Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 7 p.m. for debate only, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about a conversation I had in Baltimore this afternoon dealing with the high price of gasoline. I was talking to a station owner. I mention that because the problems of the high price of gasoline have nothing to do with the station owners. These are small business owners. They are having a difficult time with the cash flow due to the higher costs to purchase their product. They are also on the front lines, getting the wrath of consumers as they get the sticker shock when they fill up their tanks.

I can tell you that consumers are hurting today every time they go to a gasoline station to fill up their gas tanks. It is affecting their household budgets. It is affecting our economy. It will become even more dire as we go into the summer months when more and more families will be deciding on their family vacations, and the cost of gasoline will very much figure into it, having a direct impact on our economy.

I can tell you a group of companies that are not hurting as a result of the gasoline price increase, and they are our big oil companies. With gas prices escalating, oil profits have soared. There is a direct relationship. As our economy is suffering with higher gasoline prices, the profits of the oil companies go up. The five largest oil companies--ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips--have seen nearly $1 trillion in profits over the last 10 years. In the first quarter of 2011 alone, the first 3 months, they had a record profit of $35.8 billion.

When we compare that to a year ago, these companies have seen an increase in their profits. Where American businesses are suffering, where household incomes are being stretched, the oil industry makes more money on higher prices of gasoline.

I am for the free market economy. I hope businesses make a lot of money and hire more people; that is good. But that is not the situation with the oil industry. Most of their profits go to their stockholders and to repurchase shareholders' interests. It is not going to creating new jobs in America.

They are making these profits in part because of taxpayer subsidies. The person who goes to fill up his or her gas tank at a gasoline station is being affected adversely twice: first, by the cost of the gasoline today, and, second, they are being asked as taxpayers literally to help subsidize the oil industry. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

In 2005, President George W. Bush said:

I will tell you, with $55 oil we don't need incentives to

the oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of

incentives.

As you know, the crude oil price per barrel today is not $55; it is $100, and it has even gone higher than that. At the time, 2005, all of the Big Oil CEOs agreed there was no need for subsidies with oil prices reaching $55 a barrel. Once again, today it is $100 a barrel.

We will have a chance later this week to consider legislation to eliminate these tax loopholes. Senator Menendez has introduced legislation, and we are going to have a cloture vote on that later this week.

I want to talk about the largest tax provision that is involved in this legislation, section 199. There is about $18 billion of taxpayer revenue involved. Let me give a little history about the genesis of this tax provision.

It was originally put in the tax law for foreign sales companies, U.S. companies that exported products overseas for, you see, a U.S. manufacturer is at a disadvantage with regard to a foreign company manufacturer. If you manufacture your product in Europe or Asia and you import it into America, you can take off from the imported price the value-added tax that is added in Europe and Asia. But if you are an American manufacturer, and you are sending your product into Europe and Asia--and, yes, there are taxes involved in producing a product in America--you cannot take that tax off when you send that product into Europe. So the playing field we are competing on is not a level playing field. American manufacturers do not share the same competitive advantage.

Congress did something about that and passed a tax provision to give U.S. manufacturers that export products a tax break. That is what we did. Obviously, the oil industry did not get that tax break. First of all, they are not what we would call traditional manufacturing, and, second, they import a lot more than they ever export. They import their crude oil, and the amount of their exported product is a lot less than that.

The problem happened after we passed this foreign sales provision. Companies in Europe and Asia took us to the World Trade Organization and said this was an illegal subsidy to U.S. manufacturers. We argued, and I think ours was the right position, that it was not, but we lost the case. As a result, we had to redo the tax provisions, and we passed what is now known as section 199.

What we did is rough justice. We gave all manufacturing a certain tax break, figuring that it would be fair to deal with their manufacturing that was used for export.

I must tell you, I don't think any of us envisioned at that time that $18 billion of that revenue would go to the oil industry. They did not need this break. This is not a matter of subsidizing their products into the export market when, as we know, petroleum and oil is a global product. It makes no sense whatsoever to continue this tax provision for the oil industry. It should have been repealed a long time ago.

But one thing is clear. It is not needed. The profits of the oil industry are very high, and we need these revenues for other purposes. We need these revenues in order to deal with deficit reduction.

I hear my colleagues on both sides of the aisle talk frequently about how we need a credible plan to reduce the Federal deficit. I agree with that. We do need a credible plan to reduce the Federal deficit. But if we don't start with getting rid of these tax expenditures that are clearly not serving any public purpose--if we can't start with what is easy--how are we going to make the tough decisions?

If we are being asked to tell our seniors they will have to make do with less, students will have to pay more, let me tell you, the oil industry can do without this subsidy they do not need.

We will hear all types of scare tactics used by those who oppose this repeal. One of the common lines is that it will increase the price at the gas pump. Nothing could be further from the truth. If I could just tell you the basic math: $140 billion in profits, we are talking about annually--projected to be $140 billion. The tax provisions are about $4 billion on an annual basis. The numbers I was giving you before are 10- year numbers; this is on an annual basis.

In 2009, over 85 percent of the profits went back to the shareholders. So there is no possible way it would have an impact on price.

Let me quote from some experts in this area. Severin Borenstein, the codirector of University of California Berkeley's Center for the Study of Energy Markets observes:

Gasoline prices are a function of world oil prices and

refining margins . . . the incremental change in production

that might result from changing oil subsidies will have no

impact on world oil prices, and therefore no impact on

gasoline prices.

Our own Congressional Research Service said:

In the recent market environment . . . prices are well in

excess of costs and a small increase in taxes would be

unlikely to reduce oil output, and hence increase petroleum

product (gasoline) prices.

So let me just put that myth aside.

All of us are concerned about how do we bring down gasoline prices. Will eliminating this price bring down gasoline prices? No, it will not, in and of itself. But what it will do is give us all the tools we need in order to move forward with energy policies in America. We are going to be asking for budget priorities to deal with energy independence so we can bring down energy prices. We have to get rid of these unnecessary tax expenditures so we can have a budget that makes sense and is fiscally responsible.

Yes, there are things we can do to help bring down gasoline prices. We can certainly regulate speculation in the commodities market, give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the tools they need. Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle want to cut their resources. We think they should have the resources in order to get their job done.

