the last 15 years and the longest serving Adjutant General in the country. Major General Tackett is retiring today after enlisting in the Army more than 45 years ago. He has been a great partner and visionary over the years. He led the transformation of the West Virginia National Guard and, according to General McKinley, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, is leaving West Virginia with the Nation's finest National Guard. I can honestly say that we are better off as a Nation because he chose to dedicate his life to defending ours. Thank you, Major General Tackett. God smiled on West Virginia the day he gave us you, and we are eternally grateful.

Mr. President, like my colleague, I appreciate the work he has done on this issue. We have been talking about this for a number of weeks. Our staffs have been hammering out the details.

I will be candid. As I left my office, some members of my staff said: OK, good luck walking that plank. We will see how it works out for you. Because this is politically risky, what the Senator and I are trying to do. As I was riding over here on the tram to make this speech, I got a text message from one of my kids. All of a sudden it became clear to me what this is like. This is like saying no when you are a parent. It is so easy to say yes to your kids. When they want something, when they want to do something we think is risky, the easiest thing in the world to do is to say yes.

When they want money, when they want to have a new car, when they want to borrow your car, when they want to go spend the night at a friend's you do not know very well, when they want to stay out later, when they want this, that, when they want to go to the mall, it is so easy to say yes. It does not take a lot of time. It makes them happy. You feel good. But there is always that voice in your head that says: If I am going to be a good parent, sometimes it is more important to say no.

Well, we have a bunch of people in Congress who have made a lifetime career of saying yes. I understand it. We run for office around here. We want everyone to be happy with us. We want everyone to love us. We do not want to disappoint anyone. We do not want there to be controversy about the decisions we make. So how do we avoid the controversy? We say yes. We say yes. And we have said yes and yes and yes until we find ourselves at this point in our history where our unwillingness to say no, our unwillingness to embrace controversy and political risk, has led us to an economic brink, a place where if we do not do something that is going to make some people angry, that is going to cause some negative ads to be run against us, then we are not doing our job as stewards. That is all we are here. We are passing through. We are not entitled to these jobs. We borrowed these jobs. They belong to the American people, and we have a responsibility as stewards to say no now, to say no.

I remember when I used to tell my kids: It is so much easier for me to tell you yes. And they would say: Well, it is easier for you. It was easier for me. I would say: The right thing to do is for me to say no. And they would say: Well, that is not easier for us.

That is beginning to be what is happening around here. I have noticed some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying: We are going to cut, cut, cut, cut. Now it is all bubbling up, with all the people saying: No, you can't cut our subsidy; No, you can't cut the oil company subsidy; you can't cut a farm program; you can't cut this; you can't cut that. Everyone is coming out of the woodwork to protect the spending that is embraced by our bad habit of saying yes.

So that is why this bill is necessary. This is like telling Congress: You have to be better parents, and if you cannot muster the courage to say no, these cuts are going to happen anyway. It is like a discipline for us. And I do not go here lightly. I do not go here without understanding the political risks involved. But I go here because I deeply believe it is necessary for our country. We cannot get control of the deficit if we do not control spending.

Let me talk for a minute about debt and deficit because as I go out and talk to people, there are a lot of people who use those two terms interchangeably. They do not understand. There is a big difference between the debt and the deficit. The deficit is like your monthly budget and not having enough money to come in to meet your monthly expenses. We talk about the deficit on an annual basis: How much money is the government bringing in and how much money is going out. When more is going out than coming in, we have a deficit.

What happens to that deficit every year? It goes on our debt. It is like a family's mortgage. But instead of us paying down the mortgage every year, we keep adding to the mortgage every year. That is why we now have a $1.4, $1.5 trillion deficit this year. We are going to spend that much more than we take in this year. We have $14 trillion in debt. That is the long-term mortgage our country has right now that we owe someone that we have to pay. So we have to get hold of this debt.

I want to compliment the President of the United States because the short-term spending stuff is important. And I want to compliment Senator Sessions. He and I have worked on short-term spending caps for over a year. But now it is time for us to look at long-term discipline and what we can do to get our country on a glide path where we no longer are precariously on the edge of not being the strongest economic power in the world.

