Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 29, 2009 at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Protecting Shareholders and Enhancing Public Confidence by Improving Corporate Governance.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2009, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2009, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2009, at 3 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 29, 2009, at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2009. The Committee will meet in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building beginning at 9:15 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 29, 2009, from 2-4 p.m. in room 562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Madam President, this legislation comes from the Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee. It has passed through the full Appropriations Committee and reported to the floor of the Senate. This is another one of our appropriations bills that we very much hope we can get done, have a conference with the House, and send to the President for signature. Regular order for this bill has not happened for a couple of years, which is a failure of the Congress and the White House because of the way things developed in the last few years. We need to change that.

I thank Senators Inouye and Cochran, the chairman and vice chairman of the full committee. They have made a decision that they want to drive these individual appropriations bills through the process, get them conferenced, then send them to the White House to sign them into law. That is the way they should be done.

We have put together legislation that we think is a good bill. It funds all of the energy functions across the country, including programs attached to the Energy Department. It funds all of the water policy issues across the country, all the projects that are ongoing. It is a very important bill. If we think of the subject of energy and water, there is not much more controversial or important at this point than those two subjects.

This bill is 1.8 percent under the President's budget request and 1.4 percent over the amount spent in the previous fiscal year. This is a fairly conservative, austere bill we have put together. We have tried to make the best case we can for the best investments for the future.

The other thing that is important to understand is that, at a time when our country is in a deep recession, funding water projects and energy projects provides a way of putting people to work and creating jobs. At the end, rather than only spending and having the money disappear, we have invested and we have returns on those investments in the form of water and energy projects that will benefit the country for many years.

Yesterday, I talked for a moment about the Department of Energy's national laboratories. We fund a lot of issues in this appropriations subcommittee, including all of our science, energy, and weapons laboratories. I am so proud of those laboratories. They remind us of the old Bell Laboratories, where so much good research and scientific inquiry occurred. The Bell Labs are now largely gone. The laboratories that we have--the science, energy and weapons labs--are the repository of the most important research that goes on in this country.

I believe it was in the last fiscal year that Los Alamos in New Mexico announced it had completed work on what is called the Roadrunner, which is the most powerful computer in the world. That most powerful computer does not exist somewhere else, it exists here at Los Alamos Laboratory.

It is a computer that has met the speed of what is called a petaflop. That sounds like a foreign language.

Let me start first by talking about a teraflop. A teraflop is something where a computer can do 1 trillion discrete functions per second. In 1997, we reached that standard of a teraflop, 1 trillion functions per second. Ten years later, the amount of space for the hardware to do what was called a teraflop was a very large home essentially. That is the amount of space it took for the hardware. The amount of energy it took to run all that computer power was the amount of energy it took to supply hundreds and hundreds of homes. Then, 10 years later, a teraflop, the same 1 trillion functions per second, could be provided with the energy equivalent of a 60-watt lightbulb on equipment the size of a very small token.

Now we are not talking about 1 trillion functions per second or a teraflop. We are talking about a computing standard called a petaflop. The Roadrunner achieved it. A petaflop is 1,000 trillion functions per second. It is so powerful and unbelievable, it is almost hard to describe. I asked a scientist: What does it mean that you can do 1,000 trillion functions per second? He said: As an example, they are using them on stockpile stewardship and weapons issues. There are something like 1 or 2 billion synapses in the brain that communicate with each other. This is the first computer that has the capability and the power to analyze what these billion synapses of the brain are doing in communicating in order to produce something from one's eye called vision. We understand we can see. We just don't understand how it is all possible. Yet the development of very powerful computers like the Roadrunner, the world's most powerful computer in this country, allows us to do almost unbelievable things in science and research and inquiry. Is that an investment in the country, in the future? Yes, it is a big investment, an investment that will pay dividends for decades to come.

I point that out to say that we have brought a bill to the floor that deals with so many important energy and water issues. It attempts to accelerate research into renewable energy for programs like wind and solar and biomass. It attempts to evaluate how, through science and research, we can understand our ability to continue to use our most abundant resource: coal. We understand we will have to have a lower carbon future and capture carbon and sequester it or use it for beneficial use. The way we will do that is by investing in the kind of research and inquiry that will unlock the mystery of doing that. I am convinced we will. This is the legislation in which we make those investments.

Senator Bennett has no doubt had the experience I have had because we lead the committee that funds all of this. I have had people from all around the country come to my office breathless about the silver bullet they have now patented that will solve all of our problems in energy, either the newest form of energy or the newest approach to capture carbon. They come in breathless. By the time they are finished talking, we are out of breath because they are so excited about what they are doing.

We have a guy who was a witness at a hearing on the beneficial use of carbon so that we can continue to use coal and not severely impact our environment. He has developed and patented an approach by which he takes the effluent coming out of the stack of a coal-fired generating plant and doesn't separate the CO2. Through chemicals, he mineralizes it and creates a product that is equivalent and harder than and better than concrete. Is that the silver bullet? I don't know. But he made a strong and interesting case before the committee that this will dramatically advance our ability to use coal in the future while at the same time protecting our environment.

Senator Bennett and I, in this legislation, provide the investment funds necessary to begin to scale up and demonstrate new approaches and new patents and new technologies in so many of these areas. Why is all this important? We are unbelievably dependent on foreign oil. Almost 70 percent of the oil we use comes from outside of our country. That makes us vulnerable from a national security and an energy security standpoint. The country knows we have to move off that dramatic dependency and find ways to produce more here. That means more of all kinds of energy. That is what we support in this legislation. We produce, we conserve. We provide greater efficiency for virtually everything we use every day, as we use energy in our daily lives.

Then, in addition to that large area of energy, which we will describe in greater detail as we have amendments to the bill, all of the water projects in this country, through the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, are projects that are making life better for people, providing access to clean water and the storage of water.

We understand how controversial water is, but we also understand that water is essential to economic growth and human health. To monitor and conserve water resources and make the best use of all of those resources is exactly what we are trying to do with this legislation.

I won't describe more except to say this legislation includes the President's recommendations, his wide range of earmarks, and what the White House would like to be funded in water projects. We respect that and have accepted most of what the President has recommended for specific project requests. We have added some, while eliminating some of the President's, that we believe have higher value for various States based on information we have gleaned.

We will have amendments. I think there are already a couple dozen amendments filed. Some say the Congress should not have any imprint on what should be funded here, let's just let the White House tell us what they want funded.

Well, that does not make a whole lot of sense because the folks in this Chamber are elected by their constituents and perhaps have the best sense of what kinds of water projects will best meet the needs of their region or their State. But, as I said, we respect the President's views, and we have funded most of the specific projects he has asked us to fund and made some modifications where we think appropriate and where we think it will improve the legislation.

I say on behalf of myself and Senator Bennett, we were here yesterday, and we did not have amendments offered. We had some filed but not offered. It is a quarter to 12 today, and we will be here all day. We very much hope, if people have amendments, they will come to the floor of the Senate, offer them, and debate them so we can proceed. So we are here. We very much would like to finish this bill by tomorrow evening--perhaps this evening, if people would be as optimistic as we

are. But we would like people to come and offer amendments as soon as possible.

Madam President, I do not know whether Senator Bennett wishes to speak. Well, I believe we have someone who wishes to offer an amendment. We appreciate Senator Voinovich coming to the Chamber.

Madam President, if the Senator would withhold?

Madam President, I, too, rise in support of the amendment offered by Senator Voinovich. It is a good amendment. In fact, it would extend authority we have previously carried in this legislation in fiscal years 2008 and 2009. So I believe we would be able to clear this amendment by voice vote, but it has to be hotlined, I think. So my expectation is we will be able to clear this amendment at some point after lunch today.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I wish to make a very brief statement while we are awaiting Members of the Senate to come and offer amendments. Senator Bennett and I have been very patient. We have a good many amendments filed, so we are waiting for our colleagues to come offer those amendments on the underlying appropriations bill. But I wish to take a couple of minutes while we are waiting, to offer a brief statement.

I am Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. The Commission examines human rights and rule of law developments in China. I would like to talk for a moment about these issues and some developments in China that concern me a great deal.

I want to discuss the increasing harassment of human rights lawyers in China, which this Commission had reported on in great detail. Some have been disbarred, and their law firms have been closed. Others have been physically harassed or beaten. What do these lawyers share in common? The tenacity and courage to take on politically sensitive cases.

I wish to say a few words about China's most famous human rights lawyer, a very courageous man named Gao Zhisheng.

It is 174 days now since Mr. Gao was last seen taken from his bed by more than 10 men. His captors, apparently the ``national defense'' unit of China's public security agency according to the renowned China expert Jerome Cohen, had threatened to kill the young lawyer during previous detentions that were marked by horrific torture. What was his transgression? Why is he in trouble with the Chinese authorities? He agreed to take politically sensitive cases as a lawyer, and represented some of the most vulnerable people in China. He sought to use the law in China to battle corruption, to overturn illegal property seizures, to expose police abuses and defend religious freedom in China.

In October of 2005, Gao wrote an open letter to President Hu and Premier Wen detailing the torture of Falun Gong practitioners by authorities. A month later, the authorities shut down his law firm and revoked his license to practice law.

In 2006, he was convicted of ``inciting subversion of state power,'' and was placed under ``home surveillance'' which was harsher than prison, for Gao and his family.

In 2007, public security officers abducted him again. He was brutally tortured for 50 days. His abduction was prompted by the publication of an open letter he wrote to us in the U.S. Congress.

Think of that. A lawyer in China wrote an open letter to us, Members of the Congress. In it, he alleged widespread human rights abuses in China and described the government's treatment of him and his family. His captors called him a traitor. They warned him he would be killed if he told anyone about being abducted and tortured.

Once released, he was placed again under ``home surveillance''. His family faced constant police surveillance and intimidation. His daughter, barred from attending school, lost hope as a young girl. The treatment became so brutal the family finally decided that their very survival depended on their escaping from China.

But Gao was too closely monitored and could not think of leaving without placing his family at great risk because he was monitored 24 hours a day. He did not want to be in a situation where he would leave his family at even greater risk.

So in January of this year, Gao's wife, 6-year-old son, and teenage daughter were smuggled out of China and into the United States. This is a photograph of Gao, his wife Geng He, his son, and his daughter. This photograph depicts a beautiful family living in China, Mr. Gao and his family, a lawyer who practiced law in support of the most vulnerable in China. As a result, he ran afoul of the Chinese Government.

Mr. Gao disappeared 174 days ago, has not been seen or heard from since. After his family fled China, Gao was abducted once again from his home and no one has seen him alive. We know his situation is extremely grave. I have met with his wife. I have spoken about this on the floor of the Senate previously. His wife came to Washington, DC, and was in the balcony when I and other colleagues spoke about the plight of Mr. Gao.

Of course, he may have been killed. The Chinese Government has not let anyone know his whereabouts or given access to him despite repeated appeals by U.N. agencies, by our government, by foreign governments, NGOs, and the media. The Chinese Government has signed and ratified many international agreements, human rights agreements, that would require it to come clean about Mr. Gao.

I have written to the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, and received a letter back from him that was a nonanswer. I call on the Ambassador again to answer the questions: Where is Mr. Gao being held? Is Mr. Gao alive? What is the Chinese Government doing to this poor soul who had previously been tortured simply because he ran afoul of the state by speaking out and practicing law on behalf of those who are vulnerable in China?

We call on the Chinese Government to give us information about Mr. Gao, to allow him access to a lawyer and to his family and to publicly state and justify the grounds for his continued abuse. The right to speak freely and to challenge the government, all of these are enshrined in the constitution in China. Yet it appears the Chinese Government and the Communist Party seem intent on upholding the violation of these rights in the case of Mr. Gao.

What has the Chinese Government done to Mr. Gao? How do they justify it? When will they allow his family to see him? The government's continued refusal to produce Mr. Gao makes this case resemble those of the ``disappeared'' in Latin American dictatorships.

American law has the practice of habeas corpus. It is the legal action through which a person can seek relief from the unlawful detention of themselves or another. I am aware of nothing similar to America's habeas corpus that exists in Chinese legislation or

legal practice. But the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which China ratified almost 20 years ago, obligates it to come clean about Gao.

I urge the government of China to disclose his whereabouts and justify the grounds for his continued detention. Once again, this is a photograph of a very courageous man, a very courageous Chinese lawyer, who has been incarcerated and tortured and now has been apparently abducted, perhaps killed. We do not know. I call on the Chinese Government to tell us what has happened to Mr. Gao.

Mr. Gao's family and Mr. Gao's wife continually await word now 174 days after their father and husband--this courageous lawyer in China was abducted. Having been abducted before and having been tortured before, they worry very much about the safety of their husband and their father. My hope is that our government, and other governments can expect some word soon from the Government of China about the whereabouts and the well-being of Mr. Gao.

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

Will the Senator yield?

I ask unanimous consent that morning business statements during the consideration of this bill be limited to 10 minutes.

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

While we are waiting for colleagues, some of whom will be offering amendments, I wanted to describe briefly an amendment I am going to offer.