It is time we take on the monopolistic policies of the countries that produce oil. These are countries, many of which are not what we would call at all free economic countries. They are manipulating price and supply. We need to do a better job taking that on. We need a comprehensive energy policy.

I have said many times on the Senate floor that America has a little over 2 percent of the reserves of oil and we consume 25 percent of the world's oil. We have to get off oil, imported oil. The only way to do that is develop renewable energy resources, use less energy so our Nation can become energy independent. That will not only help us as it relates to the current economic problems, it will also help us create more jobs in America, will make us more energy secure, and will also help our environment. The first step is to repeal the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies to the big oil companies.

Let me close by quoting from an editorial that appeared in my local paper, the Baltimore Sun, on Friday, this past

Friday, May 13. I am going to quote a small part of it.

What, tens of billions of dollars in potential profits

isn't good enough without the government adding some kind of

sweetener to your $100 barrels of black gold?

That's just greedy, and with the nation facing a debt

crisis, it's downright immoral. To be talking about trimming

Medicare and Medicaid--basic health care for our seniors and

the poor--while preserving tax breaks that cost the federal

treasury $21 billion annually is just beyond the pale.

I agree with the editorial in the Baltimore Sun. It is well past time that we end these taxpayer subsidies. We are going to have a chance to do it this week.

The first vote will be on cloture, whether we want to take this up for a vote, up or down. I don't think this is terribly complicated. This is an issue on which the American people expect us to take a stand, on an up-or-down vote. I hope my colleagues will support the consideration of the bill of Senator Menendez to repeal these tax subsidies and vote to repeal these subsidies so we can help the American taxpayers and work together to develop an energy policy to make America secure so we can have a stable energy cost, including reducing the costs of gasoline at the pump, which is affecting every one of our constituents.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I invite my colleagues to join me in celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Woman's Club of Bethesda, MD. The club, a nonprofit organization, was organized on May 27, 1911. It was founded by seven women for the purpose of promoting civic activities and welfare in the neighborhood. Those activities included assistance and fundraising for schools, churches, and hospitals. Club members selected the American Beauty Rose as their flower; ``An Earnest Club for Earnest Women'' as their motto; and American Beauty Red and green as their colors. Before a clubhouse was built, meetings were held at various members' homes, limiting membership to 35 and allowing only a cup of tea and a cracker to be served.

During World War I, from 1914 to 1916, the members sold over $10,000 worth of Liberty Bonds, raised funds for French orphans, worked with local merchants to beautify the roads into the Nation's Capital, and worked to secure a new fire truck for the community that was capable of fighting chemical fires.

In 1925, club members raised $1,500 to purchase three lots at the corner of Sonoma Road and Old Georgetown Road for construction of a clubhouse. On May 27, 1927, the club laid the cornerstone for the clubhouse, which is still in use today. In 1948, the mortgage was burned--quite a feat for women who began the club without the right to vote.

During World War II, the clubhouse was used to host USO entertainment. Today, the club continues its philanthropic efforts by raising money for local charitable organizations--Friends of the Maryland Library; Mobile Medical Care, Inc., Montgomery; Crisis Center of Montgomery County; Bethesda Cares; and Manna Food Banks--and by supporting national and international efforts to curb homelessness and domestic violence, and promote access to health care and clean water.

There is no doubt that the Woman's Club of Bethesda has made significant contributions to the betterment of the surrounding community and is a valuable asset to the people of Montgomery County and the State of Maryland. I would ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the past and present members of the Woman's Club of Bethesda on their century of service.

Mr. President, today Senator Casey and I are introducing a bill to help facilitate the completion of critically important transportation infrastructure to the Appalachian region of the United States. The Appalachian Development Highway System, ADHS, is designed to alleviate Appalachia's isolation from major commercial corridors and create better transportation connectivity between communities within the Region and to destinations outside of Appalachia.

According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, ARC: ``Because the cost of building highways through Appalachia's mountainous terrain was high, the Region had never been served by adequate roads. Its network of narrow, winding, two-lane roads, snaking through narrow stream valleys or over mountaintops, was slow to drive, unsafe, and in many places worn out. The Nation's interstate highway system had largely bypassed the Appalachian Region, going through or around the Region's rugged terrain as cost-effectively as possible.''

That's why in 1964, ARC recommended that investments in improving Appalachia's highways were essential to economic growth of this historically economically depressed region of the country. The ADHS is currently authorized at 3,090 miles and is nearly 88 percent complete or under construction. The remaining miles left to be built are located in some of the more difficult places to build located near the mid- Atlantic portion of Appalachia.

The difficulty of construction in this region makes these stretches of the ADHS more expensive to build as well. The legislation I am filing today will provide Appalachian States with greater flexibility on how they may raise and their portion of matching funds that are used towards ADHS projects.

Toll credits, first authorized in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), are being used extensively by States with toll facilities. As of May 31, 2007, over $18 billion in toll credits had been approved in 22 States and Puerto Rico. Toll credits are designed to encourage States to increase capital investment in transportation infrastructure and enable States to simplify program administration. However, there is an interesting exception for how and where toll credit may be used.

SAFETEA-LU included a modification to the toll credit requirements as codified in Section 120(j) of Title 23, United States Code, U.S.C., prohibiting the use of toll credits on the Appalachian Development Highway System program under Section 14501 of Title 40.

Our legislation, quite simply, repeals this prohibition against States using toll credits as their state matching funds for ADHS projects.

Given these particularly difficult economic times that have presented exceptional budgetary challenges for States to revenue adequate revenues to pay for essential infrastructure projects, I believe States need the flexibility to use highway revenues as they see fit regardless of the means in which those revenues are raised. The SAFETEA-LU prohibition against the use of toll credits on the ADHS is discriminatory against a particular revenue mechanism.

Allowing a State to use toll credits towards an ADHS project does not require that State to raise the tolls revenues on the ADHS road that the toll credits were used towards.

I urge my colleagues to join Sen. Casey and I in repealing SAFETEA- LU's prohibition against one particular revenue stream that could be used to complete an incredibly important system of transportation infrastructure designed to serve a historically underserved region of rural America.

