Floor Statements

Will the Senator from New York yield for a question?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized at 2:15 for 15 minutes to discuss the supplemental. Senator Byrd is the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee. If he is here and wishes to speak at that time, I will yield the floor to him. In the absence of that, I ask consent.

Mr. President, I believe, by unanimous consent, I am to be recognized at 2:15 for 15 minutes.

I allocate 2\1/2\ minutes of that time to the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Kohl.

Mr. President, I commend my colleague from Wisconsin. I

agree with all he has described. I think this is a really important issue and increased food aid is critically important. So I appreciate him being here.

I will speak for a moment about this $82 billion supplemental bill. Most of it is to restore accounts in the U.S. Army and other military installations or military organizations because that money was not in the budget. We had asked last year that it be put in the appropriations process so that it could be considered. We know that we are going to spend money in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the administration, year after year, does not put any money in for these accounts and then comes back with an emergency request later.

It is a fiction that is being created. We know this is costing money every single month. I guess the reason to do it on an emergency basis is so that nobody has to pay for it. This is $82 billion not paid for, just emergency, stack it on top of the debt and say to the troops: Go to Iraq, serve your country, do your duty and, by the way, when you come back we will have the debt waiting for you, so you have served in Iraq and you can also come back and pay for the cost of that. That does not make any sense to me.

We had a small provision on the issue of government spending when this bill was before the Senate, and I want to talk about it for a moment. It dealt with the appointment of an independent counsel in 1995 that was to investigate the allegation that a Cabinet official lied about payments he had made to his mistress. So an independent counsel was formed 10 years ago. That independent counsel was to investigate Mr. Cisneros, a man who I may have met in 1993 or 1994 and have not seen since. In any event, an independent counsel was appointed to investigate whether he lied about payments he had made to a mistress. Ten years ago, that independent counsel started working and spending money. In 1999, Mr. Cisneros, the subject of the investigation, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. In 2001, 2 years later, the President pardoned him. So 10 years ago the independent counsel was formed, 6 years ago the subject of the investigation pleaded guilty, and 4 years ago the subject of the investigation was pardoned by the President.

This independent counsel is still in business and still spending money. In the last 6 months, the independent counsel has spent nearly $1.3 million. I offered an amendment, that the Senate passed, which says, tell them to finish by June and shut down. In fact, 2 years ago, the three-judge panel which supervises this independent counsel told him to wrap it up, and get it done. This independent counsel has now spent $21 million over 10 years, and so we offered an amendment that said, shut it down.

The Senate accepted it. It went to conference and it was pulled out. So the independent counsel still spends money.

The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial saying this was some nefarious amendment designed to try and protect some information that exists deep in the bowels about some scandal with the Internal Revenue Service--typical political sludge coming from the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Then we have the same sludge offered by Mr. Novak in his column, I believe it was last Thursday, suggesting there is something else going on here.

Well, let me just say this: If we have enough money to have independent counsels continuing to be paid 6 years after the subject of their investigation pled guilty, and 4 years after they were pardoned, it is a high-water mark for bad judgment. It is unbelievable. All it describes to me, with respect to Mr. Novak and the folks who believe we should keep spending this money, is that even waste has a constituency, in some cases a very aggressive constituency.

We really need to save the taxpayers' money, and this is an unbelievable waste of the taxpayers' money.

Let me ask how much time I have remaining.

Robert Fulghum wrote a book entitled simply, ``All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.'' Many have read that book. Some of it is, of course, wash your hands, share, be nice to others. One, of course, is to tell the truth. That simple kindergarten lesson is lost in some cases and particularly in the media wars that go on over significant issues.

I brought to the floor today some advertisements that are being run across the country in support of those who in this Senate Chamber are prepared to exercise what is called a self-described ``nuclear option'' by the majority. What is their nuclear option? Well, they are in kind of a snit. They do not get all of the judges approved--just over 95 percent of the judges sent to us by the President. Now, because not every single judge has been approved by the Senate, the majority party is out of sorts, cranky, upset, and sufficiently so that they and the groups from outside this Chamber have decided what they ought to do is violate the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate.

Let me just point out what is happening as they lead up to this so- called nuclear option where they violate the rules of the Senate. They are creating their own fiction. The President, by the Constitution, has the right to nominate Federal judges who will sit for a lifetime on the Federal bench. We have a separate responsibility to advise and consent. The President sends a name down, and we say yes or no.

This President, George W. Bush, has sent 218 names of people he wants to serve for a lifetime on the Federal bench. We have approved 208 of them. Because they have not gotten approval for all of them, they have decided they want to violate the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate.

Let me give an example of one of the 10, Janice Rogers Brown. Here is what she says, and I am quoting her directly:

Senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren

because they have a right to get as much free stuff as the

political system will permit them to extract.

One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand what this means. This is somebody whose philosophy believes that there is something inherently wrong with Social Security and Medicare. It is the old folks living off the rest of the country.

I do not know, maybe it is a person who does not know senior citizens, has not visited a nursing home, does not understand what it is like to work without very much money, without resources, and wonder what their retirement is going to be like.

Do I want this person sitting on the Federal bench? No. Am I pleased that I participated in saying, no, this person should not sit on the Federal bench? One can bet their life I am.

There are groups that are advertising in our States, and they are saying this is an attack on people of faith if we do not support these judges, or it is an attack on a minority.

Here is a religious organization that is running ads in States:

. . . Never before has the political minority hijacked

democracy in this way. . . .

This religious organization says, in paid political advertising:

. . . Senate Democrats have abused the rules . . .

Another religious organization states:

. . . Never before in history have judges with majority

support been denied a vote by the misuse of the filibuster

rule. . . .

Well, there are Ten Commandments and they can be found in the 20th chapter of Exodus. I suggest to those who throw around this issue of faith, those organizations that call themselves religious organizations and want to buy political ads and then not tell the truth in the ads, that they refer to the 20th chapter of Exodus and the ninth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness. There are Ten Commandments, not nine. Do not skip the ninth when getting involved in this discussion.

The least that is owed to the American people is the truth, and it is simply not true that the minority in the Senate has abused the rules, or has hijacked democracy. That is simply not true.

The facts are that we have supported 208 of 218 nominees sent to us by this President. The facts are that the 60-vote requirement to get cloture in this Chamber is a requirement that has existed for a long time, and it is a requirement that is healthy for this Chamber. It is protective of the minority, whether it be Republican or Democrat. It is what requires compromise. Compromise is a good thing.

There are some in this Chamber who think that no one should ever compromise. If one party runs the White House, the Senate and the House, they ought to have it their way all the time, and if they do not get it their way, they have a right to be angry and to change the rules of the Senate even if they violate the rules to do it.

There is a way to change the rules of the Senate. It takes 67 votes. I hope the 67 votes is not in dispute.

The majority has concocted a scheme by which with 51 votes they will change or attempt to change the rules of the Senate with something they mislabel as the nuclear option.

