Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay 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, today I introduce a straight-forward bill that is a first step toward helping American workers and businesses. This bill is part of my E-4 Initiative, which focuses on issues affecting the economy, energy, education and employment. The Skills Standards Certification Evaluation Act will require the Secretaries of Labor, Education and Commerce to evaluate skills standards certification programs that have been developed with federal funding.

Skills Standards Certifications have emerged over the past two decades in response to job growth in high-technology and varied industries. The training or classes usually take weeks or months, rather than years. Often, they are developed in response to the needs of one industry or even one company, though the skills are often applicable more widely.

As the President-elect and Congress work to save and create jobs through additional funding for infrastructure, green jobs, and similar programs, among other things, it is even more critical that employers be able to find qualified workers for a variety of positions. Workers who can easily demonstrate their skills quickly and easily will be able to benefit from such investments early on.

Over the past two decades, the Federal Government has taken conflicting approaches to skills standards certifications. That is why, as part of the Skills Standards Certification Evaluation Act, I require a recommendation from the Secretaries of Labor and Commerce on how Congress ought to move forward with funding for these certification programs. Both the national, top-down, and a local, bottom-up approach have been tried, and a thorough evaluation will make clear how we can move forward to get the most out of the funding the Federal Government provides.

These certifications have a tremendous benefit for workers. First, because the training is often condensed into a few weeks with a flexible schedule, it allows people to complete certifications without leaving a current job and without the financial cost of attending a full-time program that lasts a year or more. In addition, these programs allow workers to clearly demonstrate a certain set of skills, and may open more doors for higher-paying employment. Because these programs can be completed without leaving work, they also allow workers to advance within a career or company to more skilled positions and better wages and benefits.

For employers, Skills Standards Certifications can simplify the search for employees. I have heard from numerous Wisconsin employers, especially small businesses with limited resources, that it is hard to find employees with the skills they need, or who will be dedicated and loyal. Skills Standards Certifications clearly show the qualification of an individual, of course, but also tell the employer that he or she is dedicated enough to invest in the course to earn the certificate. Very few people will spend the time and money to enroll in such a program if they don't intend to use the certificate.

Lastly, these programs can help state and local governments quantify their skilled workforce, which can be invaluable when marketing the area to businesses and investment.

This bill is a small first step in what I hope can be a continuing effort to help hard-working Americans obtain and use high-demand work skills.

Mr. President, today I reintroduce a piece of my E4 initiative, so named because it is a collection of proposals that address issues important to the economy, education, employment and energy. This piece of the E4 legislation focuses on the important supporting role that transportation can play in economic development by creating an environment where employers and those seeking employment or better employment are connected together. Having such a system to overcome transportation hurdles can benefit both employers and employees, as well as the local economy and is all the more important in these difficult economic times.

In more general terms, investing in our infrastructure like roads, bridges and transit systems can have direct job creation impacts. This is one reason I have fought hard with the rest of the delegation for a fair rate of return for Wisconsin from the highway bill. It is also why in a letter I sent to President-elect Obama and Senate leaders I included highway and transit projects as part of a variety of ready-to- go infrastructure projects that should be included in the forthcoming economic recovery program.

In addition to supporting transportation-related jobs, linking workers and businesses that need them can also be an important part of a more comprehensive job creation strategy. This can mean supporting a robust public transportation system or more specific programs designed to link low-income individuals with jobs. I have consistently done the former by supporting

public transportation during consideration of the highway bill and Amtrak reauthorizations. But my specific proposal today focuses on the latter and improving the Job Access and Reverse Commute, JARC, program that links low-income workers with employers.

I have heard good things about the JARC program and was glad that it was shifted away from earmarks and was made available as a combination formula and competitively awarded program in the last highway bill. The primary program goal is to locally assess the transportation needs of low-income workers and then plan and fund programs to help alleviate transportation-related barriers to employment or better employment. While initially this may have been viewed as a way to support reverse commute projects whereby transit routes were established to allow city center residents to access jobs in the suburbs, the program actually does much more than just this and provides reliable transportation to low-income urban, rural and suburban workers.

In Wisconsin, the Federal JARC program is jointly administered by the State departments of transportation and workforce development as the Wisconsin Employment Transportation Assistance Program, WETAP. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, transportation barriers can include a lack of a dependable vehicle or bus service in the area, an absence of local jobs, or childcare transportation problems. The State agencies in Wisconsin have found several different types of projects to be effective depending on the local circumstances. These projects have included the traditional public transit projects such as extending bus lines or supporting van-pooling, along with other programs such as providing cars or car repairs to low-income individuals. Wisconsin has even found that assisting with indirect barriers such as transportation of children to and from childcare facilities is critical in allowing some individuals to improve their job prospects.

A recent University of Illinois Chicago, UIC, study found that the societal benefits from this program are $1.65 per dollar spent and estimates lifetime benefits to low income participants of $15 per dollar spent due to their ability to find and retain better paying jobs. While the goals of the Job Access and Reverse Commute program are important and the program has been found to be fairly effective, there are some details that have prevented the program from reaching its full potential. Working closely with transportation officials in Wisconsin and partially based on recommendations from the UIC study, I've come up with some specific ideas to improve the program.

With a proven effective program and continuing unmet needs by employers and low-income individuals seeking employment, JARC could use a boost in funding. So that is why my proposal ramps up funding by $100 million over 5 years from the current funding of $165 million to $265 million in fiscal year 2014.

My proposal would also allow the Federal share of projects to increase to 80 percent from the current 50 percent level for operating expenses. The 50 percent local and State match wasn't feasible for far too many local governments in Wisconsin and as a result Wisconsin has not been able to spend all its Federal funds. The higher Federal cost share will better balance the need to leverage Federal funds, while ensuring that these critical funds are fully utilized--millions of dollars in an account does nothing to link people to jobs.

Besides the challenge in coming up with a 50 percent local cost share, the other main issue that has kept JARC from being as effective as it could be is the paperwork and reporting burden required by the program, especially for the small nonprofit groups that often have never dealt with Federal grant requirements before. My proposal directs the Federal Transit Agency, FTA, to examine the current reporting requirements to see if there are ways to streamline the amount of paperwork required while still ensuring that the program goals are met.

My bill also includes a pilot program funded at $10 million a year for 5 years in order to test a few areas that seem very promising, but should be evaluated more fully before broader implementation. The first portion of the pilot program builds off the regulatory streamlining evaluation and allows the FTA to test streamlined reporting requirements to help get the balance between oversight and administrative burden right.

The second part of the pilot program focuses on improving education- and employment-related transportation for teens and young adults. Enabling students and young people to reliably get between their high schools or neighborhoods and technical colleges, job training centers or apprenticeships can have a lifelong positive impact.