Our deficits are unsustainable and our debt is out of control. This bill takes a very measured approach, gives us time to figure things out. It is not like the ridiculous proposal over in the House where we are going to cut $2.5 trillion this year. Anybody who thinks that is going to happen, I have a tutu you need to wear down the hall tomorrow. That is a ridiculous proposal. That is impossible to do. But this bill is possible and responsible. This puts us on a glide path to say to the American people that our spending is going to be capped at a certain percentage of our economic activity in this country. That is possible, and it is responsible, and we should do it.

Who is to blame? Let's be honest about how we got here. The biggest factor in our deficits the last 2 years is our poor economy. I know, I know; you would think it is the stimulus. You would think it is TARP. It is not. Political cheap shots but not true. The biggest fiscal hole we are facing is because of the poor economy.

The biggest increase in spending in the last 2 years? You would think it was the auto bailouts or you would think it was the bank bailout or you would think it was the stimulus. It was not. Do you know what the biggest increase in spending was over the last 2 years? Unemployment benefits because of our bad economy. That was the biggest increase in spending over the last 2 years. Our fiscal hole has grown primarily because of a bad economy over the last 2 years.

But there also have been bad decisions by both parties over the last decade. When Clinton left office, our debt--he may have been running a surplus in terms of the deficit, but our debt was $5.7 trillion. When Bush left office, he had doubled it from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion. And today it is $14 trillion.

Over the past decade, we have had two wars we did not bother to pay for, a brandnew Medicare entitlement--brand spanking new--that was not means tested. We are buying Warren Buffett's prescription drugs. Go figure. Like we are busted and we are buying multihundred-million- dollar billionaires prescription drugs, and we did not bother to pay for it. We have had increases in discretionary spending by both parties that increased our deficit and exceeded inflation.

I want to talk a minute about the boogie man of the TARP and the stimulus. I am so sick of that being blamed. It is so wrong and factually incorrect. We have tax cuts that go on forever that have contributed to this. We have wars that we are fighting that have contributed to this. We have entitlement programs that are not paid for. But the stimulus was a one-time expenditure. It is not something that goes on. It has no tail.

Anyone who understands economics and understands the balance sheet of the U.S. Government knows this problem was not the stimulus. One-third of the stimulus was tax cuts. The last time I looked, unpaid-for tax cuts were the way of the world. One-third of the stimulus was tax cuts. Another third of it, almost, was unemployment benefits. That is not the problem. And TARP? Let's be honest. It was a genius decision in many ways because it stabilized our financial sector, and it has cost us a mere fraction of the money that was used on a temporary basis to make sure our economy did not twist down the drain, as it was likely to do had President Bush not intervened with his economic team to ask us on a bipartisan basis to do something that was in the best interest of our Nation.

We can move on as to who is to blame because now we have to talk about tomorrow's problems. I am proud the President is dealing with short-term spending by his freeze. I am proud he is working on earmarks and all of the other things that are a symptom of the disease around here. But our challenge is long-term spending. In the long term, spending is going to drive the debt up even higher. Medicare and Medicaid cuts are going to double by 2021. Social Security is going to increase by 70 percent by 2021.

We have to look at those issues and make sure on a bipartisan basis we do what is responsible. We have to make sure these programs-- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security--are stable and secure for my children and their children. If we cannot agree even on the modest measures such as the 3-year discretionary spending cap Senator Sessions and I have been pushing for over a year, I question whether we have the discipline to do the hard work. Getting control of spending is very hard, but we have to do it, and we have to do it now.

First and foremost, we need to focus on eliminating the waste and mismanagement. That is what drives Americans crazy. It drives people crazy that we are spending money on duplicative programs and we are not even checking to see if they work. It drives them crazy when the Federal Government runs huge deficits and we are paying out $55 billion in improper payments at Health and Human Services and $12 billion of improper payments by Treasury to people who do not even qualify.

It drives Americans crazy when we do not make the reforms our auditors recommend. The Defense Department has 1,200 suggestions that have been made by our government auditors about how it can manage its money and its programs better, and they have not acted on almost 1,200 of them. It drives people crazy we are running deficits when we have Departments such as the Agriculture Department and Homeland Security that get failing management grades for 8 straight years. And it drives people crazy when we are running deficits and we are passing appropriations bills with $15 billion worth of earmarks.