Let me describe an executive order that was established by President Clinton in 1993. That executive order was titled ``Deficit Control and Productivity Improvement in the Administration of the Federal Government.'' Essentially what the President did in 1993 was require Federal agencies to delineate between their program costs and their overhead costs or general administrative costs. He wanted to begin cutting overhead or administrative costs.

The first thing a business will do, by and large, to deal with a downturn in business, is to begin tightening their belt on administrative or general overhead expenditures. We can't yet do that with Federal agencies, because there is no distinction between program costs and administrative or general overhead costs. The minute you propose any reduction, they say: OK, what you are doing is you are trying to cut these programs.

President Clinton issued an executive order in 1993 that required Federal agencies to separate out and report their administrative and general and administrative overhead expenditures versus program costs. Almost none of the agencies complied. So I began discussing with my colleague Senator Coburn legislation that we have since introduced. We may be an odd couple; we have different records on some issues, though not all. In any event, we decided to introduce legislation that would reinstate the requirements of the 1993 executive order, but in this circumstance make it stick and then, ultimately, begin a reduction in overhead expenditures.

The first step of that is to get the information with each of the major Federal agencies on what is general and administrative overhead expense and what are their program expenditures.

Let me give you some examples of administrative waste that are real head scratchers.

When the Transportation Security Agency was first created some years ago, they had to hire airport screeners. That gave rise to some unbelievable overhead costs in trying to recruit. We held a hearing on this. They had 20 recruiters begin a 7-week stay at the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, CO, a luxury resort hotel with an 18-hole golf course. After 7 weeks, the recruiters had hired a total of 50 people. On some days only one or two applicants showed up, but they hung in there. They also, as I began to investigate that, had recruiters show up at the Waldorf Astoria to interview people; the Manele Bay Hotel in Lanai, HI; Hawk's Cay Resort in the Florida Keys. They were recruiting people and having a grand time of it, and in the end they spent $700 million in this manner.

A couple years later TSA spent $1 million on an awards banquet. They hired a party planner for $85,000, three balloon arches for the party for $1,400, seven cakes for $1,800, and $1,500 for three cheese platters. That is some cheese.

I don't mean to pick on the TSA alone. Fore example, the Bureau of Indian Affairs spent $28,000 to send 14 of its most senior staffers to a 4-day Tony Robbins motivational seminar. Overhead? It seems to me it is not overhead anybody ought to be supportive of. The participants in that seminar were trained on how to ``shed excess weight quickly and enjoyably,'' and how to ``reignite the passion in your physical relationship.'' They were also asked to walk on hot coals with minimal training. The $28,000 from the Bureau of Indian Affairs could have paid the annual salary of a fifth grade school teacher at an Indian school.

A week or two ago, the Bureau of the Public Debt at the Treasury announced it would hire a consultant to teach employees how to be funny in the workplace. The consultant was going to teach staff through the use of cartoons. I pointed out that there is very little funny to the taxpayers about the public debt. They scrapped that. In fact, I got a fairly upset letter from the cartoonist who bid the project.

My point is, there is fat in government agencies, especially the big agencies that have grown and have never had to trim overhead and general administrative expenses.

That brings me back to the Clinton order of 1993 that has never been complied with by Federal agencies, a Presidential order that directed certain things for which there has been no action. Senator Coburn and I introduced S. 948 with the objective of reviving that executive order and having the information by which to begin trimming back some or belt tightening some with the Federal agencies on overhead expenditures. I will not offer that bill in its entirety as an amendment to this legislation, but I will instead offer an amendment that represents a first step, which is that the Federal agencies will identify their overhead and general and administrative expenses, separately from program expenses. We need to know and should know.

My hope is, once we do know that information, we will be able to at least initiate some belt tightening because with the kind of Federal budget deficit we have--deficits are growing; I think they are unsustainable and very dangerous for our country--we need to be

tightening our belt in a wide range of areas.

The legislation we have introduced would begin to accomplish that. But in order to accomplish that, the first step must be to get the understanding of what the separate expenditures are of general administrative expenses and overhead expenses. So I will be offering that amendment as we go along.

We will be here apparently for a longer period of time, and at some appropriate moment, I will offer that amendment and hope for its inclusion in this legislation.

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

Mr. President, I will be glad to withhold my request.

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

Mr. President, we are waiting to try to see if we can have a vote on an amendment that has been offered. We, again, would ask colleagues to come and offer their amendments. We have been patiently waiting, Senator Bennett and I, to see if we could get amendments debated and voted upon.

I have a photograph I wish to show on another matter. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. President, at 8:30 p.m. on January 2 in 2008, fellow special forces soldiers found SSG Ryan Maseth on the floor in the bathroom at a security forces building in Baghdad, Iraq. His mother Cheryl Harris was originally told, when she was informed her son had died, that perhaps he had been in the shower with a radio and had been electrocuted. He clearly had been electrocuted when he was found unresponsive in January of last year.

But Cheryl Harris, she wanted to get to the bottom of this, and she would not let this drop. I held two hearings on this subject. We discovered that Kellogg, Brown, and Root had been in charge of fixing widely reported problems at the shower facility where Sergeant Maseth had been electrocuted, and had failed miserably.

Well, this week we obtained an inspector general's report, which shows that there were 230 electrical shocks of American soldiers in facilities in Iraq because they weren't wired properly. Kellogg, Brown, and Root was the contractor, and they failed miserably. In

fact, they were awarded $83 million in award fees, bonuses, for excellent work, which we now know was improper. They hired third country nationals who could not speak good English and didn't know the standards and, in many cases, didn't even do basic grounding of the wiring. We know that Staff Sergeant Maseth was electrocuted. We know there was a young man power-washing a Humvee who was electrocuted. We know that the U.S. Army criminal investigation is now investigating a number of these circumstances.

But when I held the hearings, there was denial all around by Kellogg, Brown, and Root; no, we did great work, they said. By the Pentagon, the Defense Department; no, things were fine, they initially said. It turns out that wasn't the case. We had to ultimately get an inspector general to give us the facts. It is not only on this case. The same thing happened on contaminated water brought to the military bases in Iraq. I held two hearings. The Pentagon denied that KBR had provided unsafe water to our troops. Kellog, Brown and Root--Halliburton, rather, in that case, denied it. But I asked the inspector general to investigate, and they confirmed it. Nonpotable water that was more contaminated than raw water from the Euphrates was sent to our soldiers at bases in Iraq.

These are two inspector general reports. Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense. There are two of them. They tell us what has been the result of improper wiring of facilities in Iraq. ``In the remaining 9 cases,'' they say, talking about electrocutions, not about the 230 electrical shocks--I am talking about the nine who died. ``In the remaining 9 cases, we determined that individuals were killed by improper grounding or faulty equipment. The equipment malfunctions could have related to whether equipment maintenance complied with proper electrical standards, or whether the respective chain of command acted responsibly in protecting servicemembers. As of June 30, 2009, five of those nine cases remained under criminal investigation.''

Until I did the hearings, these were largely unknown. Even when I did the hearings, KBR insisted that it had done nothing wrong.

In the case of SSG Ryan Maseth, specifically, let me read from the IG report:

An engineering evaluation of the failed pump [this is a

pump that serviced the building] determined that insulation

on the internal wires melted, causing a short to the metal

pump housing. Failure to ground the pump and improper

grounding of the building electrical system allowed the metal

pump housing and water distribution pipes in the building to

energize.

This says this soldier was electrocuted while taking a shower because contractors didn't do their job. It is not me saying that. I had hearings in which people working for that contractor showed up at the witness table and said: We worked next to people who didn't know what they were doing, and it subjected these soldiers to great risk.

As I indicated previously, in the Department of Defense, for this work, which we now know was shoddy work and improper work that put soldiers' lives at risk, for that work, this contractor got $83 million in bonus awards. It is unbelievable to me that this sort of thing goes on.

I think there are some in the Pentagon, in the chain of command, and certainly contractors, who have a lot to answer for. This Congress ought to insist upon it.

This mother of this soldier, Cheryl Harris, wasn't going to let this drop. Good for her. That is why I held these hearings to determine what is the truth, because we didn't get the truth from the people who talked to the mother of the soldier who died. In the hearings, witnesses who previously worked in Iraq told us that the KBR's wiring was improper. Now we get the truth from the IG report. We should not have to wait for the IG to confirm these things.

I would think the U.S. Defense Department would search more aggressively for the truth than anyone because it was their soldiers who were put at risk. Regrettably, the Defense Department has not pursued this with the zeal you would have hoped for. It doesn't matter whether it was the sodium dichromate case, where soldiers were exposed to the risks of cancer because of the water brought to the bases, which was more contaminated than raw water from the Euphrates. There were four or five cases. The contractor said it did nothing wrong in each case, and the Pentagon by and large said that KBR had done nothing wrong; but the inspector general said that the problems were real, and documented how the contractor had failed, and the Defense Department had failed to hold the contractor accountable.

This Congress deserves better than that from the Defense Department, the taxpayers deserve better, and a mother such as Cheryl Harris should not have had to wonder whether her son was in mortal danger through the mere act of taking a shower.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, Senator Bennett and I are similar to the Maytag repairman in the old commercials, waiting for someone to come and offer amendments. Many have been filed. No one, apparently, has come to the floor to offer amendments.

I would not be surprised if at some point down the road someone will say: Well, we did not get enough chance or opportunity to offer amendments. Of course, in these intervening hours, there has been plenty of opportunity for someone to show up to offer amendments.

We had intended and hoped to have a vote at 4:30 on a relatively noncontroversial amendment. But for the last hour or so, we have been waiting, on a noncontroversial amendment, for a staff person to contact the Senator who is apparently not able to be contacted to tell us whether the Senate can vote on a noncontroversial amendment.

Such is the life of the Senate, a place where no one has ever been accused of

speeding. We only ask, having been here now yesterday and today, Senator Bennett and I only ask, having put together this bill that funds all of our energy and water issues, if there are Senators who wish to offer amendments--and many have been filed--they would come here and decide to offer them because we will not have floor time for the entire week this week. We are not going to be able to be on the floor. The time does not exist to allow us to be here all week.

Those Senators who wish to offer amendments are, it seems to me, going to find very little sympathy from me, and I hope from other Members of the Senate, if they at some point down the road say: Well, we did not have an opportunity. They have had plenty of opportunities. It is they have chosen not to come to the floor to offer amendments.

It may be they feel the amendments do not have merit or are not very important or whatever. But if they do have merit and are important--I assume some do--I would hope they would come soon and give us the opportunity to entertain amendments and discuss them, debate them and have votes on them so we can move this appropriations bill along.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, Senator Bennett and I have discussed the

McCain amendment. Senator McCain has offered his amendment. I will speak briefly in opposition to the amendment. I believe Senator Bennett also has spoken. We are prepared to have a vote at 6 o'clock. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a vote on the McCain amendment at 6 o'clock. I further ask consent that no second degrees be in order.

Mr. President, let me withhold for a moment.

I ask my unanimous consent request be considered.

Mr. President, in response to Senator McCain's amendment, he has come to the floor to talk about legislative-directed spending. We have some disagreements on that subject. I respect the opinions of Senator McCain on some of these issues. I disagree, however, with the proposition that somehow what is in a President's budget, that is the recommendation of a President in the President's budget, has any greater import than the recommendations of Senators about what kind of projects have merit.

The Constitution of this country provides that the President proposes and Congress disposes. The power of the purse is here. It is the Congress that raises the funds and it is the Congress that is responsible for the expenditure of those funds.

There has been a lot of discussion about ``earmarks.'' Congressionally directed spending is spending that has been dramatically reformed. We have substantially reduced the number of projects in this bill.

By the way, I indicated when I began discussing the bill that Senator Bennett and I have brought to the floor, talking about the number of earmarks the President has requested, a very large number of earmarks are in the President's request about what he believes we should pursue with respect to projects and how they should be funded. We have agreed with him in most cases, disagreed in a few cases, and in those areas where we have disagreed, we have not funded that which the President has requested because we didn't think it appropriate to fund it. We have in other cases funded other proposals that have come to us from Senators that have, we believe, more merit.

I do not believe the executive branch always gets it right and the congressional branch or legislative branch never gets it right. I think somewhere between represents the best of what both can offer. That is why we have preserved a substantial majority of what President Obama in his budget to the Congress has requested.

If you look back in history you will see there are a good many examples of projects that started out as legislative-directed spending, or funding, that have had major national implications. In 1873, Congress appropriated funds for the Indian police to keep order and prohibit illegal liquor traffic on Indian reservations. That was through a congressional add-on or earmark. Only later, then, were Indian tribal police forces and court systems authorized and included in the President's budget. But it was Congress that initiated the law enforcement approach that appropriated funds for Indian police.

In 1883, the U.S. Navy began moving from wooden to steel ships. That came as a result of a decision by the Congress. The Congress said we want to move from wooden to steel ships. That was appropriated in the Naval Service Appropriations Act. It directed the Navy to construct two steel steam cruising vessels from funds appropriated but not required for repairing wooden ships.

In 1943, the National School Lunch Program was established through a $50 million earmark in the 1944 Agriculture Appropriations bill. Of course, that turns out to have been a wonderful idea. The school lunch program is a remarkable success.