The third section of the pilot program would allow experimentation with combining different transit programs and integrating JARC projects across local political boundaries to provide a more comprehensive local transportation system. Instead of having one transit program to assist the disabled, one targeted toward the elderly and another focused on jobs, this pilot program would encourage funding combined applications to meet these needs together with one comprehensive project. There is even the potential for the Department of Transportation to further coordinate with other departments such as Health and Human Services for healthcare-related transportation. Similarly, the needs of employers for employees do not recognize local political boundaries, so encouraging greater collaboration between local entities to make a more robust interconnected system should ultimately provide more efficient and effective service.

While the FTA already provides some technical assistance for the JARC program, my proposal provides a small boost in funding and some additional areas of emphasis. For example, after hearing about the struggles that some small nonprofits have with the reporting requirements, in addition to looking for ways to streamline the requirements, my proposal would direct the FTA to also provide some technical assistance especially targeted to this need.

The final element of my proposal is the offset. The new spending authorized in the proposal is fully offset by rescinding highway and bridge earmarks that have not had funds spent from them despite being authorized over a decade ago as part of the TEA-21 highway bill. Helping connect workers and employers is a much better use of these funds than letting them sit unused in some obscure DOT account.

Providing reliable transportation to low-income individuals only goes so far--it is the companies and innovators creating the jobs and the individuals seeking to better their lot through education or more challenging employment, that are doing the heavy lifting. That being said, transportation can clearly be a challenge for companies and workers and in the case of the JARC program can play an important supporting role.

Mr. President, we are all aware of the serious challenges our economy faces in the short term and the urgency of our need to promote job creation and economic development. I am committed to engaging in this broad effort with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. But it is essential that our efforts not just be short term fixes--they must not only aim to create jobs and investment opportunities in the short term, they must be part of strategic efforts to strengthen our Nation's innovation capabilities and sustain long term economic development in a changing and competitive global environment. There is no better way to do this than by stimulating and supporting small business innovation, especially in areas of national priority. As part of this effort, today I am introducing the Strengthening Our Economy Through Small Business Innovation Act of 2009.

Job growth, innovation and economic development are driven by our small

businesses. Small businesses also tend to be based in our cities and communities and so they are major contributors to our local economies. Half of our county's payroll jobs and most of our new job opportunities are provided by small businesses. Small businesses are proven innovators and drive commercialization of cutting edge technologies. Not only are small businesses our major source of employment, they employ about one third of our country's scientists and engineers and generate more patents on a per capita basis than large businesses and universities. They also are effective partners with universities to enhance product creation, develop university income and attract university graduates and faculty through increased innovative job opportunities.

Over the last 25 years, through the Small Business Innovation and Research program, SBIR, and, more recently, the Small Business Technology Transfer program, STTR, up to 2.5 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively, of Federal R&D funds from 11 Federal agencies have been specifically allocated to our Nation's small businesses to fund innovation. These small business allocations are not sufficient. We must diversify and strengthen innovation capabilities and our economic base, and to accomplish this we must extend and increase R&D allocations to our Nation's innovative small businesses.

My bill does 3 things. First, it extends the SBIR and STTR programs for a further 14 years so that small businesses, as well as universities and non-profit research organizations that collaborate with small businesses, can continue to leverage Federal research and development funding.

Second, it significantly increases the allocation of funds and the awards from large Federal research and development budgets to small businesses through the SBIR and STTR programs. It would increase the SBIR allocation from its current 2.5 percent to 10 percent and the STTR allocation from 0.3 percent to 1.0 percent over a 3-year period. It would increase SBIR phase I awards from $100,000 to $300,000 and phase II awards from $750,000 to $2.2 million. Third, it identifies specific funding priorities for energy innovation; safe and secure water; domestic security; and transportation.

The SBIR program is tested, successful and worthy of extension. In its comprehensive study of the SBIR program, the National Research Council found that the program ``is sound in concept and effective in practice''; was ``stimulating technological innovation''; ``linking universities to the public and private markets''; ``increasing private sector commercialization of innovations'' at an ``impressive'' rate; and ``providing widely distributed support for innovation activity.'' The study concluded that:

[T]he program is proving effective in meeting Congressional

objectives. It is increasing innovation, encouraging

participation by small companies in R&D, providing support

for small firms owned by minorities and women, and resolving

research questions for mission agencies in a cost effective

manner. Should the Congress wish to provide additional funds

for the program in support of these objectives, those funds

could be employed effectively by the nation's SBIR.

The NRC's study also found that universities and other non-profit research institutions would benefit significantly from the increase in both the SBIR and the STTR programs. In particular, the STTR allocation increase will directly benefit universities and efforts to bring university-based research into the commercial marketplace, as a partnership with a non-profit research institution, such as a university, is a requirement of all STTR award recipients. Many of the small businesses that receive SBIR funding are rooted in the university infrastructure so investigators and graduates from universities will have opportunities to be part of commercial developments. More than two-thirds of SBIR companies report that at least one founder was previously an academic. About one-third of SBIR company founders were most recently employed as academics before founding the company. Over a third of SBIR projects cite direct university involvement with 27 percent of projects having university faculty as contractors on the project, 17 percent using universities themselves as subcontractors, and 15 percent employing graduate students.

In its report accompanying reauthorization legislation, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee recently concluded that:

increases in the SBIR allocation will invest money in

research, contracting, internships, and other collaborative

activities done with universities, with the contracting and

patenting activities with SBIR companies being a sizable

source of revenue for universities as well. The university-

industry partnerships that SBIR creates are crucial in that

they provide an applied research and commercialization focus

that otherwise likely would not be present in university

research. More specifically, the partnerships are important

in exposing faculty and the next generation of scientists and

engineers to commercial research and development. SBIR

businesses provide graduate and undergraduate students with

hands-on experience and job opportunities that universities

would be unable to provide alone.

Our country not only faces immediate economic and employment challenges, it faces major challenges in transportation, energy, domestic security and water quality and safety. Targeted research and development will be critical. Congress, with non-partisan expert guidance, has a role to play in guiding our national research and development priorities and, in this case, stimulating small business innovation and job creation in specific areas of critical national need. The National Academies of Science and other independent government research organizations provide us with carefully researched and considered recommendations on how we can address these priorities, so my bill draws on their recommendations to develop innovative energy technologies; enhance water quality and security; strengthen domestic security; and address transportation priorities. This is not only a good investment in short term job creation; it is an imperative investment in our Nation's long term innovation prospects and economic development.

The costs of my bill would be fully offset by cancellation of the airborne laser program. CBO estimates that cancelling that program will produce savings of over $2.6 billion.