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

Mr. President, today Senator Casey and I are introducing a bill to help facilitate the completion of critically important transportation infrastructure to the Appalachian region of the United States. The Appalachian Development Highway System, ADHS, is designed to alleviate Appalachia's isolation from major commercial corridors and create better transportation connectivity between communities within the Region and to destinations outside of Appalachia.

According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, ARC: ``Because the cost of building highways through Appalachia's mountainous terrain was high, the Region had never been served by adequate roads. Its network of narrow, winding, two-lane roads, snaking through narrow stream valleys or over mountaintops, was slow to drive, unsafe, and in many places worn out. The Nation's interstate highway system had largely bypassed the Appalachian Region, going through or around the Region's rugged terrain as cost-effectively as possible.''

That's why in 1964, ARC recommended that investments in improving Appalachia's highways were essential to economic growth of this historically economically depressed region of the country. The ADHS is currently authorized at 3,090 miles and is nearly 88 percent complete or under construction. The remaining miles left to be built are located in some of the more difficult places to build located near the mid- Atlantic portion of Appalachia.

The difficulty of construction in this region makes these stretches of the ADHS more expensive to build as well. The legislation I am filing today will provide Appalachian States with greater flexibility on how they may raise and their portion of matching funds that are used towards ADHS projects.

Toll credits, first authorized in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), are being used extensively by States with toll facilities. As of May 31, 2007, over $18 billion in toll credits had been approved in 22 States and Puerto Rico. Toll credits are designed to encourage States to increase capital investment in transportation infrastructure and enable States to simplify program administration. However, there is an interesting exception for how and where toll credit may be used.

SAFETEA-LU included a modification to the toll credit requirements as codified in Section 120(j) of Title 23, United States Code, U.S.C., prohibiting the use of toll credits on the Appalachian Development Highway System program under Section 14501 of Title 40.

Our legislation, quite simply, repeals this prohibition against States using toll credits as their state matching funds for ADHS projects.

Given these particularly difficult economic times that have presented exceptional budgetary challenges for States to revenue adequate revenues to pay for essential infrastructure projects, I believe States need the flexibility to use highway revenues as they see fit regardless of the means in which those revenues are raised. The SAFETEA-LU prohibition against the use of toll credits on the ADHS is discriminatory against a particular revenue mechanism.

Allowing a State to use toll credits towards an ADHS project does not require that State to raise the tolls revenues on the ADHS road that the toll credits were used towards.

I urge my colleagues to join Sen. Casey and I in repealing SAFETEA- LU's prohibition against one particular revenue stream that could be used to complete an incredibly important system of transportation infrastructure designed to serve a historically underserved region of rural America.

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

Mr. President, I greatly respect my friend from Alabama, Senator Sessions, although I come to a different conclusion in regard to Jim Cole.

I have worked with Jim Cole. I was part of a legislative committee in the House of Representatives that had to do some very difficult work on an ethics issue involving a former Speaker of the House of Representatives. It was a tough decision to bring together six Members of the House--three Democrats, three Republicans--and do it in a way that would maintain the nonpartisan requirements of an ethics investigation. The atmosphere was very partisanly charged around the work we were doing. I know this sounds familiar. People in Maryland and Connecticut and around the Nation understand we are working in a very partisan environment, and they expect the people who are charged at the Department of Justice to work in a nonpartisan manner.

This is not a partisan position, the Deputy Attorney General. This is a person who is working with the Attorney General, the Nation's lawyer. We want somebody who has the experience, someone who has the character and commitment to carry out this very important position.

As I said, I have known Jim Cole. He has 13 years' experience within the Department of Justice. He is a public interest attorney. That has been the largest part of his professional career, the service of public interests. He has always followed policy, not politics. He has a very distinguished career in law, and he is the type of person we like to see within the Department of Justice.

As I pointed out, I worked with Jim Cole when I was in the House of Representatives. We worked on a very difficult investigation involving the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who at the time was Speaker. The chairman of the committee was Porter Goss, a Republican from Florida. Porter Goss's observations of Jim Cole were that he was a brilliant prosecutor, extraordinarily talented. Then Mr. Goss goes on to say that over time, he brought our committee to a bipartisan cooperation which was desperately needed in order to successfully complete that matter. At the end of the day, the six of us came together in a unanimous recommendation. That is the type of person Jim Cole is. He was professional and put policy ahead of politics.

Former Senator John Danforth testified at Jim Cole's confirmation hearing. John Danforth is a former Republican Member of the Senate. He called Jim Cole ``a lawyer's lawyer.''

Jim Cole has support from Democrats and Republicans. Former high officials within the Department of Justice have all recommended him, including former Deputy Attorneys General appointed by both Republicans and Democrats.

Let me quote one other person I had hoped would be greatly respected on both sides of the aisle; that is, Fred Fielding, the White House counsel for former President George W. Bush. He said Mr. Cole ``combines all the qualities you want in a `citizen public servant'--he understands both sides of the street and is smart and tenacious, and is a person of unquestioned honor and integrity.''

That is what Fred Fielding, the former White House counsel to President Bush said, about Jim Cole.

Jim Cole is supported by former RNC officials and DNC officials because he is nonpartisan. He is a nonpartisan person who has put public interest law as his top priority.

I was listening to Senator Sessions talk about terrorism. We have had a spirited political debate taking place in this country over the best way to bring terrorists to justice. Mr. Cole, however, will always put principle over politics, and he is committed to evaluating each case and matter that comes before him based on the facts and the law. That is what you want from the Department of Justice. They are the values and the character we want in our Nation's Department of Justice, and Jim Cole will bring that to the Department of Justice--already brought it to the Department of Justice.

The bottom line about Mr. Cole's approach on fighting terrorists is one I believe we all believe in. We are a nation at war with al-Qaida, the Taliban, and their associated forces. We need tough, aggressive, and flexible policies that recognize the paramount importance of providing the President with the ability to use all of the lawful tools--all of the lawful tools--of our national power to protect the American people and bring terrorists to justice.

Jim Cole believes in that. He is committed to working with the Congress so we use all available tools. We make the judgment in each individual case as to what is the most effective way to bring a terrorist or criminal to justice.

He not only has expertise in handling terrorists and bringing them to justice, he has had very important positions in the Department of Justice supervising the criminal prosecution of white-collar crimes. He understands the full breadth of the Department of Justice and is a very valuable player in making sure the Department of Justice follows in the fine tradition of that agency.