In 1987, it was the Congress that earmarked funding to what was called gene mapping, which later became the Human Genome Project. That didn't come from some bureaucrat or somebody down in an executive agency who said, You know what we should do, let's begin mapping human genes. Instead, it came from here, in the Congress. In fact, former Senator Domenici had a lot to do with that. So Congress originated the Human Genome Project. Guess what. We now have the first owners manual for the human body. It is changing everything about medicine. That didn't come because somebody in the executive branch said let's do that. That came because someone on the floor of the Senate here said let's do this because it has merit.

These are only a few examples of things that represent substantial progress as a result of ideas that come from the Congress. Despite what you hear from opponents of that sort of thing, if you got rid of all of the ideas that came from the Congress about how to spend money in the Energy and Water bill, we would still be spending the same amount of money because what we spend in this subcommittee is up to the allocation given us by the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee says here is what is going to be spent. That decision is made by the Senate. Then an appropriation, called a 302(b) allocation, I should say, goes to this subcommittee and that is what we allocate. That is what we decide we will have to spend.

If we did not do that, then that money goes down to an agency and someone in the Federal agency says here is what we are going to spend it on. So eliminating all of the legislative-directed funding would not reduce the Federal budget deficit at all. I know that is claimed but it is simply not the case. It just is not the case.

Let me also say the issue of legislative-directed funding is something we have dramatically transformed. No. 1, we have cut the amount of legislative-directed funding requests in half. By requests I am talking about those that made it into the bill. We have cut it by half. We got rid of half of it because I think it went way too far, so we cut it back by 50 percent. Second, every single request has to now be publicly disclosed and every single piece of legislative-directed funding that is in this bill is described by who asked for it, how much it is, and what its purpose is.

As I indicated before, what we are doing in this bill is investing in improving this country's infrastructure, improving and investing in this country's energy future and putting people to work, doing things that will pay dividends for decades to come. That is what this subcommittee does. This is not some routine subcommittee, this is the subcommittee that funds the substantial amount of energy projects and research in this country that will have implications for decades.

This is the subcommittee that funds all of the water projects--the dams, the harbors, the navigation, all of those issues that are so important to this country's water development and water conservation. So this is not some routine kind of expenditure, this is an investment that will create substantial jobs in the future. It will transform our energy future, in my judgment.

I described earlier the importance of the national laboratories we fund, the science laboratories, the energy laboratories, the weapons laboratories that represent the repository of the most breathtaking, cutting-edge, world-class research in so many different areas. All of that is done in this subcommittee.

I am pleased to have spent time with Senator Bennett. We Republicans and Democrats on this committee worked through a lot of requests, requests from President Obama, from his team, about how they want to fund a wide range of issues and requests from our colleagues.

I would say Secretary Chu had requested a number of research hubs he wanted to do, kind of a transformation in the Department of Energy. We decided to proceed with three of those hubs. It makes sense to us to begin to try moving down that road in a range of areas where you provide real focus on specific areas of energy and research into those areas.

If the McCain amendment were to be agreed to, my understanding is they would be considered not authorized and therefore not allowed. That doesn't make any sense to me. There has been, for a long period of time, general authorization for the programs in the Department of Energy. We routinely have

never authorized every year that which we are doing here. We fund programs that generally have been ongoing within the larger framework of the authorization of the Department of Energy.

I very much oppose the McCain amendment. I respect our colleague, Senator McCain. He is a good legislator. We have come to disagreement on this subject. I hope my colleagues will join myself and Senator Bennett in defeating the amendment.

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

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

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object, has the Senator provided copies of the amendment to our side?

If the Senator from Tennessee will visit with me just briefly, I object for the moment so I may take a look at the amendment.

Madam President, why don't we ask the Senator to proceed to discuss the amendment, and let's look at the language.

Madam President, if Senator Alexander would yield?

Yes, without the Senator losing his right to the floor. We think the way we would like to proceed is for the Senator from Tennessee to go ahead and offer his amendment and then finish his statement, after which we will go into a period of morning business, for not more than 10 minutes for each presentation. I believe Senator Kaufman has morning business.

So the point is, Senator Bennett and I have discussed it, and we feel it appropriate for the Senator from Tennessee to offer the amendment at the end of his discussion, after which we will go into morning business.

Mr. President, the meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue this week in Washington is an important opportunity. It is a chance to advance a comprehensive relationship between our two countries and to highlight the importance of fundamental rights to that relationship.

I am chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. The Commission examines human rights and rule of law developments in China. In recent years, I have witnessed human rights concerns being pushed to the margins of the U.S.-China relationship. This is due in part to China's growing financial, diplomatic and military strength. Sidelining our human rights concerns with China is a strategic mistake for the

Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, July 30, 2009, at 2:15 p.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing to examine the increase of gang activity in Indian country.

Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 202-224-2251.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 28, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Regulatory Modernization: Perspectives on Insurance.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at 2:15 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to

meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 28, 2009, at 10 a.m., in SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 28, 2009, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Prosecuting Terrorists: Civilian and Military Trials for GTMO and Beyond.'' The witness list is attached.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 28, 2009, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I call up the substitute amendment to H.R. 3183, which is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the substitute amendment.

Mr. President, this is the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee bill that I bring to the floor this week with my colleague, Senator Bennett, from Utah. I am chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Bennett is the ranking member, and we have worked on the bill for some long while.

On July 9, 2009, by a vote of 30 to 0, the committee recommended the bill,

as amended, be reported to the Senate. That is, the full Appropriations Committee has recommended this bill, on a bipartisan basis, without objection, 30 to 0.

I want to thank both Chairman Inouye and Vice Chairman Cochran for their support of this bill, and I want to especially thank Senator Bennett for his work with me in developing the legislation.

Let me, perhaps as I begin rather than end, thank the staff of the subcommittee: Scott O'Malia, on the minority side; Doug Clapp, Roger Cockrell, Barry Gaffney, Franz Wuerfmannsdobler, and Molly Barackman.

There are many staff on both sides who have worked very hard. Putting legislation of this type together is not easy. We are working with limited resources, at a time when we have relatively difficult circumstances, to try to deal with Federal budget deficits and other issues, but we have put a bill together that has garnered bipartisan support.

The allocation for this bill is just under $34.3 billion. With score keeping adjustments, it comes down to about $33.75 billion. The total funding for our bill is 1.8 percent less than the President's budget request and just 1.4 percent over the regular energy and water bill of 2009. That means there is a very modest increase for the programs in this legislation.

Let me say generally this legislation deals with the energy and the water programs across the country. Energy and water are very important to this country's long-term future. What we are working to support is jobs and the economic health of our country as well as an adequate energy supply dealing. These energy challenges we face from being overly dependent on foreign oil doing something about climate change require action. We are dealing with energy accounts in this bill that are very important for the country.

We have tried to make funding determinations about them that we think move this country in the right direction and help make us less dependent on foreign sources of oil. That means that we have, in related authorizing legislation, actually expanded drilling and the determination to try to find additional supply in this country. Fossil energy from coal, oil and natural gas is going to continue to be used in the future. But we need to use them differently.

This legislation includes opportunities to do a range of activities that I believe will be in the country's best interests. Working with Senator Bennett, we know the legislation dealing with energy and water require substantially greater resources. We have far more water projects underway in this country than we can possibly fund in the short term. I believe we have something close to $60 billion of unfunded water projects. The Corps of Engineers, and particularly the Bureau of Reclamation, especially for western America, are charged with funding these projects.

Then, on the energy side, the accounts dealing with efficiency and reliability and a wide range of energy accounts--all of those accounts understand and recognize that we do not have unlimited amounts of money. Our country has very substantial and growing budget deficits because we are in a deep recession.

My colleague from Oklahoma was speaking as I came to the Chamber. I agree with most of what he described with respect to hydraulic fracturing. He is describing something that affects our ability to continue to produce a domestic supply of oil and natural gas. My colleague should know we have had now from both the previous Presidents that we zero out the research and development in oil and gas development. The current President's budget seeks to cut the oil program. My colleague and I have restored the funding for that. One of the reasons we have done it is our country leads the world, for example, in unconventional and ultra deep water drilling. We need to retain program funding to keep that advantage.

We need to produce more here at home, and we have added the funding back. As I indicated, both the previous administration and this administration decided not to support the research and development funding for oil research and development.

The description of the shale formations that Senator Inhofe talked about earlier remind me that 5 to 10 years ago we could not drill in these formations. They are now delivering substantially new resources. That energy was not accessible to this country because we didn't have the technology and the capability. My colleague described the Bakken shale in North Dakota, which I want to describe in a moment. I think it is so important for us to have the research and development funding which current technology benefitted from in the past. With sustained investments, we might have future technology options available as well.

To go to the previous point, the Bakken shale is a formation 100 feet thick, and it is 10,000 feet underground. To drill through that 100- foot-thick seam, they have divided it into thirds--top third, middle third, and bottom third. They go down two miles with one drilling rig, 10,000 feet down, searching for the middle third of a seam of shale that is 100 feet thick. They do a big curve when they get down two miles, then they go out two miles. The same drilling rig, goes down two miles then makes a large curve and goes out two miles, following the middle third of a seam a hundred feet thick called the Bakken shale.

A few years ago I asked the U.S. Geological Survey to do an assessment of what is recoverable in the Bakken shale. They came back with their estimate after a 2-year study, saying there are 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil using today's technology. It is the largest assessment of recoverable oil in the lower 48 States ever made in the history of our country.

None of that was available to us a decade ago. It was there, but it was not available to us. How do we get that oil? When they drill down with a drilling rig, it takes about 35 days to drill that hole, then fracture it under high pressure--hydraulic fracture, they call it. After that, they tear down that rig and move it away a ways and drill another hole--every 35 days. The hydraulic fracture allows that rock formation to be fractured so that the oil drips and then is extracted from the well. They are pulling up oil out of those wells, in some cases 2,000 barrels a day. The key to that is, No. 1, have they carried out the research and development so that we lead the world in the ability to do that kind of very sophisticated exploration. We continue to put that funding in this bill and have always had it in this legislation. That is what has opened up this unbelievable opportunity.

The second half of it, as my colleague described, is not something we are doing in this bill, but the ability to continue hydraulic fracturing, decade after decade, I think for nearly 50 years, I am not aware of any evidence that there is any contamination of groundwater with hydraulic fracturing when companies have followed the appropriate guidelines and regulations.

I have been describing one small part of what Senator Bennett and I have done with respect to increasing our domestic energy needs in this bill.

We also want to encourage the development of renewable energy. We have done a lot of things in this legislation to do that. We want to encourage the ability to use our most abundant resources, such as coal, but we must use them differently. That means, if you are going to have a lower carbon future you have to decarbonize the use of coal. So we need to make substantial investments to be able to decarbonize the use of coal.

I think we can do that. Some say let's give up on it. I say let's find a way to use our most abundant resource by decarbonizing it so that we can move to a low carbon future to protect our planet.

We are doing a lot of things in this legislation that I think move this country in the right direction for a better and a more secure energy future. When I talk about energy and say that nearly 70 percent of our oil now comes from outside of our country, I think most people would look at that and say that makes us vulnerable. That is an energy security issue. It is also a national security issue. If, God forbid, somehow, some way, someday, someone shuts off the supply of foreign oil to our country, this economy of ours would be flat on its back. So I think everyone--the previous administration, this administration-- believes we must be less dependent on foreign energy.

The other thing that is important to understand is, although about 70 percent of our oil comes from outside our country, nearly 70 percent of the oil is used in our transportation fleet. We are doing things in this appropriations bill that moves us toward a different kind of transportation fleet, an electric-drive fleet, for example. If we are using 70 percent of our oil for transportation in this country, how do we make us less dependent on foreign oil? Convert; move to something else.

We have funding in this legislation and we had funding in the Economic Recovery Program for battery technology and for a whole series of things that help accelerate the movement toward an electronic transportation system.

All of these things are things we can do. It is only a matter of establishing public policy that encourages it, public policy that is supportive of the direction we want to go.

I am going to be describing in some detail some of the accounts. I have talked about the energy piece of this a bit. We have programs in here for electricity, fossil energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy--small little things that people don't think much about.

Energy efficiency: Almost everything we use these days--a refrigerator, a dishwasher, an air conditioner--all of the appliances are much more efficient than they have ever been. I recall some years ago when I was supporting and pushing something called a SEER 13 standard for air conditioners--a SEER 13 standard. You would have thought we were trying to bankrupt the country by insisting on a much higher standard of energy efficiency for air conditioners. We have gotten to SEER 13 and are looking beyond that now, but we have pushed standards so that when you put a new refrigerator in your kitchen these days it uses so much less electricity because it is so much more efficient.

I recognize--someone told me this a while back--yes, we are putting these unbelievably efficient refrigerators in kitchens, and then they take the old refrigerator and put it in the garage to store beer and soda. I recognize we need to get rid of those old refrigerators, perhaps, but it is people's right to move them into the garage.

My point is, these smaller issues we are funding, energy efficiency standards for appliances are very important. When we get up in the morning we flick a switch and a light goes on. We turn on an electric razor and never think much about what makes it go. We plug it into a wall. We go down and put something in the toaster and the bread toasts because there is electricity. We put a key in the automobile, and we drive off to work.