Mr. President, as the 111th Congress begins, I am reintroducing a number of different bills designed to fuel job creation and spur economic development. My initiative, dubbed E4 because of its focus on economy, employment, education, and energy, seeks to respond to economic and job development needs both in my State of Wisconsin and around the country. These challenging economic times call for a comprehensive set of solutions including providing new job training opportunities for workers, fostering innovation among small businesses, protecting the existing family-supporting jobs in our nation, and boosting educational opportunities for young Americans. Today I am introducing the Connecting Education and Emerging Professions Act of 2009, which provides competitive grants to States and local school districts to promote better collaboration between high schools and local businesses and workforce development groups. This E4 education initiative is designed to help prepare America's students for future success in the workforce and post-secondary education as well as enhance America's competitiveness in the global economy as we prepare to enter the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Helping to ensure that all American students have access to a high- quality education is critical to boosting America's competitiveness and helping to ensure that our country is better equipped to respond to the economic challenges currently before us. Investment in our young people now will pay off in the future when these individuals are better prepared to compete for the highly skilled jobs of tomorrow. If the United States is to remain competitive on an international stage and continue to lead the world in innovation and development, we need to make certain that our young people are well prepared to meet current and future economic challenges.

Improving educational opportunities in the United States is going to require

a comprehensive set of policy strategies and I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress this year as we get to work on a variety of education issues including expanding access to education from pre-K through college. We also face the monumental task of reauthorizing and reforming the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA, better known as No Child Left Behind, NCLB. As we consider the ESEA reauthorization, we should make substantial changes to the testing mandates that were imposed through NCLB and provide support to states that develop smarter accountability systems with enhanced assessments that measure higher-order thinking skills among students. We also need to look at ways to strengthen and reform our Nation's public secondary schools as part of the ESEA reauthorization. The legislation I am introducing today is designed to help support innovative changes that are taking place in some of our Nation's high schools and help even more States and local communities make improvements to their local high schools.

My CEEP bill seeks to address a couple of interrelated issues related to secondary education. The first issue is the alarmingly high dropout rate in our nation's high schools. While numbers vary slightly, a growing body of research indicates that the United States has a graduation rate of approximately 70 percent and that about one-third of our country's high school students will not graduate on time. Graduation rates for minority and low-income students are even lower, in many cases, alarmingly lower. In addition, many of our nation's urban school districts report very high dropout rates, including the Milwaukee Public School District. According to the Cities in Crisis report released in 2008 by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, the Milwaukee Public Schools has a graduation rate of 46.1 percent. Unfortunately, there are at least a dozen large urban districts that have even lower graduation rates than Milwaukee.

One of our top education priorities as a Nation must be to address the low graduation rates nationwide in urban, suburban, and rural school districts. We must also work to close the huge opportunity gap that is created by the large disparity in graduation rates between our minority and non-minority students as well as between low-income and more affluent students. Solving this problem will require a broad, comprehensive solution involving the federal, state and local governments. It is my hope that when Congress finally reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we pay particular attention to the needs of our nation's high schools and our students.

While many factors contribute to high dropout rates, disengagement from classroom instruction can contribute to a student's decision to drop out. Some students feel that high school is not relevant to their lives and do not see how completing high school will translate into future career and academic success. In this increasingly competitive twenty-first century where postsecondary education is now required for many entry-level jobs, it is up to us to show our nation's students why it is so important that they graduate from high school.

Another issue that this bill seeks to address is the growing sense among employers and postsecondary institutions that our nation's high school students who do graduate are unprepared for success either in the workforce or in college. Employers in various economic sectors, including technology, manufacturing, health care, construction, and others, report difficulty in identifying qualified candidates for skilled positions. Recent surveys also indicate that many employers are dissatisfied with the overall preparation of secondary school graduates. In order for companies in the United States to be competitive in a global economy, we must have a highly skilled workforce. Adequate preparation at the high school level can help prepare students for entry into our rapidly changing global economy where new emerging industries are cropping up in Wisconsin and around the country.

To address these two interrelated issues, my bill would provide 5- year competitive education grants to states and school districts to foster collaboration and discussions between schools, businesses, and others about the emerging industry workforce needs and how to prepare our high school students to meet those needs, both academically and practically. States and local school districts must use this money to form partnerships with local or regional businesses, postsecondary institutions, workforce development boards, labor organizations, nonprofit organizations and others.

These partnerships will have the responsibility of surveying local, regional, and statewide emerging industries and deciding what are the academic and work-based skills that our high school students need in order to be successful in these emerging industries. The partnerships will then work together to develop new and engaging curriculums and programs designed to teach the academic and work-based skills that are necessary to succeed in these new emerging industries. Once the partnership has designed a curriculum or program and received approval from the Federal Department of Education, the partnership will work to implement the program in qualifying schools.

During the implementation phase, the partnership will come together to implement hands-on learning and work opportunities for students including internships, apprenticeships, job shadowing, and other career and technical education programs. These hands-on learning and work opportunities will be based on the emerging industry pathways curriculum or program that the eligible partnership has designed and will offer students practical academic experiences and skill-building lessons that they can use in the workplace or in postsecondary education.

This legislation seeks to help schools, businesses, colleges, and the students who would be served by this legislation talk with each other to build new programs that would help boost student engagement in learning and student attendance and graduation rates while also preparing students for success in the workforce or in college after they graduate. There are a number of successful local and state programs around Wisconsin that this legislation would help support and that served as valuable examples as I developed this legislation.

Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction, Department of Workforce Development, and various local school districts have all been working to boost Wisconsin's career and technical education offerings and gear these offerings towards emerging industries. My bill seeks to help Wisconsin and other states build on these efforts and engage in additional conversations with interested stakeholders to design new curriculums and programs to prepare students for emerging industries.

I look forward to moving this legislation forward this year as the new Congress begins to debate how best to boost educational opportunities for all of our Nation's children. We have a significant achievement gap and graduation gap in urban, rural, and suburban schools throughout the country and it is imperative that we work together to promote innovative ideas that will close these gaps. Some of our Nation's schools are experiencing high dropout rates in part because students aren't connecting with what they are being taught. At the same time, we're seeing an emergence of new industries, like those aiming to capitalize on alternative energies and energy efficiency, that need employers with skills and training in their field. If we help schools connect their students with businesses, workforce development boards, and colleges that offer career and academic opportunities in these new and exciting fields, we can help to lower the alarming dropout rates while helping these emerging industries thrive.

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

Before the Senator from Ohio speaks as agreed upon, I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for his compelling remarks and steadfast support for women generally and certainly for his longstanding advocacy that women should be paid equal pay for equal or comparable work. Thank you very much.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator. We wish to follow the recommendations of our mutual leadership, which was to debate the Hutchison substitute tonight but to get as many amendments laid down tonight as we can. The Senator from Pennsylvania has two amendments he wants to offer. So I agree with the plan of laying aside the Hutchison substitute, having the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter, offer his amendment, and at such time we will return to our robust debate on the Hutchison substitute and, hopefully, we can get a regular order going back and forth.

Reserving the right to object.

I believe that clarifies it. I concur. I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. President, I yield the floor to the Senator from Maryland for such time as he may consume. He has been a longstanding advocate for women. He is a current member of the Judiciary Committee. He was the Speaker of the House in Maryland. He was a member of the House of Representatives, and now is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is a real leader and I think we can look forward to a thoughtful presentation.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his eloquent and persuasive argument.