I have been working hard to try to clean up all this waste. We have been working on contract management. I have never requested an earmark. I voted against every omnibus appropriations bill that has come to the floor since I have been a Senator, and I have worked hard for the last year with Senator Sessions to cap spending. Now I look forward to working hard with Senator Corker and many of my friends in the Republican Party to work on the Corker-McCaskill bill to put a cap long term on spending in the Federal Government.

As I say, this is a bold step. It has risks. And if this bill is distorted and twisted, it could cost me my Senate seat. I will say that again. If this bill is distorted and twisted, it could cost me my Senate seat. But it is a price I am willing to pay. It is a price I am willing to pay for my country and, more importantly, it is a price I am willing to pay for my grandchildren.

Madam Chair, I support the amendment being offered.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar).

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I claim the time in opposition.

I do rise to oppose this amendment. I am very sympathetic to the direction that the sponsor is headed--the notion that we need to make sure that if people see something that is a threat to them, or the service, or to our national interests at all, they should feel free reporting it.

The problem I have with this amendment is current law protects that. We have current statute with whistleblower protection that very clearly says that if you have any reason to believe that something is going on that is counterproductive or detrimental to the United States' interests or security, you are free to report that to the appropriate superiors. That law is there and is protected.

Now I will agree with the sponsor that people nonetheless are reluctant to come forward and provide that information. But what we need to do is we need to educate people about that protection being there in the current law.

What this amendment does is broadens that to the point where it's going to sweep a lot of stuff up that we don't want to hear about. It isn't necessarily going to make it any more likely that what we want to hear about is going to be reported by saying ``ideologically based threats or actions.'' That is beyond broad, it almost is beyond definition. It is the freedom to say anything about anyone any time with this protection, which I don't think we want, which I think would undermine the broader mission.

So the current law makes it clear. If you are a servicemember who sees a threat or perceives a threat for any reason, ideologically based or otherwise, frankly I don't see why it makes any difference whether or not it's ideologically based; we want it reported.

So that is current law, it's protected. We need to make sure that everyone, not just servicemembers, but everyone in society feels free to report such threats to the appropriate authorities.

This amendment is overly broad and would cause more trouble than it would solve. So, therefore, I oppose the amendment and urge the body to do so.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Chair, just to close, I agree with the gentleman's remarks.

Let me just say if I thought that there was the tiniest little bit possibility that this amendment would prevent the type of tragedy that happened at Fort Hood, I would support it unquestionably, but I don't believe it will. The concerns, the back and forth about whether or not to report something that is concerning, they exist, they need to be dealt with. They will exist whether or not this amendment is passed.

We need to work to educate people to report threats, but making it ideologically based, I think, opens up more problems and shifts the focus away from what we need. And what we need is whether the threat is ideological or whatever the cause, we need to encourage people to go to their superiors, report it, and make sure that they are better safe than sorry. I would encourage that, but I don't think this amendment does that. Again, I would urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in opposition to this amendment for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm curious about the ``we're not actually going to fund it out of DOD, we will fund the money somewhere else in conference'' argument because it's funded out of DOD right now. Unless this is now being offered as a sense of Congress with no money attached to it, in a minute I would be curious to hear exactly how that works.

But beyond that, this is not what is in the best interests of the children of our servicemembers. To give them a $7,500 voucher to go get special needs education is a license for them not to get the education they need. As everyone in this body knows, the costs of

special needs children can sometimes be as much as $100,000 a year to our public schools. There are some children out there who have some very, very strong needs.

Fortunately, because of the IDEA, the public schools in this country are 100 percent obligated to meet that need. Talk to any school superintendent who has to deal with this, it's an enormous cost, but it's also an enormous benefit to these children. They have to meet those needs, and if they don't, it is precisely the parent who has the law on his or her side to say the public school must meet that requirement.

If you give them a $7,500 voucher and send them off to whatever private school is out there, they are not subject to those same requirements. They do not have to meet that same dollar value. What you are doing is you are undermining the education for these special needs children in a way that could be very detrimental to our families.

Now, we had a very long debate on this in the Armed Services Committee. This amendment was defeated on a bipartisan basis in committee for a variety of different reasons. I want to make it clear, it was stated throughout, how can you not care about the children of our servicemembers, and more than one Member on our side said, we do. This is not what this is about. We absolutly care about the children of our servicemembers. We want them to get the best education possible. But taking special needs families, giving them a $7,500 voucher and sending them out into the public and private school world and saying, good luck, is not what is in the best interests of parents with special needs children. It simply isn't. They are not getting the type of protections that they have under the law if they go out in that situation.

