Floor Statements

Mr. President, my understanding is that we are in morning business, and the minority side is actually allocated certain amounts of time. They are not here.

I ask unanimous consent that I may speak in morning business, with the understanding that if someone on the minority side comes to speak in morning business on their time, I will relinquish the floor.

Mr. President, I believe midweek this week the House will take up the veto override of the President's veto on the Children's Health Insurance Program. There has been a lot of discussion about what this Congress has or has not done. I think despite all of the obstacles and roadblocks we have made progress in a wide range of areas. But the one in which we have made significant progress, which I am very proud of, is expanding children's health insurance coverage.

Regrettably, we have a lot of children in this country who have no health insurance coverage at all. So the question of whether when they are sick they have a doctor to go to is a function, in many cases, of whether the parents have any income or any money in their checkbook or in their pockets. Many times those children get no health care.

In 1997, we put in place the Children's Health Insurance Program. We know it works because we have had it for 10 years. In my State, for example, the Children's Health Insurance Program is not a government program that has created more bureaucracy. It is a block grant to my State that is used by State government to purchase health insurance from Blue Cross/Blue Shield and cover children who have no health insurance. Most States do that.

This is not a big government program. This Congress passed a bipartisan piece of legislation. Let me emphasize that it is a bipartisan piece of legislation expanding health insurance coverage for children. I am proud that we have done that. In the Senate, we had 67 Senators vote in favor of it. Two Senators who were in favor of that bill were absent at that time, so that is 69 Senators who said, yes, let's expand the program. It was fully paid for. It doesn't increase the debt by one penny. It expands the program and would allow 3.8 million additional children in this country to have access to health care coverage.

Mr. President, I don't know what is in second or third or even fourth place in terms of people's priorities. I know what is in first place for most people: their children and their children's health.

The President says he vetoed this legislation because it is big government. He vetoed this legislation because he says it would cover kids at the family level of income of $83,000. The President knows better than that. He wasn't telling the truth. Let me just, if I can, speak a bit of truth to this issue. This is not big government. Contrary to most of what the President is sending down to the Congress, this is paid for. Contrast this children's health insurance--a proposal from the Congress that is paid for--with the proposals that sit in front of the Congress from the President for Iraq and Afghanistan to prosecute the war. Right now, we have a $189 billion request by this President to continue funding the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not one penny of it is paid for.

We send the soldiers to war, and the President says let's send them the bill later when they come home and they can help pay for it. Contrast that with what we have done with children's health insurance. It is $35 billion over 5 years, all of it paid for, and 3.8 million children, who at this point don't have access to health insurance coverage, will get that coverage. Is that something we ought to be proud of? In my judgment, it is. Now, the President, when he vetoed this, he said this is going to provide coverage to kids whose parents are at the $83,000 level. That is not the poverty level. There is no $83,000 level. That was a level requested by the State of New York, which was not approved.

It is true that there are a number of States that cover children from families who have incomes above the 200-percent level of poverty, but let me point out that this George W. Bush administration approved these expansions, and I will give an example. In 2003, New Jersey applied for a waiver to be able to cover parents in their program. Secretary Thompson of the Bush

administration said: Absolutely. He signed the waiver saying:

With this waiver, New Jersey will be able to expand health

insurance coverage to thousands of residents who otherwise

would be uninsured.

California asked for a waiver. The Bush administration said:

By giving parents of children with the CHIP program health

insurance, we are providing quality health care to the whole

family.

This is the Bush administration that has actually approved these waivers, the very waivers the President seems now to be critical of.

Let me also say this. The President campaigned--he campaigned--on expanding children's health insurance. In 2004, here is what he said:

In a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll

millions of poor children who are eligible but not signed up

for the government's health insurance programs. We will not

allow a lack of attention or information to stand between

these children and the health care they need.

So the President vetoed this bill. The sky is the limit when it comes to the other spending, but this bill, which is fully paid for, gets a veto. There are plenty of votes in the Senate to override the President's veto. The question is in the House. My hope is that Members of the House will understand the opportunity to override this veto and to establish a clear priority for this Congress on a bipartisan basis. My hope is they will round up the votes in the House to override this President's veto.

This is about priorities. The fact is 100 years from now all of us will be dead and gone and the record of our service here and the record of this President's service, the record of this Government, will be in the history books. They will be able to tell a bit about our value system by looking at how did we spend our money. They will see there was a time in October of 2007 that this Congress had a couple of choices: First of all, the President says, give me another $189 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan to prosecute the war; give me another $189 billion, and by the way, I don't intend to pay for a penny of it. Just add it to the debt. Another priority was the Congress saying, let's expand health insurance for children--$35 billion over 5 years. Let's expand health insurance for children and, by the way, we will pay for it in the bill, which we did. And the President says the second priority is the one that is inappropriate? What can he be thinking of?

