Floor Statements

Mr. President, those of us who are leaving the Congress at the end of this year are given the opportunity to make a farewell speech. But more, it is an opportunity to say thank you to a lot of people to whom we owe a thank-you, and to colleagues, to family, to the staff here in the Senate and our state staff, and the people of North Dakota, in this case, who gave me the opportunity to serve. It is the opportunity for me to say thank you.

One of my colleagues the other day talked about the number of people who have served in the Senate. Since the beginning of our country, there have been 1,918 people who have served in the Senate. When I signed in, I signed on the line, and I was No. 1,802. There have been 212 Senators with whom I have served in the years I have been in the Senate. It is hard to get here and it is also hard to leave. But all of us do leave, and the Senate always continues. When finally you do leave, you understand this is the most unique legislative body in the world.

I arrived 30 years ago in Congress, and when we all show up the first day, we feel so very important and we believe the weight of the world rests on our shoulders. Then we begin getting mail from home.

I have long described a letter that was sort of leavening to me, sent to me by a schoolteacher early on after I arrived here. Her class was to do a project to write to Dorgan in Washington, DC. I paged through the 20 letters from fourth grade students, and one of them said: Dear Mr. Dorgan, I know who you are. I see you on television sometimes. My dad watches you on television too. Boy, does he get mad.

So I knew the interests of public service, of trying to satisfy all of the varied interests in our country. It is important, it seems to me, that we do the right thing as best we can and as best we see it. That dad from that letter showed up at a good many of my meetings over the years, I think. He didn't introduce himself. But in most cases, the people I represented over these many years were people, ordinary folks who loved their country, raised their families, paid their bills, and wanted us to do the right thing for our country's future.

I have a lot of really interesting memories from having served here, 12 years in the House and 18 years in the Senate. The first week I came to Washington, in the House, I stopped to see the oldest Member of the House, Claude Pepper. I had read so much about him, I wanted to meet him. I walked into his office, and his office was like a museum with a lot of old things in it, really interesting things. He had been here for a long, long time. I have never forgotten what I saw behind his chair--two photographs. The first photograph was of Orville and Wilbur Wright, December 17, 1903, making the first airplane flight, signed ``to Congressman Claude Pepper with admiration, Orville Wright.'' Beneath it was a photograph of Neil Armstrong stepping on the surface of the Moon, signed ``to Congressman Pepper, with regards, Neil Armstrong.'' I was thinking to myself, here is a living American and in one lifetime, he has an autographed picture of the first person who learned to fly and the first person who walked on the Moon. Think of the unbelievable progress in a lifetime. And what is the distance between learning to fly and flying to the Moon? It wasn't measured on that wall in inches, although those photographs were only 4 or 5 inches apart; it is measured in education, in knowledge, in a burst of accomplishments in an unprecedented century.

This country has been enormously blessed during this period. The hallmark, it seems to me, of the century we just completed was self- sacrifice and common purpose, a sense of community, commitment to country, and especially, especially leadership. In America, leadership has been so important in this government we call self-government.

There was a book written by David McCullough about John Adams, and John Adams described that question of leadership. He would travel in Europe representing this new country, and he would write letters back to Abigail. In his letters to Abigail, he would plaintively ask the question: Where will the leadership come from for this new country we are starting? Who will become the leaders? Who will be the leaders for this new nation?

In the next letter to Abigail, he would again ask: Where will the leadership come from? Then he would say: There is only us. Really, there is only us. There is me, there is George Washington, there is Ben Franklin, there is Thomas Jefferson, there is Hamilton, Mason, and Madison. But there is only us, he would plaintively say to Abigail.

In the rearview mirror of history, of course, the ``only us'' is some of the greatest human talent probably ever assembled. But it is interesting to me that every generation has asked the same question John Adams asked: Where will the leadership come from for this country? Who will be the leaders?

The answer to that question now is here in this room. It has always been in this room--my colleagues, men and women, tested by the rigors of a campaign, chosen by citizens of their State who say: You lead, you provide leadership for this country.

For all of the criticism about this Chamber and those who serve in this Chamber, for all of that criticism, I say that the most talented men and women with whom I have ever worked are the men and women of the Senate on both sides of this aisle. They live in glass houses. Their mistakes are obvious and painful. They fight, they disagree, then they agree. They dance around issues, posture, delay. But always, always there is that moment--the moment of being part of something big, consequential, important; the moment of being part of something bigger than yourself. At that moment, for all of us at different times, there is this acute awareness of why we were sent here and the role the Senate plays in the destiny of this country.

The Senate is often called the most exclusive club in the world, but I wonder, really, if it is so exclusive if someone from a town of 300 people and a high school senior class of 9 students can travel from a desk in that small school to a desk on the floor of the Senate. I think it is more like a quilt-work of all that is American, of all the experiences in our country. It allows someone from a small town with big ideas to sit in this Chamber among the desks that were occupied by Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and so many more, and feel as if you belong. That is the genius of self-government.

I announced about a year ago that I would not seek reelection after serving here 30 years, 12 in the House and 18 years in the Senate. I am repeatedly asked, as is my colleague Senator Dodd, I am sure, who is leaving at the end of this year, what is your most significant accomplishment? While I am proud of so many things I have done legislatively, the answer is not legislative. I have always answered it by saying: Well, the first month I was here, 30 years ago next month, I stepped into an elevator on the ground floor of the Cannon Office Building of the U.S. House of Representatives. That step into that elevator changed my life. There was a woman on that elevator, and between the ground floor and the fourth floor, I got her name. And that is a pretty significant accomplishment for a Lutheran Norwegian. This year, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. My life has been so enriched by my wife Kim and children, Scott and Shelly and Brendon and Haley; grandchildren Madison and Mason--they serve too. Families are committed too, to this life of public service, weekends alone, and I am forever grateful to the commitment and sacrifice of my family.

I wish to say two things about some other people as well.

First, there is our staff. All of us would probably say--but, of course, I

say with much greater credibility--I have the finest staff in the U.S. Senate. I have been so enormously blessed. I am so proud of all of them. They are talented, they are dedicated to this country, and I have been blessed to work with them. In fact, I have worked with most of them for many, many years.

Then I wish to say to the floor staff of the Senate that I come here, as do my colleagues, and we say our piece and we get involved in the debates, and the floor staff does such an unbelievable job. When we are done speaking, we often leave. They are still here. They are the ones who turn out the lights. They refrain from rolling their eyes when I know they want to during these debates. Boy, are they professional, and all of us owe them such a great debt of gratitude.

To my colleagues, I kind of feel like Will Rogers: There is nobody in here I do not like.

It is a great place with some terrific colleagues, especially Senator Kent Conrad. We have been friends for 40 years. For 40 years we have been involved in the political fights and the political battles in North Dakota. He is a great Senator. I said last night at a reception: He is the best Senator in the United States Senate come January. But what I should just say right now is, he is an outstanding Senator and makes a great contribution to this body. Congressman Pomeroy, with whom I have served, the other part of Team North Dakota, three of us who worked together on campaigns 40 years ago, in North Dakota and who then for 18 years were the only three members of North Dakota's Congressional Delegation. It has been a great pleasure. We will continue these friendships. But I say thanks to Senator Conrad especially for the work we have done together.

Now, you know--and it shows--I love politics. I love public service, always have. John F. Kennedy used to say every mother kind of hopes her child might grow up to be President, as long as they do not have to be active in politics. But, of course, politics is the way we make decisions about America. It is an honorable thing. I have always been enormously proud of being in politics. I have run 12 times in statewide elections since age 26. I have served continuously in statewide elective office since the age of 26--never outside of statewide elective office--for a long time, 40 years. It has been a great gift to me to be able to serve, and I am forever grateful to the people of North Dakota who have said to me: We want you to represent us.

Now it is time for me to do some other things that I have long wanted to do. That is why I chose not to seek reelection this year.

Let me be clear to you. I did not decide not to run for the Senate because I am despondent about the state of affairs here. That is not the case. These are difficult and troubling times. But I did not decide not to run and to criticize this institution, although there is plenty of which to be critical. I do not want to add to the burdens of this institution. This institution is too important to the future of this country.

I could talk, by the way, for hours about the joys of serving here with all of my colleagues.

I was thinking about the late Ted Kennedy, when I was jotting a few notes, standing at his desk back in that row for many years. I know no one will mind me saying this: I think he is the best legislator I have ever seen in terms of getting things done. Ted Kennedy, full of passion, and on certain days when he was agitated and full-throated, you could hear him out on the street fighting and shouting for the things he knew were important for America.

I think of Bob Dole who would saunter onto this floor, and he almost seemed to have an antenna that knew exactly what was going on, what the mood was, and what he could and could not do and how you must compromise at certain times. He had a knack like that, unlike any others I have seen.

I think of Strom Thurmond, who left us at age 101. If anybody could know his life story, what an unbelievable, courageous story. One of the things that I remember about Strom Thurmond is my involvement with legislation for organ transplantation to save people's lives. I did a press conference on a bill I was introducing on organ transplants, and Strom Thurmond showed up. I think he was 90 years old. He signed an organ donor card. He said after he signed the organ donor card at age 90: I do not know if I've got anything anybody wants, but if I am gone, they are welcome to it.

Robert C. Byrd, who sat where my colleague is sitting now--they do not make them like Robert C. Byrd anymore. I recall one day when another colleague was on the Senate floor, Robert C. Byrd got very angry about what the other colleague was saying. He believed it was disrespectful. So he rushed up to the Chamber, and the other colleague had left by that time. I do not know that our colleague ever understood what happened to him. But Senator Byrd, being very angry at what the other Senator had said, said simply this: I have been here long enough to watch pygmies strut like Colossus. He said: They, like the fly in Aesop's Fables, sitting on the axle of a chariot observe, my, what dust thy do raise. Then he sat down. And I thought, you know, they do not make Senators like that anymore. The Senator who left did not understand what Senator Byrd had just done, cutting him off at the knees.

But I take a treasury of memories. I should mention as well one of my best friends, Tom Daschle, who served here, a wonderful friend and a great leader for a long while as well. I just take a treasury of memories from this place.

This place, however, has substantial burdens ahead of it, and will have to make good decisions, tough decisions, and exhibit the courage needed for the kind of future we want; we are going to have to put some sacrifice on the line for our country's future.

I want to talk for a bit about a couple of those issues. While there are always big issues, and I have always been interested in debating the big issues, my principal passion has been to support family farmers, small business folks, and the people who go to work every morning at a job; the family farmers out there who live on hope, plant a seed, and hope it grows, who risk everything; the Main Street business owner who this morning got up and turned the key in the front door and went in and waited because they have everything in their financial lives on the line, hoping their small business works; and the worker who goes to a job in the morning every day, every day, and they are the ones who know ``seconds,'' those workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. They know second shift, secondhand, second mortgage. They know it all. The question is, who speaks for them? The hallways outside the Chamber are not crowded with people saying: Let me speak for those folks.

In the first book I wrote, the first page, a book called ``Take This Job and Ship It,'' about trade, on the first page of that book I describe a story that was told about Franklin Delano Roosevelt's funeral. As they lined up in this Capitol to file past the casket of the deceased President, a journalist was trying to capture the mood of people who were waiting in line. He walked up to a man, a worker who was holding his cap in front of him standing there with tears in his eyes, and the journalist said to this working man: Well, did you know Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

The man said: No, I didn't. But he knew me.

The question is, it seems to me, for every generation in this Chamber, who knows American workers? Who stands up for the people who go to work every morning in this country? As I said, there are big issues that relate to workers and farmers and businesspeople and others in this country.

Let me just mention a couple. We know that for America to succeed we have to fix our schools. Thirty percent of the kids going to schools are not graduating. That cannot continue. We cannot have schools that are called dropout factories. We need the best schools in the world with the best teachers in the world if we are going to compete. We need substantial education reform.

We also have to get rid of this crushing debt. We know we cannot borrow 40 percent of everything we spend. We know better than that. All of us know that. We have been on a binge, and it has to change. We cannot borrow money from China, for example, to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Somehow we have to change all of

these issues. It is time for this country to sober up in fiscal policy and leadership from this Chamber as well.

We need a financial industry that stops gambling and starts lending, lending especially to those businesses that want to create jobs and want to expand. We need a fair trade policy that stands up for American workers for a change and promotes ``made in America'' again. We are not going to be a world economic power if we do not have world class manufacturing capability. It is dissipating before our eyes. This is all about creating good jobs and expanding opportunities in this country. It is not happening with our current trade policy. It is trading away America's future, and we know better than that.

On energy, we have ridden into a box canyon. Sixty percent of the oil we use comes from other countries, some of it from countries that do not like us very much. That holds us hostage, and we cannot continue that. We need to produce more of all kinds of energy at home. We need to conserve more. We need more energy efficiency. We need to do all of these to promote stability and security in this country.

Another issue that I have spent a lot of time working on deals with American Indians. They were here first. We are talking about the first Americans. They greeted all of us. They now live in Third World conditions in much of this country, and we have to do better. We have to keep our promises and we have to honor our treaties. In this Congress, I have had the privilege of chairing the Indian Affairs Committee. This Congress, however, as tough as it has been, has done more on Indian issues than in the previous 40 years. We passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the first time in 17 years. We passed the Tribal Law and Order Act that I and others helped write, which is so very important. We just passed yesterday the special diabetes provisions that are so important to the Indians. We put $2\1/ 2\ billion in the Economic Recovery Act to invest in health care facilities and education and the other things that are necessary in Indian Country.

We just passed the Cobell settlement which deals with a problem that has existed for 150 years in which looting and stealing from Indian trust accounts went on routinely. President Obama signed the bill last night at the White House.

Those five things are the most important elements together that have been done in 40 years by a Congress dealing with Indian issues. But the work is not nearly over, and we have to keep our promises and honor our trust agreements.

We face some pretty big challenges. But the fact is, our grandparents and great-grandparents faced challenges that were much more significant as well, and they prevailed.