I urge my colleagues to vote to move forward. At least vote to allow this nomination to get an up-or-down vote. This is a very important position: the Deputy Attorney General. We talk about we were sent here to Washington to make tough votes. OK. I do not think this is a tough vote. I think Jim Cole is the best person for this critically important job, and I do not think he is at all a partisan person. I know him well. I know him to be a career type individual who is interested in doing what is right. But this is not a nominee where you should be using a filibuster to prevent an up-or-down vote.

This is a very important position for our country. For the dignity of the Senate and the Department of Justice and the decency of Jim Cole, I urge my colleagues to allow us to go forward with an up-or-down vote on his confirmation, and I urge my colleagues to support his confirmation to be Deputy Attorney General of the United States.

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

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

Madam President, this month people all over the country will grab their tackle boxes and head off in pursuit of the elusive trout in mountain streams. Mothers and fathers will turn on their kitchen faucets and hand their children glasses of clean, pure drinking water that we have in this country. Farmers will irrigate their spring plantings in vegetables and grains with clear water from nearby streams.

All over the United States, Americans will take advantage of the simple but priceless natural resource of America's water. Thanks to the actions taken by the Obama administration last week, we can rest assured these vital resources are being protected by the full strength of the Clean Water Act.

Last week, the Obama administration released a guidance document on the jurisdictional waters of the United States. The document was a sensible response to the confusion left in the wake of recent Supreme Court rulings. The draft document that was released last week will help the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the near term as they make decisions about whether projects will impact the waters of the United States and therefore require protective permits.

Eventually, this draft document will be replaced by formal regulations that will ensure the Clean Water Act continues to protect America's waters. For nearly 40 years, the Clean Water Act has safeguarded almost all of our Nation's waters. These safeguards protect our rivers, streams, and wetlands from pollution in accordance with Congress's intent that the landmark statute, ``restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters.''

Nowhere in America is this more important--the enforcement of the Clean Water Act--than the Chesapeake watershed. We understand more than 100,000 rivers and streams come together to form North America's largest estuary, and they are all critical to the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

These streams and rivers, along with their associated wetlands, serve as a habitat for hundreds of species, buffers for slowing the flow of pollutants into the bay, and sponges that soak up and hold large amounts of floodwater and stormwater runoff.

Despite major steps forward that have resulted in a majority of the Nation's waters now being safe for fishing, swimming, and other uses, recent Supreme Court decisions have placed this progress at risk. The guidance developed by professional scientists and

improved by the Obama administration provides strong protection for our Nation's waters and restores the ability of Federal agencies to enforce the Clean Water Act. I also wish to underscore the fact that the guidance reflects the longstanding agricultural and other exemptions codified in the Clean Water Act.

This is a commonsense solution right in the mainstream of American values.

The Supreme Court's recent rulings put millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams at risk. The Court's decision in its 2001 ruling in SWANCC v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its more recent rulings in 2006--Rapanos v. United States and Caravell v. Army Corps of Engineers--threatened to roll back the Clean Water Act, making nearly 60 percent of our Nation's waters vulnerable to polluters.

The waters threatened by the narrowing of the Clean Water Act protections are important for fish and wildlife habitat, flood protection, and supply of drinking water. More than 117 million Americans receive drinking water supplied, at least in part, by headwaters and similar streams. These vital streams and wetlands are also critical to the health of our most treasured water bodies from the Chesapeake Bay, to the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, to Puget Sound.

Millions of small streams and wetlands provide the fresh water that flows into these regional economic engines. If we do not protect this incredible network of waters, we cannot hope to restore these water bodies to health.

As Americans, we cherish clean water and the magnificent bounty we are blessed with. That is why last week's announcement was met with such strong support from a broad range of Americans, especially from our sportsmen. Among the groups supporting the administration's actions are Ducks Unlimited, the Izaak Walton League of America, the National Wildlife Foundation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and Trout Unlimited.

As chairman of the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I am especially pleased the administration has taken such a strong and sensible approach to protecting our Nation's waters. Too often we raise our voices in criticism of the actions of others. Today, I am proud to add my voice to the chorus of thanks to the Obama administration for a job well done.

Thank you, Madam President. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing legislation that will help prevent millions of gallons of pollution from entering our Nation's precious water resources. The season we are in makes my legislation particularly timely. Spring is one of the wettest times of year, and with every Spring shower polluted stormwater runoff washes a myriad of chemicals pollutants, sediment, debris, oil and grease, and other contaminates from our nation's roads and highways into our lakes, rivers, streams, bays, and coastal waters.

Stormwater is the Nation's largest source of water pollution. While rain itself contains air pollution particulates that are deposited in every drop, most stormwater pollution is picked up on the surface and carried off as runoff. Stormwater washes contaminants like oil, grease, heavy metals, nutrients, asbestos, sediments, road salts and other de- icing agents, brake dust, and road debris from the millions of miles of America's roads and into storm drains that discharge into nearby waters. Almost all of this polluted stormwater is discharged without any treatment.

When rain falls on these hard, impervious surfaces it often has no where to go but down the channels created by curbs and retaining walls, into storm drains and into the nearest natural water body. According to research compiled by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's, NOAA, National Geophysical Data Center, the U.S. is covered by more than 112,600 square kilometers of impervious surfaces. That is a space larger than the State of Ohio. With 985,139 miles of Federal aid highways stretching from every corner of the country, polluted highway runoff is no small problem facing our Nation's waters.

The effects of polluted stormwater runoff are real. For example, the Anacostia River--Washington's ``other'' and often forgotten river--can be seen from the Capitol Dome as it flows out of Prince George's County, MD, and into the District and on to its confluence with the Potomac. Runoff from within the 176 square mile watershed of the Anacostia, most of which is in Maryland, but also includes the east side of D.C. and the entire Capitol complex, all makes its way into the Anacostia. The stormwater that enters the Anacostia is extremely polluted from the thousands of acres of road surfaces that cover the watershed, which exacerbates the incidence of combined sewer overflows and has impaired the Anacostia for many years. It is no coincidence that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has found the Anacostia's bottom- feeder catfish to have the highest incidence of liver tumors than any other population of catfish in the country. The cause of the tumors are the high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a by-product of fuel combustion, that come from vehicle tailpipe emissions and are deposited on the road and in the air and then washed into the river with every shower or thunderstorm.