This is something that disserves the interests of the Senate and the American people. We have very serious problems with health care costs. We have problems with the cost of prescription drugs. We have jobs moving overseas in unlimited quantity. We have trade deficits, the largest in the history of this country. We have serious energy problems, and guess what, we have a majority that has their nose bent out of shape because there are 10 judges out of 218 who somehow did not make it, and that is an affront to a majority that insists that they have it their way all the time. I didn't take Latin because I was in a high school senior class of nine, but I think the term ``totus porcus'' might just best describe what the majority party believes it is due on these issues. They want it all--the whole hog--right now. If they do not get it, they are prepared to go to the ultimate length that they describe as the nuclear option.

My hope is that in the coming days, heads will clear, and they will rethink this approach. Both parties will be in the minority at some point. Both parties have been and will be in the future at some point. I believe any majority party, whether it be a Democratic Party or a Republican Party, that decides to break the rules to change the rules will rue the day that happens.

I came here because I want to work in a constructive way on public policy. I hope we can continue to do that. But I read the Constitution again and again and understand what it says. It says this Government of ours works when we work together. The 60-vote majority in the Senate I know is nettlesome. I know it gets under people's skin. But it is what has always distinguished this Senate from other bodies. It is what requires compromise. It says to a President--any President, Republican or Democratic President--when you send a name down here for a lifetime appointment to the bench, it ought to be a name that reflects some semblance of compromise; and we have approved 208 of them. One of them I regret we approved. I voted against that one, by the way, a candidate for a lifetime appointment on the court who has written that he believes women are subservient to men. I do not think that person belongs on the bench, but the person made it through here. The fact is, 208 of them are now serving for a lifetime on the Federal bench, which I think is extraordinary cooperation. I believe we have the lowest vacancy rate on the Federal bench that we have had for 15 years or more.

It is profoundly disappointing to see what is going on around the country with a massive amount of money going to the television and radio stations, some by religious organizations, neck deep in politics, saying you know what the minority party is doing in the Senate is hijacking democracy and engaging in mischief, abusing the rules and so on and so forth. I again say to them that is, in my judgment, bearing false witness. They ought to know it.

Let's have a real debate--a thoughtful debate, not a thoughtless debate--about how we proceed to address the major issues affecting America. Yes, the major issues: health care, trade, jobs, energy--the sort of things that determine what kind of life our kids and grandkids are going to have, what kind of opportunity they are going to have.

When they sit around the supper table at night as a family, what are the things people talk about? They talk about, Do I have a good job? Does it pay well? Does it have benefits? Can I care for my family with this income? Do Grandpa and Grandma have access to decent health care? Do we live in a safe neighborhood? Do we breathe air that is quality air and drink healthy water that is not going to injure our health? These are the kinds of things that are important to people. Do we send our kids to schools we are proud of? Yet, are we debating that on the floor of the Senate? No. No, regrettably not. That is not the central set of issues we are debating.

We are now debating this so-called nuclear option. Why? Because out of 218 names sent to us by the President asking for a lifetime appointment to the Federal courts, we have approved only 208. We have approved only over 95 percent, and that is a problem for the majority.

A majority will not long remain a majority if it does not understand the requirement that all of us have to work together: to compromise, to tell the truth, and to do what is best for this country.

Mr. President, let me ask how much time I have remaining.

Mr. President, let me go much longer. I am sorry, for 3 seconds let me thank my colleagues.

This is the time to be controlled on our side by consent, if I might read it into the record? My guess is it will go back and forth: Senator Byrd, 20 minutes; Senator Reid, 15 minutes; Senator Salazar, 15 minutes; Senator Corzine, 10 minutes; Senator Obama, 10 minutes, Senator Lieberman, 10 minutes; Senator Leahy, 15 minutes; Senator Durbin, 1 hour, 10 minutes of that to go to Senator Murray; and Senator Feingold, 10 minutes.

Let me ask by consent to understand that is the progress on our side, understanding it would be interspersed with Republican speakers.

Mr. President, I am told this is within the time that has been granted.

Will the Senator yield?

Let me just observe, because the Senator mentioned me, my

point of supporting the 60-vote threshold is that is what requires compromise. The very presence of the filibuster is what requires compromise. Otherwise you do not have any incentive to compromise, be it the executive branch relative to the legislative branch. That was not my point. It wasn't that we should find a way to allow the nuclear option to exist without changing the rules of the Senate.

Mr. President, my colleagues have often heard me speak on this floor about tribal colleges that provide higher education to the residents of this country's Indian reservations. For over 30 years, these institutions have brought hope and opportunity to thousands of students who otherwise would not have had the chance to seek an education beyond high school.

There is a reason why the Nation's tribal colleges consistently manage to achieve more with less than any other educational institutions in the United States--talented and committed leadership. One of those leaders, Dr. Gerald ``Carty'' Monette, has been part of the tribal college movement since its inception. As the president of Turtle Mountain Community College since 1978, he has seen his institution grow from a handful of students gathering in an abandoned convent and a series of trailers in Belcourt, ND, to an enrollment of 650 meeting in a state-of-the-art building in a setting that reflects the sacred grounds of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

Dr. Monette's modest and self-effacing manner belies a strong and determined leader who has inspired hundreds of graduates of Turtle Mountain Community College. He had an early understanding of the ... relationship between education, economic development, and community partnerships. As a result, the college today boasts the Center for New Growth that is a regional center for economic development; he wanted the College to have energy independence and today there is a wind and geothermal energy center at the College.

Not only has Dr. Monette been a leader at Turtle Mountain, he has been a national leader as one of the founders of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, AIHEC, and has served several terms as presidents of the consortium. AIHEC has been the heart and soul of the tribal college movement and under Dr. Monette's leadership it began an aggressive telecommunications initiative that is enhancing communities throughout Indian country.

As Dr. Monette prepares to apply his leadership and vision to other educational pursuits, I wish him and his wife, Dr. Loretta DeLong, a Turtle Mountain Community College graduate, the very best. He has left a lasting legacy for his fellow members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and their children. We join them honoring this exceptional man.

Mr. President, I wonder if my colleague, the Senator from North Dakota, would yield for a question?

Mr. President, I notice on our desks there is something called the conference report. It is what I asked Senator Conrad about earlier today, whether he was aware of what was in the conference report. I guess that was at about noon or 1 o'clock. I believe the Senator responded that he

was not aware at that point because he had not seen it.

But because this is called a conference report, I would ask the Senator--you are the ranking member on the Budget Committee here in the Senate--were you a part of the conference? Were you a conferee?

Just to further inquire, you were selected by the Senate to be a conferee to this conference but, in fact, were not invited to the conference; is that the fact?

Let me ask the question: I asked midday whether you knew what was in this conference report, and I well understand now why you could not know if the conferees on this side of the aisle were not welcomed to the conference. In fact, if the conference was held without participation from the minority party, then I understand this report is produced, in whole, by the majority party. It is a big, thick document stuck on our desks maybe midafternoon or late this afternoon.

I was listening to the debate by my colleague, Senator Conrad, and he was talking about deficits and debt. I thought maybe someone would challenge him on his figures. Wouldn't it be the case that it would be hard to challenge your figures because they come from page 4 and page 5 of the budget prepared by the majority party? In fact, what it says on page 4, which is their conference report--a conference they didn't allow the minority to participate in--is that each and every single year, they are going to have massive amounts of deficit spending. And they start with $7.9 trillion of debt on page 4 and end up with $11.1 trillion. Yet they are out here thumbing their suspenders, boasting about how terrific they are at reducing the Federal deficit.