All of us in politics especially know the noise of democracy is unbelievable. It is relentless, incessantly negative, and it goes on 24/7. We have bloviaters all over the country who are trying to make sounds from the chest seem like important messages from their brain. They take almost everything they can find in any paper from any corner of this country that seems stupid and ugly and just way out of line, and they hold that up to the light on their program and they say: Isn't this ugly?

Sure it is ugly, but it is not America. It is just some little obscene gesture somewhere in the corner of our country. It is not America. There is this old saying, ``bad news travels halfway around the world before good news gets its shoes on.'' That is what is happening all the time. This country is full of good. It is full of good things, good people, and good news. Every day people go to work to build, create, and invent, and they hope the future will be better than the past.

There was a book titled ``You Can't Go Home Again'' by Thomas Wolfe. He said there is a peculiar quality of the American soul, a peculiar quality of the American soul that has an almost indestructible belief, a quenchless hope that things are going to be better, that something is going to turn up, that tomorrow is going to work out, and somehow that has been what has been the hallmark of American aspirations.

When I graduated college with an MBA degree and got my first job in the aerospace industry at a very young age, the first program or project I worked on was called the Voyager Project. We were, with Martin-Marietta Corporation, building a landing vehicle for Mars. That was 40 years ago. That program was discontinued after about 4 years.

But 5 years ago, the new program resulted in firing two missiles, two rockets from our country, 1 week apart. We aimed them at Mars. One week apart the rockets lifted off with a payload. When they landed, 200 million miles later, they landed 1 week apart on the surface of Mars. The payload had a shroud and it opened and a dune buggy drove off the shroud and started driving around on the surface of Mars. First one did, and then a week later the second arrived. They were named Spirit and Opportunity. Five years ago, we began driving Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of Mars. They were American vehicles. They were supposed to last for 90 days. We are still driving those dune buggies on the surface of Mars 5 years later.

Spirit, very much like old men, got arthritis of the arm. So they say it hangs at kind of a permanent half salute.

Spirit also has five wheels, and one wheel broke. So the wheel didn't break off, but now it is digging a trench about 2 inches deeper on the surface of Mars and the arthritic arm just barely gets there, but it does. It gets back to sample even a slightly bit deeper into the soil of Mars to tell us a little bit about what is going on. Spirit, by the way, also fell asleep about 1 year ago. They couldn't reach it. It takes 9 minutes to communicate electronically, by radio, with these dune buggies on Mars. So they sent a signal to a satellite we have circling Mars and had the satellite send a signal to Spirit and Spirit woke right up. So two dune buggie-sized vehicles are traveling on the surface of Mars driven by American genius.

My point in all this is, first of all, they are very aptly named during challenging times--``Spirit'' and ``Opportunity,'' manufactured to last only 90 days but still driving around on the surface of Mars 5 years later. If American invention and American initiative can build rockets and dune buggies and drive them on the surface of Mars, surely we can fix the things that are important on planet Earth. I was going to say this isn't rocket science, but I guess it is.

This country is an unbelievable place. This is all a call to America's future. Where we have been and what we have done, all these things together ought to inspire us that we can do so much more.

George Bernard Shaw once said:

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a splendid torch which

I am able to hold but for a moment.

This is our moment. This is it.

About 15 years ago, I was leading a delegation of American Congressmen and Senators to meet with a group of European members of Parliament about our disputes in trade. About an hour into the meeting, the man who led the European delegation slid back in his chair, leaned across to me, and he said: Mr. Senator, we have been speaking for an hour about how we disagree. I want to tell you something. I think you should know how I feel about your country. I was a 14-year-old boy on a street corner in Paris, France, when the U.S. liberation Army marched down the Champs-Elysees. An American soldier reached out his hand and gave me an apple as he marched past. I will go to my grave remembering that moment, what it meant to me, what it meant to my family, what it meant to my country.

I sort of sat back in my chair, thinking, here is this guy telling me about who we are and where we have been and what we have meant to others. It was pretty unbelievable. Our problems are nothing compared to where we can go and what we can be as a country, if we just do the right thing.

This Senate has a lot to offer the American people. I know its best days are ahead. That splendid torch, that moment, that is here. That torch exists in this Chamber as well.

I feel unbelievably proud to have been able to serve here with these men and women for so long. I am going to go on to do other work. But I will always watch this Chamber and those who will continue to work in this Chamber and do what is important for this country's future. I will be among the cheerleaders who say: Good for

you. Good for you. You know what is important, and you have steered America toward a better future.

I thank my colleagues.

(Applause, Senators rising.)

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

Mr. President, in China, as I speak, there is a man in a small prison cell lit by one single lightbulb. He has been in prison for 11 years in the country of China. On Friday of this week, in Oslo, Norway, he will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His name is Liu Xiaobo. His wife has written me asking me to come to the Nobel Peace Prize presentation in Oslo, Norway, this Friday in honor of her husband. I am not able to go to Oslo this Friday. The Senate is going to be in session the rest of the week. I regret I can't be in Oslo for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize, but I did want to take a moment to remember what is happening this week.

This is Liu Xiaobo. He is in prison in China. He has been in prison for 11 years. That is his sentence. I wish to describe why the Chinese have put Liu Xiaobo in prison. It is not the first time he has been in prison, as a matter of fact.

Let me tell my colleagues just a little about Liu Xiaobo. He was born in 1955, grew up in an industrial city in China's northeast. As a young man, he wanted to study literature, so he went to Beijing and he became a Ph.D. in comparative literature. He became a professor and dedicated his days to teaching and to writing.

By 1989, he had the good fortune to be allowed to travel abroad as a visiting scholar. He was at Columbia University in New York, in the USA, when the demonstrations began to grow in Tiananmen Square. He cut short his visit to Columbia University as a visiting scholar and returned home to China, joining students in Tiananmen Square in a hunger strike. Then, on the night of June 4, a scholar whom the students had grown to trust, persuaded a group of students to withdraw from the square to save their lives. That was Liu Xiaobo. Authorities in China labeled him a subversive and sentenced him to 18 months in prison.

Eighteen months later, upon his release, he was told he could neither teach nor publish. He described his plight then in these words:

Simply for expressing divergent political views and taking

part in a peaceful and democratic movement, a teacher lost

his podium, a writer lost the right to publish, and an

intellectual lost a chance to speak publicly.

On his release in 1991 he continued to write and again he was placed under house arrest in 1995, then sent to a labor camp where he was detained until 1999.

In December of 2008, Liu Xiaobo called for political reform and was a supporter of something called Charter 08 in China. He was once again detained, then formally arrested, and then sent to prison for 11 years.

Let me describe what Charter 08 calls for. A group of people in China who want the expression of freedoms that are available to all of us had created Charter 08. It calls for the guarantee of human rights, an independent judiciary, the freedom to assemble, the freedom of expression, the freedom of religion, protection of private property-- and so on.

So someone who advocates this and pushes for these kinds of reforms is now sitting in a small prison cell with a single light bulb.

On Friday, in Oslo, Norway, when they award the Nobel Peace Prize, there will be one empty chair on the stage for the man to whom the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded.

There will be empty chairs in the audience because his wife is not allowed

to go. She is detained under house arrest in China. I want to describe that as well. His wife has been barred from traveling to Oslo to accept the honor, and all of Liu's family has been barred from traveling. The Nobel committee will postpone bestowing the actual medal, but the ceremony will go on on Friday. There have now been just over 100 documented incidents since October in which Chinese citizens have been harassed, interrogated, and subjected to police surveillance, detained, or placed under house arrest for their expressions of support for Liu Xiaobo. Some supporters reportedly have just disappeared.

The travel restrictions are pretty unbelievable. A violinist, Lynn Chang, an American of Chinese descent who teaches at the Boston Conservatory, and who will be playing at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony on December 10, expressed concern about the personal and professional repercussions his family might have in China for his accepting the invitation to play at the ceremony.

Out of about 140 Chinese activists invited by Liu's wife to attend the ceremony, only one at this point has been able to say: ``I will be there.'' More than a dozen and far more have been blocked from flying overseas since Liu won the Peace Prize in October.

This is a photograph of Liu Xiaobo and his wife. Both are courageous citizens, who, in my judgment, are owed our respect and all that we can do to say to the Chinese Government: You cannot possibly continue to do this and then insist that you believe in democracy.

Mr. President, in a recent interview with CNN, Premier Wen Jiabao of China said this:

Freedom of speech is indispensable. . . . The people's

wishes for, and needs for, democracy and freedom are

irresistible.

I hope the Chinese Government and Chinese officials will understand they cannot talk about these principles in that way and then continue to imprison someone such as Liu Xiaobo, whom the rest of the world will celebrate as a courageous man striving for greater human rights in China, the very things we take for granted every morning we wake up in the United States. This man is spending 11 years in prison just for writing about his aspirations for himself and the rest of the people in China to have those freedoms.

As I said, I will not be in Oslo on Friday. I am enormously honored by Liu Xiaobo's wife asking me to be present. As chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, I have held many hearings on the issues that exist between us and China. I held a hearing within the last month about the issue of Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize and what it means when a government says: Rather than be at a place of honor and our country celebrating your winning the Nobel Peace Prize, we will have you in a prison cell once again.

That is not what we would expect, or what anybody should expect, from the Government of China. I said previously there are things that have improved in China in recent years for some Chinese. China is a big country. It will be a significant part of our future. We are not quite sure how that is going to manifest itself.

Our country has decided affirmatively that our relationship with China ought to be a constructive relationship in which we have constructive engagement through trade and travel, and that is anticipated to move China toward greater human rights. In fact, there have been some areas of progress. But this is a disgrace. Liu Xiaobo is a hero. He ought not be a prisoner. Liu Xiaobo will be honored whether the Chinese like it or not this Friday in Oslo, Norway. The Chinese are trying to do everything they can to keep people away from that ceremony. They have been calling other embassies in Oslo saying: Do not go to that ceremony.

I think what has been happening is pretty unbelievable. I hope all of the American people this Friday understand there is someone we ought to think about who has exhibited great courage in support of freedom for the people of the country in which he lives, and that is Liu Xiaobo. On Friday, he will still be in prison, but the world can celebrate his courage and say to the Chinese in every way we know that they cannot continue to talk about freedom and then keep a Nobel Peace Prize winner in a dark prison cell in the farther reaches of China.

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

Mr. President, what is the order?

Mr. President, I think I had requested 20 minutes.

I thank the Chair.

I was surprised to hear the minority leader suggest that today's session of the Senate--a Saturday session, which I suppose is inconvenient but nonetheless something we ought to do to work on things that are important for the American people--I was surprised to hear him say it was a waste of the taxpayers' money. I will talk a little bit about what I think is a waste of the taxpayers' money, but coming here, doing the business, trying to reduce the Federal deficit, trying to make important decisions about tax issues, is not a waste of time or money, in my judgment.

One of the things I find disheartening these days in the political debate about these issues is the increasing tendency for one side of a political debate to create their new set of realities. They just invent a new set of realities. Then, from that invention, they go ahead and make their arguments.

By the way, most of the reporting then is off of that invention. It would be nice if the reporting would say that is not a reality, that is an invention. If, for example, we said the Earth is round and there is substantial scientific evidence that the Earth is round, and the other side said, no, the Earth is flat, tomorrow there would be a story that said opinions differ on the shape of Earth. Of course, the facts do not differ, but that is the way these things exist these days--the creation of their own new reality.

Let me talk about what has happened with respect to the tax cuts, and let me give just a bit of history because I think it is important.

In 2001, taxes were cut. I did not vote for it. I voted against it. Let me tell you why. I don't want to revisit that at great length, but the proposal to cut taxes in 2001 came on the heels of the year 2000 when, for the first time in 30 years, this country had a budget surplus--a budget surplus, mind you. The economists and others expected and projected that the surpluses would exist way into the future. For the next 10 years, we would have budget surpluses, they predicted.

I did not believe that, but nonetheless President George W. Bush, new to the office, said: Well, if we are going to have budget surpluses going forward, let's make sure we give them back to the American people in the form of tax cuts.

I said: Why don't we be a bit conservative? What if we don't have these surpluses? They are only projections, after all. We don't have them; they are just projections by economists who, in many cases, can't remember their home phone number for 2 days but give us projections for 5 and 10 years. Let's be a little conservative.

No, they said, we don't want to be conservative. Let's do these tax cuts, the bulk of which go to the wealthiest because those who construct these tax cuts always believe there is a trickle-

down effect in this country, so if you give money at the top, it will trickle down and help everybody.

Immediately we discovered we were in a recession. Then we were hit with a terrorist attack on 9/11. Then we were in a war in Afghanistan, then a war in Iraq, and those wars have lasted for most of a decade. Not only were there no surpluses at all, no budget surpluses at all, in fact, there were giant budget deficits. None of the expenditures of these wars were paid for, all of it was added to the debt, and the debt has now ballooned to $13 trillion, with a yearly budget deficit of $1.3 trillion, having now just gotten to the other side, the other plateau on the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

So here is where we find ourselves. That is the history of it--tax cuts that were voted for by the Congress, proposed by George W. Bush, then President Bush, in order to give back surpluses for the next 10 years. No surpluses ever existed. Then we went to war and never paid for a penny of the war. Now we end up with a deficit of $1.3 trillion a year and a Federal budget debt of $13 trillion. The question is, What do we do about all that? Clearly these deficits and debt threaten the country, they threaten our financial stability and solvency. I worry very much that 1 day the bond traders and the currency traders might get an urge to say: You know what, we don't think that economy is very stable, and we are going to make a run on that economy--as they have done. Nothing has changed in Spain from now versus 6 months ago. Yet once they run against that economy, there are profound consequences and could be for this country as well. I worry a great deal about that. We have to get our house in order.

Let me talk about the debate this morning because I think most people do not understand what the debate is. It is not reported very well and not even described very well here.