This is not a problem unique to Maryland or the Chesapeake Bay region, nor is it a problem unique to urban environments as opposed to rural environments. Polluted runoff is a problem that affects any watershed where impervious paved road and highway surfaces have altered the natural hydrology of a watershed. Over time, federal highway policy has come to recognize the drastic impacts highways and surface transportation can have on the environment and on water quality. Title 23 of the U.S. Code states: ``transportation should play a significant role in promoting economic growth, improving the environment, and sustaining the quality of life'' through the use of ``context sensitive solutions.'' The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, ISTEA, authorized using transportation enhancement funds for ``environmental mitigation to address water pollution due to highway runoff.'' It is important to note, however, that this is just one of 12 types of eligible enhancement projects and only 1.1 percent of enhancement project funds have gone toward environmental mitigation projects since 1992.

In 2008, at the request of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, the Government Accountability Office issued a report examining key issues and challenges that need to be addressed in the next reauthorization of the transportation bill. That report highlighted the clear link between transportation policy and the environment. Taking a policy approach to require that the planning, design, and construction of highways are done in an environmentally responsible manner, with an eye toward mitigating the water quality impacts highways have on our Nation's water resources, will help address this issue and better meet our Nation's transportation goals. This legislation also helps advance the October 5, 2009, Executive Order affirming that Federal policy and Federal agencies shall ``conserve and protect water resources through efficiency, reuse, and stormwater management; eliminate waste, recycle, and prevent pollution; and leverage agency acquisitions to foster markets for sustainable technologies and environmentally preferable materials, products and services.''

Over the years, The U.S. Department of Transportation has established design standards for federal-aid highways to improve the performance and safety of our highway infrastructure. These design standard improvements were the result of obvious safety and engineering problems that needed to be addressed. These design standard are essential to ensuring that the Federal Government's investment in transportation infrastructure is resulting in a well-designed, safe and reliable ``product'' for the benefit of the American people.

The same can be said for the need for establishing environmental design standards for Federal-aid highways as a means of protecting water quality. While stormwater runoff from highways may be classified as non-point source pollution, it is unquestionably the source of a wide range of contaminants that impair rivers, lakes, streams and coastal waters; create costly remedial situations; and detract from the value and health of our precious water resources. Requiring Federal-aid highways to meet an environmental standard for protecting water quality will improve the value of the Federal Government's investment in our Nation's highway infrastructure.

The approach my legislation takes to mitigate polluted highway runoff is through the implementation of a design standard, developed by the United States Department of Transportation, requiring the maintenance or restoration of the pre-development hydrology of a federal-aid highway project site. This same approach was made law by the Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007 for the development of new Federal buildings and facilities.

My bill would require that all substantial federal highway projects must be planned and designed ``to ensure that covered projects are sited, constructed and maintained in accordance with design standards intended to protect surface and ground water quality and ensure the long-term management of stormwater originating from Federal-aid highways.'' This would be achieved by approaches that avoid and minimize alteration of natural features and hydrology and maximize the use of onsite pollution control measures using existing terrain and natural features.

My bill also recognizes that geography and other physical characteristics of the land may not always allow on-site treatment of polluted highway runoff. When conditions are impracticable my legislation would allow for an ``appropriate off-site runoff pollution mitigation program'' within the watershed of a Federal-aid highway project site that can protect against the water quality impacts of the project.

The Clean Water Act requires that we protect the waters of the United States. As with most pollution abatement strategies, preventing stormwater pollution is cheaper, more effective, and easier to implement than trying to clean up and remediate the problem after contamination has occurred.

Not addressing stormwater pollution at its source just kicks the proverbial can down the road for someone else to deal with. When water resources are contaminated by polluted highway runoff, mitigating the pollution, which is a preventable discharge in the first place, should not be the responsibility of local goverments, wastewater treatment facilities, or drinking water utilities.

Water pollution has many sources and our nation's highways produce a tremendous volume of contaminated stormwater. Time and time again, experience has taught us that addressing pollution at its source is the most effective means of abating pollution. It is time we applied this principle to our Nation's Federal-aid highways. I urge my colleagues to support my legislation and help move our country closer to meeting the goals of the Clean Water Act and the goals of our national transportation policy.

Mr. President, today I am proud to reintroduce the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2011 along with my colleagues, Senator Landrieu, Senator Mikulski, Senator Merkley, and Senator Hagan. This legislation will build on the successful Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2003. This program encourages habitat protection, education, research, monitoring, and capacity building to provide for the long- term protection of coastal wetlands from destruction caused by nutria.

Invasive species are one of the largest threats to biodiversity in the United States today. As invasive species go, the nutria is one of the most destructive creatures we have, especially in my home State of Maryland and in Louisiana.

The nutria is a large, semi-aquatic rodent that was originally brought to the United States to bolster the fur trade in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, we underestimated their strong appetite and high reproductive

potential. Since their introduction, the nutria have damaged millions of acres of wetlands and countless miles of shoreline and have even earned a spot among the International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of the world's 100 worst invasive alien species. By the early 1990s, the Chesapeake Bay/Delmarva Peninsula population was estimated to exceed 150,000 animals.

These ``eating machines'' can consume up to 25 percent of their body weight in plants per day, feasting directly on plant roots. This wrecks havoc on our wetlands, turning our once productive lands into barren mud flats. The destruction exacerbates the damaging impacts of ongoing land subsidence and sea level rise.

We understand how important our wetlands are and provide numerous ecosystem services to our society. They provide fish and wildlife habitat, flood protection, erosion control, and water quality preservation.

In my own State of Maryland, nutria invaded the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge nearly 6 decades ago, destroying vital habitat for native shorebirds, muskrats, and blue crabs. They are responsible for the loss of more than 5,000 acres of wetlands in this refuge alone.

We must remember this has a significant impact on people--people who depend on it for their livelihood and for people who use it for recreation. The loss of Blackwater wetlands, that are vital to the fishery, was estimated to cost Maryland's economy nearly $4 million annually. Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars pursuing their fishing, hunting and wildlife watching activities, which contribute to millions of jobs in industries and businesses that support wildlife-related recreation.