I rise to debate with my colleague from Texas her amendment. Before I go into the Hutchison substitute amendment, I wish to clear up two misconceptions. The first misconception is that there have been no hearings on this bill; somehow or another this is a fast-track, jerry- rigged, gerrymandered process. That couldn't be further from the truth.

In 2008, we held two hearings on Ledbetter, one in January of 2008-- just about this time--in the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, which was a very active committee. Second, we also held a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee to get the extensive legal commentary. That hearing was held on September 23. There are those who would say, But that was the last Congress. Well, that was last year, but the relevant facts are the same. So there have been extensive hearings in the Senate and in the House. I believe we are following a framework for getting views through the regular process.

Now, our new President, President Barack Obama, has said very clearly that he wants to create jobs in this country. If you don't have a job, you get a chance to get one, and if you do have a job, you get a chance to hold on to it. Additionally, he said that if you have a job or you are going to get a job, you will not face wage discrimination in the United States of America. That is why he wants not only in his first 100 days, but in his first 10 days, to pass legislation that closes a loophole on wage discrimination.

That takes me to the second misconception. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which I am the lead sponsor of--but I wish to acknowledge the role of Senator Kennedy as the lead sponsor, and I am carrying this responsibility as a member of the committee. Now, the second misconception is that somehow or another the Fair Pay Act only deals with wage discrimination affecting women. Oh, no. It deals with wage discrimination affecting all people. So if you are discriminated against in your paycheck because of your race, ethnicity, religion, natural origin, or gender, this legislation will protect you. This loophole was created by the Supreme Court, and I will elaborate on that as well.

So we followed hearings. This bill, as part of President Obama's hope for America, makes sure that when you get a job or you keep your job, you will never be discriminated against in your wages. So I wanted to clear up those two misconceptions.

Now I wish to go to the Hutchison substitute. First, I wish to acknowledge the Senator from Texas, my truly very good friend, for her long-standing advocacy for women. We have worked together on a bipartisan basis for women. Her advocacy has been steadfast. She has been of particular help. We have worked together on the women's health agenda. We have mammogram standards in this country because of the Hutchison-Mikulski amendment. We have helped with breast cancer research funding because we have worked together, and I could give example after example.

I also wish to acknowledge that the Senator from Texas herself was discriminated against in the workplace. Maybe later on in the debate she will share her own very compelling personal story. So I wish to acknowledge that.

I also wish to acknowledge that we--the women of the Senate--can disagree, which she and I do tonight, without being disagreeable. There is no doubt that the Senator from Texas and I agree that we do not want wage discrimination against women. Where we disagree is not on the goal but on the means. She has her substitute, and I have, which I think is the superior framework, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I wish to be clear that in this new Senate, we can offer amendments, we can have our shared goals, and we can do it in a way that is not prickly or rancorous and so on. So I wish to be able to say that. Although I disagree with her, my bill--the Kennedy-Mikulski bill--which has 54 cosponsors, simply restores the law before the Supreme Court decision. It is a legal standard that nine separate decisions in front of courts of appeal agreed with.

Let me elaborate. The Hutchison amendment acknowledges that the Supreme Court Ledbetter decision is unfair and it has closed the courthouse door for legitimate claimants. Unfortunately, Senator Hutchison's effort to fix Ledbetter's problem is flawed. I think it is a well-intentioned but misguided attempt. Her amendment will not fix the problem caused by the Ledbetter decision. In fact, review of her amendment leaves the core of the Ledbetter's harsh ruling intact, creating only a very narrow and vague exception. Moreover, the exception creates significant legal hurdles for those workers who try to take advantage of it.

In the Ledbetter decision, the Supreme Court said an employee must challenge pay discrimination within 180 days of the employer's initial decision to discriminate or the employee will be forever barred from enforcing her rights. This decision gave employers a free pass to continue discrimination. By keeping in place the heart of the Ledbetter decision, the Hutchison amendment would allow such injustice to continue.

The Senator from Texas says her amendment would bring balance to our antidiscrimination laws, but in reality it imposes a very unreasonable standard on workers--a standard that would be almost impossible for someone to meet.

Under the Hutchison framework, a worker would have to prove not only that she did not know she was being discriminated against but also she ``should not have been expected to have had enough information to support a reasonable suspicion of discrimination.''

How can workers prove what someone else expects of them? How does a worker prove a negative, that she didn't suspect that something in the workplace wasn't quite right? And--again quoting the Hutchison recommendation--what is a ``reasonable suspicion of discrimination''? That phrase, ``reasonable suspicion of discrimination,'' is vague, and fuzzy, and I am concerned would even add to the already legal burdens. There is no similar standard in any other discrimination law.

Workers would have to prove they could meet this vague standard before they could even raise their allegations of discrimination. This means time and resources spent on what workers knew and when they knew it instead of on the conduct of unscrupulous employers.

Even conservative commentators are worried about the Hutchison amendment. Andrew Grossman of the Heritage Foundation noted that the Hutchison amendment would fail to provide the certainty of a hard statute of limitations.

By contrast, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would restore a bright line for determining the timeliness of pay discrimination claims. We know employers and workers can understand this rule and live with it because it was the law of the land in most of the country for decades prior to the Ledbetter decision. Our bill would simply put the law back to what it was before the Supreme Court upended the law.

Although Senator Hutchison claims her amendment would protect employers from unreasonable lawsuits, it could cause an explosion in the number of lawsuits. If this amendment was adopted, workers would feel compelled to file claims quickly for fear that they would miss their statute of limitations. So the only way you can protect yourself is to file a claim because you might have a reasonable suspicion. Given the way women are treated in the workplace, you could have a reasonable suspicion every time you walk in somewhere. Workers have to run to the EEOC even if the only evidence of discrimination is rumor or speculation. This could create a very nasty and hostile work environment. Without any guidance of what constitutes a ``reasonable expectation'' or a ``reasonable suspicion'' of discrimination, workers will file a tremendous number of claims. That is just what we don't want to do. We want to return to the law.

They say the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is only going to cause an explosion of lawsuits, but it didn't before the Supreme Court decision. In fact, we now know the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would not cause an increase in lawsuits because it gives the workers the time they need to consider how they have been treated and try to work out solutions with employers before they get into filing complaints and also lawsuits.

You don't have to take my word for this. History proves it. The rule that workers can file claims within 180 days of receiving a discriminatory paycheck did not encourage any unreasonable number of lawsuits in the decade before the Ledbetter Supreme Court decision.

We turned to CBO, again, a pretty cut-and-dry, button-down crowd. They said this bill would not increase claims filed with the EEOC or lawsuits filed in court, meaning the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, not the Hutchison amendment.