The proposition is to extend the tax cuts. So the question is, For whom? One proposal we voted on this morning was for single people earning up to $200,000 and married couples earning $250,000. But what is important to understand is that the proposal to extend the tax cuts extends to income earned by everybody. The first $250,000 earned by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Donald Trump--they would get a tax cut on their first $250,000 of income. A lot of people don't understand that. They think the proposal is, if you have over $250,000 of income, you don't get a tax cut. That is not true.

I will yield to the Senator.

That is correct.

That is correct. I voted for the $1 million. Although I thought it is probably good politics, I did not think that was good policy either. But just to demonstrate, there is no level the minority will support except all of the income for the wealthiest Americans.

I want to show my colleagues what we proposed; that is, these lines show the amount of tax cuts that will go to all Americans under the proposal we offered this morning. Everyone would get a tax cut up to that $250,000 of income because the rates were changed so they would all be changed back for everyone. That includes Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Warren Buffett, and everyone.

The average tax cut for the average American would be about $900. The tax cut under this proposal for those earning $1 million or more will be over $6,000. So the wealthiest Americans will get six times the tax cut that the average American will get. That was our proposal.

The minority party said, well, that is not right. You cannot do six times more. We want you to do 1,000 times more for the wealthiest. So let me show a chart that describes what the minority is insisting upon. All of this yellow, which I just showed, would be tax cuts for every income group, and this area are the proposed increases in tax cuts by the minority.

What they have said is, for those with $1 million or more we insist they get a tax cut that is 1,000 times the size of the tax cuts for the average American. The average American gets a tax cut of about $900, and a person making $1 million, under the Republican plan, will get a tax cut of $104,000 a year--a year.

They are demanding that the wealthiest Americans get a tax cut that is 1,000 times the size of the average American. Why? Because we believe tax cuts should go all of the way across the board on the first $250,000 for everybody. All the way across on all incomes, for everybody, up to $250,000.

The minority says that is not enough. We want that tax cut to go all the way up to every dollar of income to the wealthiest Americans. That is unbelievable to me. We are $13 trillion in debt. We are at war. We have a $1.3 trillion annual budget deficit, and they are demanding that we give $104,000 a year in tax breaks to people who make a $1 million a year? That is unbelievable.

They say, by the way, well, this is all about small business. Again, that is creating a new reality that is simply not accurate. I want to show you what has happened to the Federal debt. This line looks like the upslope on a roller coaster, a very steep, one by the way, $13 trillion in debt. This shows 1995 to today.

Most people think this is urgent. This is a real serious problem. If that is the case, what are we doing talking about giving tax cuts of $100,000 apiece to people who make $1 million a year?

The other point about this is all of the tax cuts that would be offered come from money that is borrowed. By the way, the projections by the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office about what the deficits are going to be, those projections assume there are no extensions of any tax cuts--none, zero.

So anything that is extended increases the Federal budget deficit and debt. So the proposition is, if we are going to provide tax cuts as the minority insists for all of the incomes of the wealthiest Americans, what they are saying is, let's borrow another $1 trillion, put it on top of the debt, in order for us to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.

Again, it is preposterous. Let me use this chart to see if maybe commonsense travels over the decades. Will Rogers once said during a significant economic downturn:

The unemployed here ain't eating regular. But we'll get

around to them as soon as everybody else gets fixed up okay.

``The unemployed around here ain't eating regular.'' Will Rogers says: But we will get around to them as soon as everybody else is fixed up.

Well, you know, there are 2 million people a couple of days ago who lost their unemployment benefits, 2 million people. The other day I came to the Senate floor and talked about Smith Barney versus Barney Smith.

There is a Barney Smith from Marion, Indiana who talked about losing his job because his plant closed and his job went to China. Not unusual. Five million manufacturing workers have lost their jobs.

Barney Smith asked the question about this Congress. Is the Congress willing to care as much about Barney Smith as it is about Smith Barney? Barney Smith from Indiana or Smith Barney from Wall Street? The answer is pretty evident these days. This fight today is about that kind of distinction.

Who do you stand for? Who are you fighting for? Who are you standing with? Is it because you believe this country only works if you put a lot of money in at the top and it will trickle

down to everybody? I have never believed that worked. I believe if you give the American working family something to work with, the percolate- up theory, give the American family something to work with, and that American engine will do just fine.

Let me just make the case that--I do not mean this in a partisan way--but I think it is important to say these tax cuts, since they were proposed in 2001, and the run-up in the deficit that came with it and the creation of a sick economy, it is the lowest average annual percentage increase in job creation of any President since the 1940s, talking about the Bush Presidency. He proposed very large tax cuts, the bulk of which goes to the wealthiest Americans, and the result is the lowest average annual percentage increase in job creation of any President since the 1940s.

I did vote in 1993--that is a long time ago--for the economic policy changes proposed in the Clinton administration. Those were tough votes and controversial votes. And, yes, they increased some taxes and increased some spending. You know what. In the coming years, during the 8 years of that administration, as a result, in my judgment, of a change in economic policy, we had 23.1 million new jobs created, 23.1 million new jobs.

Real median household income grew 14 percent. GDP growth averaged 3\1/2\ percent. So it does not wash to say we have to follow the same economic policy that was followed in the last decade, giving tax cuts to the wealthiest and then just praying that somehow it will all trickle down to help everybody. This country is in some significant trouble.

This country and the people in this country deserve and expect thoughtful, serious, tough decisions by this Congress. David Stockman, former Director of OMB in the Reagan administration, was on television a while back, and he said:

If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians,

the Republican's push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax

cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing.

Well, let me say again. I am not someone who comes here talking about Republicans and Democrats very often. I do not think either political party is a great bargain for the American people, at least in recent times. We need to understand it is important to get the best of what both parties have to offer rather than the worst of each. We need to come to together to decide we serve the same interest; that is, the long-term best interests of this country to put the country back on track.

But I cannot any longer watch people invent a reality in order to support a kind of proposal that is going to weaken this country and increase the Federal indebtedness of this country. It simply makes no sense. I had originally tried to see if I could, because there needs to be some reality, I tried to put a chart together. The problem is, it is too tall. So I taped it. But this chart shows, in reality, the 1,000 times there were tax cuts for millionaires and above versus the average tax cuts for the American people.

This shows the tax cuts that go to everybody under the plan that we offered this morning. Everybody, including the wealthiest Americans will get a tax cut on their income up to $250,000 if they are married. The Republicans have said--which these red lines represent, that is not enough. We want this not just to go all the way across, we demand it goes all the way up.

Well, we are lucky it does not reach the ceiling because we are talking about massive amounts of money to be borrowed in order to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. I wish this would fit on a smaller chart, but the absurdity of it is demonstrated by the kind of tax cuts they are demanding for the wealthiest Americans.

Now, finally, let me say--I know others want to speak. Let me say this: Historians are going to look back at this time, this moment, this Congress. In 100 years, when we are all dead, historians will evaluate what we did here. What did we do? They are going to be very troubled and very concerned to try to figure out what on Earth were we thinking--at war, deep in debt, and doing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. They are going to wonder, what on earth were they thinking?

A friend of mine once asked the question: If you were to be given an assignment to write an obituary for someone you had never met, and the only information you had about this person now deceased was a check register, and from that you needed to write an obituary, what would you write?

That question could be asked about this country. What would historians write about this country having only the Federal budget to evaluate about our value system? Who did we stand for? Did we stand for 2 million people who are out of work? Two million times someone came home and had to say to their loved one: Honey, I have lost my job. No, it was not because I did a bad job. My job has gone to China. I was told that the company is contracting. I have lost my job. Two million times. Out of a job, out of work, out of hope, out of a home.

Then we are told, well, that is not the priority. Let's not help them, let's not extend unemployment benefits, which we have always done during a significant economic downturn. Instead, let's see if we can provide more comfort to those who are the wealthiest Americans by providing them tax cuts that are 1,000 times the size of the tax cut that the average family will get when they open their mail and finally get their tax break.

I mean, I do not understand that at all. That is not in keeping with what I understand our obligations to be to this country, No. 1, to borrow $1 trillion. That is $750 billion plus the interest, borrow it, principally from China, increase the debt, and then say, well, how are we going to use it?

Well, what we are going to do is use it to give to the wealthiest Americans. By the way, this altered state of reality, which the other side uses in every debate these days--this altered state of reality is to say, this is about small business. That is fundamentally untrue and they know it. But it does not matter to them because they know it will get reported as they are helping small business.

They are not. They are not helping this country. They are not helping small business. In my judgment, I wish they would understand the need to work with us for the common destiny and common purpose of this country's long-term economic health.

I will conclude by saying, I was disappointed this morning to see what happened. But I knew it was going to happen because there is precious little opportunity in this Chamber for people to take a serious, sober look at these issues and decide what is best for the country. I think the American people deserve better, expect better, and I hope they get better in the coming days.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, are we in a period of morning business?

In that case I would yield to the minority to use the 10 minutes, and I will be seeking recognition following them.

Madam President, I support the comments from my colleague from Iowa on the importance of ethanol and the tax incentives and the ability to try to make us less dependent on foreign oil and produce more renewable energy in our country. So I appreciate the statement he has just made.

I want to talk about the START treaty and the importance of it. But I cannot help but respond, at least a bit, to some of the discussion that occurred as I walked on the Senate floor about the so-called tax cuts or the extension of the tax cuts.

You know, what is going to confound a lot of people who look back on history, perhaps historians who, in a rearview mirror, look back 100 or 50 years--what is going to confound them about this time, this place, and these people, all of us, is what we did that seemed so irrational because, particularly economic models, if you are talking about economic historians, economic models are based on rational expectations. Then they create a model based on what would you do rationally.

Now here is what they are going to see at this moment. They will see a country that is at war halfway around the world. They will see a country with a $13 trillion national debt and a $1.3 trillion annual deficit. And what is the debate? Tax cuts that existed in 2001, through legislation I voted against, tax cuts that were extended and were set to expire this year would cost $4 trillion in the coming 10 years to extend.

With a $13 trillion debt, we have people coming to the floor of the Senate and saying they want to deal with this debt. Then, on the other side of the ledger, they say: And we want to extend all of the tax cuts.

That is another way of saying they want to take the $13 trillion Federal debt to a $17 trillion Federal debt. And, you know, historians are going to say: I thought there was some notion of rational expectations. What is rational about a country up to its neck in debt deciding: We are going to extend tax cuts even to the wealthiest Americans; those who make $1 million a year shall be given a $104,000- a-year tax cut?

Why? Because the minority is insisting upon it. Even though, just that piece of it, above $250,000 a year in income, even though just that one piece will add $1 trillion, that is the cost plus the interest to the Federal debt.

It is unbelievable. And the so-called little guy, the people out there who are working for a living and struggling--some of them lost their jobs, some lost their homes, some have lost hope--they are asking: Well, what about me? Why is it there is such energy to stand up for those who are making millions of dollars?

A guy named Barney Smith from Marion, Indiana stood up at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008 and he asked this question. Barney Smith had lost his job, a job, that he said, is now being performed by someone overseas. Barney Smith said: When are you all going to treat Barney Smith like you treat Smith Barney? That is a pretty decent question. Who is on the floor standing for the interests of the Barney Smiths? I hope, perhaps in the coming days, there will be some rational expectations coming from this deliberative body, and that rational expectation should not include cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans at a time when America is at war.

This morning, perhaps at 6 a.m., our soldiers were called out of bed halfway around the world, strapped on their ceramic body armor, took up their weapons, and went out on patrol. They will be shot at today halfway around the world. We are told our responsibility is to provide tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

I wish to read a comment from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I don't see a notion in this country about self-sacrifice in order to meet common goals and reach the common purpose of our destiny.

Here is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when we were at war then:

``Not all of us can have the privilege of fighting our

enemies in distant parts of the world. Not all of us can have

the privilege of working in a munitions factory or a ship

yard, or on the farms or in the oil fields or mines,

producing the weapons or raw materials that are needed by our

armed forces. But there is one front and one battle where

everyone in the United States--every man, woman and child--is

in action. . . . That front is right here at home, in our

daily lives, and in our daily tasks. Here at home everyone

will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is

necessary, not only to supply our fighting men, but to keep

the economic structure of our country fortified and secure. .

. .''

That isn't only for soldiers who sacrifice for country. It is for all of us. It is distressing to me to see that the serious is treated so lightly and the light is treated too seriously in this Chamber. We know better. This country is loaded with debt. It is at war. We owe it to the American people and to the future to do better and try to steer this country toward better times.

Madam President, I rise to speak about the START treaty. This issue, while on the front pages in the last few days, is not front-page news generally, but it is so unbelievably important.

First, I compliment Senator Kerry, chairman of the committee. I compliment Senator Lugar and others who have worked on this. I was part of the national security working group. We had many briefings during the negotiations with the Russians. I chair the appropriations subcommittee that funds our nuclear weapons, and I have stood next to nuclear weapons, know a lot about them, know about the horror of these weapons, as do almost all Americans. Let me describe how many nuclear warheads we have in the world.

This data is the Union of Concerned Scientists' that made an estimate in 2010. They said Russia has about 15,000 nuclear weapons; the United States about 9,400; China, 240; France, 300; Britain, 200. We can see Israel at 80. These are the expected number of nuclear weapons on the planet. That is somewhere around 25 to 28,000 nuclear weapons on this planet, the loss of one of which or the explosion of one of which in a major city by a terrorist group will change life on this planet forever.

The question is, What are we doing now to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, prevent terrorists and rogue nations from acquiring nuclear weapons, and then reducing the number of nuclear weapons? What are we doing?

I have told the story of the CIA agent called Dragonfire who, 1 month to the day, October 11, 2001, reported to his superiors there was evidence that a Russian 10 kiloton nuclear weapon had been stolen and smuggled into New York City by a terrorist group. That was exactly 1 month after 9/11 when Dragonfire provided that piece of information to the intelligence community. For a month or 2 months, there was an apoplectic seizure in the intelligence community, with the administration trying to figure out how to deal with this. No one from New York was informed, not even the mayor. It was later discovered this was not a credible piece of intelligence, and everyone breathed easier. But as they did the postmortem, they understood, it would have been possible, perhaps, to have believed a terrorist group could have stolen a low-yield Russian nuclear weapon. It would have been possible for them to have stolen it and to have smuggled it into a major city, New York or Washington, and it would have

been possible for a terrorist group to have detonated it. That is one nuclear weapon. There are 25,000 on this planet.