When historians look at this value system and determine that the value system said children are less important, children are not the priority, they are going to scratch their heads and wonder how on Earth we came to that conclusion. I hope that is not the lesson that will come from this effort to override the President's veto. I hope the lesson will be a bipartisan Congress saying to this President: Not this time. Not today. Your priorities aren't square with what we ought to be doing in this country today. Our priority is, No. 1, expand health insurance coverage for America's children. My hope is at the end of this week that will be the result from the House of Representatives. I know very soon the Senate will vote and easily override the President's veto.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

In a moment I will talk about General Sanchez's speech this weekend, which I read about in the Washington Post, but before I do that, there is some interesting news about what is happening at the Defense Department in advanced research in something called DARPA--Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The head of DARPA, Dr. Tony Tether, came and spoke at a technology conference I had in Fargo, ND, last week. His speech was extraordinary. He is a good presenter and a wonderful public servant. I know there are some who wonder if the Government ever does anything right. Well, the Government does a lot of things to improve and help the American people and advance this country's interests, and I will describe one of them.

Dr. Tether described experiments that are going on in advanced research in DARPA, in which they have taken a monkey, and the monkey sits at a console with a joystick. He sees a red ball go across in front of him, and he uses the joystick to touch the red ball with the arm of the joystick, and he is then given a treat. That is learned behavior for the monkey. The ball goes across the screen, the monkey exercises the joystick, the joystick aperture touches the red ball, and the monkey gets a treat. Then they took the joystick away and instead put on the monkey a mechanical electrical arm they are working on for those who have lost their limbs. They implanted electrodes in the brain of the monkey. Now, when the red ball goes across in front of the monkey, the monkey has no joystick, but the monkey thinks about touching the ball and getting the treat and so the electrodes capture the thought. Think of that--the electrodes capture the thought, which sends the electric impulse to the prosthetic arm that has been developed, and the arm reaches out and touches the ball, all because the monkey is thinking about touching the ball.

This is about breathtaking new technology and research into approaches that will help those who have lost limbs in warfare, yes, and in every other area of life. There is so much going on that is interesting and breathtaking in the advanced research area, and again I say to Dr. Tether that I appreciated his coming to North Dakota and giving such a wonderful presentation. It was extraordinary.

Well, that is something called DARPA. Not a lot of people know about DARPA at the Department of Defense.

Retired General Sanchez on Iraq Policy

Now, let me go from DARPA to the issue of General Sanchez's speech on Iraq policy that he gave this past weekend. General Sanchez was in charge of the war in Iraq and he has now retired and General Sanchez has some very strong things to say about the war in Iraq since his retirement.

He says the war began with:

A catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war

plan . . . Since the start of this war, America's leadership

has known that our military alone could not achieve victory

in Iraq. Starting in July 2003, the message repeatedly

communicated to Washington by military commanders on the

ground was that the military alone could never achieve

victory in Iraq.

General Sanchez said the ``surge,'' which he called the ``latest revised strategy,'' is, in his words, ``a desperate attempt by an administration that has not accepted the political and economic realities of this war and they have definitely not communicated that reality to the American people.''

As a result, the American military, he says:

finds itself in an intractable situation. The best we can do

with this flawed approach is stave off defeat. The war in

Iraq has been a ``catastrophic failure.''

This, according to General Sanchez, who was in charge of the war in Iraq from mid-2003 to mid-2004. Over 20 other retired generals have spoken out after they have retired. General Eaton said:

The military ethos is: Give your advice privately to those

in a position to make changes, not the media, but this

administration is immune to good advice.

So retired General Eaton went public with his criticism of this administration's flawed policies.

General Batiste--I had the opportunity to meet General Batiste--was one of the brightest stars in the military and was considered virtually certain for promotion to the highest ranks. But, he turned down his third star and retired rather than continue to implement a war policy that he felt, and that he had experienced firsthand, was flawed. He retired so he could ``speak out on behalf of soldiers and their families.''

The point is, General Sanchez has said, and the other retired generals have said--in fact, I believe that most believe--there is not a military solution in Iraq, there is only a solution that embodies substantial diplomatic efforts and efforts in the political system in Iraq as well. The military alone cannot possibly prevail in Iraq.