In 2000, Congress established a Federal funding source to develop a successful public-private partnership program to address nutria in Maryland. This financial support has directly led to the successful eradiation of nutria from 150,000 acres of the approximate 400,000 acres of wetland habitats that they infest. The project success is due to strategic planning, permanent and dedicated staff members, and cooperation with private landowners.

In Louisiana, an incentive program is used to encourage trappers to trap nutria. Since the implementation of the program, the damage to coastal wetlands has been reduced from 90,000 to 20,000 acres.

The management techniques developed in Maryland and Louisiana have already been exported to other states like Oregon and Washington to control their own nutria populations and minimize the damage done to their marsh habitats. Healthy wetlands are returning to places where nutria have been removed. But the job is not yet done.

Last Congress, I introduced the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2009 to continue and improve the successful nutria eradication program in Maryland and Louisiana and expand it to other significantly impacted states like Oregon and Washington. This bill passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2009 and had the support of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, and the Nature Conservancy.

Today, I proudly rise again and rededicate myself to passing the Nutria Eradication Control Act of 2011. This bill will authorize the Secretary of the Interior to provide financial assistance to the states of Maryland, Louisiana, Delaware, Oregon, Washington, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and North Carolina to eradicate and control nutria populations and restore nutria-damaged wetlands.

We know how valuable our wetlands are. We know how destructive the nutria is. We know what we can do to stop the nutria and that these programs work. I urge my colleagues to remember that we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth and to join me in supporting this bill.

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

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing legislation that will help prevent millions of gallons of pollution from entering our Nation's precious water resources. The season we are in makes my legislation particularly timely. Spring is one of the wettest times of year, and with every Spring shower polluted stormwater runoff washes a myriad of chemicals pollutants, sediment, debris, oil and grease, and other contaminates from our nation's roads and highways into our lakes, rivers, streams, bays, and coastal waters.

Stormwater is the Nation's largest source of water pollution. While rain itself contains air pollution particulates that are deposited in every drop, most stormwater pollution is picked up on the surface and carried off as runoff. Stormwater washes contaminants like oil, grease, heavy metals, nutrients, asbestos, sediments, road salts and other de- icing agents, brake dust, and road debris from the millions of miles of America's roads and into storm drains that discharge into nearby waters. Almost all of this polluted stormwater is discharged without any treatment.

When rain falls on these hard, impervious surfaces it often has no where to go but down the channels created by curbs and retaining walls, into storm drains and into the nearest natural water body. According to research compiled by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's, NOAA, National Geophysical Data Center, the U.S. is covered by more than 112,600 square kilometers of impervious surfaces. That is a space larger than the State of Ohio. With 985,139 miles of Federal aid highways stretching from every corner of the country, polluted highway runoff is no small problem facing our Nation's waters.

The effects of polluted stormwater runoff are real. For example, the Anacostia River--Washington's ``other'' and often forgotten river--can be seen from the Capitol Dome as it flows out of Prince George's County, MD, and into the District and on to its confluence with the Potomac. Runoff from within the 176 square mile watershed of the Anacostia, most of which is in Maryland, but also includes the east side of D.C. and the entire Capitol complex, all makes its way into the Anacostia. The stormwater that enters the Anacostia is extremely polluted from the thousands of acres of road surfaces that cover the watershed, which exacerbates the incidence of combined sewer overflows and has impaired the Anacostia for many years. It is no coincidence that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has found the Anacostia's bottom- feeder catfish to have the highest incidence of liver tumors than any other population of catfish in the country. The cause of the tumors are the high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a by-product of fuel combustion, that come from vehicle tailpipe emissions and are deposited on the road and in the air and then washed into the river with every shower or thunderstorm.

This is not a problem unique to Maryland or the Chesapeake Bay region, nor is it a problem unique to urban environments as opposed to rural environments. Polluted runoff is a problem that affects any watershed where impervious paved road and highway surfaces have altered the natural hydrology of a watershed. Over time, federal highway policy has come to recognize the drastic impacts highways and surface transportation can have on the environment and on water quality. Title 23 of the U.S. Code states: ``transportation should play a significant role in promoting economic growth, improving the environment, and sustaining the quality of life'' through the use of ``context sensitive solutions.'' The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, ISTEA, authorized using transportation enhancement funds for ``environmental mitigation to address water pollution due to highway runoff.'' It is important to note, however, that this is just one of 12 types of eligible enhancement projects and only 1.1 percent of enhancement project funds have gone toward environmental mitigation projects since 1992.

In 2008, at the request of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, the Government Accountability Office issued a report examining key issues and challenges that need to be addressed in the next reauthorization of the transportation bill. That report highlighted the clear link between transportation policy and the environment. Taking a policy approach to require that the planning, design, and construction of highways are done in an environmentally responsible manner, with an eye toward mitigating the water quality impacts highways have on our Nation's water resources, will help address this issue and better meet our Nation's transportation goals. This legislation also helps advance the October 5, 2009, Executive Order affirming that Federal policy and Federal agencies shall ``conserve and protect water resources through efficiency, reuse, and stormwater management; eliminate waste, recycle, and prevent pollution; and leverage agency acquisitions to foster markets for sustainable technologies and environmentally preferable materials, products and services.''

Over the years, The U.S. Department of Transportation has established design standards for federal-aid highways to improve the performance and safety of our highway infrastructure. These design standard improvements were the result of obvious safety and engineering problems that needed to be addressed. These design standard are essential to ensuring that the Federal Government's investment in transportation infrastructure is resulting in a well-designed, safe and reliable ``product'' for the benefit of the American people.

The same can be said for the need for establishing environmental design standards for Federal-aid highways as a means of protecting water quality. While stormwater runoff from highways may be classified as non-point source pollution, it is unquestionably the source of a wide range of contaminants that impair rivers, lakes, streams and coastal waters; create costly remedial situations; and detract from the value and health of our precious water resources. Requiring Federal-aid highways to meet an environmental standard for protecting water quality will improve the value of the Federal Government's investment in our Nation's highway infrastructure.