Can you show me any place in here where they are reducing the Federal deficit? It looks to me, on page 4 or page 5, they are filling the tub with deficits.

If I may inquire further, isn't it the case that this budget document is actually a budget document that is wearing makeup? If you take the makeup off this document, what does it look like? Let's assume they put everything in this document that they know is going to happen. Then what does it look like? As bad as it is now, isn't it the case that this becomes a fiscal catastrophe?

Will the Senator yield for a moment?

The Senator made a very powerful presentation, as usual. This is an embarrassment--this train wreck of a budget that was brought to the floor of the Senate in a manner that excluded the minority party from participating, in a manner that excluded those who were designated as our conferees from participating, brought to the floor the afternoon it is to be considered. The only thing that trumps the bad numbers here is the bad judgment.

A hundred years from now, everybody here will be dead. Historians can look at this and determine what were our priorities, what was important in this country to the policymakers, and how they spent the money. This is an embarrassment, a train wreck. We are going to have a lot of discussion about choices and judgment. That is important, the choices of: What did we decide to invest in? Who got the tax cuts?

That is important. But the bad numbers the Senator has spoken about are staggering. I know nobody is going to come to the floor to respond directly to what he has described because there is no response to it.

As I conclude, I will say that some while ago somebody told me you don't understand the economic strategy that is employed here: Don't worry about the deficits; spend all this money, and give big tax cuts to upper income folks. Katie bar the door. Don't stare problems directly in the eye; don't deal with them. Let me explain it to you. You take three glasses and one apple. Cut the apple in half and put one-half in the first glass, put the other half of the apple in the second glass, and the third half in the third glass. I said: But there are only 2 halves.

He said: You don't understand our economic strategy.

I said: No, I sure don't.

That is exactly the basis on which they create a strategy. It is a mirage, a total myth. This document pretends to do something it doesn't. It is an embarrassment. The minority was not allowed to come to conference, and the majority that is supposed to represent the conservative movement in the United States has become the biggest spenders in the history of this country and the biggest supporters of Federal debt and deficits we have ever seen. And that is in this document. Do not take it from me, it is not my word, it is in black and white on page 4 and page 5. I am very anxious tonight for somebody to come down here and describe why and how they got to this point and how they justify it.

I appreciate the Senator yielding.

How much time remains on our side?

Mr. President, everyone in this country knows what a dangerous intersection is. We all drive and understand the consequences of a dangerous intersection. We are coming to a dangerous intersection in American politics, especially in the Congress: first, by actions that are, on their face, wrong and are harmful to our country; and second, by inaction on matters that cry out for attention--but, again, get none in this Congress and by this administration.

We face a different kind of politics than most have experienced before when we see prominent members of the Congress participate in exercises with outside groups who suggest those who are not with them on the issues are people who lack faith, are people who are not people of faith. Those are dangerous grounds to tread on politically. Yet they do it and do it willingly.

As I was listening to my colleague, I remembered going to a puppet show my daughter participated in during grade school some years ago. Of course, in a puppet show you see only the puppet; you do not see who is behind the black cloth. There are puppet shows going on here in the Congress, of course, and in the administration. Perhaps today's USA Today tells us a little bit about who is behind the screen. The chief political adviser to the White House, Mr. Karl Rove, says there will be no compromise on this issue of judges. It seems to me, a White House that has said it is not involved in this issue is clearly neck deep in this issue, and perhaps is the one behind the screen in this case. Whether it is on this so-called nuclear option with respect to the vote on the judges in the Senate or the Social Security debate going on regarding whether we should privatize Social Security as recommended by the White House, Mr. Rove has played a very prominent role.

To take Social Security for a moment, the memorandum leaked in January from the White House by the chief strategist on this issue, who works for Mr. Rove, said that, for the first time in six decades, we have a chance to win on Social Security.

What does that mean? It means they have never liked Social Security. They want to take Social Security apart. That memorandum also said we have to claim there is a crisis and convince people there is a crisis in Social Security. Of course, it is not working because there is not a crisis in Social Security which has been and is an enormously important program, lifting tens of millions of senior citizens out of poverty in this country. The fact is that Social Security will be fully solvent until President George W. Bush is 106 years old. That is hardly a crisis.

People are living longer, and we may need to make adjustments in Social Security as we move along, but it does not require major surgery. And, the President's proposal to borrow $5 trillion and then stick it in the stock market and cut Social Security benefits and sit back and hope, is not much of a plan.

It is interesting to me that the American people, in poll after poll after poll, are rejecting this. I was at a Social Security forum over the weekend. We did them in several States. A fellow came up to us at the forum and said, I am 88 years old. I am blind, and Social Security is all I have. I think people are very concerned about this notion of sticking this money in private accounts and just hoping, after you have borrowed trillions, hoping somehow things will be better.

Whether it is Social Security and private accounts and the attempt to take the Social Security system apart or this issue of the nuclear option because the majority party and the President have gotten only 95 percent of the Federal judges they want, these intersections are dangerous.

Let me describe the danger of the intersection with respect to the so-called nuclear option. The Constitution of the United States is clear about judges. In fact, originally when they put this Constitution together, they felt perhaps they would have the Senate or the Congress appoint judges. Instead, there is a two-step process. The President decides who shall be nominated to the Senate for a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench to the Federal courts and then the Senate decides whether they will support that nomination. It is called advice and consent. This President, President Bush, has sent the Senate 215 nominees to serve for a lifetime on the Federal court. We have supported 205 of them. That is 95 percent. But that is not enough. The President and the majority party say we want it all.

I remember people like that on the playground when I was in school. They want it all. If they do not get it all, they are going to take their bat and ball and go home. In this case, if they do not get it all, they will violate the Senate rules in order to change the Senate rules. How will they violate the rules? They will overturn precedent in the Senate in terms of how the rules are changed. It takes 67 votes to change the rules of the Senate. The so-called nuclear option devised by the majority party is a strategy by which they will overturn the ruling of the Parliamentarian that the rules are being violated, and by a majority vote, overturn the rule and effectively change the rules of the Senate by violating the rules of the Senate. Some people do not care about that. That is fine. If you care a lot about the future of this country, if you care a lot about democracy, if you care about making a democratic government work by compromise, you ought to care a lot about this.

It is arrogant. It reflects the feeling of a party that controls the White House, the House, and the Senate, that they must get their way on everything.

The reason a 60-vote requirement--that is, a filibuster--is useful to the workings of democracy is because it requires compromise. It requires Members to reach a threshold of 60 votes in the Senate, which requires you to reach across the aisle and talk to people of the other party. That is a good thing, not a bad thing. Compromise is a good thing. Bipartisanship is a good thing, not a bad thing. We have people now who look at it as something that is awful. We want to take a partisan group that has 51 votes and is muscle-bound--it is politics on steroids--and ram it through the Congress and violate the rules in order to change the rules. It is not what this country should expect from the Congress.