I wish to make a point I have made before. We have now apparently trained about 350,000 people in Iraq to be soldiers or to be in law enforcement. To the extent that I have numbers, this was from the 2007 report of the General Jones Commission, we have trained 152,000 members of the Iraqi Army--which incidentally, is about the number of American soldiers in Iraq--and 194,000 members of the Iraqi police. That is 346,000 Iraqis to be soldiers and

police men and women. Now, I think one can reasonably ask the question, after we have been in Iraq longer than we were in the Second World War, that if we have trained over 350,000, or roughly 350,000 police men and women and soldiers, when will they have the will to provide for their own security?

They have a new Constitution. The people of Iraq have seen Saddam Hussein executed. They have a new government. And they have had nearly 350,000 of their own trained to be law enforcement and military soldiers. Yet they cannot provide for their own security?

My nephew went into the Marines about 10 months ago. He is fully trained and now in Iraq. We do it, and we can train 350,000 Iraqis. Yet they can't provide for their own security? Something is wrong with that.

So, Mr. President, I only make the point that I read with interest General Sanchez's comments this weekend, and they mirrored comments we have heard previously from General Eaton, from General Batiste, from Colonel Hammes, and many others that the current strategy has been flawed all along and must change. We must understand that the solution in Iraq is not going to be a military-imposed solution, it is going to be a diplomatic solution and a solution within the political system in Iraq, the absence of which means there will remain in Iraq a protracted long-term civil war.

While we are going door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war with American soldiers, Osama bin Laden continues to send us messages over the internet and the airwaves. Our National Intelligence Estimate says that he is in a ``secure'' hideaway in northern Pakistan and has now rebuilt training camps and reconstituted the al-Qaida leadership.

Now, think of that. Those who committed the acts of terror against our country and murdered thousands of Americans are now in a safe, more secure place, according to our intelligence estimates, and is reconstituting training camps and plotting new attacks against our country. We, on the other hand, have our soldiers going door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war. I think General Sanchez's comments and the comments of over 20 other high-ranking military officers upon their retirement represent a basic body of thought most of us have long understood but is not understood at this point by the President.

All of us want this country to succeed. We want our country to succeed in our war against terrorism. But the fact is we have to develop the right processes and the right policies to embrace that war against terrorism and to eliminate the al-Qaida leadership, which represents the greatest terrorist threat to our country. Again, the National Intelligence Estimate that we have all read says the greatest terrorist threat to our country, including to our homeland, is the leadership of al-Qaida and they are in a safe or secure haven and they are plotting additional attacks against our country and they are reconstituting their training camps to train the terrorists. Now, it should be clear to us what our obligations are.

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

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

Mr. President, Senator Mikulski, the chair of the subcommittee, will be here at 4 o'clock. I know Senator Shelby is here, and I believe he will be out momentarily. I have agreed to be on the floor until Senator Mikulski returns.

I did want to take a moment to talk about an amendment I was discussing when we were previously in session on this bill, dealing with law enforcement on Indian reservations. I did not actually offer the amendment. I had filed the amendment.

The subcommittee itself restored some funds that the President had cut. I indicated to the subcommittee that I hoped we could work between now and next spring, when we begin the new fiscal year legislation, so we could add some funding for these critical areas. I want to make note that Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby already added funding to accounts the President had decided to zero out. These accounts are accounts dealing with law enforcement on Indian reservations.

We just held a hearing on these issues in the Indian Affairs Committee here in the Senate. It is pretty stark, when you hear from folks who talk about the crisis on reservations with respect to law enforcement.

The U.S. Government made a decision a long time ago, well over a century ago, that law enforcement on Indian reservations is a responsibility of the Federal Government. Our country has a legal obligation to be involved in preventing crime on Indian lands. That obligation is a result of treaty provisions and Federal laws that grant the United States the responsibility and the authority to investigate and prosecute major crimes on Indian reservations. That is not the choice of Indian tribes; that is a decision our Government made over a century ago. The tribal governments on our Indian reservations rely on the Federal Government--specifically, the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office--to investigate and prosecute violent crimes on Indian reservations.

We had a hearing 2 weeks ago. There was testimony at that hearing from some research that had been done that 34 percent of Indian women will be raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetime. One-third of the Indian women will be raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetime. That is the state of violent crime on Indian reservations.

A retired BIA police officer who worked on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation said we do not have the resources. ``We all knew they only take cases with a confession.'' If there wasn't a confession, there wasn't a case. ``We were forced to triage our cases,'' he said. When this violence becomes so commonplace that the police have to triage rape cases, there is something dreadfully wrong.

One of the big factors in the rise of violent crime on Indian reservations is the lack of a police presence or law enforcement presence on Indian lands. There are little more than 2000 Federal and tribal law enforcement officers who patrol 56 million acres of Indian land. In North and South Dakota, we have two police officers who patrol the 2.3 million-acre Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. We have heard from people who called to report a violent crime as it was occurring, and they waited an hour and 15 minutes for the police to show up. In other cases, they wait days for the police to show up.