This morning on the way to work I heard a description on the radio of the nuclear weapons possessed by Pakistan. The question by some people who know a lot about this is whether there is an impossibility of someone from al-Qaida or the Taliban infiltrating the structure by which there is security for the nuclear weapons in Pakistan. That is an open question.

Earlier this year I was in Moscow, about an hour and a half outside Moscow, at a training facility we have helped fund in Russia to train for the security of Russian nuclear weapons. It is in all our interests--it is in the interest of the future of mankind--to understand the urgency to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to stop rogue nations and terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons and, finally, at least to begin substantially reducing the number of nuclear weapons. That is what brings us to the issue of the START treaty.

I don't denigrate anyone or suggest that anyone who raises questions about this is uninformed. That is not the case. All of us want what is best for this country and for the world. We want to have arms reduction treaties and weapons reductions in a way that is verifiable and will strengthen the world's security. There have been a lot of questions asked. A lot of them have been answered. It is my hope that all of us who have been interested in this--and that is both Republicans and Democrats--will find ways to come together and pass this START treaty.

If I might, I will describe the unbelievable success we know occurs from this kind of activity. We don't have to test this. We know it works. Through the Nunn-Lugar program, which has been around for some while, we actually fund the activities to destroy weapons that previously were aimed at the United States. Albania is now chemical weapons free; the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus have no nuclear weapons any longer; 7,500 warheads have been deactivated; 32 ballistic missile submarines; 1,400 long-range nuclear missiles; 155 bombers.

I know it is repetitive, but I wish to again say that I have in my desk a piece of wing from a Soviet Backfire bomber. We didn't shoot this down. I ask unanimous consent to show it.

As a result of Nunn-Lugar, we sawed the wings off. How is it that I stand on the floor with a piece of a wing from a bomber that used to carry nuclear weapons threatening to destroy this country? I do that because we know these work.

Ukraine is now nuclear free. This is a hinge from a silo that contained a nuclear-tipped missile aimed at the United States. This piece, from a silo containing an intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at America, is from a missile that no longer exists. The nuclear weapon is gone; the missile is gone. There are now sunflower seeds planted where there was previously a missile. I tell that to say: We understand what works. Arms negotiations, arms treaties with which we have tried to reduce delivery vehicles and nuclear weapons work.

I have just described the Nunn-Lugar program. Let me show a couple photographs of it. This is a Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine that carried nuclear weapons. I have the copper wiring from this submarine in my desk, reminding all of us, again, that this works. We didn't have to destroy this submarine with a weapon under the sea in hostile action. We negotiated a treaty. It was taken apart.

This shows an SS-18 missile silo in Ukraine. We can see they planted dynamite and blew up the silo. Because we agreed with the Russians that we were going to reduce nuclear weapons, reduce delivery vehicles, that silo is now gone and sunflower seeds are planted where a missile previously had been.

Here is a photograph of a Blackjack bomber that the old Soviet Union and Russia had. We destroyed it, sawed off the wings. We know these kinds of treaties work.

The treaty negotiated is supported by so many people. ADM Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says:

I, the Vice Chairman and the Joint Chiefs, as well as our

combatant commanders, stand solidly behind this new treaty.

This treaty represents our country's best interests, in my

judgment.

There are many things to say in support of concluding an arms control agreement with the Russians. There are many questions that have been raised about the treaty and have been answered. When I described earlier the large number of people who say it is in this country's interest to support this treaty, I did not put up several of these, but let me say, Dr. Kissinger, said:

I recommend ratification of the treaty. It should be noted

I come from the hawkish side of this debate so I'm not

advocating these measures in the abstract. I try to build

them into my perception of the national interest.

This morning George Shultz, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger, Colin Powell, and Dr. Kissinger wrote an op-ed piece in the Post making the case.

Those who have raised questions about this are as concerned about our national security as anybody else. They believe, as I do, in the same goals. Let's keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorist organizations and rogue nations. Let's stop the spread of nuclear weapons and, ultimately, let's try to reduce the number of weapons on this planet. I think everybody here who is involved are people of good will. My fervent hope is that in the coming couple weeks, as we conclude this session of the Congress, we will find a way to have on the floor this treaty which is so widely supported and be able to say, all of us of every persuasion, we did something that will have a lasting impact on the future of this country, the security of this country, and the security of the world. We did something that reduces nuclear weapons, the number of nuclear weapons among the two nations that have, by far, the most nuclear weapons. We did something that substantially reduces the number of delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons. This will provide for a much greater measure of security for us and the rest of the world.

Those who have spoken on this issue, giving different views, offering different views, I have great respect for them. Many of them and I were part of the national security working group. Along the line when the treaty was being negotiated, we had meetings in an area that is for top-secret presentations. All along the way we understood what was happening and how it was happening. I think this is a treaty that is mutually beneficial and represents not only the best interests of both countries that are parties to the treaty but especially the best interests of the world.

I started by saying the loss of one nuclear weapon exploded in one city on the planet would change everything about our lives. We have about 25,000 nuclear weapons on the planet. The security of those weapons, the ability to keep them out of the wrong hands, the ability to keep others from acquiring weapons, the ability to reduce weapons, all of that urgent and important. It doesn't always rise to the top in the debate in the Senate, but now we have that discussion around this treaty which is only a first step. I hope, by the end of this month, perhaps all of us could celebrate having a significant achievement for the security of the country and for the world.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, are we in morning business?

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 30 minutes.

Madam President, I wanted to take some time today to talk about some issues that have been around for a number of years and remain unresolved in a way that I believe is very detrimental to our country and our citizens.

There is a lot of discussion these days about deficits and debt at the Federal level. We have a $13 trillion Federal debt and a $1.3 trillion deficit this year. We have a fiscal policy that is in great difficulty. The discussion these days is about extending tax cuts--by the way, none of which is anticipated in the budget numbers that are already unsustainable, showing large debts for the long term. Extending all of the tax cuts that were scheduled to expire this year will add $4 trillion to the $13 trillion debt that already exists. The reason I mention the fiscal policy issue is, when we talk about debt and deficits, most people talk about the need to cut spending. We also need some additional revenue from those who are not paying their share. But we do need to cut spending.

I believe I have held 21 hearings as chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee over recent years--21 separate hearings on the subject of waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of it still goes on in terms of the work with the Pentagon on this contracting issue.

I have just received a letter from the inspector general at the Pentagon, who is looking into one of the issues of the last hearings-- the issue of soldiers and contractors who were exposed to sodium dichromate, a chemical that was the subject of the movie ``Erin Brockovich,'' soldiers who were exposed and not told they were exposed to that deadly carcinogen and some of whom have already died. They were both National Guard and Regular Army soldiers.

In the context of doing a lot of these hearings, I have discovered and I believe that throughout the last decade, we have seen the greatest waste and fraud and abuse in the history of this country. It has contributed immeasurably to this overspending and deficits and debt. I wanted to talk about that work we did, myself and my colleagues, over 21 separate hearings.

At one of the hearings we held, we had testimony from a man who, in Iraq, was responsible for rooting out corruption in the Iraqi Government. His name was Judge al-Radhi. I have a photograph of Judge al-Radhi. He testified in this country. He testified that in his work as head of the anticorruption unit in Iraq, he found that $18 billion was missing, most of it American money, most of it coming from the American taxpayer.

Just missing. Now, why was he here in the country testifying at a hearing I held? Because he got booted out of Iraq, and he got no support from the U.S. Government as he was booted out of Iraq, and he ended up in this country. But he is the person who was supposed to be rooting out and investigating and prosecuting waste and fraud and abuse.

His investigations and the investigations of his staff--some of whom were assassinated, some of whose families were killed--show there was $18 billion--$18 billion--missing, and most of it was American money. Well, that is the story about Judge al-Radhi.

We had a hearing early on in this process and talked about the issue of contractors and contracting. As you know, in the early part of the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, money was just shoved out the back door of the Pentagon, hiring contractors, very large contracts, in most cases no-bid, sole-source contracts.

A very courageous woman came to testify before our committee. Her name was Bunnatine Greenhouse. She was the highest civilian official at the Army Corps of Engineers, the highest civilian official in the Pentagon in charge of contracting. Here is what she said. She objected to the way the Pentagon was doing these contracts, massive contracts, sole-source, a massive amount of money, and she watched as the normal processes were avoided and ignored. She testified in public:

I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to

contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown & Root represents the

most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed

during the course of my professional career.

This is an extraordinary woman, the highest civilian person in the Army Corps of Engineers. She was in charge of contracting. Two master's degrees, came from a family in Louisiana. All three kids have advanced degrees. Her brother, by the way, was one of the 50 top professional basketball players in the last century, Elvin Hayes. Bunnatine Greenhouse. Remember that name. A very courageous woman, she saw abuses, spoke about it publicly, and for that she lost her career. She gave up her career. She was told: Resign or be fired.

Let me talk about what she meant when she said the most unbelievable abuses she had seen in contracting. I want to do it starting small because then I am going to talk about billions of dollars.

But at one of our hearings, we had a man who kind of looked like a bookkeeper at a John Deere dealership in a

small town. He was kind of a good old guy with glasses, and he had been in charge of purchasing for Kellogg, Brown & Root or Halliburton over in Kuwait, purchasing the things our troops needed in Iraq. He came and testified, and he said: You know, as I was purchasing things, I was told by my employer, Halliburton: Don't worry what the cost is, the taxpayer pays for this. This is cost-plus.

So he told us a number of examples, big examples, but he brought a small one that I thought reflected the entire attitude.

This is a towel. I ask unanimous consent to show the towel on the floor of the Senate.

This is a towel. Halliburton was to purchase towels for the troops, hand towels. You know, they were purchasing hand towels to be awarded to the troops. So he ordered some white hand towels for the troops, and his boss said: Well, you can't order those white hand towels. You have to order the hand towels that have the logo of our company, ``Kellogg, Brown & Root,'' on the hand towel.

Mr. Bunting said: Yes, but that would quadruple the cost.

His boss said: That doesn't matter. This is a cost-plus contract. Order the towels. Put our company name on them.

I mean, this is such a small but important symbol of the behavior that went on for most of the decade that fleeced the American taxpayers.

We had a hearing in which we were told by a food service supervisor of Kellogg, Brown & Root that Kellogg, Brown & Root charged the Federal Government for serving 42,000 meals a day to American soldiers but they were only serving 14,000 meals. They were charging the taxpayer for 42,000 meals--according to this supervisor who was on the ground and then left the company in disgust--they were charging the taxpayers, the American Government, for 42,000 meals a day for soldiers and serving only 14,000 meals a day.

We had testimony about brand new $85,000 trucks being left on the side of the road to be torched because they had a flat tire or a plugged fuel pump. Why? Cost-plus. A new truck. Taxpayers will buy another one.

There was a company called Custer Battles to which the previous administration and the Pentagon awarded over $100 million in security contracts. We had a man named Frank Willis who came to testify at a hearing I held. Frank Willis was a classic example of a guy who went to Iraq to see if he could do some good and wanted to be helpful to our government's effort in Iraq. He showed us a photograph, which I thought I had--I think we probably do not--a photograph of $2 million which was in the basement of the building in which he worked. They had cash, only cash, and their message to contractors in Iraq was, you bring a bag, we pay cash. And he showed me a photograph of $2 million, hundred-dollar bills wrapped in Saran Wrap that he said they occasionally threw around the office as a football--$2 million sitting on the table, American taxpayers' money. By the way, much of that was loaded on pallets and flown over to Iraq in C-130s. There were even stories about people dispensing hundred-dollar bills out of the back of pickup trucks. So it was.

Custer Battles went on to be charged with defrauding the Pentagon, of massive over billing. We had a witness named Robert Isakson who said that Custer Battles had handed in $10 million in fake invoices for about $3 million of work. In one example, the company was charged with taking forklifts that they found--they were to provide security for the Baghdad Airport. They took forklifts they found in a building at the Baghdad Airport--they received the forklifts for free because they took over the security. They got the forklifts, took them someplace, painted them blue, and then sold them back to the U.S. Government.

The case against Custer Battles was thrown out of court on procedural grounds, and a new case is now pending, as I understand it, before the Fourth Circuit.

We had testimony before this committee about something called The Whale. It is a prison in Khan Bani Saad. I want to show what we have in Iraq. Our country--that is, the coalition provisional government, which was us; we set it up in Iraq and we ran it--said: We are going to build a prison in Iraq, Kahn Bani Saad prison.

The Iraqis said: We don't want a prison there.

We said: We are going to build a prison anyway.

So we spent $40 million of American money on this. Two contractors ended up getting $50 million total, and here is what it looks like right now in Iraq. It has never been used, never will be used. The Iraqis didn't want it. But our country dumped nearly $50 million into this project.

You know, the question is, Who is accountable for that? Who is going to answer to it? And I have watched now, holding 21 hearings over a decade and finding that very few are held accountable for this kind of thing. This prison was built of a scale to house 3,600 inmates. It will never be finished. As you see, you have just a shell of some cinder blocks, and the American taxpayers are out about $50 million.

We heard from witnesses about the Parsons Corporation, which got a $243 million contract to build or repair 150 health clinics in Iraq. Two years later, the money was all gone, and there weren't 150 health clinics, there were 20.

I had a doctor, a very brave, courageous physician, come to this country to testify to what he saw of the ones that were completed. Unbelievable. So what happened to the money? The American taxpayers lost the money. Did this improve the health of the Iraqis?

The physician who came to testify said he went to the Minister of Health in Iraq and said to the Minister of Health: Where are those clinics, because I am told the Americans have spent $243 million to build health clinics. Where are the clinics?