The best evidence the Hutchison amendment does not solve the problems caused by the Ledbetter decision is that the amendment would not have helped Lilly Ledbetter herself. Isn't that something. Under the Hutchison framework, this amendment would have tipped the scales of justice against her in favor of her law-breaking employer because it is virtually impossible to meet the reasonable expectation of a reasonable suspicion standard. Ms. Ledbetter would have been forced to spend all of her time and all of her money trying to prove that she had no reason to suspect discrimination before the EEOC or the courts could have even considered Goodyear's illegal and unfair treatment of her. Discrimination claimants face enough difficult hurdles. Brave workers, such as Lilly Ledbetter, do not need more disincentives to stand up for themselves and their rights.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is a bipartisan solution. It responds to the basic injustice of the Supreme Court Ledbetter v. Goodyear decision. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Hutchison amendment and vote for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I know the Senator from Minnesota wishes to speak, and I also know the Senator from New Jersey is here. I believe we are going to turn next to the Senator from New Jersey.

Madam President, while the Senator from New Jersey, who just arrived, is still organizing, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, we are awaiting the arrival of the distinguished ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee because he wishes to offer an amendment this evening. We wish to accommodate him. The Senator from Wyoming has been the soul of civility on this issue and has helped us to move the bill thus far. But it is our intention to ask all speakers to come now because the Senator from Texas and I would like to be able to conclude this debate for this evening--not to conclude the debate, but for this evening--around 7. I am not making a unanimous consent request, I just wish to put a few things out there.

While we are waiting for the arrival of our colleague from Wyoming, I would like to have printed in the Record an excellent monograph put out by the National Women's Law Center on the Hutchison amendment. It is a very lawyer-like paper, but it is also done in plain English. That outlines some of the real issues the Hutchison substitute could present.

I ask unanimous consent that this paper in its entirety be printed in the Record.

Just to give a few highlights, they advise us that the Hutchison bill allows clear pay discrimination to continue without a remedy. That is why we are doing this Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in the beginning. They make that point because they say:

The Hutchison bill prevents employees from challenging

discrimination to which they continue to be subject. [It]

perpetuates the basic problem created by the Ledbetter

decision.

That is what I argued earlier in the evening.

Under the bill, employers are left without any remedy

against present and continuing pay discrimination if they do

not file a government complaint within 180 days of the first

day when they ``have or should be expected to have'' enough

information to suspect discrimination.

One of the main arguments, the differences we have with our colleague from Texas, is the should have, we should have, we should have known-- how should you have known?

When you go into a workplace, one of the few things that is not discussed is pay. I commented in an earlier debate, you can talk about anything in the workplace. You can talk about religion at the water cooler. You can talk about politics at the Xerox machine. But you cannot talk about pay. This could have, should have--we don't want to have a framework where everyone who has been discriminated against by our culture and by our practice in the

workplace goes into a new job with a chip on their shoulder. We are going to presume people are fair-minded. That is the way most people show up every day. This Hutchison amendment, could have, would have, should have, I think is going to create a nightmare. It is going to do exactly what the Senator doesn't want. I think it is going to generate more lawsuits and not only more lawsuits but more lawyers arguing about could have or should have suspected.

The Hutchison bill permits employers to escape

accountability for continuing pay discrimination. Like the

Ledbetter decision, the Hutchison substitute immunizes an

employer from any challenge to pay discrimination, even where

the employer continues to profit from it. Under the Hutchison

bill, an employer is off the hook for, and can continue to

gain a windfall from, continued pay discrimination. . . .

You know, when you discriminate, you don't usually just discriminate against one person in the company. It is usually more than one--others. Again, we are back to this would have, should have, could have.

The Hutchison bill deprives employees of the chance to

assess the extent of the discrimination and work voluntarily

with their employers to address any disparities.

[It] forces employees to forfeit their claims if they take

the time to work out disputes amicably.

That is exactly what we want. We want to be able to work out disputes amicably, to go to maybe some alternative dispute resolution mechanism, have time to find out the facts: What is the situation? Particularly because pay disparity may start small and grow over time. Employees may want to give their employers the benefit of the doubt hoping the employers will voluntarily remedy that gap or may want to work actively with the employer to resolve the dispute. This is especially true for employees new on the job. The Hutchison amendment denies employees this opportunity, forcing them from the get-go to file adversarial Government complaints immediately upon suspecting discrimination or risk losing the right to any relief.

Now, not only is this bad law, it is bad policy, and it is going to be bad budget. I chair the Appropriations Committee which funds the EEOC. Under the administration that left town, they were revenue starved. They have a tremendous backlog right this minute of a variety of discrimination cases. Some were wages, some dealing with gender or race or ethnicity or religion. Many of those workers really feel under siege with the workload they are going to carry. Under the Hutchison amendment, as soon as you walk into your workplace and you have a whiff, a rumor, gossip, or, oh, gee, wonder what is going on, then you have to run right to the EEOC and file a complaint.

I do not think that is good common sense. It sure is not good money sense from the strain it is going to put already on an overburdened EEOC. I think we are headed in the wrong direction.

This Hutchison bill creates burdensome and expensive, time-consuming distractions from the fundamental issue of whether an employee has been subject to pay discrimination. I fear that the Hutchison bill will increase the number of lawsuits filed against employers, and it is going to result in very protracted and very expensive minitrials in those cases that are brought.

We want to get into making sure we end wage discrimination. This bill will result in confusion for the courts and for employers. This bill rejects the bright-line familiar rule in effect before the Ledbetter decision in favor of a standard that raises numerous thorny legal and factual issues.

I like the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which is my bill, and also is sponsored by 54 other Members of the Senate which simply restores the familiar role for assessing the timeliness of discrimination claims that prevailed in virtually every court in this country prior to the Ledbetter decision. The Hutchison bill creates an entirely new legal regime.

The bill raises innumerable questions, including when an employee could have been found to have a ``reasonable suspicion of discrimination.''

Madam President, I have more arguments to make, but at the end of the day, why is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act so excellent? Well, the bill from the viewpoint that I am advocating and the legislation that I am sponsoring would give employees the time to evaluate their suspicions of discrimination and work toward solutions with their employers, including voluntarily.

It would ensure that employers are held accountable for continued discrimination and, most of all, it would provide certainty in assessing the timeliness of pay discrimination claims and restore the law before the outrageous Supreme Court decision.

Congress should reject the approach of the Hutchison bill and instead act expeditiously to enact the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Exhibit 1

[From the National Women's Law Center]

The Title VII ``Fairness'' Act, S. 3209, Allows Pay Discrimination To

Continue

On May 20, 2007, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber

Co., the Supreme Court held that employees must file claims

with the government for compensation discrimination within

180 days of an employer's initial decision to discriminate or

be barred from future challenges--no matter how long the

discrimination has continued. The Court's decision upends

decades of prior precedent and is fundamentally unfair to

those subject to pay discrimination. Under the Ledbetter

rule, employees have no recourse--and employers have no

accountability--for continuing discrimination once 180 days

have passed from the initial pay decision.

In July, 2007, the House of Representatives passed the

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to overturn the Ledbetter

ruling. The Act would restore the law that applied virtually

everywhere in the country before the Supreme Court's

decision--that each discriminatory paycheck constitutes an

act of discrimination that can be challenged. The Senate's

vote on a motion to advance the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act fell

just three votes short of passage in April of 2008.