The lack of tribal jails and bedspace also adds to the problem because there is no place to put criminals. I have

been in tribal detention facilities. I have seen kids lying on cement floors in tribal detention facilities because there was not a juvenile facility and the other detention facilities did not have proper beds and didn't have enough space, so young children were lying on the floor of a detention facility.

There is a $400 million backlog for construction for tribal jails. One Federal official said that there is what is called a catch-and- release system--just catch the criminals and release many of them back into the community because there is no space to put them. Because of that, the Indian reservations have become soft targets for organized crime and particularly for organized efforts dealing with methamphetamine.

In May of last year, Federal officials seized a huge methamphetamine organization's business plan, and the business plan outlined how that organization wanted to replace alcohol abuse as it infiltrated Indian reservations with methamphetamine abuse on Indian reservations. The plan also outlined how the tribal police could not arrest them while on the reservation. They described in the business plan how they were going to introduce and use the reservations as the basis for their methamphetamine distribution to run their business.

After creating a system in which we said law enforcement is the Federal Government's responsibility, the administration in its budget now wants to tell the tribes: We are too busy, so you are on your own.

The statistics I have described are really sobering: crumbling jails. What does the administration propose to spend for detention facilities, Tribal Jails Discretionary Grants Program? Well, the administration proposes we spend nothing. Not a thing. Assistance to the tribal courts, what does the administration propose that we spend? Nothing.

Those are all programs that have always been funded. These are programs for which the Federal Government has a responsibility by previous agreement. Tribal COPS Program, the President says let's fund it at zero. Tribal Youth Program, fund it at zero; Indian Alcohol and Crime Demonstration Program, zero.

Every single one of those, all except the last, have always been funded. The President says: Not my responsibility, not this administration; we do not intend to provide funding.

Now, let me thank Senator Mikulski and the ranking member as well, Senator Shelby, because they have provided some funding in this subcommittee mark. It is not as much as I would like. It is not as much as I am sure they wanted to do, but they should be complimented for rejecting the President's recommendation at a time when we have a serious problem, and at a time when that problem is our responsibility to deal with because we have made agreements and required that we will be responsible for dealing with it.

The President says: Let's not do it. And Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby said: We reject that. We have a responsibility.

I was intending to offer an amendment 2 weeks ago--I did not do that--to add even further because Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby indicated they want to work with me. But, first and foremost, I want to compliment them for rejecting the President's suggestion that we ignore our responsibility, and for Senators Mikulski and Shelby deciding these programs are exactly what we should be funding; it is our responsibility to do so.

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

Will the Senator yield for a question?

The Senator from Illinois has raised the issue of the override of the President's veto that will occur in the House this week. When the President vetoed the bipartisan legislation that would expand opportunities for health coverage for America's children-- another 3.8 million kids who don't have health coverage now would have it under that bill--the President referred to it as some kind of socialized medicine, some sort of big-government solution. Then he talked about the prospect of families with $83,000 in income.

Isn't it the case that most States--my State included--receive a block grant and use the block grant to provide coverage by buying the coverage from BlueCross BlueShield? In other words, it is a block grant the States use to purchase coverage for children. Is that what the President was referring to as big government? If so, isn't the President misrepresenting what this bill does?

If the Senator will yield further for a question, the President, when vetoing the legislation, referred to some families with $83,000 who will be getting this largess so that their children can get subsidized health insurance coverage. My State, as an example, covers children at 140 percent of poverty, most States at around 200 percent of poverty, which I believe is around $44,000 gross income, and the $83,000 to which the President referred does not exist. It was a request from the State of New York which was not granted. In any event, all those requests that have been granted for above the 200 percent have been approved willingly and in a way that allowed this administration to boast that they had approved them. Now the President objects to the very thing they had approved.

The other point is, didn't this President actually campaign in the year 2004 saying he supports expansion of this very program? I ask the question about the $83,000. That clearly must be a misrepresentation. Is that the judgment of the Senator from Illinois as well?

If the Senator will yield for one additional question, the Senator from Illinois is on the Appropriations Committee with me. My understanding is the President is going to be sending down a second supplemental request within days. I understand the White House might not want to send it down before the override issue on the SCHIP program. But the SCHIP program would spend $7 billion a year for 5 years. That is $35 billion. All of it is paid for. None of it is contributing one penny to the debt. The result of that spending? The 3.8 million children who at this point have no health insurance coverage would now be fully covered with health insurance. The President seemed to, when he vetoed the legislation, be saying: I am going to be the guardian of the Federal Treasury and the taxpayers' checkbook. This is big-government bureaucracy--socialized medicine, in fact.