I would strongly urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the remainder of my time.

I find that last argument interesting to say that they move around a lot. I think that is very true. I think they do, and that is a challenge. And they don't have time to make all of these decisions. But they do have time to take a $7,500 voucher and search across all the different schools to see which private schools are going to take it. Because keep in mind, that's another critical aspect of this. Private schools do not have to accept a single solitary student. They don't. You show up with a $7,500 voucher and they say, we're sorry, your child is going to cost more than that. They just say no and move on.

Public schools do have to accept these children and do have to fund it. I really do believe that this will be a step in the wrong direction. The cost is also going to be an issue. We are going to have to find the money for this somewhere. It's not going to improve the education or the lives of our servicemembers and their families, and it is going to wind up costing money.

Again, I would urge a ``no'' vote;

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment.

I have no speakers at this time; so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I'm happy to yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, this may not be the best way to get at this problem, but this is a problem. There is nothing wrong with competition, but what's happening right now with a lot of DOD contracts is not competition. The DOD has gone in, in a very arbitrary way, picked large contractors from a long ways away, and not even allowed, in many instances, local contractors to compete for that work.

This is a very real problem. It's a bipartisan problem. We had a Republican Member testify before the Armed Services Committee about his concerns about this. They are driving work away from local contractors and away from local workers, not allowing them to compete for that work by showing a bias in favor of a large, one-size-fits-all contractor. Not good for the Department of Defense.

Also, with all of our bases, the local community is a critical support structure for that base. Once you take that out, once you take local workers, local contractors out of the equation, it makes it that much more difficult to get the local community to give the base the support that it deserves. This is not competition as it's currently constructed. I applaud the gentleman for offering his amendment. I urge support, and I urge that this committee look more closely at this issue.

Mr. President, today, on the first day of Black History Month, I am proud to reintroduce The Harriet Tubman National Historical Park and The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park Act. I am joined by Mr. Schumer, Ms. Mikulski, and Ms. Gillibrand as original co-sponsors.

The woman, who is known to us as Harriet Tubman, was born in approximately 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland and given the name Araminta, Minty, Ross. She spent nearly 30 years of her life in slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore. As an adult she took the first name Harriet, and when she was 25 she married John Tubman.

Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849. She did so in the dead of night, navigating the maze of tidal streams and wetlands that, to this day, comprise the Maryland Eastern Shore landscape. She did so alone, demonstrating courage, strength and fortitude that became her hallmarks. Not satisfied with attaining her own freedom, she returned repeatedly for more than 10 years to the places of her enslavement in Dorchester and Caroline counties where, under the most adverse conditions, she led away many family members and other slaves to freedom in the Northeastern United States. Tubman became known as ``Moses'' by African-Americans and white abolitionists. She is the most famous and most important conductor of the network of resistance known as the Underground Railroad.

During the Civil War, Tubman served the Union forces as a spy, a scout and

a nurse. She served in Virginia, Florida and South Carolina. She is credited with leading slaves from those slave states to freedom during those years.

Following the Civil War, Tubman settled in Auburn, NY. There she was active in the women's suffrage movement, and she also established one of the first incorporated African-American homes for aged. In 1903 she bequeathed the home to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Auburn. Harriet Tubman died in Auburn in 1913 and she is buried there in the Fort Hill Cemetery.

Slaves were forced to live in primitive buildings even though many were skilled tradesmen who constructed the substantial homes of their owners. Not surprisingly, few of the structures associated with the early years of Tubman's life still stand. The landscapes of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, however, remain evocative of the time that Tubman lived there. Farm fields and forests dot the landscape, which is also notable for its extensive network of tidal rivers and wetlands. In particular, a number of properties including the homestead of Ben Ross, her father, Stewart's Canal, where he worked, the Brodess Farm, where she worked as a slave, and others are within the master plan boundaries of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

Similarly, Poplar Neck, the plantation from which she escaped to freedom, is still largely intact in Caroline County. The properties in Talbot County, immediately across the Choptank River from the plantation, are today protected by various conservation easements. Were she alive today, Tubman would recognize much of the landscape that she knew intimately as she secretly led black men, women and children to their freedom.