Here is today's paper: ``Filibuster Rule Change Opposed.'' It is interesting that there is a broad center of common sense. There always has been. Over two centuries, this country's political system moves one direction and then the other direction. But there is a strong magnetic pull back to the center. That magnetic pull comes from a reservoir of common sense all across this country of people who basically know what is the right thing. They know from their school days, from their civic organizations, they know from their everyday lives you do not violate the rules to change rules. We have certain rules. You do not violate rules to change rules. People know that inherently, and they also know the consequences of one-party rule that says it is our way and that is the only way and we refuse to compromise on anything.

For that reason, it is quite clear that two-thirds of the American people have that reservoir of common sense and are expressing it. I hope the majority party will listen. I especially hope Mr. Rove and the White House, who says there will be no compromise, will understand that compromise is what makes this Senate work.

In the McCullough book about John Adams, as I told my colleagues previously, he would write to Abigail--because John Adams was in Europe, representing our country in England and France as they tried to put this new country together--he would write to his wife, Abigail, and ask the question, plaintively: Who will be the leaders? Who will emerge as the leaders to help form this new country of ours? From where will the leadership come? And then in the next letter to Abigail, he would ask the question in different ways again: Who will be the leaders? Then he would say: It appears there is only us. There is me, there is George Washington, there is Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Mason, Madison.

In the rearview mirror of history, the only ``us'' is some of the greatest human talent that has ever been assembled that created quite a remarkable country. For 2 centuries, Americans have asked the same question: From where will the leadership come? How will the leadership emerge to steer this country and provide direction for this great democracy of ours? In almost every case, the American people have been surprised by those who step forward.

We have been enormously blessed by wonderful leaders--Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals--leaders who step forward at the right time, at the right moment, to say: Here is where America needs to move. Here is how we need to improve and strengthen this great democracy of ours.

I ask again, and I think America asks again, with the backdrop of these questions, violating the Senate rules to

change Senate rules, taking apart the most successful program we have had in this country's history, the Social Security Program, the American people are asking, as they answer these polls: Where is the leadership? Where will the leadership come from to put this country on track?

We do have crisis. It is not Social Security. We have a bona fide crisis in health care. Prescription drug costs, health care costs are going straight up, and no one is doing anything about it. We have a crisis in jobs. We have the biggest trade deficit in human history, and we are choking on it. We have massive numbers of American jobs moving every single day overseas. It is an epidemic because American workers are being told by their multinational employers: You either compete with 30-cent labor from China or we are sorry, it is over for you. That job goes to China for 30 cents an hour, working 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, often kids. We have an epidemic in jobs and trade. We have a serious problem with the largest budget deficits in the history of this country. Yes, that is a crisis.

Last week, we passed an $80 billion emergency supplemental bill to pay for the costs in Iraq and Afghanistan and not one penny was paid for. The administration that requested it did not suggest it be paid for. Congress did not suggest it be paid for. Just add it to the debt. Send the soldiers to Iraq and bring them back later and have them pay for the debt.

So, yes, we have some crises. Health care, jobs, trade deficit, fiscal policy, energy. Drive to the gas pumps and ask yourself whether there is a problem there. And then we have the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia going to Texas yesterday to explain how much additional oil they will pump in order to help us with our energy problem. Sixty percent of our oil comes from off our shores, much of it from troubled parts of the world--Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela, Kuwait.

If, God forbid, tomorrow the pipeline for sending oil to this country from those troubled parts of the world were ruptured, this country's economy would be flat on its back. We are held hostage by oil from off our shores to the extent we have to have the Saudis come to Texas, to the ranch, to explain to us how they are going to help us solve our problems.

The fact is, we do have crises. The operative question is, Where is the leadership? Where is the leadership? Where will it come from to deal with these issues? No, I am not talking about the nuclear option. That is a specious approach, one that will injure this Senate and injure this country. I am not talking about taking Social Security apart--exactly the wrong thing. I am talking about the leadership for things that really matter to American families.

When people are in their homes, sitting at their tables, having supper, they talk about issues such as: Do I have a good job? Does it pay well? Do I have job security? Do grandpa and grandma have access to good health care? How about the kids, do they have access to doctors when they need it? Are our kids going to a school we are proud of? Do we live in safe neighborhoods? Those are things that are operative in the midst of families' interests about this country and where they live.

I hope very much the majority party will understand what the American people are telling them: Lay off the nuclear option. Accept that 95- percent support for judges nominated by this President, which is a pretty good record. Ninety-five percent, that is a good record. Accept and understand there is an opposition party. They, too, have rights. And accept and understand that compromise is not a bad word. Compromise recognizes that this democracy works when you have bipartisanship, when you reach across the aisle. That is what the 60-vote margin requires us to do, in my judgment. And answer the question, Where is the leadership? Just answer that question, Where is the leadership on issues that matter to American families? My hope is, in the coming days we will see some of that leadership both here in the Congress and also from this administration.

Last, and most importantly, let's not ever hear again that those with whom you disagree are not people of faith. What a shameless thing to be doing, to suggest that your political opponents are people who are not people of faith. This country is better than that. Political debate and dialog can be better than that. And the American people expect and deserve better.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, first of all, I am really pleased we finally have the highway bill on the floor. I appreciate the leadership of the chairman and the ranking member. This is an authorization that is, I think, 2\1/2\ years old or so. Many of us have been frustrated. I know the chairman and Senator Jeffords have been frustrated that we have not been able to finish this work. I hope we can finish this bill and move it through the Senate.

I wanted to comment about another couple of issues. I am worried about the way things develop here in the Senate. We treat serious things too lightly; we treat light things too seriously. We have, it seems to me, the framework for a huge brawl in the Senate over procedure, and there are so many challenges facing our country that this President and this Congress are not looking in the eye with the thought of responding directly to them. I will mention a few of them today.

Politics, regrettably, in recent times has become a sport in which one side trashes the other side, and it is either our way, or no way, or the highway. Now, we have a circumstance where we are facing serious challenges: we face fiscal policies that are off the rail, the largest budget deficits in history; we face the largest trade deficit in history, with massive numbers of American jobs being shipped overseas; we face energy problems that are causing severe pain and dislocation, and everybody

knows what the price of gasoline is these days; we struggle with health care costs that are skyrocketing; and all of these issues are hard for families to deal with. And yet, despite these issues, we are confronted by the prospect of a majority that doesn't like the current rules with respect to judgeships, so they will try to break the rules of the Senate, for the first time in history, in order to change the rules because we have approved only 205 out of 215 judges sent to us by the President--again, we have approved 97 percent of all of the judges sent to us by the President for lifetime appointments on the bench. But because there are 10 that have not been approved, the President and the majority party believe they want to break the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate.

There are so many other important things we ought to deal with. It is just Byzantine that this issue is what we are fighting about. There is a constitutional role for the Congress--particularly the Senate--with respect to judgeships. The President proposes, and we advise and consent. There is nothing in the Constitution that says we cannot use the rules of the Senate for those few judges we believe are inappropriate, those few we think represent the extreme and should not be on the bench for a lifetime.

Yet, because, again, 3 percent of the judges have not been approved, while 97 percent have, we have the prospect of what is commonly called the ``nuclear'' option of trying to change the Senate rules by breaking the Senate rules.