This is fully paid for, $7 billion a year. Isn't it the case that the President has requested two things of us? One is already here, and the other will come next week. One is $145 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not a penny of it paid for all this year, and on top of that, we believe another roughly $44 billion supplemental. So that will be a $189 billion emergency supplemental this year. In other words, $7 billion for kids is too much; $189 billion, which will bring us somewhere close to two-thirds of a trillion dollars, the President has requested we spend, not a penny of it paid for. The implication of all that is, let's send soldiers to fight. When they come back, they can pay for the debt we have incurred because we don't intend to pay for any of it.

Isn't it the case that the very same President who says $7 billion a year which is fully paid for and which will result in children's health insurance for 3.8 million children is the President who is sending us a $189 billion additional request for 1 year, none of it paid for?

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3233, previously agreed to, be modified with the changes at the desk. My understanding is both sides have cleared this request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:15 today the Senate resume consideration of the Brown amendment No. 3260, with the time until 5:45 p.m. equally divided and controlled between Senators Brown and Mikulski or their designees; that no amendment be in order to the amendment prior to the vote; and that at 5:45 the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment; that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, while we are waiting for the ranking member, to speak as in morning business for 3 minutes.

Mr. President, last week I introduced some legislation in the Senate for which it is my hope my colleagues will join in. It deals with the issue of the Do Not Call List that is housed down at the Federal Trade Commission.

I do not think there is much more irritating in life than to receive calls from telemarketers. Almost everybody has received bundles of calls from telemarketers--always during mealtime. They always wait until the family has been able to sit down to start a meal, and then the family gets a telephone call: Would you like to take our cable service? Would you like to take our cell phone service? Do you need new siding? We will have some people in your neighborhood tomorrow selling sheetrock or siding.

So on and on and on, telemarketers are unbelievably annoying. So Congress passed a piece of legislation. It says: We are going to set up a list at the Federal Trade Commission called a Do Not Call List. You call in, put your name on that list, and it says to telemarketers: You may not call the names on that list.

So the list has been very successful, except the Federal Trade Commission did one very inexplicable and dumb thing. I guess that is a gentle description. They said of the people who call in and put their names on a Do Not Call List, the list will expire at a certain time, so you would have to call back in.

So we have had 149 million people call in. Think of this: 149 million Americans picked up their phone and called their Federal Government and said: Put my name on a Do Not Call List. I am sick and tired of getting telephone calls from telemarketers. I want my name on a list.

That is the biggest vote in American history, isn't it? They just voted by picking up the phone. Mr. President, 149 million people voted to say: I do not want those calls anymore. Stop it. So the Federal Trade Commission put their names on a list. Then the Federal Trade Commission said: Oh, by the way, your name goes off the list at the end of 5 years. And by the way, next October, on or about the first day or so

of the month--or within a couple of days of that time--we will have about 50 million people whose names come off the list.

That makes no sense to me. If you put your name on a list saying, ``I don't want people making annoying calls to my house,'' that name ought to stay on the list. You ought not have to pick up the phone and recall the Federal Trade Commission.

I do not know who made the decision but what a dumb decision. Let's put a list together. If you call and get your name on the list and say, ``I don't want irritating, annoying calls from telemarketers,'' your name ought to stay on the list until you decide to pull it off.

So I have put in a piece of legislation that says if you put your name on a list, your name is going to stay on the list. You do not have to call in. There is not going to be an automatic expulsion. We did not provide for that in the Congress. The Federal Trade Commission came up with that goofy idea. So my legislation will say that idea is gone. If your name is on a list, it stays on the list. You deserve to have supper or dinner--or whatever you might call it at the end of the day-- without having your phone ringing by somebody wanting to sell siding or a new telephone service.

My hope is every Member of the Senate might cosponsor the legislation--except for those Members of the Senate who love to get telemarketing calls. For those who do, I expect they would not sign on, and I will probably come and announce their names soon. But if we can get all of those to cosponsor it, we can get this passed quickly and solve a problem for all American families.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3225, previously agreed to, be modified with the changes at the desk.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I intend to offer an amendment. I have spoken at some length with the managers, and I will withdraw the amendment, but I want to offer the amendment and talk about it because I have received from them assurances of cooperation on this issue. It is a very important issue. What I would like to do is ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so that I might offer an amendment.