As Dr. Chu says, 2,000 years ago, normally when you would go look for food someplace, 2000 years ago you would get on one horse and go look for something to eat. Now, of course, we get in modern conveniences and we take 240 horses to go to the 7-Eleven or grocery store. That is the way our engines work and use energy.

But we are required now to be smarter and use energy in a different way. For a wide range of accounts, my colleague Senator Bennett and I will begin describing some of these accounts in more detail in between other presentations. With the funding in this legislation, we are trying to change the way we use energy: Develop a more abundant supply of energy, including changing the way our vehicle fleet is powered. One issue with respect to the transportation fleet is moving toward a hydrogen and fuel cell future, I think a future beyond electric drive. Still, hydrogen is everywhere; it is ubiquitous. I believe a hydrogen fuel cell future is something our children and grandchildren will likely see realized and will be very important to this country.

The administration, in its budget request for this fiscal year to the Congress decided it would zero out 189 existing contracts in hydrogen and fuel cell program. We included the money again because we don't think that is wise to cut ongoing work.

I agree in the short term we are going to move toward an electric drive transportation system, but, in the longer term, we need to continue the research toward hydrogen and fuel cells, and we included that money in this bill.

Let me turn for a moment--I am going to come back to some energy issues a little later, after Senator Bennett talks about this bill as well. I want to talk about water, because this bill, after all, is also about water. As all of us who have studied history know, water is the subject of great controversy. Water is very important. So many things related to development and jobs in this country relates to accessible water.

We have issues in this bill dealing with the Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation with respect to water. These address storing water, moving water, dredging water in ports and channels so that commerce can occur, and much more. In some cases, we must address not having enough water or too much water. We have a lot of issues.

As I indicated earlier, we have far more water projects than we can possibly fund. Senator Bennett and I decided we simply could not fund what are called new starts in construction and investigations this year. We hope to do that next year, but we could not do it this year. We didn't have the money. We think it is far better to continue funding for existing projects and try to complete some of the projects underway and then proceed with new starts next year. We had 92 requests for new projects starts. We have a $60 billion backlog and 92 requests, some of which came from the President. We believed we could not do it. I wish we could, but we could not do it.

I also want to make a point that there are, in this legislation especially, legislatively-directed proposals, that is the Congress itself directs certain funding. The President sent us proposals, particularly on water projects--energy projects as well, but especially water projects. He requested earmarked funding. In other words, the President says, all right, here is what I want you to have for water. These are my Presidential earmarks and how I believe you should spend the water money.

Some of them made a lot of sense. Some of them did not. Senator Bennett and I also included, in this legislation perhaps more than other legislation, legislative-directed funding on the amount of funding we believed should go to projects.

Because, frankly, I think perhaps Members of Congress have a much better idea of what are the water needs more than the Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, Office of Management and Budget, or the White House. They know which projects will benefit their State's commerce.

So this subcommittee, going back many decades, has had a tradition of legislatively-directed funding toward the highest priorities, particularly in water projects. That makes a lot of sense to me. I assume we may well have some folks come and decide that some of them do not have merit.

It is important to discuss the individual programs for individual legislatively-directed amounts, and we will do that when necessary. But I did wish to say once again that we received a lot of recommendations from the President for earmarking the funding for various projects, and we have included many of these. We have also included projects that were recommended by the Members of Congress that were well underway.

I have other things to discuss, but let me yield the floor because I know my colleague, Senator Bennett, will want to describe some of this bill as well.

Let me close as I opened by saying it is a pleasure to work with Senator Bennett on these issues. These do represent investments in our country. Some things are spent and you never get it back, it is just spending. But when you build water projects or invest in the energy further such as through this bill, then it represents investments in the country's future that will provide very substantial dividends for the country for a long time to come.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, a couple of additional points:

No. 1, the administration's budget to the Congress for this year did recommend an increase in Corps of Engineers funding for water issues. They should be complimented for that. That is a step forward. We have seen relatively flat and underfunded budgets for the Corps of Engineers in recent years. It is encouraging. We added to it, of course, but the investment needed in major water projects to be completed is very important. I appreciate the administration's decision to increase, at long last, the recommendations there.

No. 2, my colleague, Senator Bennett, mentioned Yucca Mountain. I expect that will be mentioned more than once during this discussion in the next day or so. We are going to see the building of some additional nuclear power plants in this country. The reason is pretty obvious: Once built, nuclear power plants do not emit CO2 and therefore do not contribute to the warming of the planet. We are beginning to see additional activity. Companies are preparing license applications now.

Senator Bennett described the issue of Yucca Mountain. I do want to make a point about that because it is important. I didn't come to the Congress with a strong feeling about building additional nuclear power plants. I have, with my colleague, increased some funding for loan guarantees for nuclear power plants in a previous appropriations bill because I come down on the side of doing everything, and doing it as best we can, to address this country's energy challenges. They are significant and require building some additional nuclear power capacity.

This President campaigned last year against opening Yucca Mountain. It was not a surprise to the American people that he would at this juncture take the position that Yucca is not the place for a permanent repository for high level waste materials. The Secretary of Energy and the administration have recognized that, not proceeding with opening Yucca Mountain, does not mean we don't need an intellectual framework for nuclear waste. They have indicated and committed themselves to that, the development of an alternative framework for how we address the issue of waste. We have to do that because, in order to build plants, we have to establish waste confidence. I am convinced the administration is doing the right thing in the sense that they have said we don't want to open Yucca, but they are saying there has to be an alternative. We are committed to trying to find a solution and explore the alternatives with a blue ribbon commission.

I wish to mention the National Laboratories. This bill funds our national science, energy, and weapons laboratories. These laboratories are the crown jewels of our country's research capability. We used to have the Bell Labs, and we had laboratories that were world renowned, world class, that didn't have anything comparable in the world. The Bell Labs largely don't exist at this point. Much of our capability in science for research and technology exists in these science labs we fund in this bill. I am determined to find ways to make certain those best and brightest scientists and engineers working on the future of tomorrow and the new technologies for tomorrow at the national science laboratories have some feeling of security about their future. The last thing we should want is to see the roller-coaster approach to jobs at our National Laboratories and our science labs.

We had a hearing some while ago in our subcommittee on the issue of how to continue to use coal in the future. That leads to the question of carbon capture and sequestration. I held a hearing in our subcommittee on carbon capture and beneficial use. One of the witnesses from one of our laboratories, Margie Tatro from Sandia National Laboratory, talked about what they are working on. It was breathtaking. We have this giant problem related to using coal, but it is not an insurmountable problem. She talked about the work they are doing with respect to concentrated solar power to be used in a heat engine to take CO2 in on one side of the engine and water in on the other side. They fracture the molecules and, through thermal chemical dynamics, they create methane gas from the air. I don't know exactly where all this goes.

Deep in our laboratories are some of the brightest people working on these issues. We will solve some very vexing and challenging energy issues through research and development programs. I look at what we are doing in those areas for energy efficiency and renewable energy such as for hydrogen, biomass and biorefineries, solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, vehicle technologies, building technologies, industrial technology, weatherization, State energy programs, advanced battery manufacturing, and more.

All of these issues are investments in the country's future and will, no doubt in my mind, unlock the mysteries of science to give us the capability to do things we did not dream possible. That opens up the opportunity to find new sources of energy, to move us way from this unbelievable dependence on foreign oil, to move toward different constructs in building efficiency, appliances, and new vehicles. That solves a number of things, allowing us to produce more energy, more renewable energy, more fossil energy, but it also allows us to conserve much more because we are prodigious wasters of energy.

I didn't mention one other area of electricity--and it goes with conservation--incorporating smart grid technologies. We will in the future see substantial amounts of smart metering in homes that allows people to change very substantially the way they use electricity in their homes. They have not had, up until this point, that capability, but the capability, because of the research going on and the demonstration programs, some of which we are funding, can increase all across the country in the future. That, too, will invest in making us less dependent on foreign oil.

All of these things play a role in what we are trying to do.

In the electric delivery and energy reliability portion of our bill, we have programs for clean energy transmission and reliability, smart grid, cyber-security for energy delivery systems. They are examples of a wide range of investments in all of these areas that will make this a better country and advance our energy and water interests.

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

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

Madam President, I rise to make a statement in honor and in memory of William Proctor Jones. He died three weeks ago on July 7, the day before we actually wrote and marked up this bill in subcommittee.

Proctor Jones was a longtime staff director of this subcommittee. His death is a great sorrow for our members and staff who worked with him. His life was a great blessing for this country.

He first came to work in the Senate in April of 1961. He went to work for his home State senator, Richard Russell of Georgia. Proctor moved to the Appropriations Committee in 1970 and worked there 27 years until 1997. Since 1973 and beyond and for the majority of his time on the committee, Proctor served as staff director of the Energy and Water Subcommittee.

For decades, as this bill was brought to the floor of the Senate, Proctor Jones was sitting on the floor knowing that he played a very significant role in putting together the investments this country was making in the critical areas of energy and water. Proctor became a very close adviser and close personal friend of Senator Bennett Johnston, the Energy and Water Subcommittee's longtime chairman.

For those of us who knew Proctor and relied upon him, he defined the very best of the term ``public servant.'' He was tireless in his work. He was a master of the budget and the appropriations process and an expert in many policy fields this subcommittee has dealt with over the years. His service made this country a much better place.

This country moves forward because a lot of people do a lot of good things in common cause to make judgments about what will strengthen America. It is often the case that those of us who are elected and serve have our names on a piece of legislation or our names on a report of a subcommittee such as this, but it is also often the case that some very key people who have devoted their lives to good public service played a major role in making good legislation happen. William Proctor Jones is one of those.

Today, as we take up the piece of legislation from a subcommittee he spent decades working on, I honor his memory and thank him and his family in this time of sorrow and thank Proctor Jones for all of the work he did for his country.

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

Madam President, the Senator from Utah and I would ask of Senators who have amendments to this legislation that if they wish to come now, we would very much like to have amendments offered. Certainly the majority leader has wanted to bring appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee described appropriately, a few minutes ago, the importance of trying to get these appropriations bills completed. So working through the full committee we are winding our way through.

Now Senator Reid is bringing them to the floor, and I deeply appreciate his determination to do that. It is a marked departure from what we were able to do previously. We would like to get individual appropriations bills done, get them to conference, have a conference with the House, and get them to the President for his signature. That is the way the Congress is supposed to work. It is the way appropriations bills are supposed to be done.

We will have amendments, I am sure. We were told someone has prepared nearly 20 amendments. But, look, they ought to have that opportunity. In the past couple years they did not have that opportunity. That is what Senator Reid is doing now, to say: Bring these to the floor. Give people an opportunity to take a look at what the Appropriations Committee has done. If they disagree, come to the floor with amendments, have a discussion, and vote on the amendments. It is exactly what we should do.

It is a problem, however, that we do not have unlimited time. My hope is--and I think Senator Bennett's hope is--we could have people come over, offer amendments, and we could finish this bill in the next couple of days. It would be great to finish it late tomorrow night or perhaps Wednesday at the latest. But in order to do that, we would need some cooperation. We would very much ask people to tell us what their amendments are, come over and file amendments, and come and debate the amendments. The point is, we are here and ready, and we very much want to get this piece of legislation completed.

I have described in some respects the urgency of our energy policies in this country. Well, the fact is, passing this legislation, and doing so now, will give us the opportunity early in the fiscal year to have the Department of Energy and the administration develop energy strategy based on these investments. For the first time in a long time, we will know where we are headed.

I have always felt we ought to be saying: Look, here is where America is headed on energy. Here is what we are going to do on renewable energy. Here is what we are going to do on carbon capture and storage. Here is where we are headed. You can invest in it. You can count on it, believe in it, because this is America's policy. Part of that policy is developed through the authorization committees, and no small part is developed in what we fund in the Department of Energy. Exactly the same is true with respect to water policy.

Let me make this point as well. This country had an economy that fell off a cliff in the first part of October of last year, and we still are in a deep recession. In the middle of a very deep recession, a piece of legislation that is going to provide the funding, hopefully by October 1, to proceed ahead building and creating water projects and other things puts people to work. It invests in the country's economy in a way that puts people to work and provides jobs. That is very important.

For a lot of reasons, again, I commend the majority leader for bringing this to the floor. We will hope for some cooperation. We want amendments, if they want to bring amendments to the floor. We want them today or beginning in the morning. Senator Bennett and I wish to work with our colleagues to try to review amendments. We wish to work with them. Perhaps they have some ideas we did not think of. We could add to this bill by consent, or others perhaps we can debate and have a vote on.

We want to make that known to our colleagues. We are looking forward to completing this bill in the early part or at least no later than midweek.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I will object, the Senator from Oklahoma knows that such a unanimous consent cannot be entertained at this point. He

has not consulted with the majority leader who is in charge of scheduling legislative matters to come to the floor of the Senate. So on behalf of the majority leader, I object.

Madam President, the Senator from Oklahoma had asked to speak in morning business. Senator Bennett and I have no objection to that. We are waiting for amendments to be offered. If someone were to come and offer an amendment, we would hope the Senator would relinquish the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Barry Gaffney, a detailee to the Energy and Water Subcommittee, be granted the privilege of the floor during the consideration of this bill.