The Iraqi Health Minister said: Well, most of them are imaginary clinics.

Yes, but the money was not imaginary. The American taxpayers' money is gone.

We had several hearings on the issue of Kellogg, Brown & Root. And I mention them because they got the biggest contract, sole-source contract. That is why they are the ones that are mentioned the most. They were providing water treatment to the military facilities in Iraq. So our solders are in military camps in Iraq, and KBR gets the water treatment contract. It turns out that the nonpotable water they were providing to soldiers in the camps that we had a hearing on was more contaminated than raw water from the Euphrates River.

We actually had, from a whistleblower, the internal memorandum from Kellogg, Brown & Root, by the guy who was in charge of the water contract in Iraq, and in his memorandum, he said this was a near miss. It could have caused mass sickness or death. But publicly, they said it didn't happen. The Defense Department said it did not happen. But it did happen, and I asked the inspector general to investigate it. He did. He did a report and said that both the Defense Department and Kellogg, Brown & Root were wrong. It did happen, in fact. That kind of contaminated water was being served to the troops because the contract was a contract that was not provided for appropriately by the company. The company was taking the money and not doing what it was supposed to do with the water.

By the way, in the middle of these hearings, while the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, as well as Kellogg, Brown & Root were denying it all, I got an e-mail here in the Senate from an Army doctor, a captain, and she wrote to me and said: I am a physician in the camp. I had my lieutenant follow the water line to find out what was happening because I had patients here who showed that they were suffering diseases and suffering problems as a result of contaminated water.

So that came from the physician who was in Iraq on the ground.

So despite all of the denials, the inspector general finally issued a report saying: No, no, the Defense Department was wrong, as was Kellogg, Brown & Root. A contract to provide water to these soldiers across Iraq at the Army camps was not being appropriately handled, and very contaminated water was going to those camps.

The list is almost endless. I know there is a photograph I have shown on

the floor previously because it is another contract to provide electrical capabilities to the Army camps. When you put up an Army camp, you have the need to provide electricity. And I held two hearings on this subject.

This is a photograph of SGT Ryan Maseth--quite a remarkable young man, a Green Beret from Pennsylvania. He is shown there with his mother, who is a very courageous woman as well. He was killed in Iraq, but Sergeant Maseth wasn't killed by a bullet from an enemy gun; Sergeant Maseth was killed taking a shower. He was electrocuted in a shower. And it wasn't just Sergeant Maseth; others lost their lives as well--electrocuted in a shower, power-washing a Jeep.

The fact is, what we discovered when we held the hearings was that the work that was done to provide electricity and to wire these camps was done in some cases by people who didn't have the foggiest idea what they were doing. Third-country nationals who couldn't speak English and didn't know the first thing about electricity were working on these issues.

The Army originally told Mrs. Maseth that her son died, they thought, because he took an electrical appliance into the shower. No, he didn't. He was killed because shoddy electrical work was done that ended up killing this soldier.

Now, Kellogg, Brown & Root denied that, as did the Defense Department. The inspector general did the report and said: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that sure did happen.

In fact, let me show you what the inspector general has said.

This is from Jim Childs, master electrician hired by the Army Corps of Engineers, to inspect this electrical work for which the American taxpayer paid a bundle. Jim Childs, master electrician, went in after I held the hearings. He said:

[T]he electrical work performed by KBR in Iraq was some of

the most hazardous, worst quality work I have ever inspected.

Let me show what Kellogg, Brown & Root said:

The assertion that KBR has a track record of shoddy

electrical work is simply unfounded.

The inspector general did the inspection. We had to redo much of the work in Iraq and Afghanistan, inspect it all and redo much of it. In the meantime, people died. We have demonstrated that there is evidence of shoddy work in a range of areas. Yet the contractors continue to be given additional contracts. For the shoddy electrical work for which some soldiers gave their lives, this contractor was not only given the money from the contract but bonus awards for excellent work. I have tried very hard to get the Pentagon to take back those bonuses, unsuccessfully. But the reason I am going through this is to point out that we have for a decade now been shoveling money out the door at a time when we are deep in debt, spending a great deal of money on the defense of this country, on the Defense Department, on the war effort, and so on. A substantial portion of that which goes out the back of the Pentagon in the form of contracts has represented the most egregious waste in the history of the country.

One of my great regrets is that we did not--and we should have; I tried very hard--ever get constituted a Truman-type committee which existed in the 1940s to investigate this sort of spending and to try to shut down spending that is not only injuring our troops and disserving them but injuring taxpayers.

I started by talking about the issue of sodium dichromate. We think about 1,000 soldiers were at risk at a place in Iraq that is called Qarmat Ali. Some have died. Those soldiers who were at Qarmat Ali told of seeing something like sand blowing all over the place. It was red, however. That was the sodium diechromate, a deadly carcinogen. It is the subject over which a movie was made called ``Erin Brockovich.''

We have tried for a long time to get the Pentagon to be as active and involved as they should be with respect to the health and safety of those 1,000 soldiers who were potentially exposed. Like most of these issues, they have been very slow to respond.

My point is twofold. One is about supporting America's fighting men and women, doing what is right for them. There have been a number of people in the Pentagon--one of whom testified before the Armed Services Committee in the Senate and who I strongly believe knew he was not telling the truth. He was a general, as a matter of fact. There have been a number who have denied virtually all of these circumstances. Yet inspectors general have investigated and said they are wrong.

Obviously, the contractor denies these things. The contractors have gotten wealthy doing this. We have had whistleblowers come in. A woman came in and told us she was working at a recreational facility in the war theater, and that is at the base. There is a facility where you can play pool and ping-pong and do various things. It was a facility with many different rooms. She worked for Kellogg, Brown & Root and she was to keep track of how many people came in because they got paid based on how many people came in.

She said: What they told me to do was to keep track of how many people came in to each room, and that is what we billed the government for. If somebody came in and went through three rooms, the government was billed for three visits. I went to the people in charge and said: This is fraud. We can't do this. We are defrauding the government. They immediately put me in detention in a room under guard and sent me out of the country the next day.

It is the story of virtually all the hearings we have held.

The point is twofold. One is to protect America's soldiers and do right by the men and women who have gone to war because this country asked them to. Secondly, on behalf of the American taxpayer, to decide if we are choking on debt and deficit, to continue doing what we know is wrong, shoveling these contracts out the door without adequate accountability is something we have to pay attention to.

Secretary Gates has tried more than others. When I began these hearings, which stretched into 21 hearings, the then-Secretary of Defense had virtually no time for these issues. I have had an opportunity to talk to Secretary Gates. I know he has tried very hard to make changes. Moving the Pentagon on these issues is very difficult. There is a relationship always between the Pentagon and the largest suppliers and largest companies and contractors with whom they do business. My experience has been we can have the goods and have them red-handed. We can have internal memorandum from the company itself that says they screwed up, could have caused mass sickness and death, but publicly they will say none of this happened. It is about deception, about lying, about cheating taxpayers, and about not standing up the way we should stand up for America's fighting men and women. This Congress needs to do much more. Congress needs much stronger oversight, much more attentive oversight on this kind of spending.

I went back and read the Truman committee work. Harry Truman was a Senator. At a time when a President of his own party was in the White House, he insisted that they establish the Truman Commission, of which he became chairman. He insisted on getting a committee to investigate waste in the Pentagon. They eventually created the committee, and they made him chairman. They held 60 hearings a year for 7 years. The committee was started with $16,000. In today's dollars, it saved $16 billion. Think of that. There is way too little oversight going on on these issues. I have just scratched the surface in the 21 hearings I chaired. Many of my colleagues were in those hearings. This country deserves better.

One of the significant responsibilities of Congress is not just to appropriate money and evaluate what money needs to be appropriated for but to do oversight. When we send money out the door, this Congress needs to do better oversight. What I have discovered and decided is that oversight is sadly lacking at the Pentagon. There are too many men and women, including Bunnatine Greenhouse, who gave up their careers and lost their jobs because they had the courage to speak out and say: This is wrong, this is fraud, this is cheating, this undermines our soldiers. There are too many men and women who gave up their careers because they had the courage to do that. We have whistleblower protections, but in many cases it doesn't work the way it should. There is much for us to do.

I will not be chairing additional hearings because my 30 years in the Congress will be done at the end of this month. It has been a great privilege to be here. But as one can tell, I believe passionately in this issue, about our Federal deficits, about spending, about accountability, but most especially about doing things that support the soldiers we ask to go to war.

This has been an abysmal record. In this decade, the amount of money spent on contractors--in many cases with no-bid, sole-source contracts that were negotiated under the most abusive conditions and in violation, in many cases, of rules, according to the highest civilian official in charge of contracting--has been a disgrace. This country needs to do much better.

The work I and a number of my colleagues did holding these hearings has in many ways held up a spotlight and tried to shine it on the same spot. We have cajoled, embarrassed, and pushed, and I think we have made some progress. But so much more needs to be done and can be done. My hope is this work will continue.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak against the Coburn amendment that would impose a 3-year moratorium on Congress' constitutional responsibility to direct the spending of the Federal Government.

The amendment in question propounds a problem that doesn't exist, a solution that resolves nothing, and an argument that is factually baseless.

This amendment will not lead to deficit reduction. In fiscal year 2010, congressionally directed initiatives make up less than one-half of 1 percent of total Federal spending.

With total spending at $3.5 trillion it is irresponsible to tell the American people that congressionally directed spending of one-half of 1 percent of this total amount is the cause of our country's deficit problem.

Mathematically it is incorrect and mechanically it is incorrect. Doing away with congressionally directed initiatives does not guarantee deficit reduction--it guarantees members of the administration will make all the funding decisions.

Inherent in the arguments of the amendment's supporters is the contention that projects and activities selected by the administration are superior. The argument seems to rely on the notion that there is some objective formula used by the administration to select the best and most worthy projects to fund. This is false.

The fact is even in programs where some formula may be used, such as a cost-benefit ratio formula, the formula is not necessarily perfect and can often fail to capture all the facts.

A small port dredging project may not look worthwhile when just the commercial traffic is calculated. However, when the sport fishery impact is included it makes the calculation different. Further, if the fish processing plant reliant on the commercial fishery is the largest employer in the county that makes a difference.

While the formula may not capture these facts and thus the project fails to make the President's budget request, the areas congressional members and senators will know the facts and seek to modify the budget.

There was a recent news article using a Missouri project as an illustration of this debate. The project was not requested in the budget and the senior Senator from Missouri rectified this fact by adding an earmark.

The junior Senator from Missouri is quoted in this article saying the project would have been funded without such an earmark if funding had not been diverted to less worthwhile earmarks. I am sorry, but there is no basis for the junior Senator's claim.

We have no idea what the administration will send up in the budget. A very worthwhile project may come forward and it may not. And the reverse may be true. The administration may send up a project that is not currently justified.

During the George W. Bush administration the budget request one year included construction funding for a Corps of Engineers project. The problem was the chief engineer's report was not completed yet because the studies were still on-going. Thus there was no way for the administration to know based upon any objective criteria whether the project should move into the construction phase.

While the project may have proved to be worthy there was no objective basis for the administration making that assessment at that time. The fact is the administration added the project out of some political calculation, not an objective calculation.

Let me provide some facts on earmarks using the civil side of the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation which have two of the most highly earmarked budgets of any Federal agency due to the way projects are authorized and appropriated.

For fiscal year 2010, the President proposed spending $6.2 billion for these two agencies. In his request the President proposed 1,184 individual line items valued at $4.8 billion based on criteria of his choosing. This criteria is not based in law nor was the criteria coordinated with anyone outside of the administration.

The criteria was developed to ``get the biggest bang for the buck'' but how do we know that? Just because that is what the administration says.

Upon my review of the budget request, I was convinced that the administration had left many priorities unfunded. That is why in preparing the fiscal year 2010 Energy and Water appropriations bill, the subcommittee of

which I am the chair, we used the criteria established in law to determine what projects were eligible for funding.

Further, we gave particular credence to funding ongoing work. It is not prudent to fund a construction project in one year and not fund it in the next. Yet the administration did not propose funding for more than 175 ongoing construction projects that were funded in fiscal year 2009.

These termination costs were not accounted for in the budgets that the agencies provided to Congress. The Corps or the Bureau of Reclamation cannot walk away from a construction site because they are not funded for that project. They would have to reprogram funds from other projects to make the site safe for the public until it was funded again.

Funding projects in this manner delays completion of the projects, increases the costs and defers the benefits that these projects provide to the national economy.

For fiscal year 2010, Congress provided $6.58 billion for the COE and the Bureau of Reclamation. Congress directed $817 million of this total funding. All of this directed funding was disclosed in the required disclosure tables in the report that accompanied the bill.

Let me list just a few projects that would not be funded in fiscal year 2011 if we enacted the President's budget request as proposed:

Blue River Basin flood control project in Missouri; Swope Park Industrial Area flood control project in Kansas City, MO; the Puget Sound and Adjacent Waters Environmental Restoration project in Washington; the Charleston Harbor, SC, navigation deepening study; the Virginia Beach, VA, hurricane protection project; and the Western Sarpy and Clear Creek, NE, flood control project.

For that last project in Nebraska, the funds proposed in the fiscal year 2011 Senate report would complete the project, yet it did not make it into the President's budget. Imagine these objective criteria that the administration uses would leave the completion of a fully authorized and economically justified construction budget for another year.

I must also mention the issue of transparency. Today all Member requests are available on line for public review. All Members must certify that they and their family have no pecuniary interest in these projects.

If there are legitimate proposals on further improving transparency then I am sure they will be given consideration, but as of today the public knows who is backing the projects we fund. There is accountability and there is sunlight.

I fear that if Congress cedes its authority to direct spending then we will go back to a time when Members, staff, and entities outside of the Federal Government will begin to pressure the administration and bureaucracy on getting specific projects funded.

There will be no disclosure of these phone calls and meetings. We will not know if any trades have been made in exchange for project support.

Why would we give up sunlight and accountability for darkness and unaccountability?