I will tell you what I think we should be working on. First, health care costs. The fact is, when most families sit around their supper table and talk about their lives, they are talking about things that relate to their everyday existence: Do I have a good job? Does it pay well? Do I have job security? Do grandpa and grandma have access to good health care? Are we sending our kids to good schools? Do we live in a safe neighborhood?

These issues affect the daily lives of the American people. Health care is not an option. When you are sick, you need health care. We have 45 million people without health insurance. We have the cost of health care skyrocketing. It is rising at a much more rapid pace than inflation. The cost of prescription drugs is going out of sight. Yet, is this Congress tackling health care issues? No, we are not. Will we allow legislation on the floor of the Senate that would provide for the safe reimportation of prescription drugs to put downward pressure on prescription drugs? No. Will we allow the Federal Government to negotiate lower prices with the pharmaceutical companies like the VA? Will we allow that negotiation for the Medicare Program? No. In fact, this Congress explicitly says you may not do that. It is unbelievable. We have these huge health care challenges, but we will not look that issue in the eye.

Our budget deficits are the largest in the history of our country. We just passed an $80 billion emergency bill last week. We knew for 2 years that is what it would cost--$5 billion, $6 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan--and there was zero in the President's budget request for it. So they proposed spending it on an emergency basis. Nobody talks about raising money for it; just spend it. In fact, I have raised questions about how it is being spent--and I offered an amendment saying we are being stolen blind with respect to contractors in Iraq--to wit, Halliburton. Halliburton is charging us for 42,000 meals a day served to U.S. soldiers, when it turns out they are serving only 14,000 meals a day. In my hometown, they have a word for that sort of thing.

I asked for an investigation into this kind of waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting. It is massive. But you cannot get a committee to investigate that. The Congress doesn't want to have a select committee to investigate that. So it is just throwing the money out the door in hopes that some of it will stick. In fact, there is massive waste, fraud, and abuse and everybody knows it. But nobody wants to confront it.

Education. We have a serious problem with education in this country. There are 400,000 qualified high-school kids that will not go to college this year because of financial burdens, and another 220,000 kids won't go to college because they simply cannot afford it. You have well over a half-million qualified kids who will not be going to college who should be in college. We know college tuition has risen 28 percent, after inflation, in the last 4 years. We have not considered the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. We extended it, but that should have been reauthorized several years ago. It is set to expire. The President's budget would eliminate the Perkins student loan program, Upward Bound, and a series of other programs that I think are very important. Pell grants have largely been stagnant in terms of their level, while tuition has gone way out of sight.

We don't look energy right in the eye, although I must say there is hope here. I met with Senators Domenici and Bingaman. I am a senior member on the Energy Committee, and I hope we can bring a bill to the floor of the Senate. That is a bipartisan bill.

Go to the gas pump these days, and then read in the paper after you paid for that gas, that Exxon reported the highest profit ever reported for one quarter by any corporation. Think of that. We have a revenue- sharing system by which the American taxpayer, the American consumer shares their money with the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Iraqis, the Venezuelans, and others who have the oil, and then the oil companies that are the conduit for that oil are making record profits as well.

If anything demands an investigation, it is that, in my judgment. We need an energy policy that does not hold this country hostage to oil, 60 percent of which comes from off our shores.

These are a few of the issues we ought to stare straight in the eye, and those of us who are not part of the political extreme--and there are too many these days who are perverting the political process in this country, I think a shameful perversion of the political process in many ways--but I hope those of us who are part of the strong political center in America will finally convince this administration and this Congress to take a hard look at the real challenges our country faces and then begin the long, challenging work to try to address them.

This is a great place. We are lucky to be here, lucky to be alive now. There is no place like it on Earth. It is our job as caretakers of this wonderful democracy to fix problems as we see them, to address problems, not to go off on these political searches to figure out who is the worst. The question is not who is the worst in the political system of ours, the question is whose ideas are the best that can move this country forward and give our country and our children the prospect for a better and brighter future.

I have much more to say, but because of time constraints today, I will leave it at that and say I hope as these weeks unfold we will begin to address the substance of the real challenges facing our country--Federal budget deficits, trade deficits, health care, education, energy, and other issues--all of which have a significant impact on the way we live in the country and all of which will have a significant impact on America's future.

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

Mr. President, Senator Harkin has shown great leadership in the effort to create a hydrogen fuel-cell economy and I welcome his support and look forward to working with him and other cosponsors as we move this legislation forward.

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

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

Mr. President, last week I introduced legislation in the Senate dealing with a critically important subject. I am proud to say that the Senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, joined me as cosponsor of this legislation. It deals particularly with the murder of young women in this country by sexual predators.

We all know the story recently about the murder of Jessica Lunsford. Jessica Lunsford was a 9-year-old young girl abducted in February from the bedroom of her home in Florida. Her body was found a month later. The crime was allegedly committed by a 46-year-old convicted sex offender with a 30-year criminal history.

More recently, we all remember the April 9 abduction of Sarah Michelle Lunde from her family's mobile home south of Tampa, FL. A convicted sex offender who had once had a relationship with the girl's mother has now confessed to killing her.

In March, Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids, IA, was abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered. A convicted sex offender on Iowa's sex offender registry was charged with that crime and arrested for that crime.

In August of last year, a 6-year-old Nebraska girl whose name has been withheld was sexually assaulted by a 39-year-old convicted sex offender.

We all remember the case of Polly Klaas, the 12-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered by a previously diagnosed sex offender.

There was a young woman in my State named Dru Sjodin who was murdered in late 2003. Walking out of the

shopping center into a parking lot about 5 in the afternoon, she apparently was abducted by a formerly convicted sex offender who has now been charged with this crime.

Dru Sjodin was a wonderful young woman. She was, as has been the case with these other circumstances, the innocent victim of a sex offender. Alfonso Rodriguez has been charged in her case. Alfonso Rodriguez served 23 years in prison as a violent sexual predator. He was deemed by prison officials to be a high-risk offender who would reoffend when released. He was nonetheless released from prison, and within 6 months he allegedly murdered Dru Sjodin.

I have introduced a law called ``Dru's Law.'' It is supported by Mr. Lunsford, Mr. Klaas, and so many other families who have been visited by these tragedies.

Dru's Law does three things. First, it says there should be a national registry of convicted sex offenders. There is not one now. There are State registries but not a national registry. Many Americans live near a State border. If they check their State registry of who the violent sex offenders are in their region, they will find out who is in their State but not who is 5 or 20 miles away across the border. There should be a national registry of convicted sex offenders, No. 1.

No. 2, if a high-risk sex offender is about to be released from prison and if that person is deemed to be at high risk for committing another violent offense, the local State's attorneys must be notified that this high-risk sex offender is about to be released so they can seek further civil commitment if they believe it appropriate.

No. 3, if, in fact, a high-risk sex offender is released from prison and there is no further civil commitment, there must be monitoring of that sex offender upon release. There cannot be at the prison door a wave and say: So long, you served your 23 years, have a good life. There must be high-level monitoring.