Mr. President, let me thank the chairman of the committee, Senator Levin, and Senator McCain, for their work on this bill.

We talk about a lot of things in this bill: jet fighters, bombers, tankers, submarines, unmanned aerial vehicles--lots and lots of subjects. The subjects are about the defense of our country, what provides national security for our country, so these are all very important. I wish to speak, however, about one piece of this legislation that probably is not mentioned much but I think is very important; that is, the reduction of the threat of nuclear weapons.

There is something over $400 million in this bill that deals with the efforts to try to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons.

I have had at my desk in the Senate for a long while some pieces of equipment. I ask unanimous consent to show them.

Mr. President, this is a piece of a wing of a Soviet Backfire bomber. We did not shoot this plane down. This was sawed off of a wing of a Backfire bomber that would have carried nuclear weapons, presumably, to threaten our country. But under something called the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program that we engaged in with the countries of the former Soviet Union, bombers were destroyed--oh, not by bullets, but they were sawed in half and the wings were taken off and so on.

This is a tube of copper, I show you, from the electrical wiring of a Russian submarine that carried nuclear weapons targeting this country. This was

ground up by the Cooperative Threat Reduction program. The submarine was not destroyed by American bullets. This is part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction effort.

This, I show you, is a hinge from a nuclear weapon on top of a missile that was in the Ukraine, presumably aimed at an American target. Where this missile once sat now grows sunflowers in the Ukraine.

The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program--now, why is that important?

Mr. President, we have a lot of threats to this country, but none is as great as the threat of a nuclear warhead being exploded in a major American city or any metropolitan area of this world, for example.

Here, as shown on this chart, is how many nuclear warheads we have. This is from the Carnegie Endowment in 2009. They estimate the number of nuclear warheads that exist on the planet--Russia, about 14,000 nuclear weapons; the United States, 10,500 nuclear weapons; China, about 125; France, about 300; Britain, about 160 nuclear weapons; Israel, 80; India, 50; Pakistan, 60, and so on.

Let me tell you a story, if I might. It is a story that has been written about extensively. In fact, it was the lead for a book called ``Nuclear Terrorism,'' written by Graham Allison.

It was 1 month after 9/11/2001. It was October 11, 2001, when, at the Presidential daily briefing to President George W. Bush, George Tenet, the then-head of the CIA, informed the President that a CIA agent code named Dragonfire had reported that al-Qaida terrorists possessed a 10- kiloton nuclear weapon, evidently stolen from the Russian arsenal. According to Dragonfire, the CIA agent, it had been smuggled into an American city, probably New York City. Again, at the President's daily briefing, 1 month to the day after 9/11, it was said that al-Qaida had smuggled a 10-kiloton stolen nuclear weapon into perhaps New York City.

The CIA had no independent confirmation of it, but in the hours that followed, the Secretary of State, the National Security Adviser, and others struggled with the question of whom do you call to talk about the threat and how do you do it without the news media putting out a bulletin that there is a rumor that a stolen 10-kiloton Russian nuclear weapon is in an American city without causing panic and mass exodus?

So they tried to determine what to do about this and analyzed: Was it plausible, possible that al-Qaida terrorists had stolen a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon? The answer is yes. Did the Russians possess 10-kiloton nuclear weapons? Yes. Did they have good command and control over them, absolute command and control? No. Was it possible, having stolen it, that the terrorists could have smuggled it into New York City or, perhaps, Washington, DC? Yes. And could the terrorists detonate it? The answer is yes. If it were trucked, for example, to Times Square and exploded, would half a million people be killed instantly? Yes.

But they did not tell anybody. They did not tell the mayor of New York. They sent nuclear weapons search teams to New York. The President sent teams to New York but did not inform anybody, for obvious reasons.

About a month later, while there were a lot of people having an apoplectic seizure about this prospect, it was determined that perhaps the report by the CIA agent, Dragonfire, was not credible.

Now, think of that. Think of the unbelievable angst about the potential of one rather small nuclear weapon, a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, having been stolen on a planet where there are 25,000 of them-- most of them much larger than that. Think of the angst about the potential of having one stolen by a terrorist group and exploded in the middle of an American city. That is just one weapon, and there are 25,000.

There are a lot of people who are good thinkers and very experienced in these areas who will tell you, including former Defense Secretary Perry and others, that there is a very high probability that within the coming 10 years there will be a nuclear weapon exploded in a major city.

So with all of the talk about planes and ships and all of the issues in this bill, this issue of the threat reduction, with $400 million- plus in this bill--the threat reduction that allowed us to dismantle nuclear weapons, cut off the wings of an adversary's bombers, grind up the wiring, and destroy the submarines--that is critically important. The question for us is, What are we going to do to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world? Because almost certainly there will be an explosion of a nuclear weapon in a metropolitan area at some point in the future unless we provide the leadership in arms talks and arms reductions. It is our responsibility to lead. It falls on our shoulders to bear this burden to lead.

I know there are some who would say: Do you know what, that is a sign of weakness to be talking about reducing nuclear weapons. I am not suggesting reducing America's strength or allowing America to be undefended. I am suggesting the world will be a much safer place if we do not have 25,000 nuclear weapons, and this world will be a much safer place if we find a way to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Every day now, we see the spectacle of Iran. Iran possessing a nuclear weapon? That is scary. North Korea. We do not know how many weapons North Korea has, but the Carnegie Endowment says perhaps less than 10.

But what do we do now? What do we do to decide we are going to be involved in a very aggressive way leading the world in the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and beginning to reduce the number of nuclear weapons?

We are operating now under what is called the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, also known as the Moscow Treaty, that our last President negotiated. It required the United States and Russia to have no more than 2,200 operationally deployed nuclear weapons. It does not mean that is the limit. That is just the operationally deployed limit. They can have far more nuclear weapons than that. By 2012, they had to be down to 2,200 operationally deployed. It does not restrict delivery vehicles of any kind--missiles, ships, planes. It does not have any verification measures, and it expires in 2012.

There is another treaty called the START Treaty, which was superseded by the treaty I just described. But some parts of the START Treaty are still in force because it does have verification and onsite monitoring and confidence-building measures and it does limit delivery vehicles. But that limitation is going to expire, and that START Treaty expires at the end of this year.

So the point I want to make today simply is this: We are talking about a lot of very important things, and I think the bill put together by the chairman and ranking member, this Defense authorization bill, is very important. I understand that. We need an Army, a Navy, the Marines, the Air Force. We need them well equipped. This is a troubling world in some corners. We face an enormous threat of terrorism. We face a lot of different threats. We must keep our eye on the ball. We, above all, here in the United States have a responsibility to provide the leadership that is necessary to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and to try to push and push and push for agreements that would reduce the number of nuclear weapons.

As I said before, when, again, a CIA agent code named Dragonfire shows up and says to the CIA, I have picked up information which indicates there is one nuclear weapon that has been stolen and it is in the hands of terrorists, and it is now in New York City, ready to be detonated, when that happens next, we had better worry a great deal if we haven't prevented it, if we haven't taken all of the steps necessary to say, that can't happen. That report in October of 2001 turned out to be false, but all of the post mortems by experts understood that it could well have been true, and all of the elements could have been accurate. A weapon could have been stolen, smuggled into the city, detonated and a half a million people within three-quarters of a mile of Times Square would have died immediately. If that would have happened the world would never be the same. Everything will have changed.

So it seems to me we have a responsibility to aggressively pursue arms control agreements. We have an opportunity now, and a responsibility to pursue aggressively, even in legislation such as this, the reduction of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles to try to

see if we can step back from the abyss and actively engage with other nuclear powers to do things that will tighten controls, and in a very significant way, prevents the opportunity from other nations, and especially rogue nations, and especially, most especially, terrorist groups, from acquiring nuclear weapons.

We know, we have the history, that Osama bin Laden has been fascinated with and has wanted to acquire the mechanics for nuclear weapons and the materials for nuclear weapons for a long time. We know that. Al-Qaida is still there. As far as we know, Osama bin Laden is still leading al-Qaida. It is pretty unbelievable to think about that. On 9/11 we were told there isn't one acre on this Earth that would be safe for the person who designed the attack against our country, but it is now 8 years later and we are told in the public briefings by our CIA that the greatest threat to our homeland is al-Qaida, a reconstituted al-Qaida. The terrorist threat which is the greatest threat to our homeland is a reconstituted al-Qaida with training camps where they are designing attacks against our country.

Let us hope that we are able to make the kinds of efforts and provide the kind of leadership that singularly says to the world: It is this country that leads the way to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and it is our country that wants to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on this planet. No, that won't make us weaker; I don't suggest any approach that would ever weaken this country relative to its adversaries. But it will certainly strengthen the future of this planet if we reduce the number of nuclear weapons below the 25,000 nuclear weapons that now exist as well as take very significant steps to stop other countries and certainly to prevent forever rogue nations and terrorist organizations from acquiring nuclear weapons. That needs to be job one. We don't talk nearly enough about it. We don't talk about the subject as much as we should. But I wanted to bring this issue to the floor during this discussion because it is in this bill, Cooperative Threat Reduction, which we know works and which we have funded in the past and will continue to fund in this bill again, and is something that addresses the issue of not just building more weapons but actually finding ways to engage with our adversaries to reduce the weapons that can, frankly, threaten the existence of this planet.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, in recent days and weeks, the House of Representatives has passed legislation sponsored by Congressman Waxman and Congressman Markey, called the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, that deals with the issue of climate change. And more specifically, it deals with taking steps to decarbonize the energy use in this country in order to protect the planet.

I support the goals of a low-carbon future by decarbonizing our energy sources to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The scientific consensus is that by maintaining our current course of burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases we are threatening our planet with future warming. So I support the goal of trying to deal with this issue of climate change.

The question is, how do we address it? How do we move forward to meet this challenge? The House of Representatives has established one approach. I think we need to explore other approaches that still achieve the goal of reducing our carbon emissions. This is a very big issue with consequences for virtually all Americans--for families, for businesses, and for our climate.

The question for us is: How do we move forward in a way that allows us to use our energy resources in a such a way as to protect the environment and grow the economy?

Now, we all wake up in the morning and begin our day taking energy for granted. One of the first things we do, for example, is flick a switch and a light comes on, plug in a hair dryer, or turn on the toaster oven. In so many different ways, virtually everything we do involves using energy. We get in our cars and drive to work, or we get on a subway. In both cases, we are using energy. And no doubt about it, we are using a lot of energy.

The current Secretary of Energy, Dr. Chu, is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. I once heard him use the following analogy to describe how we use energy today. He talked about going back a couple thousand years. For most of human history, we move no faster than a horse could take us. A couple thousand years ago, if someone wanted to go out and find something to eat, he got on a horse.

These days, of course, times have changed. We still use horses, but in a different way. We measure the power of our engines in horsepower. If one wants to go get a loaf of bread, then we simply jump in a truck and crank up about 270 horses, and away we go to the grocery store.

We never think much about the advantage of having energy at our command at almost any moment, and we certainly don't think--and haven't thought very much--about what the use of that energy does to the climate.

So here we find ourselves in the year 2009 with what the vast majority of scientists say is a very serious problem for the future of this planet and the security of our civilization. Most of our energy is fossil energy. That's the carbon from plants that has accumulated as coal and oil over millions of years. As we burn these fossil fuels to power our economy, we release that carbon back into the atmosphere. The accumulation of these greenhouse gases warm the planet and cause other harmful consequences. Therefore, we need to try to find a way to decarbonize our energy to bring about a low-carbon future, and thereby lower our emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere.

So how do we do that? Well, as I indicated, the House of Representatives has written a bill, Waxman-Markey. It is a 1,427-page bill, and very, very complicated, I might add.

Let me describe another path. The Senate Energy Committee worked to write a new Energy bill. It was completed some weeks ago and passed with bipartisan support.

Let me describe just a bit of what we have done in that Energy bill: We included provisions to reduce our dependence on foreign oil; increase domestic production of electricity; electrify and diversify our vehicle fleet; create a transmission superhighway so we can produce renewable energy where it is most plentiful, and then put it on the transmission grid to move it to the load centers where it is needed; and train our energy workforce of tomorrow.

These are just a few of the things we have done. We establish a national renewable energy standard of 15 percent by 2020. And I believe the standard needs to be stronger. But the fact is, this is the first time the Senate has sent a clear signal by demonstrating support for such a standard. This standard says: We want to maximize the production of renewable energy, which means a carbon-free energy source.

We are producing green energy when we take energy from the wind, gather energy from the Sun, and put that electricity on a transmission grid to send it to where it is needed. This is an essential step to building the low-carbon economy we need to address the threat of climate change. And our energy bill does so much more to set the stage for helping address climate change.

When we talk about energy, climate is one of the twin challenges that we need to address. With respect to the vulnerability of our country, we must also consider our energy insecurity. It is the case that we import 70 percent of our oil coming from off our shores. We need to put into place an energy policy that will make us less dependent on foreign oil. One way to reduce our oil dependence is to electrify our vehicles. Moving toward an electric drive transportation system has the benefit of replacing foreign oil with domestic electricity. Further, as we decarbonize our

electricity generation, we get the additional benefit of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from our transportation sector. Our legislation moves aggressively to promote electrification of our vehicles.