I call up amendment No. 3240 which is at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senators Bingaman, Tester, Baucus, Cantwell, and Thune. This amendment deals with the issue of the criminal justice systems on Indian reservations. Before I talk about the amendment itself, I thank Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby for the bill they have put together. The legislation they bring to the floor from the Appropriations Subcommittee is an important and marked improvement on what the President has requested.

Let me describe what the President requested with respect to law enforcement activities on Indian reservations. Why is this important? Because we have a trust responsibility on Indian reservations, and we are not meeting it. For the tribal jails discretionary grants program in the year 2000, there was $34 million; the President requested zero this year. My colleagues, Senators Mikulski and Shelby appropriated $15 million. Tribal courts assistance, the same thing; tribal COPS, $40 million in the year 2000, zero in the Administration's 2008 request. Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby restored that to $35 million. The list goes on.

The question is this: Do we or do we not have a responsibility to fund these

law enforcement responsibilities that we have on Indian reservations? Last week my committee, the Indian Affairs Committee, heard testimony. Let me describe a bit of that testimony. A recent report shows that 34 percent of Indian women will be raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetimes. One-third of Indian women will be raped or assaulted during their lifetimes. We heard from one retired Bureau of Indian Affairs police officer who worked on one of the Indian reservations: ``We all knew they would only take cases with a confession. We were just too loaded down. We were forced to triage our cases.''

When this type of violence becomes commonplace, so commonplace that the police have to triage rape cases, something is wrong. Somebody needs to take action.

We had other testimony that the call to the police in an emergency, in a circumstance where there is a violent crime being committed or just was committed, in some cases it takes an hour or an hour and a quarter to receive a response from a law enforcement official.

There are fewer than 2,000 Federal and tribal law enforcement officers who patrol more than 53 million acres of land. In North and South Dakota we have four police officers patrolling the 2.3 million acres of Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. Survivors of violent crimes report waiting hours--in some cases days--for the police to respond to their urgent calls.

The other issue is the lack of jail space, the lack of places to incarcerate violent criminals. Tribal jails face a $400 million backlog in funding. I have been to tribal jails. I have seen young kids lying on the floors of these jails. The detention centers are unbelievably deplorable, in many cases. One Federal official said that the lack of detention facilities means that this whole system is a catch-and- release jail system. The law enforcement officials of the tribe catch the criminals, and they are forced to release many of them right back into the community to commit another crime.

We also heard testimony last week about the Indian reservations becoming soft targets for criminal organizations because of this neglect. That is not the choice of the Indian tribes. The fact is, they don't want this happening on the reservations. In May 2006, Federal officials seized a methamphetamine business plan. It outlined how the organization wanted to replace alcohol abuse with meth abuse on the Indian reservation because these are the most vulnerable citizens. It outlined how non-American Indians should handle the drugs, and it explained that tribal police couldn't arrest them while they are on the reservation. These stories are unbelievable. Again, a report that says one-third of Indian women during their lifetime will be raped or sexually assaulted, and we don't have adequate law enforcement protection.

We have a couple million American Indians living on reservations. The system that was established over a century ago was that the Federal Government was going to have the basic law enforcement responsibility, and we have not met it. We have not met our responsibilities in health care, in education, in housing, and we have not met them in law enforcement.

I have described on this floor ad nauseum the situation with health care. We have responsibilities for two groups of people for health care. We have responsibility for every one we throw into a Federal penitentiary. They are our prisoners. We provide for their health care. We have a trust responsibility for medical care for American Indians. That is because that is a decision our country made a long time ago. We spend twice as much per person providing health care for Federal prisoners than we do to meet our obligation to provide health care for Indians. Many of these kids, many of the elders go wanting for health care in a country like ours.

I am talking now not about health care or housing or education where we have a full-blown crisis. I am talking about law enforcement, the basics. If your life is not free from violence, you are always afraid. The fact is, we have circumstances where we have inadequate jail space. We have in many cases circumstances where violent crimes are committed, and yet they must be investigated by the FBI. They must be investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office. The fact is, resources do not exist. That is the problem.

My proposal is simple. My amendment was to increase the funding in this legislation in two areas: one dealing with detention centers, and that is an urgent situation that is in need of a response. In the second area we provide a grant program to be increased, as it properly should, to deal with the issue of alcohol and methamphetamine. Methamphetamine is a scourge on Indian reservations. They are being targeted by gangs and by organized crime. They are being targeted by non-Indians. They don't have the law enforcement capability to take care of it. The question is, are we going to do that?

Amendment No. 3240, Withdrawn

My colleagues from Maryland and Alabama have been very helpful in saying they are willing to work with me to increase these accounts and find ways to fund these things. As a result, I will ask that my amendment be withdrawn because we have made progress in commitments from those two legislators. I thank them. I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

I look forward to working with them. In the next 5 or 6 months we are going to make some real progress.