The approach my legislation takes to mitigate polluted highway runoff is through the implementation of a design standard, developed by the United States Department of Transportation, requiring the maintenance or restoration of the pre-development hydrology of a federal-aid highway project site. This same approach was made law by the Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007 for the development of new Federal buildings and facilities.

My bill would require that all substantial federal highway projects must be planned and designed ``to ensure that covered projects are sited, constructed and maintained in accordance with design standards intended to protect surface and ground water quality and ensure the long-term management of stormwater originating from Federal-aid highways.'' This would be achieved by approaches that avoid and minimize alteration of natural features and hydrology and maximize the use of onsite pollution control measures using existing terrain and natural features.

My bill also recognizes that geography and other physical characteristics of the land may not always allow on-site treatment of polluted highway runoff. When conditions are impracticable my legislation would allow for an ``appropriate off-site runoff pollution mitigation program'' within the watershed of a Federal-aid highway project site that can protect against the water quality impacts of the project.

The Clean Water Act requires that we protect the waters of the United States. As with most pollution abatement strategies, preventing stormwater pollution is cheaper, more effective, and easier to implement than trying to clean up and remediate the problem after contamination has occurred.

Not addressing stormwater pollution at its source just kicks the proverbial can down the road for someone else to deal with. When water resources are contaminated by polluted highway runoff, mitigating the pollution, which is a preventable discharge in the first place, should not be the responsibility of local goverments, wastewater treatment facilities, or drinking water utilities.

Water pollution has many sources and our nation's highways produce a tremendous volume of contaminated stormwater. Time and time again, experience has taught us that addressing pollution at its source is the most effective means of abating pollution. It is time we applied this principle to our Nation's Federal-aid highways. I urge my colleagues to support my legislation and help move our country closer to meeting the goals of the Clean Water Act and the goals of our national transportation policy.

Mr. President, today I am proud to reintroduce the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2011 along with my colleagues, Senator Landrieu, Senator Mikulski, Senator Merkley, and Senator Hagan. This legislation will build on the successful Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2003. This program encourages habitat protection, education, research, monitoring, and capacity building to provide for the long- term protection of coastal wetlands from destruction caused by nutria.

Invasive species are one of the largest threats to biodiversity in the United States today. As invasive species go, the nutria is one of the most destructive creatures we have, especially in my home State of Maryland and in Louisiana.

The nutria is a large, semi-aquatic rodent that was originally brought to the United States to bolster the fur trade in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, we underestimated their strong appetite and high reproductive

potential. Since their introduction, the nutria have damaged millions of acres of wetlands and countless miles of shoreline and have even earned a spot among the International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of the world's 100 worst invasive alien species. By the early 1990s, the Chesapeake Bay/Delmarva Peninsula population was estimated to exceed 150,000 animals.

These ``eating machines'' can consume up to 25 percent of their body weight in plants per day, feasting directly on plant roots. This wrecks havoc on our wetlands, turning our once productive lands into barren mud flats. The destruction exacerbates the damaging impacts of ongoing land subsidence and sea level rise.

We understand how important our wetlands are and provide numerous ecosystem services to our society. They provide fish and wildlife habitat, flood protection, erosion control, and water quality preservation.

In my own State of Maryland, nutria invaded the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge nearly 6 decades ago, destroying vital habitat for native shorebirds, muskrats, and blue crabs. They are responsible for the loss of more than 5,000 acres of wetlands in this refuge alone.

We must remember this has a significant impact on people--people who depend on it for their livelihood and for people who use it for recreation. The loss of Blackwater wetlands, that are vital to the fishery, was estimated to cost Maryland's economy nearly $4 million annually. Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars pursuing their fishing, hunting and wildlife watching activities, which contribute to millions of jobs in industries and businesses that support wildlife-related recreation.

In 2000, Congress established a Federal funding source to develop a successful public-private partnership program to address nutria in Maryland. This financial support has directly led to the successful eradiation of nutria from 150,000 acres of the approximate 400,000 acres of wetland habitats that they infest. The project success is due to strategic planning, permanent and dedicated staff members, and cooperation with private landowners.

In Louisiana, an incentive program is used to encourage trappers to trap nutria. Since the implementation of the program, the damage to coastal wetlands has been reduced from 90,000 to 20,000 acres.

The management techniques developed in Maryland and Louisiana have already been exported to other states like Oregon and Washington to control their own nutria populations and minimize the damage done to their marsh habitats. Healthy wetlands are returning to places where nutria have been removed. But the job is not yet done.

Last Congress, I introduced the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2009 to continue and improve the successful nutria eradication program in Maryland and Louisiana and expand it to other significantly impacted states like Oregon and Washington. This bill passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2009 and had the support of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, and the Nature Conservancy.

Today, I proudly rise again and rededicate myself to passing the Nutria Eradication Control Act of 2011. This bill will authorize the Secretary of the Interior to provide financial assistance to the states of Maryland, Louisiana, Delaware, Oregon, Washington, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and North Carolina to eradicate and control nutria populations and restore nutria-damaged wetlands.

We know how valuable our wetlands are. We know how destructive the nutria is. We know what we can do to stop the nutria and that these programs work. I urge my colleagues to remember that we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth and to join me in supporting this bill.

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

Mr. President, late on Sunday evening, the world was told of news we had been waiting to hear for almost 10 years. Osama bin Laden was a murderer who devoted his life to the destruction of freedom, democracy, and our way of life. His death is an important milestone in the fight against global extremist violence and a relief to the millions of Americans and others around the world who have felt his murderous destruction.

I, first and foremost, wish to thank the military and the intelligence professionals who carried out this daring

mission, which was executed flawlessly and will go down in our history books as to how we should do our work.

I wish to take a moment to compliment all of our military and intelligence people who were involved in this effort. I take great pride in representing the State of Maryland and our intelligence agencies that are located at Fort Meade. They do incredible work for our national security and for our Nation. They do a lot of work that keeps us safe, but they can never issue a press release because of the nature of their work. Many times I believe their work goes basically unappreciated by the vast majority of Americans. But I wish to take a moment to congratulate all the men and women in our intelligence agencies and in our military who have devoted their lives to keeping us safe. This mission demonstrates the type of work they do in order to make this a safer nation.