Let me close by reiterating the basic points.

First, this amendment will not reduce the deficit. At less than one- half of 1 percent of total spending congressionally directed spending is simply not going to make a difference, particularly when that funding will be left for the administration to direct its allocation.

Second, there is no objective formula that makes sure funding goes to the most worthwhile projects. It simply doesn't exist. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse. This ensures the President's power is checked and assures Federal elected officials closest to the people are making these decisions. It is absurd to give to an unelected bureaucracy that may never have been in your state the final decision on what projects to fund.

Third in project based accounts such as the Corps of Engineers the administration already earmarks the vast majority of projects funded. Congress is not abusing the power of the purse.

Lastly, we have greater transparency today on congressionally directed spending than ever before. If we do away with this transparent process we will be left with a dark, unknown process of congressional Members, constituent groups, and lobbyists seeking to influence the administration. We should not trade transparency for darkness.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. Senator Kerry, as chairman of the committee, has done an extraordinary job. I also mention Senator Lugar and others who have worked very hard on the issue of the ratification of the START treaty. I was a member of the Senate National Security Working Group, and the Administration kept us informed all along the way during the negotiations with the Russians. We had meetings in various locations and were briefed by the negotiators who described to us what the negotiations were about, what the progress was, and so on. Some of my colleagues from this Chamber who were a part of that National Security Working Group came to the meetings. We all had an opportunity to ask a lot of questions. It is not as if someone just dropped on the Senate some package called the START treaty. We have been a part of that all along and have been a part of having discussions and descriptions of the work of this treaty for some long while.

I wish to go through a couple of things today. First, some colleagues have decided we should not proceed with the ratification of this new arms reduction treaty that we have negotiated with the Russians. Some have alleged that there are all kinds of difficulties with it. They say it would limit our ability to produce and deploy an antiballistic missile. That is not the case. It is not accurate. They are suggesting that our modernization program of existing nuclear weapons or the lifetime extension programs for existing nuclear weapons is not funded sufficiently, and that is not the case. They indicate it would not meet our national security requirements to go ahead with this treaty.

Let me describe what some very distinguished Americans who would know about this have said. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, said: I, as well as our combatant commanders around the world, stand solidly behind this new treaty.

That is from the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This is General Chilton, commander of the Strategic Command that is in charge of our nuclear weapons. He says:

The United States strategic command was closely consulted

throughout the development of the nuclear posture review and

during negotiations on the new strategic arms reduction

treaty. . . .

What we negotiated is absolutely acceptable to the United

States strategic command for what we need to do to provide a

deterrent for the country.

This chart pictures former nuclear commanders who support this treaty: Generals Davis, Welch, Chain, and Butler, Admiral Chiles, General Habiger, Admiral Ellis. I have worked with many of these folks, and they are very respected. All of them believe this treaty is the right thing for this country and its security.

Dr. Henry Kissinger says:

It should be noted I come from the hawkish side of this

debate so I'm not here advocating these measures in the

abstract. I try to build them into my perception of the

national interest. I recommend ratification of this treaty.

This chart shows America's most prominent national security experts who support this New START treaty, Republicans and Democrats, the most significant thinkers about foreign policy in this country today. They say they support this treaty and what it means to the country.

Some have said there is not enough funding for our modernization program for existing nuclear weapons or for the lifetime extension program for existing nuclear weapons, and that would be a problem. They are wrong about that. Let me describe what Linton Brooks, the former NNSA administrator in charge of these areas, nuclear weapons and the modernization and the lifetime extension programs, says, someone who served under the Bush administration in that role:

As I understand it, it is a good idea on its own merits,

but I think for those who think it is only a good idea if you

only have a strong weapons program, this budget ought to take

care of that. Coupled with the outyear projections, it takes

care of the concerns about the complex and it does very good

things about the stockpile. And it should keep the labs

healthy.

Then he said:

I would have killed for this budget.

This is from the man who headed NNSA during the Bush administration.

Let me go through the issue of spending because one of the principal concerns has been we are not spending enough money on the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. There are roughly 25,000 nuclear weapons in this world. With respect to our portion of those nuclear weapons, we modernize them. We have life extension programs to make certain they can be certified as workable nuclear weapons, notwithstanding the fact that we don't ever want to have to see that one works because it seems to me the explosion of a nuclear weapon in a major city will change everything in the future. But, nonetheless, we have a certification program. We spend a great deal of money modernizing and keeping up to date with lifetime extension programs, the existing stock of nuclear weapons.

I chair the appropriations subcommittee that funds the nuclear weapons stockpile among other things. The Appropriations Committee considered a request from the President this year for $7 billion for these weapons programs. In my subcommittee, which does a lot of things--energy and water programs and nuclear weapons--almost everything else was either flatlined or reduced. But nuclear weapons was increased substantially. The $7 billion the President requested was a 10-percent increase over the previous year. Some of my colleagues have said that leaves us way short of what we need.

That $7 billion was put into the continuing resolution in November. There wasn't much discussion of that. So while virtually all other functions of government will continue to function at last year's appropriations level, the nuclear NNSA, nuclear weapons function, will be able to spend at the new funding level of $7 billion, up 10 percent from the previous year.

Let me also describe what has happened with respect to fiscal years 2011 to 2015. The President's budget plan for those years provided $5.4 billion above the previous plan. So this President has proposed generous appropriations to make certain that modernization and the life extension programs of existing nuclear weapons is funded well. I mentioned it went to $7 billion.

Now, in November, the President sent a report to Congress which reported that he plans to request $7.6 billion for the year 2012. That is a $600 million increase over 2011 which was a $600 million increase over 2010. Overall, the request in this new report is a $4.1 billion increase over the baseline during 2012 to 2016. So then we will be spending $85 billion in the 10-year period, $85 billion on modernization of our current nuclear stockpile and the life extension program in our current nuclear stockpile, and even that is not enough. We are told that is not nearly enough money.

How much is enough? If we can certify the stockpile works and the stockpile provides a deterrent, how much is enough? This President has robustly funded the requests that were needed. Now we are told not nearly enough money has been appropriated.

By the way, those who are saying this are saying we need to substantially cut Federal spending and reduce

the Federal budget deficit. Very interesting.

Let me relate, as I have in the past, something that happened over 9 years ago to describe the importance of this subject. On 9/11/2001, this country was attacked. One month later, October 11, 2001, there was a report by a CIA agent code named Dragonfire. One of our agents had a report that said there was a nuclear weapon smuggled into New York, a 10-kiloton Russian nuclear weapon stolen and smuggled into New York by terrorists to be detonated. That was 1 month to the day after 9/11. That report from the CIA agent caused apoplexy among the entire national security community. It was not public at that point. It was not made public.

After about a month, they decided that it was perhaps not a credible piece of intelligence. But when they did the post mortem, they discovered that clearly someone could have stolen a Russian nuclear weapon, perhaps a 10-kiloton weapon, and could have smuggled it into New York City. A terrorist group could have detonated it, and a couple hundred thousand people could have perished--one stolen nuclear weapon. There are 25,000 of them on the planet--25,000.

The question is, Do these agreements matter? Do they make a difference? Of course, they do. The fact is, nuclear arms agreements have made a very big difference.

I have had in the drawer of my desk for a long period a couple of things I would like unanimous consent to show.

This is a piece of metal from a Soviet Backfire bomber. We didn't shoot this bomber down. It was sawed off. They sawed the wings off this bomber. They did it because we paid for it under the Nunn-Lugar agreement in which we have actually reduced nuclear weapons, both delivery vehicles and nuclear weapons.

So I have in my desk a piece of a Soviet bomber that had its wings sheared off because of a US-Russian agreement, and that delivery system is gone. I have a hinge that was on a silo in Ukraine for a missile that had on it a nuclear weapon aimed at this country. Well, that missile is now gone. I have the hinge in my hand. That missile that held a nuclear warhead aimed at America is gone. In its place on that field are sunflowers--sunflowers--not missiles.

I have in this desk as well some copper wire that was ground up from a Soviet submarine that was dismantled as a result of a US-Russian arms control agreement. These agreements work. We know they work. We have reduced the number of delivery vehicles; yes, submarines, bombers, missiles. We have reduced the number of nuclear weapons. This agreement will further reduce the number of nuclear weapons.

Now, if it is not the responsibility of our country to begin addressing the ability to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on the face of this Earth, then whose responsibility is it? It is clearly our responsibility to shoulder that leadership. One important element of that is when we negotiate these kinds of treaties, arms reduction treaties, that virtually everyone--Republicans and Democrats who know anything at all about national security and about arms reduction agreements--has said makes sense for our country, when we do that, it seems to me we ought not have the same old thing on the floor of the Senate, and this ought not be a part of gridlock.

This is a negotiation between our country and Russia with respect to reducing delivery vehicles and reducing nuclear weapons. The National Security Working Group, of which I was a member--and a number of my colleagues were members--met in this Capitol Building, and we were briefed and briefed and briefed again by those who were negotiating this treaty. This is not a surprise. There is nothing surprising here. In my judgment, this Senate should, in this month, do what is necessary to have the debate and ratify this treaty.

Again, let my say, this President sent to the Congress a budget request that had ample and robust funding, with a 10-percent increase for modernization and life extension programs for our nuclear weapons. I know that because I chaired the committee that put in the money at the President's request.

Then, because of those who believed you had to have the extra money for the nuclear weapons program, that money was put in a continuing resolution so that program goes ahead with a 10-percent increase, while the rest of the Federal Government goes on at last year's level. I did not object to that. But I do object when they say there is not ample funding here--a 10-percent increase this year, a 10-percent increase next year. Testimony by everyone who knows about these weapons programs, the cost of them and the effectiveness of these treaties, ought to be demonstration enough for us to do our job and to do our job right.

We have a lot of important issues in front of us. I understand that. But all of these issues will pale by comparison if we do not find a way to get our arms around this question of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and reducing the number of nuclear weapons. If one, God forbid--one--nuclear weapon is exploded in a city on this planet, life on this planet will change.

So the question of whether we assume the responsibility of leadership--whether we are willing to assume that responsibility--will determine in large part, it seems to me, about our future and about whether we will have a world in which we systematically and consistently reduce the number of nuclear weapons and therefore reduce the threat of nuclear weapons in the future.

I do hope my colleagues--and, by the way, I do not suggest they are operating in bad faith at all. But some of my colleagues have insisted--insisted--there is not enough funding. It is just not the case. The demonstration is clear. It is the one area that has had consistent, robust increases in funding, requested by this President, and complied with by this Congress, and now even advance funding through the continuing resolution. It seems to me it is time to take yes for an answer on the question of funding, and let's move ahead and debate this treaty and do what this country has a responsibility to do: ratify this treaty, and do it soon.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I decided some long while ago that I was going to leave the Congress after serving 30 years. So at the end of this year, I will conclude my work here in the U.S. Congress. But I was thinking--sitting in the Chamber, listening to my two colleagues, for whom I have great respect and profound disagreements with--I was thinking about how interesting it is that people of good faith--and they are two Senators of good faith--can feel very strongly about an issue. I feel differently about some of the issues they just described, and I sat here and resisted the urge to jump up every 5 or 10 minutes and engage in that discussion.

It is not a difference of opinion about whether we would like the American people to pay the lowest rate of taxes possible; it is, rather, in my judgment, about the rearview mirror of history, when historians gather 50 and 100 years from now and look back at this moment and say: All right, where was America then?

Well, America had a $13 trillion debt, a $1.3 trillion deficit. We are sending men and women off to war by the hundreds of thousands, strapping on body armor in the morning, getting shot at in the afternoon. About 20 million people are either unemployed or not working up to their potential because they could not find the job that fits them. There are record numbers of people on food stamps. So that is where America was then. And what was the debate on the floor of the Congress? How can you further cut revenue? How can you borrow money from the Chinese in order to give those who make $1 million a year a $100,000 a year tax cut? They are going to say: Are you kidding me? That is what the discussion was? Wasn't there discussion about whether it was wise to borrow $4 trillion more to extend tax cuts that came in 2001 because the President--then-President George W. Bush--felt we were going to have surpluses forever? The first surplus was the year before he took office, the last year of Bill Clinton, the first budget surplus in 30 years. Then they said: OK, we predict we are going to have surpluses for the next 10. President Bush said: Well, let's give them back, with very big tax cuts, the bulk of which go to upper income folks. I didn't vote for that. I thought: Why don't we be a little conservative? What if something happens? Well, it did--a terrorist attack, a recession, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, debt as far as the eye can see, soldiers at war--and the discussion is how to further cut taxes, especially for upper income Americans. I am telling my colleagues, it is going to confound and confuse some future economists, how on Earth that could have been the major debate of the day in the Congress at this moment.

There is no preordained destiny for this country that this country will always be the dominant world power. That is not preordained. That will happen if this country begins again to make good decisions and tough decisions. People think times are tough now. They have been tougher in this country. Our parents and grandparents and those who came before them, those who homesteaded in sod huts, those

who traveled and populated this country out of wagon trains under the Homestead Act to go and buy a place and build a farm and raise a family, they had it tough, but they built communities and built a country and they did the right things. They made tough decisions. It is not a tough decision for us to say all 100 of us want tax cuts--well, I would like it if nobody paid taxes, if nobody had to pay taxes. But who is going to pay for the cost of things we do together, such as build schools to educate kids, build roads to travel, pay for defense so we can protect this country and on and on and on?

So I didn't come to talk about that, but I couldn't resist at least the urge to say our requirement for this country is to look well ahead and to ask: How do we retain the capability in this country so we will still remain a world economic power? This country needs jobs. This country needs the resurrection of a manufacturing base. We will not long remain as a country, a world economic power, if we don't have world-class manufacturing capability--making stuff--making things that say ``Made in America.'' That ought to be the discussion: how to put America back to work. There is no social program as important as a good job that pays well, and too many Americans are out of work at this point with a sick economy. The solution is not a tax cut for everybody. That is akin to going to a quack doctor who has only one recipe. He has a jug of thick brown liquid, and no matter what you have--the hiccups, gout, liver trouble--he ladles out some thick brown liquid, and he says: There it is. Take that and it will make you better.