Mr. President, I take the floor to speak in opposition to an amendment that is now pending, amendment No. 3144, offered by my colleagues, Senator Kyl, Senator Sessions, and Senator Thune.

This amendment will add $10 million to be available for a program called the Space Test Bed. The space test bed is not a particularly great description of what it does, but that is the description of the program. I want to describe why I believe it would be a huge mistake for us to approve the amendment.

First, let me say it deals with missile defense. There is about $8\1/ 2\ billion in the bill, the underlying bill, for missile defense programs, $8\1/2\ billion.

We are, even now, buying and deploying national missile defense interceptors that have never been tested against realistic targets, such as targets with decoys and multiple warheads. We will, I think, continue to see, as we have seen before, dramatic cost overruns and test failures.

I recognize the newspaper today, the New York Times, I believe, has a story that says: Missile defense system is up and running.

That is because they apparently had a successful test last week. It hit a target. But it is not the kind of target that would be expected in a real missile attack, were we to have a missile attack. And despite the fact that we are rushing headlong to deploy this missile defense system to essentially create a catcher's mitt for intercontinental ballistic warheads, you find a catcher's mitt, except it is not as simple as a catcher's mitt. This is about hitting a bullet with a bullet.

Now, we have spent a massive amount of money on this, over $100 billion so far. Contrast that with the needs that go unmet here at home.

But to go to the amendment that has been offered, on the space test bed. It is a program to investigate the utility and the feasibility of space-based missile defense systems to complement the ground-based ballistic missile defense system.

In other words, the program would begin to weaponize space. The idea is you can destroy a missile from a system orbiting in space. This program is designed to develop a space-based kill vehicle and to develop command, control, and battle management, communications structures for space-based missile defense.

I am not talking about ground interceptors, I am talking about space- based missile defense, and about eventually launching a number of interceptors from space to test them against the ballistics missiles.

Let me describe what has happened to this proposal. Both the authorizing committee in the House and the Senate have rejected it. Neither Appropriations Committee has accepted this proposal to spend $10 million. In fact, both Appropriations Committees, as I understand it, have explicitly rejected spending this $10 million.

There is no authorization for this program. Does anybody here recall having a debate about an authorization to proceed with a space-based missile program? It has not been authorized.

The disappointing thing about this debate--and we have had this before in the Senate--is this: If you take a threat meter, and look at what are the greatest threats to our country--and, yes, there is such a thing as a threat meter. Our intelligence folks have it. They have it over in the Department of Defense. If you evaluate what are the greatest threats to our country--well, let's think of some threats. An intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead. Is that a threat? Yes, sure could be. They exist. Russia has a lot, China has some, a few countries have them.

But we are told the most likely threat to this country comes from rogue nations and terrorist groups. Does anybody think they are going to launch an attack against this country with an intercontinental ballistic missile? Not likely at all.

Yes, the threat meter would show that the lowest possible threat to our country at this point is an intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at our country. A much greater threat than the threat of an intercontinental ballistic missile at 14,000 miles an hour aimed at an American city, a much greater potential threat that almost everyone will admit is a greater threat, is a ship pulling up to the dock of a major American port at 3 miles an hour--not 14,000 miles an hour, 3 miles an hour--with a container on it that might include a nuclear weapon or weapons of mass destruction sent here by a terrorist set to detonate in a major American city.

Contrast, if you will, what we spend to defend against that proposition, that much greater threat, as opposed to the billions and billions, well over $100 billion we have now spent for one of the least likely threats. I am not suggesting missile defense is irrelevant; it is not. We should work on missile defense. But once we put in place a star-spangled, gold-plated ballistic missile defense system, then we will understand that a much greater threat than a ballistic missile is going to be a cruise missile traveling low to the ground at a lower speed, and then we will decide: Well, I guess this catcher mitt we have developed for over $100 billion cannot defend against that, and yet that is a much greater likely threat to our country.

My only point is this: We are spending a lot of money on missile defense. It is money that well could be used in other areas to protect against much greater threats on the threat meter against this country. But as much as we are spending, it is not enough for some. My colleague comes to the floor and says: We need $10 million more, because we need to begin this process of weaponizing space, believing, apparently, that space belongs to us exclusively. It does not.