It is unbelievable to me that we know the names of these people who are committing these murders because they have been behind bars and they are released despite the fact that psychiatrists, psychologists, and others judge them to be at high risk for reoffending. I don't want to see the list of victims, which includes Dru Sjodin, Polly Klaas, Jessica Lunsford, and Sarah Lunde, get longer. We can do something about this. We can pass this legislation.

Incidentally, this legislation which I reintroduced now with Arlen Specter was passed by unanimous consent last year. We did not get it through the House, but I have now reintroduced it. I am going to try again, and I hope this time that this legislation gets to the President's desk for signature. It is long past the time that we do what is necessary to save lives. We ought not any longer accept the status quo. Violent sexual predators need to be identified, need to be on a national registry, and need to be either recommitted, if they are at high risk for reoffending, or there needs to be high-level monitoring when they are released. That is simply the case.

How much time have I consumed?

Mr. President, on another subject, this morning I read some very troubling comments by a member of the House leadership, on the subject of judges. I normally would not comment about remarks made by a member of the House, but we face in the Senate the prospect of what some are calling the nuclear option. This relates to an attempt by an arrogant majority to violate the rules of the Senate, in order to change the rules with respect to the confirmation of judicial nominations. Because of the real possibility that this so-called nuclear option will be exercised, I wish to react to some of these things that have been said about judges.

Judges serve for a lifetime. There are two steps to put a judge on the bench for a lifetime. One, the President must nominate. Second, the Senate advises and consents. In other words, the Senate decides whether it agrees a judge is fit for service for a lifetime.

It is not unusual for the Senate to decide that a judicial nominee by a President should not go forward. In fact, that happened to America's first President, George Washington. He lost one of his judicial nominations.

The Senate has approved 205 out of 215 Federal judicial nominations sent to us by President Bush. Because we have only approved 205 out of 215, which is 95 percent-plus, because there are a few who we have selected who we would not want to confirm, there are those who speak of changing the Senate rules, and to do so by violating the Senate rules. That is called the nuclear option.

What is the origin of all of this? Some of it has been described in stark terms by colleagues in the Congress. It is that they would like to define what good behavior means for judges. They do not agree with some judicial rulings, so they want to impeach Supreme Court Justices.

They must have missed that course in high school and college that talked about checks and balances, as well as the course that talked about separation of powers. Some in the Congress believe the judiciary ought to report to them and believe America's judiciary ought to conform to their interests, to their notions, of how to read our Constitution.

It reminds me again that there is a very big difference between an open mind and an empty head when I hear people talking about how we must find ways to get the Federal judiciary to bend to the will of the Congress. That is exactly what our Framers did not intend to have happen.

Let me say again, we have confirmed 205 of 215 requested lifetime appointments to the Federal bench offered to us by this President. That is an incredibly good record. But because 10 have not been confirmed-- because this Congress has decided not to be a rubberstamp for lifetime appointments on the Federal bench--we have some who have decided they want to break the Senate rules in order to change the Senate rules. I read in today's papers we have others who are deciding they would like to take a crack at impeaching Federal judges and bend the Federal judiciary to the will of the majority here in the Congress.

I think it is arrogant and I think it is dangerous and I think most of the American people would believe the same.

I hope, as we proceed in the coming days, there will be some sober reflection among those who understand the roles of those in this institution and the judiciary, who understand the separation of powers, and who understand checks and balances. If that is the case, those who now talk about the so-called nuclear option will rethink their position.

I yield the floor.

I rise today to describe S. 792, a bipartisan piece of legislation called ``Dru's Law,'' which I introduced in the Senate yesterday.

This bill seeks to fill some gaping holes in our criminal justice system, made tragically evident by a recent tragedy in North Dakota.

In November 2003, Dru Sjodin, a student at the University of North Dakota, was abducted in the parking lot of a Grand Forks shopping mall. She was found in a ditch in Minnesota some 6 months later.

A suspect was eventually arrested and is awaiting trial. There is abundant evidence that he was responsible for Dru's abduction. The alleged assailant, Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., had been released from prison only 6 months earlier, having served a 23-year sentence for rape in Minnesota. And what's more, Minnesota authorities had known that he was at high risk of committing another sexual assault if released.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections had rated Rodriguez as a ``type 3'' offender--meaning that he was at the highest risk for reoffending. In an evaluation conducted in January 2003, a prison psychiatrist wrote that Rodriguez had demonstrated ``a willingness to use substantial force, including the use of a weapon, in order to gain compliance from his victims.''

Despite this determination, the Minnesota Department of Corrections released Rodriguez in May 2003, and essentially washed its hands of the case. Since Rodriguez had served the full term of his sentence, the Department of Corrections imposed no further supervision on him at all.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections could have recommended that the State Attorney General seek what is known as a ``civil commitment.'' Under this procedure, a State court would have required Rodriguez to be confined as long as he posed a sufficient threat to the public, even if he had served his original sentence. But the State Attorney General was never notified that Rodriguez was getting out, and there was no chance for the Minnesota courts to consider the case.

So upon his release, Mr. Rodriguez went to live in Crookston, MN, completely unsupervised, a short distance from the Grand Forks shopping mall where Dru Sjodin was abducted.

To make matters worse, while Mr. Rodriguez registered as a sex offender in Minnesota, there was no indication of his release for nearby North Dakota communities. I suspect that most Americans would be surprised to learn that there is currently no national sex offender registry available to the public. So sex offender registries currently stop at State lines. Each State has its own sex offender registry, which tracks only its own residents.

For all intents and purposes, Rodriguez was free to prey on nearby communities in North Dakota, without fear of recognition.

This situation is simply unacceptable. We must do better. A recent study found that 72 percent of ``highest risk'' sexual offenders reoffend within 6 years of being released. And the Bureau of Justice Statistics has determined that sex offenders released from prison are over ten times more likely to be arrested for a sexual crime than individuals who have no record of sexual assault. We cannot just release such individuals with no supervision whatsoever, and let them prey upon an unsuspecting public.

Today, I am reintroducing legislation that will hopefully help to prevent such breakdowns in our criminal justice system, and that will give our citizens the tools to better protect themselves from sexual offenders.

This bill is cosponsored by Senator Specter, the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It also has a growing list of bipartisan cosponsors, which currently includes Senators Conrad, Dayton, Coleman, Lugar, Johnson, and Durbin.

The bill does the following three things:

First, it requires the Justice Department to create a national sex offender database accessible to the public through the Internet--with data drawn from the FBI's existing National Sex Offender Registry. This public website would allow users to specify a search radius across State lines, providing much more complete information on nearby sex offenders.

Second, it requires State prisons to notify States attorneys whenever ``high risk'' offenders are about to be released, so that States attorneys can consider petitioning the courts for continued confinement of the offender. The ``civil commitment'' option is available under the law in many States, if an individual is deemed a continuing threat to the public safety. In the Dru Sjodin case, prison officials did not alert the States attorney of Rodriguez' impending release. If they had done so, this tragedy might have been avoided.

Third, it requires states to monitor ``high-risk'' offenders who are released after serving their full sentence--and

are otherwise not subject to probation or other supervision--for a period of no less than 1 year.