In addition to producing more renewable energy, the Energy bill expands the production of energy in this country by opening some areas that have not been opened in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas development. As my colleagues know, natural gas is a cleaner-burning and lower carbon fossil fuel. We need to increase production of natural gas where it is appropriate. So the Energy bill does many things to move toward the low-carbon future we need to ensure the security of our planet and our nation.

So I believe we ought to take up the piece of legislation we passed in the Energy Committee, bring it to the floor of the Senate, debate it, and pass it. I have talked about this at some length in recent weeks. I think the Energy bill we have produced is a significant step toward addressing the climate change challenge.

So it seems to me it would make sense to do the energy piece first, get it to the President, and get it signed. With that progress in addressing climate change in the bank, we should then legitimately be able to boast about what we have done in a significant way to maximize the production of green energy from wind, solar, and biomass. This would not be an insignificant achievement. I think we ought to do that.

Second, I would like to discuss the question of cap and trade or Waxman-Markey or some other carbon-constraining piece of legislation for a moment. Clearly, the Senate is going to deal with this issue. My preference would be that we not take up the Waxman-Markey bill in its current form. I know a lot of work has gone into that legislation, but my preference would be that we start to explore other directions.

It is not that I oppose capping carbon. I believe we need to move toward a low-carbon future. I believe we will have to cap emissions of carbon. The question is what are the appropriate targets and timelines that would allow us to mitigate climate change and at the same time, prevent a substantial disruption to our economy. We have to be careful to avoid creating targets and timelines for reducing CO2 emissions that are simply unachievable.

We have a lot of people across this country who are doing inventive work--interesting, world-class, cutting-edge research. They are working to create the next generation of technologies that could unlock the opportunity of capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide, or developing ways to beneficially reuse CO2. These technologies hold the promise of allowing us to continue to use our abundant fossil fuels while protecting our environment. I am convinced--absolutely convinced--that we will achieve that goal. The opportunity, through research, to unlock the mystery of how we separate and capture carbon, store it or reuse it beneficially, is critical, and I am convinced we will do that. I don't think there is much question about that. But what I have difficulty with is not the goal. I am for a low-carbon future. I believe we are going to move in that direction, and I will support that goal.

I do not support, however, establishing a new trading system for carbon securities, as would be the case under the 400-page cap-and- trade provision of the House bill. Let me describe why.

In my judgment, there are better ways to deal with these issues than establishing a very substantial carbon securities trading system. Such a system is ripe for the biggest investment banks and the biggest hedge funds in the country to sink their teeth into these marketplaces and make massive amounts of money. My profound feeling about this is that we have seen now a decade in which many of these markets have been manipulated and have failed to work at all with respect to the market signals of supply and demand. I have very little interest in consigning our low-carbon future to a trading system of carbon securities that will be controlled by the biggest trading companies in the world. And it would not be very long before these entities will have created derivatives, swaps, synthetic CDOs, and more. It will be a field day for speculation, which I think is not in the interest of this country.

Let me just describe something I think might be a harbinger of things to come. Here is chart showing how oil prices soared in 2008. We all remember what has happened to oil prices in the last two years. They went from $60 a barrel up to $147 a barrel in day trading last July. Even as the price of oil was going through the roof, the best experts looking at supply and demand were predicting that the price of oil would only slowly increase over many months. They said: Well, here is where we think the price of oil is going to be. Straight on across, through the end of the year. Here is what they suggested in May of 2007, and here is the price.

The fact is, the price of oil shot up like a roman candle. Here is what they suggested in January 2008. Here is the price they predicted, but the price went up much more quickly. Why is it we have an oil futures market in which supply and demand doesn't determine where the price goes? The price goes right off the chart, and yet supply was up and demand was down.

So what we saw in the oil futures market last year should be a wake- up call. This included speculators engaged in about two-thirds or three-fourths of all the trades. They were trading at 20 to 25 times the amount of oil that is produced every single day, and creating an orgy of speculation as shown by the red line on this chart--and by the way, it went right down like a roller coaster. And the same people who made money going up made money when prices went back down. If we like that sort of thing, we are going to love the carbon market piece in cap and trade because we are going to create a big, perhaps trillion-dollar market for carbon securities. It would not be long before the same investment banks and hedge funds will all be engaged in trading carbon derivatives, swaps, and you name it.

I happen to think that makes no sense at all. The New York Times said: Managing emissions has become one of the fastest growing specialties in financial services. Investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have rapidly expanded their carbon businesses.

I am told, by the way, that most of the large investment banks right now have created carbon trading units.

Charlotte Observer: Firms such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley already have carbon desks and teams . . . Peopling those carbon desks are the former commodities traders or former securitization or structured finance professionals--like many who've lost jobs at Wachovia (now Wells Fargo) and Bank of America . . .

The New York Times says in a news story: As Congress gears up for a debate on a national ``cap-and-trade'' program to limit greenhouse gas emissions, resumes from Wall Street--or from ex-Wall Streeters--are flooding into the Nation's few carbon-trading shops.

Chris Leeds, the head of emissions trading, carbon trading at Merrell Lynch, said carbon could become: one of the fastest-growing markets ever, with volumes comparable to credit derivatives inside of a decade.

Louis Redshaw, head of Environmental Markets Barclays Capital says: Carbon will be the world's biggest commodity market, and it could become the world's biggest market over all.

So do we want to sign up for a future in which we consign our ability to constrain carbon and protect this planet by creating a carbon securities market that, in my judgment, would likely subject us to the same vision of the last decade with unbelievable speculation, movements in markets that seem completely disconnected from supply and demand? That is not a future I want to see happen.

There are other ways of capping carbon and addressing these issues. I want to be clear, I am for capping carbon. I am for a low-carbon future, but, in my judgment, those who would bring to the floor of the Senate a replication of what has been done in the House, with over 400 pages describing the cap and ``trade'' piece, will find very little favor from me, and I expect from some others as well. There are better, other, and more direct ways to do this to protect our planet.

I have been to the floor many times talking about what has happened with credit default swaps, what has happened with CDOs, what has happened

with the oil futures market, on and on and on. If what has happened gives anybody confidence, then they are in a deep sleep and just don't understand it. Again, I come back to the chart I showed a moment ago, the head of emissions trading at Merrill Lynch saying carbon could become one of the fastest growing markets, with volumes comparable to credit derivatives.

Think of this, the unbelievable volumes of credit derivative swaps that most people couldn't even pronounce and didn't know existed, and it turns out we had tens of trillions of dollars worth of these things, and worldwide these products were supposedly worth hundreds of trillions of dollars.

Frankly, I think it is not in the country's interest to establish a new financial market and to have the same players engage in the same games that gamble on this country's future.

I think two things: No. 1, there is a piece of energy legislation that is ready to come to the floor, passed by the Energy Committee, that moves in the direction of addressing climate change. We ought to get the benefit of that legislation and pass that bill along to the President for signature. It maximizes renewable energy, and there are a lot of things that will dramatically reduce the impact of our carbon footprint.

No. 2, those in the Senate who are working very hard and talking about the issue of climate change, and how we can take steps to cap carbon, and what kind of a low-carbon future we might be able to achieve. There are some of us--and I speak only for myself--who believe cap and ``trade'' in terms of speculative carbon futures markets makes no sense. We ought to explore a carbon cap with different approaches.

I wanted to raise these concerns at this point, so that those who are working on the climate change bill and attempting to replicate the House approach will understand that some of us will aggressively resist the carbon market ``trade'' side of cap and trade.

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

Mr. President, we are on the Defense authorization bill, apparently stranded, unable to vote on an amendment that had been offered dealing with the issue of the F-22. The F-22 airplane is a remarkable airplane. I have talked to pilots who have flown it. I have seen it at Edwards Air Force Base. It is an extraordinary airplane.

It costs a lot of money. We have built as many as the Defense Secretary wants built at this point. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Defense Secretary, the head of the Air Force, has indicated they want to cap the F-22 at that number--I believe it is 187--and do not wish to build more. They say that is all we need. That is all we want.

There is a $1.75 billion fund that was put in this bill, now, as an amendment in the Armed Services Committee, to build more F-22s. So the amendment by the chairman of the committee and by Senator McCain, the ranking member, was to take the $1.75 billion out of the bill. I support the amendment--not because I don't like the airplane, I do; but if those who are in charge of the Pentagon, Secretary Gates; Admiral Mullen; the head of the Air Force, Secretary Donnelly; General Schwartz and others say we do not want anymore F-22s, don't need anymore F-22s to do the mission that we believe is necessary for that airplane, and instead we want to move toward the Joint Strike Fighter--if that is their judgment, in my judgment we ought not put another billion back into this bill. Yet that is what happened in the subcommittee.

I wish to call attention to the fiscal policy and where we are in this country. President Obama has been in office a relatively short period of time. He inherited an unbelievable mess. There is no question about that. We are in the deepest recession since the Great Depression. There is a substantial decrease in revenues and increased spending this year as a result of this very steep recession. Social service costs are going up, and there's more unemployment, more food stamps and so on. I believe there is close to a 20-percent reduction in revenue for the government and close to a 20-percent increase in spending. On top of that, Congress passed a stimulus or economic recovery program. All of this has driven the deficit up in this fiscal year, a very sizable deficit. That deficit will be very sizable next year and the year after.

It begins to go down and then goes back up in the outyears. This is a fiscal policy that is not sustainable for our country. It just is not. It is not a Democratic or Republican policy that is not sustainable, it is a fiscal policy of trillions and trillions of dollars of red ink that we must change.

If we cannot even deal with the issue of adding $1.75 billion to build more planes that the Defense Department says they do not want, we will hardly be able to deal with the more difficult fiscal problems in the future. So I support the amendment offered by the chairman and the ranking member. I hope we get a chance to vote on that amendment.

The issue of spending money we do not have, often on things we do not need, is not new in any committee in this Congress. There are plenty of areas where we can take a pretty big slice out of spending. You can do it, not with just big programs, you can do it with smaller programs. I brought to the floor a couple charts that show an issue that, in my judgment, is flatout total, complete, thorough government waste. I have tried, now, about 5 years in a row to get rid of it and have been unsuccessful. I finally got an amendment this past week added to an appropriations bill that shuts down the funding. But now we will see, there will be a big fight on the floor to restore the funding. Let me tell you what this is.

Again, we are not talking about a lot of money. In my hometown, this would be a lot of money, but my hometown is 300 people, so $20, $30 million is a lot of money.

This is a picture of Fat Albert, which is an aerostat blimp or aerostat balloon. This is Fat Albert, purchased by the government. In fact, we purchased a couple of them so we can put it way up in the air on a tether, and it would broadcast television signals into the country of Cuba because the Castro brothers run an operation down there that doesn't provide any freedom to the Cuban people, so we are sending them television signals to tell them how wonderful things are in the United States and how awful things are in Cuba.

Actually, the Cuban people do not need those television signals to know that because they can simply listen to Miami radio, or they can listen to what is called Radio Marti, which actually gets into the market in Cuba. We broadcast Radio Marti. I don't object to that. It costs a fair amount of money. I don't object to that. We get radio signals into Cuba to tell the Cuban people what is going on in our country and the problems they face in their country.

I have been to Cuba. I think the Cuban people know pretty much the problems they face with the Castro regime, a regime that squeezes the freedom out of the Cuban people.

But here is the deal. We have aerostat balloons, first of all, to put television signals into Cuba. The problem is we have spent a quarter of a billion dollars doing it and the Cubans can't get the TV signal. Why? Because the Castro government jams it easily. They jam it just like that. We used to broadcast from 3 in the morning to 7 in the morning a signal no one can see, so we use these balloons on a big tether and broadcast a television signal to people who can't see it. We kept spending money thinking it was a great thing to do, broadcasting a television signal nobody can see. In fact, one of these balloons got loose, got off its mooring, and wound up somewhere in the Everglades. They had a devil of a time trying to catch this balloon; and another balloon disappeared in a hurricane, and they have never seen it since.

They decided, you know what, we can actually clip the American taxpayer for more than a balloon. What we will do is buy an airplane and broadcast the television signal the Cuban people can't see from an airplane, so the American taxpayers bought an airplane. It flies, I think, 5 or 6 days a week, broadcasting television signals into Cuba that the Cubans block, that no one can see.

You talk about ignorant? At a time when we are deep in debt, spending money we don't have to broadcast television signals to people who can't get it? That is unbelievable to me.

Here is what the Cuban people see. All of us have seen bad television with snow covering the entire screen. Here is what is broadcast--it is programs with caricatures of the Castro brothers. The Cubans don't need to be reminded the Castro brothers are a scourge in that government.

Let me describe what John Nichols, who is a professor of communications and international affairs at Penn State University, has said:

TV Marti's response to this succession of failures over a

two-decade period has been to resort to ever more expensive

technological gimmicks, all richly funded by Congress. And

none of these gimmicks, such as the airplane, have worked . .

. It's just the laws of physics. In short, TV Marti is a

highly wasteful and ineffective operation. . . .