This successful interagency operation illustrates intelligence sharing at its best and the commitment of the men and women of our Armed Forces as well as our political leadership. As you know, after the attack on our country on September 11, we had commissions do work, we had a lot of congressional investigations, and there was one theme that came out very clearly in regard to the way we collected intelligence information to keep this Nation safe; that is, there was too much stovepiping and not enough sharing of information. Information that could have been shared, that could have been used in a way to keep us safe was not. This effort demonstrates the advantages of sharing information. Our intelligence agencies acted upon information that was made available through various sources and using that to be able to conduct this mission.

Truly, bin Laden was brought to justice as a result of President Obama's deliberative planning, coordination, and communication, his leadership, partnership, and dogged persistence. Because of that, we were able to accomplish this mission.

I wish to congratulate President Obama. He had to make a tough call. The intelligence information was not conclusive. Much of it was circumstantial. Yet he evaluated the best information we had to determine that bin Laden was at this location. He then had to make another tough choice, as to what type of mission to use--whether to use a sophisticated bomb in order to destroy the property, which would have caused the loss of some innocent life, or whether to use a higher risk mission of sending our SEALs into Pakistan. The President made the right call. He made the right decision, and I congratulate him on his leadership.

All Americans were affected by bin Laden's evil actions. We all remember that fateful day in September of 2001. I was on the other side of the Capitol as a Congressman in my office in the Rayburn Building. I remember receiving information that we thought there was a plane that could be heading to our own building. The Capitol Police ushered us out of the building so we could try to get out of harm's way. We all began to understand our Nation was under attack and the world was changing.

While we are still living in that changed world, this event reminds us again the strength of America is freedom and that its persistence can prevail. As a lifelong proponent of human rights, I know we do not rejoice in killing, but this death rids the world of a man who was committed to intolerance, destruction, hatred, and the desecration of human dignity. Bringing bin Laden to justice helps heal the wounds of those who lost their loved ones and to a nation who lived through 9/11.

We must remain vigilant as the fight against al-Qaida and other extremists goes on. While al-Qaida is increasingly marginalized-- particularly as we see so many in the Arab world exercise their desires for change--the threat posed by terrorist organizations will remain with us. We must remain on our highest guard, working with our allies around the world, in order to fight these extremists.

Once again, I wish to congratulate the tremendous efforts of our President, our military, and our intelligence community, especially as their hard work continues, and may this event bring some sense of peace to the families affected by bin Laden's evil, as well as to all in the world who love freedom and peace.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time spent in quorum calls be equally charged against the majority and the minority.

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

Madam President, as the Senate chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, I rise today to pay tribute to Max van der Stoel, the first High Commissioner on National Minorities at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, who died last week at his home in The Hague at the age of 86. Van der Stoel, a two-time Dutch foreign minister, worked tirelessly throughout the OSCE region as High Commissioner from 1992 to 2001 to prevent crises involving minority issues.

Max van der Stoel had a life-long commitment to human rights. From his early life in Nazi-occupied Netherlands to defining moments spent with Soviet-era dissidents, van der Stoel was deeply affected by the abuses he witnessed. He described one such encounter, in then- Czechoslovakia in 1977, when as foreign minister he met with Charter 77 activist, Jan Patocka in full view of Czechoslovak authorities. Van der Stoel commented that, ``This support was of great concern to the Communist authorities. After our short meeting, Professor Patocka was arrested and rigorously interrogated. He died of a heart attack the next day.''

Following the first gulf war, van der Stoel was appointed U.N. Human Rights Representative for Iraq, and he continued to raise human rights concerns in Iraq throughout the 1990s.

In 1992, he was appointed as the OSCE's first High Commissioner on National Minorities, HCNM, with a mandate aimed at preventing conflict through quiet diplomacy and early warning to the OSCE countries. His successes in that role are largely unrecognized, as they lie in what did not happen rather than in what did. He traveled to countries where tensions were rising, encouraged dialogue, and made practical recommendations to address underlying issues related to ethnic tension.

He worked in Estonia and Latvia in the early 1990s to address the processing for acquiring citizenship--which at the time disadvantaged particularly ethnic Russians in the newly independent states because of stringent language testing. He was the OSCE Chairmanship's Personal Representative on Kosovo--although unfortunately his early warnings in 1997 and 1998 went unheeded by policymakers. His work on inter-ethnic relations and education in Macedonia resulted in the establishment of the South Eastern European University in Tetovo in 2001, which is still a model for integrated education. Throughout his time as HCNM, he promoted rights for Roma, the single largest minority in the OSCE region as a whole.

His job was not easy, but his integrity, commitment, and diplomatic skills paved the way for his successors and built the position of the HCNM into one of the most effective OSCE tools for conflict prevention. His legacy to the OSCE is not only the work he did as HCNM, but the advice he left behind on the importance of early action to prevent conflict.

In his last statement to the OSCE Permanent Council in 2001, he said:

Governments should see the self-interest in protecting

minority rights and living in peaceful and prosperous multi-

ethnic states. The only people who profit from inter-ethnic

conflict are nationalist entrepreneurs. That is not a

business that reaps long term profits. In the end,

intolerance, violence and instability hurt us all.

I maintain that preventing inter-ethnic conflict will

continue to be one of the organization's biggest challenges

in the near future. Despite improvements in many OSCE states,

conflicts still rage and tensions boil below the surface. We

have to sharpen our tools and invest sufficient resources to

ensure that we remain on the cutting edge of conflict

prevention. . . . Collectively, we must do more to act in

response to the warning signs. It is not enough to admonish

States for falling short of their commitments. A concerted

response by the international community must be resolute,

targeted, and timely.

. . . When a crisis becomes acute, everyone wonders what

went wrong or what steps should be taken to contain the

situation. Things do not need to get to that point. While

Foreign Ministries seem to be increasingly sensitive to the

benefits of relatively limited funding, treasuries are still

hesitant to invest in preventing the conflicts of tomorrow.

We need to put our money where our mouth is. It makes

political and financial sense to put resources into keeping

multi-ethnic states together, rather than bailing them out

after they have fallen apart.

His words are as timely and relevant today as they were 10 years ago. It is my hope that, inspired by the dedication and accomplishments of Max van der Stoel, the United States and its allies will strive to ensure that ethic tension and human rights violations are not allowed to fester until they erupt into conflict.