In New York, on the other hand, many of the buildings associated with Tubman's life remain intact. Her personal home, as well as the Tubman Home for the Aged, the church and rectory of the Thompson Memorial AME Zion Episcopal Church, and the Fort Hill Cemetery are all extant.

In 1999, the Congress approved legislation authorizing a Special Resource Study to determine the appropriateness of establishing a unit of the National Park Service to honor Harriet Tubman. The Study has taken an exceptionally long time to complete, in part because of the lack of remaining structures on Maryland's Eastern Shore. There has never been any doubt that Tubman led an extraordinary life. Her contributions to American history are surpassed by few. Determining the most appropriate way to recognize that life and her contributions, however, has been exceedingly difficult. Eventually, the National Park Service determined that designating a Historical Park that would include two geographically separate units would be an appropriate tribute to the life of this extraordinary American. The New York unit would include the tightly clustered Tubman buildings in the town of Auburn. The Maryland portion would include large sections of landscapes that are evocative of Tubman's time and are historically relevant. The Special Resource Study, completed by the National Park Service in the Fall of 2008, confirmed these findings and on July 15, 2009, the National Park Service endorsed S. 227 as introduced in the 111th Congress during a legislative hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

During the process of preparing S. 227 for markup in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Bingaman, drafted a substitute amendment of the bill. The contents of the Bingaman substitute are the result of his work to accommodate concerns that the Ranking Member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee had with S. 227 as introduced. An agreement was reached on the contents of the substitute amendment. An opportunity to mark up S. 227, consider the Bingaman substitute, and hold a vote in Committee never happened in the final months of the 111th Congress.

The legislation I am introducing today incorporates the proposed changes from the Bingaman substitute to S. 227. The bill establishes two parks.

The Harriet Tubman National Historical Park is comprised of important historical structures in Auburn, NY. They include Tubman's home, the Home for the Aged that she established, the African Methodist Episcopal AME Zion Church, and the Fort Hill Cemetery where she is buried.

The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park includes historically important landscapes in Dorchester, Caroline and Talbot counties, Maryland, that are evocative of the life of Harriet Tubman.

In Dorchester County, the parcels would not be contiguous, but would include about 2,775 acres. All of these parcels are located within the established master plan boundaries of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge but are not currently owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The four parcels located within the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Boundary, are sites significant to the life of Harriet Tubman. These parcels include the Anthony Thompson plantation parcel where Harriet Tubman likely was born, The Brodess Plantation parcel where Tubman worked as a young girl, the Cook Plantation parcel where as a teenager Harriet Tubman worked as a seamstress, and the Jacob Jackson parcel which is believed to be the location of one of the first safe houses along the Underground Railroad. The Park would be established upon the fee simple acquisition, by the National Park Service, of any of these parcels located within the current boundary of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

Additional areas that would comprise the Harriet Tubman historic area include about 2,200 acres in Caroline County that comprise the Poplar Neck plantation that Tubman escaped from in 1849. The 725 acres of viewshed across the Choptank River in Talbot County would also be included in the Park. These parcels are authorized to come under protection through conservation easements held by the private property owners.

The bill authorizes such sums as necessary to meet the goals and objectives of the bill. Funds can be used for the construction of the Harriet Tubman Park Visitors Center, through a cost sharing requirement, for easements, or acquisition of the designated parcels eligible for fee simple acquisition.

Harriet Tubman was a true American patriot. She was someone for whom liberty and freedom were not just concepts. She lived those principles and shared that freedom with hundreds of others. In doing so, she has earned a nation's respect and honor.

Harriet Tubman is one of many great Americans that we honor and celebrate every February during Black History Month. In schools across the country, American History curriculums teach our children about Tubman's courage, conviction, her fight for freedom and her contributions to the greatness of our nation during a contentious time in U.S. history. Now it is time to add to Tubman's legacy by preserving, protecting and commemorating the places evocative of Harriet Tubman's extraordinary life.

I am so proud to introduce this legislation, establishing the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park. I look forward to working with my colleagues to establish this important and fitting tribute to Harriet Tubman, a life worthy of recognition.

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