Even as I speak, I assume our airplane is broadcasting a television signal to the Cuban people who cannot receive it.

TV Marti's quest to overcome the laws of physics has been a

flop.

John Nichols says, the same witness.

Aero Marti, the airborne platform for TV Marti, has no

audience currently in Cuba, and it is a complete and total

waste of $6 million a year in taxpayer dollars. The audience

of TV Marti, particularly the Aero platform is probably zero.

. . .

Talking now about the airplane platform.

We are talk about the GAO report.

The best available research indicates that TV Marti's

audience size is small . . . telephone surveys have reported

less than 1 percent had watched TV Marti over the last week.

I don't know what 1 percent is. I don't know what less than 1 percent is. That is minuscule, right? But I have offered an amendment that takes out about $15 million to support TV Marti, which is a program that has now wasted about a quarter of a billion dollars sending television signals to Cuba that no one in Cuba can see. You know what, it is very hard to get this kind of thing stopped.

The reason I wish to mention it today is we are on the floor talking about $1.75 billion for the F-22. We are, I assume--almost everyone here is supporting the next generation fighter we are building, the Joint Strike Fighter. But the Pentagon says they want to stop and not order anymore of the F-22s. It is a reasonable thing, to me, that being deep in debt, choking on red ink, at least we might want to accept the recommendation of not building that which they do not want. At least with respect to Aerostat balloons and airplanes and television signals to Cuba that no one can see, the very least the taxpayers should expect of us is that perhaps we would stop spending money sending television signals to no one. Maybe that is not too much to ask.

Let me ask consent to speak in morning business for 5 minutes on a different subject.

Mr. President, today House and Senate leaders appointed members for a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. That is the title, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. I have been calling for both a commission and also a select committee of the Congress because I think that we have a requirement and responsibility to establish what is the narrative that has caused this economic and financial crisis in this country. We are in a deep financial crisis and have been for some long while.

This didn't happen as a result of some giant hurricane or some tornado or some flood, or some other natural disaster visiting our country. No, this was not a natural disaster. This happened as a result of decisions being made by human beings here among us. The question is who? And what decisions? How did this happen? What is the narrative that has caused the most significant crisis since the Great Depression?

Very smart economists have said, you know what, over a long period of time from the Great Depression forward, we created stabilizers in this country so we would not see steep recessions or certainly not a depression in our future. We are evening things out, they would say, and that was probably true for a while, but this recession is deep, this hole is steep. The question is, What caused it? What happened.

I support the creation of a commission today. I offered legislation in January of this year, called the Taxpayer Protection Act, which called for the creation of a commission to investigate this financial crisis. My colleagues, Senator Conrad and Senator Isakson, similarly offered a commission proposal, a piece of legislation during debate earlier this year. I support the notion of going forward. The appointments today to this Commission are welcome. I hope the Commission does all that is necessary to uncover what has happened here.

I still believe we need a Select Committee in the Senate. The New York Times said it in an editorial, nothing can substitute for the work the Senate must do itself. I say that because we now have, in recent days, additional news items in the paper you read. Let me pick one. I don't mean to pick this company out just to be punitive, but it is a good example in recent days: Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo is a FDIC-insured bank. It is one of the biggest banks in America:

Wells Fargo to expand securities business. It plans to grow

and invest in securities activities that it largely inherited

from Wachovia. The business is to be called Wells Fargo

Securities.

What is Wachovia? Wachovia is a bank that was failing because Wachovia had all kinds of problems. Wachovia was a bank that had purchased Golden West Financial, which had about $120 billion, we are told, in toxic option adjustable rate mortgages.

By the way, related to this, I saw in the newspapers the other day that pick-your-payment mortgage plans have actually now had a higher default rate than other subprime mortgage loans. Think of that. You look at that and think, What was the pick-your-payment plan? That was the plans put out by these mortgage companies--sophisticated, exotic plans--saying to people, you know what, pick your own payment. You tell us what you will pay and we will write a mortgage around it.

So we had all of these strange plans out there, exotic plans, some of which were creating an unbelievable bubble of speculation. We had bank holding companies buying them and we had FDIC-insured banks actually trading them. Pretty soon you got toxic assets lying in the belly or the gut of these financial institutions, and they are going to go belly-up unless somebody else buys them.

So Wells Fargo buys Wachovia, and then Wells Fargo announces that, well, our investment banking and our capital markets businesses are now going to operate under a new name, ``Wells Fargo Securities.''

The question is this: With the biggest banks in the country operating, in many cases with holding companies engaged in real estate and securities issues, having demonstrated now that these holding companies do not have firewalls that are much thicker or much more beneficial than tissue paper, are we still going to continue to see all of this?

Are we still going to see FDIC-insured institutions, for which the taxpayers are ultimately responsible for failure, talking about: We are going to get involved in more risk trading, more securities?

Wachovia. Well, Wachovia Bank, I have spoken of them before. Wachovia Bank was one of those banks buying sewer systems in Germany. Why? Because an American bank wanted to own a sewer in a German city? No. They wanted to avoid paying U.S. taxes, so they did sale-lease back transactions with German sewer systems.

That is part of a culture issue with companies, it seems to me, when you do that sort of thing. But now we have Wells Fargo that bought Wachovia, announcing the best part of what they bought was Wachovia's securities business. The fact is, Wachovia was not going to make it. That is why Wells Fargo purchased them.

We ought to be asking a couple of questions these days about the Administration's announced plans for new financial reform, which I welcome by the way. This President inherited this mess, so he is talking about financial reform, and I welcome that discussion.

One, I think we ought to have a healthy and robust discussion about whether the Federal entity that shall become the systemic risk regulator in this country should be the Federal Reserve Board.

Not me. Not me. The Federal Reserve Board is what has helped cause this

problem. I mean, the Federal Reserve Board acted blindly for over a decade. In addition, the Federal Reserve Board by itself is almost totally unaccountable to anyone and operates in very substantial secrecy.

Why would we decide to have an agency that has failed over the last decade or so in managing and supervising the financial industry in this country, that watched the creation of these big holding companies, watched what happened with the mortgage companies with unbelievably speculative instruments, watched the advertisements on television saying: If you have been bankrupt, slow pay, no pay, got bad credit, come to us. We will give you a loan--the Federal Reserve watched all of that and did nothing. Now we are going to be told they are the ones to save us with respect to systemic risk in our economy? I do not think so. That is No. 1; the Federal Reserve Board is going to be the entity to deal with systemic risk? Boy, there is no evidence, at least in recent years, to suggest that makes much sense.

No. 2, no discussion yet, and there might be, on this issue of too big to fail. Does it matter that we have allowed the creation of entities in the financial sector that are too big to fail? In my judgment it matters because if they are too big to fail, then the American taxpayer bails them out. That is what happened last fall.

The Treasury Secretary leaned over the lectern to us one Friday and said: Look, if you do not pass a bailout bill in 3 days, a three-page bill giving me $700 billion, this economy is going to fall off a cliff.

Well, I did not believe it. I did not vote for the bailout. But the fact is, all of this was because some of the largest financial institutions in the country, he said, were in deep trouble.

Why were they in trouble? Because they loaded up with substantial risk. Congress, in the last decade, has passed laws that allowed them to do that. They said this is modernization. But when we create institutions that are too big to fail and then they load up with substantial risk, especially those that are FDIC-insured with holding companies now, engage in securities, and that is exactly what Wells Fargo is announcing: We bought Wachovia. Now we will take the securities on with Wachovia and decide to juice it up.

Should we continue with the doctrine of too big to fail? I do not believe so. Yet in the intervening months, the last 8 months or so, the very institutions that were judged too big to fail and were required to get bailouts from the American taxpayer are still engaged in merging with other institutions, making them bigger and even less able to fail.

So is there someone willing to intervene to say too big to fail has to change? Must we perhaps at least have a discussion about breaking up some institutions that are too big to fail? What about very large strong regional interests that are not too big to fail? I am just asking the question because nobody, in talking about financial reform that I am aware of these days, is willing to address the question of too big to fail. And you cannot address this question of financial reform without including it.

All of us want the same thing for this country. We want this country to recover. We want our economy to expand and grow and create jobs and be healthy again. The fact is--I have talked about this many times. I taught economics briefly in college. The fact is, all of the charts and graphs and indices are irrelevant as compared to the confidence of the American people.

When the American people are confident about the future of this country and about their future, about their job, about their family, then they do things that manifest that confidence. They buy some clothes, buy a car, take a trip, buy a house. They do the things that expand the economy because they are confident about the future.

When they are not, they do exactly the opposite and that contracts the economy. The question is, how do we give the American people confidence going forward that things are going to be better? Month after month, because unemployment has a long tail even past recovery, we see hundreds of thousands of people having lost their jobs. Obviously, those folks do not have a lot of confidence. They feel helpless and hopeless.

How do we give people confidence we are going to fix things that are wrong so this will not happen again? That is where this issue of financial reform comes in. Part of that confidence, it seems to me, can come from this institution, from the Congress and the President. Part of it can come from the people watching this institution.

Take a look at this amendment, an amendment that says: Let's not spend $1.75 billion we do not have on something the Pentagon says they do not want.

Confidence can come from affirmative action on that. Part of that confidence could come from 100 or 1,000 of these examples, a little program called TV Marti, broadcasting television signals to people who cannot see it, and doing it for 5, 10, 15 years and spending a quarter of a billion dollars. Part of that confidence could come from the American people taking a look at our deciding to shut these kinds of things down and trimming back government that has become bloated. So we can do some of this to create confidence.

But another part of it, it seems to me, has to come from the administration's judgment about what is real reform in financial reform. That must include, in my judgment, the issue of too big to fail. It must include effective regulatory oversight so we do not have the kind of activities going on that we saw for the last 10 years: financial institutions engaged in unbelievable practices with no one minding the store and no one watching who were the referees of the system, wearing striped shirts and whistles and blowing the whistle when they saw a foul in the market system. We cannot continue that. We need effective regulation. We need effective reform. When we get that, the American people will feel: You know what. They fixed that which caused this serious problem, and we feel better about the future of this country.

We have a lot to do in a short time. Some big issues of health care, energy, and climate change, and others. I am going to visit about the issue of climate change tomorrow. But we have very big issues that have great consequences for this country. But at the moment, we stand in a very deep recession.

The American people are concerned about the future and want some assurance that all of us are doing the things necessary to put the country back on track.

One step today is the amendment that was offered by the chairman and the ranking member of this committee. It is $1.75 billion. That is a lot of money. But step after step after step in the right direction can give people confidence about the future of this country.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Bill Curlin, an Air Force fellow in my office, be granted the privilege of the floor during the debate on the Defense authorization bill of 2010.

Mr. President, I will perhaps come back later to speak on the F-22 and the work my colleagues, Senator Levin and Senator McCain, have done. But I want to speak about another amendment I have offered that I hope might gain acceptance as we move forward, and that is an amendment to the Defense authorization bill that would require contracting officials in the Pentagon to take into account evidence of bad past performance by a contractor when deciding who should get future contracts.

You might think that contracting officials would already be required to take past performance into account. But the fact is, that is not now required over in the Pentagon. I want to go through some thoughts with you about this issue very quickly.

I have held 19 hearings on contractor waste, fraud, and abuse. I have to say, going back some years now, we have had the greatest amount of waste and fraud and abuse by contractors than we have seen in the history of this country. Let me give you some examples.

Shown on this chart is a man named Efraim Diveroli, 22 years old. Oh, by the way, he is the CEO of a company. That is right, the president and CEO of a company. The company is a shell company his father used to have. But he took it over, and he hired a vice president, as a matter of fact. The vice president's name is David Packouz, 25 years old, the former vice president of the company. He is a massage therapist. So this is a company in Miami, FL, that does business out of an unmarked door. Through the best evidence, there are only two employees--a 22- year-old president and a 25-year-old massage therapist who is the vice president. Well, guess what. These two guys got $300 million in contracts from the U.S. Government. Can you imagine, $300 million in contracts from the Pentagon?

There have been arrests in this case. But the question is, Why? I called a three-star general to my office to say: How on Earth could you have done that? How could you possibly have done that? Did you not check?

I checked. These guys also had some small contracts with the State Department which turned out to be bad contracts. But they could have at least done a small amount of checking before committing $300 million of the American taxpayers' money. What they did for that money was ship a bunch of shoddy products over to Afghanistan to the military, bullets and guns that were dated from the 1960s. That is one of the reasons this company and these fellows ran afoul of the law. But the question is, How did all this happen?

This guy, as shown in this picture, with a striped shirt is named Frank Willis. This is he, in the striped shirt. He is holding a Saran- wrapped pack of money. This is part of a couple million dollars that went to a company called Custer Battles. This is he, by the way, in Iraq. He said: Our motto was, You bring a bag because we pay cash. He is talking about defense contracting.

Custer Battles is alleged to have taken--they were going to provide security for the Baghdad Airport, which had no commercial airplanes flying in and out. It was alleged they took the forklift trucks off the airport and put them in some sort of machine shed and repainted them blue and then sold them to the Coalition Provisional Authority. So you bring a bag because we pay cash, it was said.