In June, Senator Hutchison (together with other Senators

who voted against advancing the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act)

introduced S. 3209, an alternative titled the Title VII

Fairness Act. But unlike the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the

Hutchison bill fails to restore prior law or solve the

problems created by the Ledbetter decision; it instead

creates damaging new legal hurdles for people receiving

discriminatory pay to overcome. Indeed, the Hutchison bill

stands to set back basic anti-discrimination protections in

the workplace even beyond equal pay.

The Hutchison bill allows clear pay discrimination to

continue without a remedy.

The Hutchison bill prevents employees from challenging

discrimination to which they continue to be subject. The

Hutchison bill perpetuates the basic problem created by the

Ledbetter decision. Under the bill, employees are left

without any remedy against present, continuing pay

discrimination if they do not file a government complaint

within 180 days of the first day when they ``have or should

be expected to have'' enough information to suspect

discrimination.

The Hutchison bill permits employers to escape

accountability for continuing pay discrimination. Like the

Ledbetter decision, the Hutchison bill immunizes an employer

from any challenge to pay discrimination even where the

employer continues to profit from it. Under the Hutchison

bill, an employer is off the hook for, and can continue to

gain a windfall from, continued pay discrimination that is

not immediately challenged when the employee first ``should

have'' suspected it.

The Hutchison bill deprives employees of the chance to

assess the extent of the discrimination and work voluntarily

with their employers to address any disparities.

The Hutchison bill forces employees to forfeit their claims

if they take the time to work out disputes amicably.

Particularly because pay disparities may start small and grow

only over time, employees may want to give their employers

the benefit of the doubt, hoping that the employers will

voluntarily remedy the pay gap--or may want to work

actively with their employers to resolve the dispute over

time. This is especially true if an employee is new on the

job. But the Hutchison bill denies employees this

opportunity, forcing them to file adversarial government

complaints immediately upon suspecting discrimination or

risk losing the right to any relief.

The Hutchison bill denies employees adequate time to assess

the merits of their claims. Particularly because employees

subject to pay discrimination may be in an ongoing

relationship with an employer, they are likely to want to be

sure that they have meritorious claims before filing a

government challenge to their employers' practices. But the

Hutchison bill limits employees' ability to take the time

necessary to confirm their suspicions of discrimination or

act when the problem reaches serious proportions.

The Hutchison bill creates burdensome, expensive and time-

consuming distractions from the fundamental issue of whether

an employee has been subject to pay discrimination.

The Hutchison bill will increase the number of lawsuits

that are filed against employers. Employees who suspect

discrimination will be forced to file preemptive claims to

avoid forfeiting their rights. The Hutchison bill will thus

increase the amount of litigation that occurs.

The Hutchison bill will result in protracted and expensive

mini-trials in the cases that are brought. Employers and

employees will be forced to engage in costly battles before

even getting to the merits of a discrimination dispute--that

is, whether a pay decision was, in fact, based on sex, race,

disability or another prohibited ground. A court will have to

resolve multiple threshold issues, including what the

employee suspected about pay discrimination and when s/he

suspected it. On top of that, even if an employee in fact had

no suspicion of discrimination, she will have to prove that

her failure to suspect was reasonable. These time-consuming

battles will only add to the cost and burdensomeness of

litigation--and will increase the difficulty employees denied

equal pay will have in getting the wages they have earned.

The Hutchison bill will result in confusion in the courts

and for employers.

The Hutchison bill rejects the bright-line, familiar rule

in effect before the Ledbetter decision in favor of a

standard that raises numerous thorny legal and factual

issues. Unlike the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which simply

restores the familiar rule for assessing the timeliness of

pay discrimination claims that prevailed in virtually every

court in the country prior to the Ledbetter decision, the

Hutchison bill creates an entirely new legal regimen. The

bill raises innumerable questions, including when an employee

can be found to have a ``reasonable suspicion of

discrimination.''

The Hutchison bill will result in inconsistent standards

for employers in different parts of the country for years to

come. Because courts will likely reach different conclusions

on the many legal and factual questions raised by the bill,

employers in different parts of the country will likely be

subject to conflicting rules, making it difficult, if not

impossible, to understand their legal obligations. It will be

years, if not decades, before these questions are

authoritatively resolved by the Supreme Court.

The Hutchison bill could limit protections for employees in

contexts beyond pay discrimination.

The Hutchison bill is not restricted to pay discrimination.

The so-called Title VII Fairness Act applies to any unlawful

employment practice under the anti-discrimination laws. As a

result, it goes well beyond the targeted, restorative

approach of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

The Hutchison bill could have particularly troubling impact

on harassment claims. Under current law, employees can bring

harassment claims as long as any incident of ongoing

harassment occurs within 180 days prior to the complaint--

regardless of how many incidents have occurred previously. It

is predictable that some employers would use this bill's

broad scope to try to escape their responsibility for sexual

harassment and other types of discrimination.

The Hutchison bill responds to a purported ``problem'' that

is, in fact, wholly invented.

Employees have no incentive to delay filing pay

discrimination claims. Because employees typically cannot

afford to struggle without pay to which they are legally

entitled, it is simply a red herring to suggest that they

will delay filing pay discrimination for years, or even

decades. Furthermore, because Title VII has a two-year limit

on the back pay that any plaintiff can receive, that means

that if they delay they will lose compensation for all but

the last two years of pay discrimination they suffer.

Therefore, there is every incentive for an employee to file a

pay discrimination complaint as soon as reasonably possible.

It is the employer, not the employee, who benefits from any

delay.

Employers were satisfied with the rules in place before the

Ledbetter decision. Prior to the Ledbetter decision,

employers were not asking for a change to the longstanding

rules relating to the timeliness of pay discrimination claims

that the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act restores. There is no

evidence that the operation of the rule prejudiced employers

or resulted in the success of non-meritorious claims. In

fact, employers benefited from the certainty of the rule in

place before Ledbetter.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is the only bill that will

address the basic pay discrimination that Lilly Ledbetter,

and others like her, suffer.

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is the only bill that would have

helped Lilly Ledbetter. Under the Hutchison bill, Lilly

Ledbetter--to whom a jury awarded more than $3 million in

damages for the egregious discrimination she endured--would

have been embroiled in protracted arguments about what she

knew about her workplace and when. A court would have had to

decide, for example, whether idle gossip and boasting by her

coworkers--who had harassed and lied to her in the past--were

sufficient to give Ms. Ledbetter a ``reasonable suspicion''

of discrimination. By contrast, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

creates a bright line rule that would ensure the timeliness

of claims like Ms. Ledbetter's, when the pay continues into

the present.

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is the only bill that corrects

the problems with the Supreme Court opinion. Unlike the

Hutchison bill, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would:

Give employees the time to evaluate their suspicions of

discrimination and work toward solutions with their

employers;

Ensure that employers are held accountable for continued

discrimination;

Provide certainty in assessing the timeliness of pay

discrimination claims;

Restore the law.