We have people who have that vision here. Any urge, any itch, give them a tax cut. How about the Federal budget deficit? How about controlling spending? Yes, we have to control some spending and cut the deficit. Let's cut some spending and let's ask people who should be paying taxes and aren't now to pay their fair share of taxes. That is what we ought to do.

All right. I have that at least a little bit out of my system today.

Energy

I came to talk about something else. I came to talk about unfinished business toward the end of this year. There is still the ability to reclaim some success in an area that I think is very important. It is true, as I have just described, that jobs are very important in this country. It is also true that the economy, fiscal policy, debt, and deficits are very important and we need to get a hold on them and deal with them and respond to them and fix this country's economy. But it is also important that we need to address the subject of energy, and we have tried; we have tried so hard. We can decide it doesn't matter much. We can act as though it is irrelevant. But then tomorrow morning, just for a moment, what if all the American people couldn't turn on or off the alarm clock or turn on the light or turn on the hot water heater to take a hot shower or turn on the toaster or the coffee maker? What if they couldn't turn on the ignition to get to work? What if they didn't have lights at work? We use energy 100 ways before we start work and never, ever think about it. What if the switch didn't work? What if the tank wasn't full?

Let me describe the danger because this is not irrelevant. It is not an idle issue that this country could very well find itself belly side up with an economy that couldn't work because we couldn't find the energy we need. About 60 percent of the oil we need and use in this country comes from other countries. I have described hundreds of times on the floor that we stick little straws in the Earth and we suck out oil. About 85 million barrels a day is sucked out of this planet. On this little spot called the United States of America, we need to use one-fourth of it. One-fourth of everything we suck out of this Earth has to come to the U.S.A. We are prodigious users of oil. Much of that oil comes from areas of the world that are very troubled. There are some that don't like us very much. We send them over $1 billion, in some cases $1.5 billion a day, every single day to buy their oil. My colleagues know and I know that in some parts of the world enough money spills from that oil barrel to help fund terrorism. We know it. If we are that vulnerable, if our economy is in that much need of oil from others, particularly troubled parts of the world, if tomorrow that supply were interrupted or shut off and if that meant that this country's economy would be belly up just like that, do we then decide to do nothing about it or do we do something about it to address it in the context of national security?

We have armies. We commit armies to trouble spots around the world to protect our interests. Those armies can only operate if they have food and fuel. They need both. Energy security is the same as national security, and we have ignored for so long this issue of vulnerability that exists with respect to our energy future.

I wish to talk about what we need to do, and I wish to talk about my disappointment that we come now to November, almost December, 3 weeks left perhaps in December, and last June a year ago we passed an energy bill out of the Energy Committee that was bipartisan. It did a lot to address our energy security. Yet we will likely end this year with unfinished business, leaving behind that progress.

I wish to talk a little about the unbelievable progress in this country. In 1830, it took 3 weeks to travel from Chicago to New York--3 weeks from Chicago to New York City. Twenty-five years later, you could do it in 3 days: the transcontinental railroad. The transcontinental railroad changed everything. Then the automobile, the automobile came along, first with an electric engine and then the internal combustion engine and then it needed a substantial amount of oil. Then our government said: We understand that, so anybody who is going to look for oil or gas, we want to give you a big, permanent tax benefit. It was in the public interest to do that. So for a century we have said to people: Go find oil and gas because we need it. We have incentivized that drilling here in this country.

If we think of what has happened over this period I have described in travel and technology, including the automobile, the light bulb--I mean, think of the impact both those innovations have had in our lives; pretty unbelievable.

One day on a Saturday I was in Grand Forks, ND, and I met with our oldest resident, Mary Schumacher, 111 years old. She was spry--I shouldn't say ``spry'' because she wasn't moving very well, but she had a very keen mind and we were able to have a very good visit--111 years old. She talked to me about her memories of when she was 6 and watched the barn burn. She has a great memory. We talked about how things have changed in 100 years of her lifetime. By the way, I stopped at that nursing home to see Mary because I wasn't able to be there some months before when I was invited to go to her birthday party, and I was invited by her niece who showed up when I showed up that Saturday to visit Mary. Her niece put on the birthday party and her niece was 103 years old, in even better shape than Mary, moving around and fussing and making sure this visit with Mary was going well.

So we talked about the big changes in her life. I thought after I left there: Here is a person who has now lived over a century and she has seen everything. So let me think about her life.

In 1909--and she would have been nearly 10 years old then--in 1909, President Howard Taft, 5 foot 11 inches tall and 300 pounds, decided to get rid of the horse and buggy at the White House as the mode of transportation. He was the first President to decide he was going to buy an automobile. He bought a Baker electric car. President Taft might not have fit into a Mini Cooper had there been one back then, but he bought a Baker electric car, which goes to show batteries have a lot of power. There has been a lot of discussion about that these days. But isn't it interesting that an electric car for the White House in 1909-- that is 100 years ago--that electric car, now a century later, 100 years later, is the subject of legislation I have on the floor of the Senate, along with Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Senator Merkley of Oregon; the Electric Vehicle Deployment Act, 100 years later. It is the new new thing. It is what we knew 100 years ago worked.

I wish to talk a little about these things and all the changes we have seen and why this issue is critical and why I feel so disappointed if we don't, in the final 3 weeks, at least take a

portion of that which we know needs to be done and do it because there is bipartisan agreement on a couple of these issues.

Let me mention them quickly. One, a renewable electricity standard so we try to induce more renewable energy production in this country. That is bipartisan. We have cosponsors in the Senate, including Senator Brownback, who is a very strong supporter of that, a renewable electric standard. The Electric Vehicle Deployment Act, which I have described, Senator Alexander and I and others, bipartisan; and the natural gas provision that Senator Reid and Senator Menendez have sponsored, that is also bipartisan. Those are things we can do and should do at the end of the year that is bipartisan that will advance our interests.

Why is it that energy is important? Well, one, the vulnerability to our economy if we were to see the supply of energy that is necessary shut off to this country at any point. So it is national security. No. 1, national security. No. 2, it is the issue of the domestic energy use and the conversion as a part of this national and energy security to conservation, No. 1, and the production of different kinds of energy, No. 2, and then, finally, the issue of environmental benefits of some of the changes that are necessary. We are coming to an intersection for the first time when we debate energy in which energy production and national security resulting from that comes to the same intersection as the issue of climate change. So everything is going to change. The question isn't whether, it is how. So I wish to talk just a bit about some of the things we can do, it seems to me, to address these matters.

Let me talk about electricity. We produce a lot of electricity from different sources, including coal and natural gas, and so on. Coal is our most abundant resource. Fifty percent of the electricity in this country comes from coal, but we have to use it differently because when we burn coal, we throw carbon into the air and we understand we can't continue to do that. So we need to find innovative ways to extract the carbon from coal to continue to use that resource. We can and we will, in my judgment. I chair the appropriations subcommittee that funds carbon capture technology. There are all kinds of people around this country doing innovative, wonderful, breathtaking things to find a way to decarbonize coal. It is going to happen, if we decide to make the investment in order to allow it to happen.

So electricity that comes from coal or natural gas and electric plants, one of the problems we have dealing with the electricity is the delivery from where it is produced to where it is needed. Back in the early days of moving electricity around, we would build a plant to produce the electricity and then a spiderweb network of transmission wires in a circle largely around the planet and that became the service area and they were not connected one to another. That is the way it was. Then, finally, we decided we needed to move electricity from one area to another, so we connected the grids, barely, but we never did go back and build a modern transmission system. The result is we have a system now that is not very reliable and can't effectively move power from where it is produced to where it is needed, particularly in the area of renewable power, where the wind blows and the Sun shines. Where you can produce wind energy and solar energy, we can't at this point have full effective capability to where you can move it to where you can produce it and where you need it.

So we need to build an interstate transmission system. We can't do that now. We need legislation to do that. We can't do it now as demonstrated by the fact that in the last 9 years, we have built 11,000 miles of natural gas pipeline to move natural gas around this country, and we have been able to build only 668 miles of interstate high- voltage transmission lines. Why? Because we have all kinds of jurisdictions that can say no and will say no, so you can't build transmission. So the legislation we passed out of the Energy Committee a year and a half ago now solved that problem, put us on the path to be able to build an interstate transmission system, a modern, rich system. We shouldn't lose that. We should proceed to get that opportunity in that legislation.

Let me talk a bit about oil and gas. We are actually producing more oil, for the first time--it has been a long while since we have been on the decline in production. Part of it is from my State. The Bakken formation is the largest formation of oil ever assessed in the history of the lower 48 States. There are up to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. With that, plus the role shale plays in much of the country, we are beginning to produce a bit more oil and gas at this point. That will stop quickly if we can't continue what is called hydraulic fracturing. We have to deal with that big problem. Most of us in this Senate, who come from areas where we produce fossil energy, believe this has been done for 50 years without a problem, and now it is under some siege. If we can't do hydraulic fracturing, that promise of natural gas supplies and new oil will evaporate. We need to continue--and we will--with the production of oil and natural gas in this country.

I also am a supporter of the production of ethanol and the biofuels. I think it makes sense to extend our energy supply, if we can do it every single year, using biomass, corn-based ethanol. That makes a lot of sense to me. The other issue I mentioned is coal. We are going to have to find a way to use coal by extracting the carbon. I believe we can do that. We need to make a much greater effort. We have tried to do that in legislation in the last year or two.

Then we have nuclear energy. We will build some nuclear plants. We are going to do that. I believe we ought to do everything, and do it well, including wind, solar, geothermal. All of the renewables have great promise. I understand that in this country, for a long while, it was that real men dig and drill, and if you are somebody who supports wind or solar energy, go smoke your pipe, read a few books, and have a leather patch on your jacket. Real men dig and drill, and the rest of you are a bunch of nuisances. That was the thought that existed for a long time. It is not true anymore. We are going to dig and drill and do it differently and protect this country's environment. We are also going to incentivize and see the production of substantial amounts of additional energy from the wind and the Sun. It makes sense to do that, in order to expand our energy supply, protect our environment, produce additional jobs. All of these issues I have talked about are very job creating.

Yet, in many ways, the legislation we have worked on languishes because we are told we don't have time. This is urgent. It is about the vulnerability of our economy, about our national security, and it is about jobs. We ought to get about the business of deciding this is a priority.

If I can describe, in summary, here is how we address energy issues: Produce more, yes, in every area. Produce more wind and solar energy, incentivize it. Produce more oil--and we are doing that--and natural gas. Expand ethanol capabilities and geothermal. We can do all of these things. We are building nuclear plants now. We will see some new ones come online. As a country, we ought to do what the French are doing with respect to reprocessing and recycling and reduce that 100-percent body of waste down to 5 percent. That is what they have been doing for some while. We ought to do that--the renewables are so important--and then move toward the electric vehicle deployment, so we can take advantage of all of this. I mentioned to you that we produce about 85 million barrels a day of oil--about 21 million barrels here in the United States, about one-fourth of the oil, and 77 percent of the oil we use in this country is used in vehicles.

If you are going to reduce the use of oil and reduce our vulnerability from too many exports of oil, then you have to do something about transportation. That is why this electric vehicle issue is so very important. It is the same with respect to natural gas vehicles and long-haul trucking across a network in this country. Electric vehicles are important. I have always been a fan, as well, of hydrogen and fuel cells. I think it is probably just beyond electric vehicles. Also, a fuel cell vehicle runs on electricity. It is interesting to get in and drive a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and find that you can put your nose right down at the exhaust pipe, because it is just water vapor. It doesn't have a sound. It puts water

vapor out the back and has twice the power at the wheel. I think that is what our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to drive. All of these issues are so important to this country's future.

Again, I end as I started, by saying how profoundly disappointing it is that at the end of the session we understand how important this issue is and how little has been able to be done. There is still time. We could pass legislation called the Electric Vehicle Deployment Act. We could do that. We could pass legislation calling for a renewable energy standard, renewable electricity standard. This isn't rocket science. These are not complex issues that people can't understand. They understand them. Both political parties have strong supporters for these things. As we turn to December, it seems to me that as we contemplate probably 3 weeks in December on the floor of the Senate, we ought to at least consider what portion of an energy system and energy future can we embrace that came out of the Energy Committee in the Senate. The Electric Vehicle Deployment Act is the legislation that came out most recently and passed 19 to 3 by the Energy Committee-- strongly bipartisan. Why wouldn't we take that up? Why would we not complete work on that and advance this country's future?

The other day I talked about the two dune-buggy-size vehicles on the surface of Mars. I did it because I was talking to some people in North Dakota, who said nothing is going right, everything is going to hell in a hand basket, and nothing the government touches works for sure. They were down. I told them the story about the two dune-buggy-size vehicles we are driving on the surface of Mars. Five years ago, 1 week apart, we ignited rockets, and they lifted off on the west coast of the United States, and they were on their journey to Mars--1 week apart. The first rocket transported its payload to the surface of Mars, which landed on Mars with a thump and a bounce. It was in a shroud. When it stopped bouncing and stayed still, the shroud opened, and out of the shroud drove a dune-buggy-size vehicle on the surface of Mars. One week later, the second payload was deposited on the surface of Mars. The shroud bounced, opened, and the second vehicle drove off to the surface of Mars. That was 5 years ago. One's name is Spirit and one is Opportunity--two little vehicles, Spirit and Opportunity. They were supposed to last 90 days on the surface of Mars, giving us information about what we could learn about this strange planet.

Five years later, Spirit and Opportunity are still moving. It takes us 9 minutes to communicate with Spirit or Opportunity, to send them a message. At one point, Spirit fell dead asleep, and we communicated with a satellite orbiting Mars and had the satellite communicate with Spirit, and Spirit woke up. Spirit, they say, has an arm that was used to sample the soil of Mars. That arm has become just like old men become, rheumatoid and arthritic, and now hangs at a strange angle because of that machine arthritis it has, apparently. Also a wheel broke, among the five wheels, but it didn't fall off; it is hanging. As Spirit traverses the surface of Mars, it drags one wheel that digs a slightly deeper 2-inch hole in the surface of Mars, and the arthritic arm reaches back and tells us what is happening on Mars.