Here is what the guy over at the Baghdad Airport said. I am just telling you all this because I held 19 hearings. I have done 19 of them. Here is what the guy who is the airport director of security said in a memo to the Coalition Provisional Authority. Here is what he said about Custer Battles, which was given the contract. They got over $100 million in contracts.

Custer Battles have shown themselves to be unresponsive,

uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war

profiteers. Other than that they are swell fellows.

Think of it. So what do we think of these contractors? They got a lot of the taxpayers' money.

This is a picture of Cheryl Harris with her son Ryan Maseth, a Green Beret, Special Forces. Ryan, unfortunately, tragically was killed in Iraq--no, he was not shot by some insurgent; he was electrocuted in the shower. His mother Cheryl was told that they thought maybe he went into the shower carrying a radio and therefore was electrocuted. It turns out that was not the case at all. The fact is, he took a shower in a place where the wiring had been done improperly. Why? Because Kellogg, Brown, and Root, which was paid to do the wiring, hired third-country nationals in most cases who could not speak English and did not know the wiring codes, and they wired up a shower and this poor soldier lost his life because he was electrocuted in the shower.

I held hearings about that. Eric Peters, who was working in Iraq as an electrician, said: Third-country nationals performed the majority of KBR's electrical work. Most have absolutely no knowledge of the National Electric Code or British Standards, and the quality of their work reflects that. Much of this work is not clearly inspected by licensed electricians. I personally have refused to sign off on work they have performed because I knew it was not up to code. That is what we paid for, and some soldiers have lost their lives.

This list goes on and on and on.

Eric Peters, a brave soul who worked in Iraq to do electrical work, worked for KBR. He came back and testified: I concluded that KBR was not capable of performing quality, legal, electric installations in Iraq. I worried every day that people would be seriously injured or killed by this defective work.

The reason I want to tell you about this is, not only have soldiers lost their lives, but the task orders for which that work was done resulted in award fees, bonus fees, to the company that did shoddy work.

As a result of my hearing, they sent a task force over to investigate all of the buildings in Iraq. The fact is, we have testimony and evidence that there was a massive amount of wiring that was done improperly that put soldiers at risk. Yet the Pentagon provided award fees, which are fees designed only for excellent performance, of $83 million of the taxpayers' money to a company that did shoddy work; work sufficient so we had to come back around and do what is called, I believe, a corrective action request order, where you had to go back and inspect everything and redo the work. The question is, How is all this going on?

Let me describe the story of Bunny Greenhouse. A lot of people do not know Bunny Greenhouse. What an extraordinary person she is. She grew up in southern Louisiana in a family who had nothing. Two in their family teach college. Her brother is Elvin Hayes, one of the top 50 basketball players of all time. Bunny Greenhouse has a couple of master's degrees, is very well educated, and rose to become the highest civilian in the Corps of Engineers over in the Pentagon. Here is what she testified to with respect to some of the contracting that went on. She lost her job as a result of having the courage to speak publicly.

I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to

contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and

improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of

my professional career.

For that, she lost her job.

It is not just KBR. I mentioned Custer Battles, Efraim Diveroli. How about Parsons Corporation?

This, by the way, is a photograph every American should remember when you talk about waste and fraud and abuse. This is called ``The Whale.'' This picture is a picture of a prison in Iraq that was never completed and will never be used. Mr. President, $31 million was paid to the Parsons Corporation for building a prison the Iraqis said they did not want and would not use. The $31 million was colossally wasted in unbelievably bad construction. That is after this same company was given a couple hundred million dollars to rehabilitate 140 health clinics in Iraq, and we were told later that most of those health clinics are imaginary, quote/unquote. They do not exist. Well, the money is gone. The $200 million is gone. But the health clinics are imaginary.

Well, the same company was contracted to build the prison in Iraq. It is called the Kahn Bani Sa'ad prison, but it is referred to as ``The Whale.'' Here is what it looks like, as shown in this picture. We spent $40 million. The first $31 million was paid to Parsons. Another $9 million was paid to an Iraqi contractor. And here it sits in the desert, never ever to be used, paid for by the American taxpayer, and paid to contractors who did shoddy work and were kicked off the site.

The question is, What do we do about all that?

I have proposed an amendment that is pretty simple. It is interesting. There is currently no requirement that contracting officials over in the DOD have to take into account shoddy work practices or shoddy performances by contractors. There is a requirement they take into account criminal actions, civil fines, that are leveled against contractors. But there is no requirement they must consider bad past performance. It is unbelievable, but it is true.

I offer an amendment that says, Do you know what, the time is past when bad performance by big contractors gets you a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back and another contract. It is time--long past the time--we put an end to this.

I know my colleagues, Senator Levin and Senator McCain, feel strongly about this issue as well. I appreciate the work they have done. All of us need to do everything we can to assure the American taxpayers they are getting their money's worth. Defense is something we invest in for this country. It is very important.

As I conclude, I want to say this: I put together a chart, and I am going to speak about it in the next day or two. But it relates to this question of the F-22. This chart shows Federal budget deficits. We are on an unsustainable path. It is not a Republican path or a Democratic path. It is just an unsustainable path that cannot work for this country's future.

Take a look at this chart. Here is the middle of a deep recession, $1.9 trillion in deficits, and then it gets a little better, and then goes back down.

We are on an unsustainable path, and it does not matter what you are talking about, whether you are talking about an airplane or some other area of Federal budget responsibility. We finally have to decide: Things have changed. We have to invest in things that provide dividends for this country's future. We cannot continue to spend money we do not have on things we do not need. That is not a sustainable course for this country.

So I will speak more about these issues, including the F-22, at some other point. But let me thank my colleague, Senator Levin, and my colleague, Senator McCain as well.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes.

Madam President, this morning the New York Times wrote an editorial I wanted to commend my colleagues' attention to and take some issue with. The editorial in the New York Times this morning is called ``Elk Hunting in the Badlands'' referring, of course, to the Badlands of North Dakota where Theodore Roosevelt went out and lived and ranched. The Badlands of North Dakota encompass, in large part, the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a wonderful park, and the Badlands are about as beautiful as anything you will find in this country.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park has elk. In 1985, a number of elk were released in the Badlands in the southern section. There were, I think, around 50 head of elk that were released in the Badlands, and that has now grown to somewhere close to 900 elk, which is about 600 more than can reasonably be handled in that area. So they need to cull the elk herd. They need to thin out the elk herd because we can't allow it to grow so large that we don't have the carrying capacity on that land.

So as is the case with too many Federal agencies, once they started thinking about how we will cull the elk herd, how we will take care of this problem, they came up with an idea--actually, a number of ideas. Among them was an idea that they would go hire Federal sharpshooters and then cull the herd with Federal sharpshooters, and then have helicopters transport out the carcasses once the sharpshooters had done their job.

It seemed to me to be boneheaded to be thinking in those terms. Much better, it seemed to me, was to develop an approach that was used in the Grand Tetons, where they deputize hunters as volunteers, and each volunteer can take an elk from the park.

Now, we don't allow ``hunting'' in national parks. I understand that, and I am not proposing an open hunt. But in cases where you have to thin a herd, rather than have the Federal Treasury decide that we are going to hire Federal sharpshooters and then gas up the helicopters so you can transport the carcasses of the dead animals, a much better solution that you could find in almost any cafe in North Dakota, talking to three people over strong coffee, is what about finding qualified hunters, deputizing them, allowing each to take an elk and take the meat home; ergo, you haven't cost the Federal Government money. Under park supervision, you can have deputized, qualified hunters whom you could easily qualify, and you have solved the problem.

This is not rocket science or a big, significant, complicated issue. It is not a serious illness for which we don't know a cure. This is a very simple issue of culling an elk herd. So I proposed that. The Park Service said, well, there is a restriction here and there, so we are going to hold a series of meetings. They held a series of meetings in North Dakota. As is always the case with bureaucracy, they hold a lot of meetings and come up with multiple alternatives, and they study them to death until the alternatives are nothing but carcasses. This is an issue in North Dakota in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park that has gone on for some years. The Park Service had several different alternatives. We were waiting for a long while to see what they were going to announce. And it became clear to me that they weren't going to get to a common-sense decision.

So I included a provision in the Interior Appropriations bill in committee last week that is simple and it does as I have said: simply cull the elk herd by deputizing qualified hunters, under the supervision of the Park Service, who would be able to take the animals--the carcasses--and the meat out of the Badlands. So that is in the Interior Appropriations bill.

The New York Times today takes great issue with that. It says it is not the right proposal at all, it is a terrible idea, that it would legislate a management issue better left to the Secretary of the Interior and the National Park Service. Well, the Secretary of the Interior was in North Dakota with me about 5 weeks ago, and we had a long discussion about this issue. And I know our former colleague Ken Salazar, and I know he would want to come to a conclusion that represents a deep reservoir of common sense as well for the taxpayers.

I understand that we don't want to open hunting seasons in national parks. I propose only in a circumstance where, in this national park, just as we have done in the Grand Teton National Park, which is embedded in law, when you need to thin the herd, don't spend a pile of taxpayers' money, don't gas up helicopters to haul carcasses around. Deputize local qualified hunters and allow that. It is not a hunting season. In this case, you are thinning the herd by using qualified hunters, who could be deputized and operating under the supervision of the Park Service, to remove the meat from the park. It is very simple.

The New York Times is a fine paper, but I doubt that it has a lot of hunters on its staff. I know a bit about hunting, and I know a fair amount about Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Badlands. I know the people I represent, who looked at this, and most North Dakotans said: Why don't you get real and use a deep reservoir of common sense and solve this problem the right way. Spare taxpayers the expense of spending a lot of money, and do what we have done in the Grand Teton National Parks.

That is the reason that last week I included the provision in the Interior Appropriations bill. I wanted to describe it to my colleagues. On behalf of the American taxpayer, let's do what is right and use some common sense. This is not that complicated.

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

Mr. President, there is no State in the Union that is prouder of its military heritage than North Dakota. When I began the North Dakota Veterans History Project a few years ago to record the stories of our veterans for future generations, the outpouring of interest around the State resulted in more than 1,500 interviews.

In the past, I have spoken in this Chamber about the nine North Dakota soldiers who earned Medals of Honor during a single campaign in the 1899 Philippine Insurrection, about the famed 164th Infantry Regiment of the North Dakota National Guard, about the ``Happy Hooligans'' of the North Dakota Air National Guard's 119th Fighter Wing, and about Woody Keeble who won the Medal of Honor for his heroism in Korea.

Today, I would like to tell you about some more North Dakota military heroes. On July 4 of this year, the city of Park River, ND, is going to devote part of its 125th anniversary celebration to recognizing the military service of a truly remarkable North Dakota ``band of brothers.''

In 1920, Edward Lothspeich of Langdon, ND, married Rose Dirkes of Sauk Centre, MN. They settled in Wales, ND, where Ed managed a lumber yard. In time, Ed and Rose Lothspeich became the proud parents of nine sons and one daughter.

The nine Lothspeich brothers hold a unique record in the history of the State of North Dakota. Each one of them served in U.S. Armed Forces. That is most from any single family in our State.

Let me tell you a bit about each of them.

Eugene Lothspeich, the eldest son, served in the Army from 1942 to 1945. He was a machine gunner with the 337th Infantry Regiment through three campaigns in Italy. He received the Purple Heart for wounds received in the Apennines.

Harold served in the Army from 1943 to 1946. He served in the Pacific theater and saw combat on the islands of Leyte and Luzon.

Edward served in the Navy from 1943 to 1946. He was a machinist's mate and repaired damaged ships while stationed in Hawaii and San Diego, CA.

Donald was inducted in the Army in 1950 and served for 2 years in Germany.

Gerald was drafted into the Army in 1950 and was stationed at Fort Lewis, WA, for 2 years, except for a short period when he was sent to Nevada to support nuclear weapons testing.

Lyle was inducted in the Army in 1951. He served in Hawaii, Iceland, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he was a rifle instructor.

Marlin served in the Air Force from 1951 to 1955. He served in Japan in the Air Force Medical Service Corps.

Franklin entered the Army in 1955. He served in Germany as a tank gunner.

Leon, the youngest of the nine Lothspeich brothers, served in the Army from 1954 to 1957. He was stationed in Germany where he worked with guided missiles.

From World War II, through the Korean conflict and into the early years of the Cold War, Leon, Eugene, Harold, Edward, Donald, Gerald, Lyle, Marlin, and Franklin Lothspeich served with honor and bravery. These nine men, a ``band of brothers,'' made many sacrifices for the safety and freedom of our country and the world.

Today I want to particularly honor three of the brothers who are still with us: Lyle, Marlin, and Franklin.

Our Nation is what it is today because of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen like the Lothspeich brothers who were willing to leave their homes so many years ago and travel around the world to protect our freedom. They did it without complaint and without question. They loved their country.

There is a verse that goes, ``When the night is full of knives, and the lightning is seen, and the drums are heard, the patriots are always there, ready to fight and ready to die, if necessary, for freedom.'' These brothers I have just described are true patriots.

The story of the nine Lothspeich bothers is a remarkable one. It illustrates the strength of character and hardy determination that has served America so well for so many years. The Lothspeich brothers loved their country and answered the call of duty. They stood up for America, and I am honored to salute their service today in the Senate.