The cost of these steps would be shared by the Federal Government and the States. The Federal Government would bear the cost of maintaining the national sex offender registry, and the States would bear the cost of supervising high risk offenders upon their release from prison.

To ensure compliance with these measures, the legislation would reduce Federal funding for prison construction by 25 percent for those States that did not comply, and would reallocate such funds to States that do comply with those provisions. This will be the ``stick'' that some States may need to ensure that they comply with these important protections.

I should note that this identical legislation was passed in the Senate toward the conclusion of the 108th Congress. It passed by unanimous consent, with the support of Senator Hatch, who was then the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and also with the support of Senator Leahy, who was--and remains--the ranking member of the committee.

Regrettably, the House of Representatives did not act on Dru's Law before adjourning in the last Congress, and so we must start the legislative process on this bill again in the 109th Congress. But I am committed to getting this done, and I expect that the House will pass Dru's Law in this Congress.

Our thoughts and prayers go to Dru Sjodin's family. I cannot guarantee that that passage of the legislation we are introducing today will prevent such tragedies from ever occurring again. But I believe that it will be a significant step toward making our neighborhoods safer for our loved ones.

In recent weeks, we have had some very sad reminders of the need for such legislation. In February, 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was abducted and murdered in Florida by a previously convicted sexual offender. The offender fled across State lines to Georgia, where he was apprehended. He has now confessed to this brutal crime. Had he not been arrested, he might well have offended again. This was, again, a reminder that while sex offender registries currently stop at State lines, sex offenders do not.

Mark Lunsford, Jessica's father, has written in strong support of this bill.

I look forward to working with my colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, to secure passage of this bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I wish to make a couple of comments today on some very important issues we will face in the days ahead.

We have the supplemental appropriations bill on the floor of the Senate asking for just over $80 billion for the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Most of it is to replenish military accounts. A number of amendments have been offered. Immigration amendments are now pending. I intend to offer a couple of amendments as well.

I will describe one of those amendments this morning. It deals with the establishment of a special committee of the Senate, modeled after the Truman Commission, to investigate the waste, fraud, and abuse that is happening with respect to contracting in Iraq.

I also wish to address another amendment I will offer, that would shut down the investigation that has been going on now 10 years by Mr. Barrett, an independent counsel. He started in 1995 to investigate allegations against Henry Cisneros, who was a Cabinet Secretary, allegations that he had given payments to a former mistress and then lied about it.

That independent counsel investigation started in 1995 and has been going on ever since. But Mr. Cisneros pled guilty in 1999. And he was pardoned in 2001 by a Presidential pardon. Yet here it is 2005 and the independent counsel is still spending money, $1.3 million, I believe, for the previous 6 months. I believe it is time for this Congress to say stop, enough is enough. Stop wasting the taxpayers money. What on Earth could you be thinking about? Four years after the person was pardoned and 7 years after the person pled guilty, the independent counsel is still spending money? If ever there were an example of Government waste and lack of common sense, this is it.

I also wish to mention briefly this country's trade deficit. I wanted to come to the floor the day before yesterday, but I was not able to do that.

There was a small announcement the day before yesterday that in February our trade deficit was $61 billion in 1

month. This is an example of what is happening to this country's trade deficits: We are choking on red ink. This is serious. It is a crisis, and nobody seems to care. The White House is snoring its way through this issue. The Congress is sleeping through it. Nobody gives a rip about this at all. Nearly $2 billion a day is the amount we purchase from abroad from other countries in goods and services in excess of the amount we sell to them. That means every single day foreign countries and foreign investors own $2 billion more of our country, claims against our country, stocks, bonds, assets, or real estate.

This is a crisis that will have a profound impact on future economic growth in this country. It will have a profound impact, and does, on the wholesale export of American jobs all across the world.

Yesterday, I read a piece that General Motors called in its subcontractors and said: You need to start moving your jobs to China to be more competitive.

Evidence is all around us that this trade strategy we have is unsound. It does not work. It injures our country. It is hollowing out our manufacturing sector, and it is moving American jobs overseas. This country had better take notice. This Congress had better sit up and start caring about this, and this President had better start parking Air Force One and providing some leadership on things that are a crisis.

No, Social Security is not in crisis. Social Security will be fully solvent until George Bush is 106 years old. That is hardly a crisis. But the announcement that in February of this year we had a $61 billion 1-month trade deficit ought to provoke this White House and this Congress, Republicans and Democrats, to take action in support of this country's economic interests for a change.

What do we hear about trade? We do not hear anybody wanting to do anything about this, and I will speak later on about what we should do in some detail. What we hear is we want another trade agreement to be passed by the Congress called the Central American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA. To me, it is an acronym that means careless and foolish trade agreement.

Along with my colleague from Georgia, Senator Lindsey Graham, we are going to lead the opposition, and I hope we can round up the votes in this Congress to defeat this trade agreement. The message ought to be to those folks who are negotiating these agreements and then sending them to Congress under fast track, please fix some of the problems that have been created in past trade agreements before negotiating new ones and before asking the Congress to approve new ones. Fix a few of the problems that have been created.

Do my colleagues think this is not a problem? This comes from NAFTA. This comes from GATT. This comes from all of the distant cousins of the trade agreements that we brought to the Senate floor, almost all of which I have voted against, because I believe they pull the rug out from under the interests of this country. They pull the rug out from under our workers and our businesses. So I hope very much that we can finally get someone's attention. If $61 billion a month in trade deficits is not a wake-up call that gets someone's attention, my guess is they are permanently asleep.

Now, I wish to speak about the issue of contracting in Iraq. There is massive waste, fraud, and abuse going on in contracting in Iraq, as is the case in many circumstances where a lot of money is being poured out to prosecute a war. If one does not watch carefully, people are going to fleece the taxpayers, and that is what is happening. Nobody seems to care about that, either.

We cannot get aggressive hearings in the Congress about oversight. Why is that? I do not know. So as chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, we have held four hearings on these abuses.

In a moment, I will read a few newspaper headlines about this waste, and yes, these headlines mention the word Halliburton, and I know that when the word Halliburton is mentioned people think, okay, now this is political, it is partisan, now we are going after Vice President Cheney because he used to head that corporation. This has nothing to do with Vice President Cheney. He has been long gone from Halliburton. This has nothing to do with the Vice President, nothing to do with partisan politics. It has everything to do with the American taxpayers being cheated.

So to the extent that Halliburton is in these headlines, it is because they were given very large sole-source contracts without any competitive bidding. Billions of dollars have gone into the pockets of Halliburton and here is the result, with a substantial lack of oversight.

First, let me describe this picture. This does not deal with Halliburton, by the way. This deals with a company called Custer Battles, two guys named Custer and Battles. This picture shows $2 million in cash wrapped in Saran wrap. This fellow, incidentally, was the guy who was turning over the $2 million because the company that was owed the $2 million showed up with a bag. Why did they show up with a bag to collect cash wrapped in Saran wrap? Because they were told in Iraq: When you are contracting, bring a bag, you are going to get cash, by the bagful.

Now, these people got a lot of cash. This is their first $2 million. They have been accused of substantial fraud. Doing security at airports, they allegedly confiscated the forklift trucks, took them off the airport property, repainted them, and then sold them back to the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was the U.S. taxpayer.