How is all of this happening? First of all, it is unbelievable engineering, right? Can you imagine the people who put this together, to send dune buggies we could drive on the surface of Mars, and then they last 5 years when they were supposed to last 90 days? How are they powered? Do they have a Briggs and Stratton engine and somebody pulls it and gets them started? No. They are powered by the Sun. They have solar cells that allow us to have the power to drive dune buggies on the surface of Mars. Is it beyond our reach to believe that if we can power dune buggies with solar cells on Mars, we can fix a few of these things here on planet Earth? Of course that is not beyond our reach. Of course we can do that. In fact, the very names of these dune buggies-- Spirit and Opportunity--ought to be the names on these desks in this Chamber: Spirit and Opportunity.

I started by saying there is no preordained destiny for this country to do well. It always has done well. When I grew up, I knew we were the biggest, the strongest, the best, and had the most. We could beat anybody with one hand tied behind our back. That will not always be the case. We will not remain a world economic power, unless we make smart decisions. Our parents and grandparents did. Every parent in this country has sacrificed for their kids. I don't know what is in second, third, or fourth place to most people, but first place is their kids. The question is whether it is on fiscal policy or energy policy. The question is, what are we willing to do for our kids? What kind of future do we want to leave our kids? Do we want to leave them deep in debt or vulnerable on energy production, which may leave us in the dark one day? I don't think so. This country can do much better than that.

Neither party has been much of a political bargain recently. Both parties need to do better. I have strong feelings about which has better ideas at the moment, and I will not be partisan on the floor, except to say that this country deserves more. It is not just coming out here talking about how can we cut taxes for everybody; it is how do we tighten our belts and ask those who are supposed to pay taxes to pay them, getting deficits under control, and getting people back on payrolls, and incentivizing businesses to create jobs.

How do we address energy issues? It is time for this country to be serious--this Congress--about doing things that are necessary, which may require sacrifice from all of us. If young men and women are willing to leave their homes to go to Afghanistan today for a year because their country asks them to, we can do no less than make sacrifices that are thoughtful on behalf of our future, so they won't come home and find a bigger deficit and more unemployment, but instead that we made the tough decisions to fix these things. We are going to fix this because it is important for the country's future.

As I said when I started, this issue of energy is so very important and is unfinished business. In my judgment, we ought not to include at the end of this year an energy bill, or components of one, that I think could be very important to this country's future, to jobs, and to our national security.

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

Mr. President, as I walked in the door to the Chamber I heard the Senator from Pennsylvania talk about the START Treaty. Let me

say that it is such an important thing for this Congress to ratify. It is very important that be an urgent requirement for this Congress. The work that has been done on that I think is some excellent work. In the subcommittee which I chair dealing with energy and water and the funding of nuclear weapons and the Life Extension Programs for those weapons, we have added the funding that a number of people on the minority side felt was necessary to make certain we had confidence in the Life Extension Programs.

So I do hope and I will join my colleague in saying I believe it is critically important for this Congress in the lameduck session to move on the START Treaty and the work that has been done and negotiated with the Russians to begin reducing the number of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles. So I wanted to start by saying I appreciate what the Senator from Pennsylvania has said.

Mr. President, this morning I read a little piece in the newspaper that a man named Jacob Carroll had died in Afghanistan, a U.S. soldier. He died in Afghanistan on the battlefield. I did not know Jacob Carroll, but he is one of 438 American soldiers who have died fighting in Afghanistan. He has not only joined in the 438 who have died in Afghanistan but also the over 4,400 who have died fighting in Iraq.

I think most Americans perhaps hear the news, see the news, and move on to what else is covered that day in the newspaper. I was thinking about that when I read something that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had said about the shared sacrifice and shared responsibilities of our country. We have been at war for 9 years in the Middle East, Iraq, and Afghanistan. If you look around our country, and especially look around this Chamber, and evaluate what we have done and what we are preoccupied with, it is very hard to see that our country is at war.

Oh, there are some young men and women who are sent halfway around the world to strap on ceramic body armor in the morning, get shot at in the afternoon, and perhaps get killed. They are at war. They understand sacrifice. But I wonder if it is not too much business as usual in our country and has not been for some long while. I ask that in the context of the discussion I heard this weekend on the interview shows. I was not in town here this weekend, but I heard some of the discussion, and it was about: Well, how about the tax cuts? Who can get additional tax cuts at this moment? And who supports maximum tax cuts versus other tax cuts?

Well, we are at war. We have people dying who serve this country on the battlefield. We have a $13.6 trillion Federal debt. We have a $1.3 trillion budget deficit this year. And the issue is, who should get more tax cuts? That is almost unbelievable to me.

Let me read what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said so many decades ago.

He said:

Not all of us have the privilege of fighting our enemies in

distant parts of the world. Not all of us can have the

privilege of working in a munitions factory or a ship yard,

or on the farms or in the oil fields or mines, producing the

weapons or raw materials that are needed by our armed forces.

But there is one front and one battle where everyone in the

United States--every man, woman and child--is in action . . .

That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, and in

our daily tasks. Here at home everyone will have the

privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary, not

only to supply our fighting men, but to keep the economic

structure of our country fortified and secure . . .

I find it a little disheartening that we have so many people now who have decided that the biggest issue is additional tax cuts.

I travel a lot through Minneapolis to get to North Dakota on weekends, and occasionally at the Minneapolis Airport it will be cold. Yes, it will be 40 below, and the wind will be howling at 35, 40 miles an hour, and you will see a group of people huddled outside the door at the Minneapolis Airport smoking cigarettes because there is no smoking inside the terminal. I figure somebody who goes out to smoke when it is 40 below zero and the wind is blowing 45 miles per hour has pretty much given up their claim forever that they can quit anytime they want to quit. They have pretty much given up that claim.

I would say similarly that those of us in this Chamber who have talked to us about the danger of Federal debt and Federal budget deficits have pretty much given up their claim forever to say that they care about the economic policy and deficits and debt that overhang this country if they bring a satchel to the floor with them that says: My priority is to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans when we are at war and have a $13 trillion in debt. Don't tell me you have a claim about caring about Federal budget deficits if that is the agenda you are pushing.

Let me give just a little bit of history on this question of tax cuts. The first time in 30 years that this country had a Federal budget surplus was in the last year of President Clinton's 8 years. At that point, we had a Federal budget surplus. All of the economists and others estimated that we would have budget surpluses from that point throughout the following 10 years.

So the new President, President George W. Bush, said: If we are going to have surpluses, an estimated $5.6 trillion of Federal budget surpluses over the next 10 years, let's take aggressive and quick steps to give back the surpluses in the form of tax cuts.

I stood here on the floor of the Senate and said: Wait a second. Don't be quite so hasty. We don't have those surpluses yet. We have just had 1 year of surpluses, and the rest of them are just projections. Why don't we wait and be a little conservative.

The answer was: You know what, you don't understand economics. We are going to do this because we are going to have all of these surpluses.

So very large tax cuts were put in place--the largest for the wealthiest Americans--and at that point, we stopped seeing any surpluses at all. The tax cuts were for the purpose of giving back surpluses that were to exist when, in fact, none existed. Almost immediately, in 2001, we found out that we were in a recession. Very quickly, we found that there was an attack against our country on 9/11. Then we were at war in Afghanistan, then at war in Iraq, then a 9-year war against terrorists and all the security costs that attend to that. So there haven't been any budget surpluses.

The most unbelievable thing to me is that this country has asked men and women to go off to war and risk their lives, and some have given their lives, and this government has not paid for the cost of that war. We have paid for that war in blood and death--blood and death--no, not the blood of those who serve in this Chamber but blood and death for sure.

Now the question is, with a $13 trillion debt and a deep recession, the deepest since the Great Depression--having gone through and now starting to come out of that recession, the question is the extension of the tax cuts that were provided in 2001. In 2001, those tax cuts had a termination date, and that termination date was this December 31st. So the question, then, is, If tax cuts are to be extended, for whom shall they be extended? It will cost about $3 trillion to extend them for middle-income taxpayers and another $1 trillion in 10 years to extend them for upper income Americans. Let me tell my colleagues what I mean by that. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has said that if you extend them for those over $250,000 a year, it costs about nearly $1 trillion with interest over the 10 years, and in addition, those who make $1 million a year will get a tax cut of $104,000 a year--$104,000 a year.

So here is the question: A country that is deep, deep, deep in debt and projected to go deeper into debt, should this country borrow $1 trillion in order to give a tax cut of $104,000 a year to someone who makes $1 million a year or should we perhaps mind the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who says that perhaps that front in which every man, woman, and child can contribute at a time when a country is at war, that front is here at home in our daily lives. Here at home, everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary, not only to supply our fighting men but to keep the economic structure of our country fortified and secure.

So a young man named Jacob Carroll dies today. He is from Clemmons, NC. I didn't know him, nor do I suspect anyone in this Chamber knows him, but he

died fighting for his country. Are we to do less when we see people making the ultimate sacrifice? Are we to do less than at least ask for sacrifice by all Americans or are we going to continue to say: We will borrow money to continue to prosecute a war. We will send young men and women to risk their lives, but we will not pay for it. We will just add it to the debt. And when it comes time to answer the question--perhaps in a lameduck session at the end of this year--of who shall get the benefit of the extended tax cuts, we will also say--some would insist-- that those who are fortunate enough to make $1 million a year in net income in this country--quite a blessing, I would say--those who are fortunate enough to make $1 million a year, we will say to them: You are fortunate enough to get another $104,000 tax reduction, another tax cut. Why? Because a lot of people here believe that is the way you promote economic progress. Not to me. You promote economic progress by demonstrating to the American people that you understand the kind of choking nature this debt and deficit have on future opportunities and future economic growth in this country.

We all grew up at a time when we almost always understood just viscerally--we didn't have to be told--that our children would have it better than we have it. We grew up in a time when it was almost inevitable and we didn't need to be told that we were the biggest, the strongest, the best; we could beat anybody in the world at almost anything with one hand tied behind our back. But it has changed. It has changed. Now this country needs some good decisions, some tough decisions, some decisions to do the right thing.

The question on these talk shows this weekend was, Will you compromise? The better question is, Will you do the right thing for a change? We all know--this country knows--you can't fight a war for 9 years and not pay for any of the costs of it and add it to the Federal debt, and deficit every single year. We know better than that. That is not the way you run a country, it is not the way you share sacrifice, and it is not the way you honor soldiers. You go to war, and we will charge the cost for blood and death. That is not the way to honor those who fight for our country.

Let me mention one final point. It is interesting to me that unless you believe all tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003 should now be extended in this circumstance, you are a ``liberal.'' So apparently the conservative approach is to borrow money and extend the tax cuts, add $1 trillion to the Federal debt in order to extend tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 a year or more. It doesn't seem to me as though that is a conservative approach; it seems to me that is a liberal approach if you want to add $1 trillion to the Federal debt in order to accomplish that.

I wish no one had to pay any taxes. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Sign me up to say that I wish no one had to pay taxes. But the cost of this country's governance, the building of roads, the schools, yes, the Defense Department, the payment for soldiers and weapons and so on to protect this country--all of that needs to be paid for.

I hope those who decide to affix labels to various positions might well understand that to borrow a substantial portion of money to provide tax cuts when the country is up to its neck in debt is not a conservative position. It just is not. And to suggest we have fewer extensions of tax cuts for the upper income people so that we don't borrow money to add to the Federal debt, that is not a liberal position. It just is not.

Fair Trade

Let me also mention one final point. It is the case this weekend, again, with the chattering class, that they describe President Obama's trip to South Korea as something less than a success because there was not a trade agreement negotiated and completed with South Korea. Well, that wasn't the President's fault. The fact is, the South Koreans were not willing to budge on the significant issue that divides our country and South Korea on international trade, and that is the bilateral trade on automobiles. I won't give a lot of statistics except to say this: 99 percent of the cars driven on the streets of South Korea are made in that country. Is that an accident? It is not an accident. That is exactly what they want in South Korea. Ninety-nine percent of the cars they drive on their roads are made there because they want South Korean jobs to make cars driving on their highways. South Korea ships us, depending on the year, anywhere between 600,000 and 800,000 cars a year that they make in their country to sell in our country. We are only allowed to sell about 6,000 cars a year in South Korea. Let me say that again: 600,000 to 800,000 cars being shipped this way and 6,000 cars from the United States being shipped to South Korea. That is exactly what the South Korean Government wants--jobs there, not here.

Well, you know what, the President should not have--and I applaud him for being unwilling to negotiate a trade agreement that is so fundamentally at odds with the issue of having jobs in this country. This country needs jobs. We are terribly short of jobs. We shouldn't be negotiating trade agreements that would fritter away those jobs. We at least ought to require fair trade agreements with countries such as South Korea--at least fair trade--and that has not been the case. So the President ought not be criticized for not bringing home a bad trade agreement. He was not willing to negotiate a bad trade agreement. Good for him. Everyone in this country who needs a job ought to stand up and say: Good for him. Good for standing up for this country's interests. No, it is not being protectionist to insist that if your products are open to our market, then you open your market to our products. That is called fair and reciprocal trade. If other countries don't want to do that, then they have to understand that there are consequences to that.

The President has not failed at all on this issue. When and if the South Korean Government decides it wants fair trade and reciprocal trade opportunities on bilateral automobile trade, I expect we will have a trade agreement. Until that time, I applaud the President for deciding not to sign a bad trade agreement. I want the President to negotiate trade agreements that lift this country up and say to people who are now jobless--and there are millions of them--that, I am fighting for your jobs. It is not protectionist to fight for and demand fair trade and reciprocal trading procedures with our trading partners.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and make a point of order that a quorum is not present.