Congress should reject the approach of the Hutchison bill

and should instead act expeditiously to enact the Lilly

Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Mr. President, today I am introducing four bills, S. 187, S. 188, S. 189, S. 190, that will preserve and protect majestic public landscapes in Colorado and help provide needed water supplies to communities and farmers on Colorado's productive Eastern Plains. These bills were introduced in the last session of Congress, where they each had hearings and one passed the U.S. House of Representatives. I hope that we can work together to move these bills in this Congress and see them signed into law.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of all four bills be included in the Record and be printed alongside these remarks.

The first bill is the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act of 2009. This bill will help protect the water supply for the Arkansas River Valley's communities and its productive agricultural lands by advancing the construction of the long-planned Arkansas Valley Conduit. The bill will restructure the cost-share provisions of the project and is similar to legislation introduced in the last Congress by Senators Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar and introduced yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. John Salazar and Betsy Markey.

The Arkansas Valley Conduit, a proposed 130-mile water delivery system from the Pueblo Dam to communities throughout the Arkansas River Valley, was originally authorized in 1962 as part of the Fryingpan- Arkansas, Fry-Ark, project. Unfortunately, the authorization did not include a Federal-local cost-share provision necessary to cover the estimated $300 million in construction costs, and local communities-- especially those in southern Colorado--do not have the resources to shoulder all of the costs. The project has thus remained unfinished for over 4 years.

The bill will provide for a 65-35 Federal-local cost-share for completion of the project, with revenues from so-called ``excess- capacity'' contracts for water storage in other Fry-Ark project facilities being used to fund the majority of the local contribution. This approach is the result of close collaboration between community stakeholders and the Colorado congressional delegation and will ensure communities in the Arkansas River Valley can finance their portion of the project without incurring unbearable financial burdens.

Moreover, the bill will allow the Bureau of Reclamation to move forward with the construction of the Conduit. The depressed economic status of southeastern Colorado made it a difficult financial undertaking for the region, a challenge that continues today. This bill will help see this facility become a reality and thereby help the farming and ranching communities in the valley continue to produce needed food and fiber for the state and Nation.

The second bill I am introducing today is the Colorado Northern Front Range Mountain Backdrop Protection Study Act. I introduced similar bills in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 107th, 108th, 109th and 110th Congresses. In previous Congresses, the bill passed the House and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee but did not receive final action.

The bill is intended to help local communities identify ways to protect the Front Range Mountain Backdrop in the northern Denver-metro area and the region just west of Rocky Flats. The Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest includes much of the land in this backdrop area, but there are other lands involved as well.

Rising dramatically from the Great Plains, the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains provides a scenic mountain backdrop to many communities in the Denver metropolitan area and elsewhere in Colorado. The portion of the range within and adjacent to the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest also includes a diverse array of wildlife habitats and provides many opportunities for outdoor recreation. The open-space character of this mountain backdrop is an important aesthetic and economic asset for adjoining communities, making them attractive locations for homes and businesses. But rapid population growth in the northern Front Range area of Colorado is increasing recreational use of the Arapaho- Roosevelt National Forest and is also increasing pressure for development of other lands within and adjacent to that national forest.

We can see the effects of rapid population growth throughout Colorado and especially along the Front Range. Homes and shopping centers are sprawling through valleys and along highways that feed into the Front Range. This development then spreads out along the ridges and mountaintops that make up the backdrop. We are in danger of losing to development many of the qualities that have helped attract new residents to Colorado. So, it is important to better understand what steps might be taken to avoid or lessen that risk--and this bill is designed to help us do just that.

Already, local governments and other entities have provided important protection for portions of this mountain backdrop, especially in the northern Denver-metro area. However, some portions of the backdrop in this part of Colorado remain unprotected and are at risk of losing their open-space qualities. This bill acknowledges the good work of the local communities in preserving open space along the backdrop and aims to assist further efforts along the same lines.

The bill directs the U.S. Forest Service to study the ownership patterns of the lands comprising the Front Range mountain backdrop, identify areas that are at risk, and recommend to Congress how these lands might be protected and how the Federal Government could help local communities and residents to achieve that goal. Importantly, I note that the bill does not interfere with the power of local authorities regarding land use planning or infringe on private property rights. Instead, it will bring the land protection experience of the Forest Service

to the table to assist local efforts to protect areas that comprise the backdrop. The bill envisions that to the extent the Forest Service should be involved with Federal lands, it will work in collaboration with local communities, the state and private parties.

I strongly believe it is in the national interest for the Federal Government to assist local communities to identify ways to protect the mounatin backdrop in this part of Colorado. The backdrop beckoned settlers westward and presented an imposing impediment to their forward progress that suggested similar challenges ahead. This first exposure to the harshness and humbling majesty of the Rocky Mountain West helped define a region. The pioneers' independent spirit and respect for nature still lives with us to this day. We need to work to preserve it by protecting the mountain backdrop as a cultural and natural heritage for ourselves and generations to come.

The third bill I am introducing today--the National Trails System Willing Seller Act--will allow people who want to sell land for inclusion in certain units of the National Trails System to do so. Current law prohibits people who own land associated with several units of the trail system from selling those lands to the Federal Government for inclusion in those units. This bill will allow such sales to happen.

This legislation is identical to bills introduced in previous Congresses by my former Republican colleagues from Colorado, Representatives Beauprez and McInnis. The Trail System units covered by the bill are the Oregon National Historic Trail, the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail, the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, the Iditarod National Historic Trail, the North County National Scenic Trail, the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail, and the Nez Perce National Historic Trail.

Our national trails are a national treasure, and we should allow people who own land along these trails to sell that land to the Federal Government to be part of our public lands legacy. But it is important to make clear that these land sales are from willing sellers, which is what this bill will do. This bill makes a small but important adjustment to current law, and I think it deserves the support of all Members of the Senate.

The final bill I am introducing today is the Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness and Indian Peaks Wilderness Expansion Act, which will designate nearly 250,000 acres of Rocky Mountain National Park as wilderness. I introduced this bill in the 110th Congress as a member of the House of Representatives. It was cosponsored in the Senate by my colleague Senator Ken Salazar, and eventually by the Colorado Congressional delegation. Over a period of months, we worked together to develop this bipartisan legislation that will provide important protection and management direction for some truly remarkable country. This is a public lands policy goal that goes back to the 1960s, and is long overdue.

This bill is consistent with the Colorado Congressional delegation's efforts in the last Congress to strike a balance in protecting the park and the water users who rely on the Grand River Ditch. This carefully negotiated language met the needs of those users, but questions have been raised about the particular way that liability and water use issues were addressed in the delegation bill. Specifically, there have been questions about how these provisions work in the context of the Park Resources Protection Act. While I am confident that my bill addresses these liability concerns, I appreciate the recent efforts by Senator Salazar to offer a slightly different approach that provides a path to a widely-shared goal that has broad support in Colorado.