So here is the first delivery of $2 million in cash in a bag to a company that is now widely accused of fraud.

Now, here are some of the stories of waste that I mentioned, involving Halliburton. I will read some of these headlines. This was a former Halliburton employee who testified before our committee: ``Halliburton Manipulated Purchase Orders to Avoid Oversight''--that is a newspaper headline. For purchase orders under $2,500 buyers only needed to solicit one quote from a vendor. To avoid competitive bidding, requisitions were quoted individually and later combined into the $2,500 and more. They were told to do that in order to cheat.

In fact, this particular guy held up a towel, and he said: This was a towel we were supposed to order because we were buying towels for U.S. soldiers.

They paid nearly double the price for the towels because instead of ordering the towel that was the plain towel, they ordered one embroidered with their company's logo on it so the American taxpayer could pay nearly double.

``Halliburton Discouraged Full Disclosure to Auditors.'' ``Halliburton Overcharged for Oil.'' This is from the fellow who used to run the portion of the Defense Department that would purchase oil, yes, even in areas where we were at war, and he said: During my tenure at the Defense Department, we were occasionally forced to pay sole- source prices in some locations, but not even in remote central Asia did we pay close to a gallon for jet fuel of what Halliburton was charging in Iraq. He said that overcharging for oil was simply out of control. This is a former Defense Department official.

By the way, Halliburton ordered 25 tons of nails--that is 50,000 pounds of nails. Do my colleagues know where they are today? They are laying in the sand of Iraq because they came in the wrong size. Somebody made a mistake on the order. If someone wants 50,000 pounds of nails, they are laying in the sands of Iraq someplace. The American taxpayer paid for them, and Halliburton got reimbursed for it.

We had testimony of people driving $85,000 trucks in Iraq, and those trucks were abandoned just because they had a flat tire or because they had a clogged fuel pump. They were abandoned and torched, and they went and bought new trucks. So much for oversight. Nobody cares because it is a war and because there are sole-source contracts. These are pieces of testimony from whistleblowers, from former employees, who said: Here is what is going on. The truck piece was from a truckdriver in Iraq who worked for Halliburton.

It is just unbelievable when one listens to what is happening: Bags of cash, billions of dollars. We say we are going to put air- conditioning in a building near Baghdad, and so our contractor hires a subcontractor, who hires a couple of workers, and we get

charged for air-conditioning and they put in a ceiling fan that does not work. Does anybody care? Can we get anybody in this Congress, any committee, to hold oversight hearings to care about the massive fraud, waste, and abuse? Not on one's life, not a chance. God forbid that we should be critical of anything that is going on around here, despite the fact that the American taxpayer is getting fleeced wholesale.

I offered an amendment in the Appropriations Committee that would have set up a Truman-style investigating committee. Senator Harry Truman from Missouri, at a time when there was a Democrat in the White House, decided there was substantial abuse by contractors at the start of World War II, and he persuaded a Democratic Congress to set up an investigative committee. Yes, a Democratic Congress and a Democrat in the White House set up an investigative committee, and they saved a massive amount of money by uncovering a dramatic amount of fraud and waste.

Now we have one party control, and nobody wants to embarrass anyone else, so they do not look at anything. It is see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Meanwhile, the American taxpayers are completely getting fleeced by massive waste, fraud, and abuse.

We have done four hearings. I mentioned Halliburton, but I also can mention Custer Battles. I can mention other companies. Obviously, Halliburton is the poster child because they received giant contracts without bidding, and then we see that they are charging the American taxpayer to feed 42,000 soldiers a day when, in fact, they are only feeding 14,000 soldiers a day. So they are charging us for 28,000 meals that are not served. Fraud? I would think so. But what happens these days? First, it does not even get investigated. If it does get investigated, they get a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back with another contract.

This Congress needs to start facing up to these issues and getting tough. No, this is not partisan. If we are going to shove $81 billion out the door in a supplemental defense funding bill, should we not, along with it, provide the appropriate approach to investigate these? That is what my amendment will do.

I offered my amendment in the Appropriations Committee. It was turned down on a partisan vote, regrettably. This is not a partisan amendment. My hope is that perhaps I will see a different result on the Senate floor.

How much time remains on our 30 minutes?

Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Connecticut is going to be coming over to claim parts of our 30 minutes, but the time is running. I see the Senator from Kentucky is on the floor. I know that by previous consent we have established 30 minutes on our side followed by 30 minutes on the other side. At this point, I will relinquish the floor if I could ask that we would reserve the remaining time for Senator Lieberman from Connecticut because he is not here. If the other side would like to continue to take some of their time and then provided that when Senator Lieberman comes, he would have reserved the additional 15\1/2\ minutes? I will make that a unanimous consent request and see if the Senator from Kentucky would agree to that.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

My colleague from Connecticut is here. Let me take a couple of minutes and then yield to my colleague for the remaining time.

I must confess, it is hard sometimes to listen on the floor of the Senate without a big broad smile at the irony of this debate. Restoring the normal traditions of the Senate? There is a debate going on in the Senate, but that is not what it is about. This is about changing the rules in the middle of a game because one party in control doesn't get everything they want on every issue all the time.

We have confirmed 205 judges for this President and opposed the confirmation of only 10 of them. Because of that, the other side has an apoplectic seizure and decides they want to turn this Senate into the House, where there is no unlimited debate and one party can treat the other party like a piece of furniture they can sit on.

The Framers of this Constitution did not consider the Senate should be a compliant body during one-party rule. The minority has rights. One of those rights is unlimited debate.

I think it is very interesting to hear on the floor of the Senate how generously the Republicans treated nominees under the Presidency of President Clinton, when they--in 50 cases of people who were notified by the President they were nominated for a lifetime appointment on the Federal court--did not even have the courtesy of giving them 1 day of hearings. Not even a day of hearings. They didn't get to see the light of day in this Congress, let alone a filibuster.

What a shameful thing to do to someone to whom the President says, I am going to nominate you for a lifetime appointment on the court. They didn't give them 1 day of hearings.

Now they complain because we approved 204 and didn't approve 10. Now they complain the President didn't get every single judgeship he wanted. Have they ever heard of the words ``checks and balances''? Did they take a course at least in high school to understand what it means?

No. If this nuclear option, as it is called in this town, is employed by the majority party, with an arrogance that I have never seen in the years I have served in the Congress--if they do that, they will rue the day because they, one day, will be in the minority and they, one day, will wonder what on Earth did we do, to eliminate the unlimited debate provision in the United States Senate that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson said represents the cooling of the passions in this country, represents the one location of reasoned debate in this Government of ours.

I hear all these discussions about how this is about traditions and norms. Nothing could be further from the truth. What the majority is trying to do is change the rules of the Senate because the minority didn't approve 10 out of 215 judges. What an arrogant attitude and what damage they will do to this institution if they employ a tactic to change the rules at this point and turn this Senate into another House of Representatives. They will have done damage for the long term and damage I believe they themselves will regret because one day they, too, will be in the minority. Then they will again understand what this Constitution provides with respect to minority rights.

I yield the floor.