The wilderness designation in this bill for the park will cover some 94 percent of the park, including Longs Peaks and other major mountains along the Great Continental Divide, glacial cirques and snow fields, broad expanses of alpine tundra and wet meadows, old-growth forests, and hundreds of lakes and streams, all untrammeled by human structures or passage. Indeed, examples of all the natural ecosystems that make up the splendor of the park are included in the wilderness that will be designated by this bill. At the same time, the wilderness boundaries have been drawn so as to allow continued access for use of existing roadways, buildings and developed areas, privately owned land, and areas where additional facilities and roadwork will improve park management and visitor services. In addition, specific provisions are included to ensure that there will be no adverse effects on continued use of existing water facilities.

The lands designated as wilderness will become part of the National Wilderness Preservation System that was established by the Wilderness Act and will be managed in accordance with that Act and the provisions of the bill. The bill's provisions amplify this by specifying that--no new reclamation projects will be allowed in the wilderness area; nothing in the bill will create a ``buffer zone'' around the wilderness and non-wilderness activities visible or audible from within the wilderness will not be prohibited; the National Park Service can act to control fire, insects, and diseases, including use of mechanical tools within the wilderness; and nothing in the bill will reduce or restrict the current authority of the National Park Service to manage the Park's lands and resources.

The bill is similar to measures previously introduced by my predecessor in the House of Representatives, Representative David Skaggs, as well as other bills introduced before that, and legislation I introduced in the 107th, 108th, and 109th Congresses. However, it does include a number of adjustments and refinements that reflect discussion within the Colorado delegation in Congress and with interested parties in Colorado.

Like H.R. 2334 of the 110th Congress, the new bill includes wilderness designation of more than 700 acres in the Twin Sisters area south of Estes Park. These lands were acquired by the United States and made part of the park after submission to Congress of the original wilderness recommendation for the park in the 1970s, and so were not included in that recommendation. They are lands of a wilderness character, and their designation will not conflict with any current uses. On the west side, the town of Grand Lake and Grand County requested that about 650 acres inward from the park boundary around the town be omitted from the wilderness designation in order to allow the park to respond to potential forest fire threats. As was the case previously, this bill accommodates that request.

Also like that previous measure, the bill responds to the request of the Town of Grand Lake, Grand County and the Headwaters Trails Alliance, a group composed of local communities in Grand County that seeks to establish opportunities for mountain biking, and the International Mountain Bicycling Association to omit from wilderness designation an area along the western park boundary, running south along Lake Granby from the town to the park's southern boundary. This will allow the National Park Service to retain the option of authorizing construction of a possible future mountain bike route within this part of the park. Similarly, the bill expands the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area by 1,000 acres in the area south of the park and north of Lake Granby. The lands involved are currently managed as part of the Arapaho National Recreation Area, which is accordingly reduced by about 1,000 acres.

As did the previous bill, this bill includes a section that authorizes the National Park Service to lease an 11-acre property, the Leiffer tract, that was donated to the National Park Service in 1977. Located outside the park's boundaries, it has two buildings, including a house that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Park Service would like to have the option of leasing it, but current law allows leasing only for ``property administered . . . as part of the National Park System,'' and this property does not qualify. The bill allows the Park Service to lease the property as if it were located inside or contiguous to the park.

Also like previous measures, the bill addresses the question of possible impacts on water rights--something that can be a primary point of contention in Congressional debates over designating wilderness areas. It reflects the legal

reality that it has long been recognized under the laws of the United States and Colorado, including a decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, that Rocky Mountain National Park already has extensive Federal reserved water rights arising from the creation of the national park itself. And it reflects the geographic reality that the park sits astride the continental divide, meaning there is no higher land around from which streams flow into the park, and thus there is no possibility of any diversion of water occurring upstream from the park. In recognition of these legal and practical realities, the bill includes a finding that because the park already has these extensive reserved rights to water, there is no need for any additional reservation or appropriation of such right, and an explicit disclaimer that the bill effects any such reservation.

As I mentioned, there are also provisions in this bill that deal with the Grand River Ditch, created before Rocky Mountain National Park was established and partly located within the park. The owners of the ditch are currently working to conclude an agreement with the National Park Service with respect to operation and maintenance of the portion of the ditch within the park, and the bill provides that after conclusion of this agreement the strict liability standard of the Park Resources Protection Act which now applies to any damage to park resources will not apply so long as the ditch is operated and maintained in accordance with the agreement. The owners of the ditch remain liable for damage to park resources caused by negligence or intentional acts, and the bill specifies that it will not limit or otherwise affect the liability of any individual or entity for damages to, loss of, or injury to any park resource resulting from any cause of event occurring before the bill's enactment. In addition, the bill specifies that its enactment will not restrict or otherwise affect any activity relating to the monitoring, operation, maintenance, repair, replacement, or use of the ditch that was authorized or approved by the National Park Service as of the date of the bill's enactment. The bill also provides that use of water transported by the ditch for a main purpose or main purposes other than irrigation will not terminate or adversely affect the ditch's right-of- way.

The matters dealt with in this bill have a long history. The wilderness designations are based on National Park Service recommendations presented to Congress by President Richard Nixon. That they have not been acted on before this reflects the difficult history of wilderness legislation. One Colorado statewide wilderness bill was enacted in 1980, but it took more than a decade before the Colorado delegation and the Congress were finally able, in 1993, to pass a second statewide national forest wilderness bill. Since then, action has been completed on bills designating wilderness in the Spanish Peaks area of the San Isabel National Forest as well as in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, the Gunnison Gorge, the Black Ridge portion of the Colorado Canyons National Conservation Area, and the James Peak area of the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forests.

We now need to continue making progress by providing wilderness designations for other deserving lands in Colorado, including lands that are managed by the Bureau of Land Management. And the time is ripe for finally resolving the status of the lands within Rocky Mountain National Park that are dealt with in this bill.

Lands covered by the bill are currently being managed to protect their wilderness character. Formal wilderness designation will no longer leave this question to the discretion of the Park Service, but will make it clear that within the designated areas, there will never be roads, visitor facilities, or other manmade features that interfere with the spectacular natural beauty and wildness of the mountains. This is especially important for a park like Rocky Mountain, which is relatively small by western standards. As nearby land development and alteration has accelerated in recent years, the pristine nature of the park's backcountry becomes an increasingly rare feature of Colorado's landscape. Further, the park's popularity demands definitive and permanent protection for wild areas against possible pressures for development within the park. While only about one tenth the size of Yellowstone National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park sees nearly the same number of visitors each year. At the same time, designating these carefully selected portions of Rocky Mountain as wilderness will make other areas, now restricted under interim wilderness protection management, available for overdue improvements to park roads and visitor facilities.

In summary, the Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness and Indian Peaks Wilderness Expansion Act will protect some of our Nation's finest wild lands. It will protect existing rights. It will not limit any existing opportunity for new water development. It is bipartisan and will affirm the commitment of all Coloradans to preserving the features that make our State such a remarkable place to live. So, I think it deserves prompt enactment.

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