My hope would be that in a world in which we have thousands, yes, thousands of nuclear weapons--the best guess is perhaps 20,000, perhaps 30,000 theater and strategic nuclear weapons, the loss of one of which to a terror organization will be a catastrophe for the world. In a world in which we have thousands of these weapons, it seems to me that part of our responsibility as a country is to provide international leadership, moving to try to, No. 1, prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to others, and, No. 2, to reduce the number of nuclear weapons that exist in this world. Only then will we feel that perhaps at some point we will eliminate the capability of someone to detonate another nuclear weapon. You know it has been many decades since a nuclear weapon has been detonated against humans. We hope it never happens again. We used nuclear weapons in Japan. There were many casualties who were not soldiers. But, it ended the war. There was great debate about that. But we have, as a country, tried in every way possible to make sure that nuclear weapons have not been used again.

So rather than have an amendment saying, let's spend $10 million to see if we can ramp up some kind of a space-based test module so we can weaponize space, would it not be much nicer if we could actually bring to the floor of the Senate and debate once again the issue of this Senate ratifying the comprehensive test ban treaty. Do you realize that has never been ratified by this country? One of our leadership responsibilities, I think, ought to be to ratify that treaty. We tried some years ago. Guess what. It lost because of people who apparently did not think we have the responsibility to lead the world away from the use of nuclear weapons, away from the testing of nuclear weapons, to lead in a way that prevents others from achieving nuclear weapons, and to begin to reduce the number of nuclear weapons we have in this country.

This issue, this amendment, is not about all of that. It is about one additional piece of the nuclear weapon puzzle and the defense systems that some want to create.

All of us want defense against those kinds of things that would attack this country or do harm to this country, and that includes defenses against missiles. But, as I said, we have spent over $100 billion. We now have a system that, while we are told it has been deployed, has not ever been tested against a realistic threat. And it is a defense against the least likely threat against this country.

But to go one step further and decide that what we want to do is create a space test bed to eventually develop a space kill vehicle, and to about $300 million between now and 2013 on the program, makes no sense to me at all. It has not been authorized. It has been explicitly rejected by the Appropriations Committees for both the House and the Senate. In my judgment, it would be a giant step in the wrong direction, sending a signal to the world that this country is going to embark unilaterally on something that is, in my judgment, very dangerous to our efforts at nonproliferation and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and finally beginning to end that arms race.

Those are the reasons I strongly oppose the amendment that has been filed, amendment No. 3144. I hope if there is, in fact, a vote on it, the Senate will express itself similarly.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I did speak prior to Senator Kyl. I would like to speak for about 5 minutes in response, but I will be happy to wait.

Mr. President, first of all, I certainly respect the views of my colleague from Arizona. He and I have had these discussions before. I do not come to the floor suggesting there are not a wide range of threats against our country. I recognize there must be a general who would support this program. You show me any program in the

Pentagon, and I will show you four or five generals who are involved in it and whose careers are attached to it in many ways. It is why many programs continue long after they perhaps should.

But with respect to this issue of the use of space, my colleague, when he began his statement, said this: The space test bed program is not solely--``not solely''--for the purpose of developing a space-based kill vehicle for missile defense. I respect that. But most people understand this space-based test bed is, in the longer term, being developed for a space-based kill vehicle and for space-based missile defense.

Yes, it would have satellite capability and antisatellite capability, for that matter, which will cause some real consternation around the world, in my judgment. But I wonder what would happen if today on the floor of the Senate we were here and we read in the newspaper that the Chinese or the Russians--either--have just passed legislation embarking on a project to develop a space test bed which can be used for the purposes of ballistic missile defense or, perhaps, antisatellite operations? We would have people on the floor of the Senate having an apoplectic seizure: The Chinese or the Russians are trying to weaponize space. How dare they?

Yet we are being told we need to proceed with a program that is not authorized, a program that is not appropriated in either the House or the Senate, because it is just research. The problem is, I have seen this ``just research'' sort of thing go on with all of these programs and projects. We know where this ``just research'' is leading to. The ``just research'' is the desire of some to develop a space-based antimissile program. It is not enough to have a ground-based system; they want to put it in space.

I am just telling you this: Do you think the rest of the world is going to sit by and say: OK, that is all right. Just stick a test bed up there. Do a little research. Then put a kill vehicle up there. That will be all right. It won't bother us very much.

Look, we have thousands of nuclear weapons. We have nuclear delivery vehicles all around the world. I am, frankly, at this moment much less concerned about a delivery vehicle that is traveling 14,000 miles an hour than I am a rusty Yugo car sitting at a dock in New York City with a smuggled small-yield nuclear weapon from the Russian arsenal in it. That is what I am concerned about.

Look at the threat meter against this country--and, yes, there is really a threat meter. People have evaluated: What are the greatest threats and what are the lesser threats? Look at the threat meter and evaluate what the greatest threats are against this country. Those are the threats we are spending the least amount of money defending America against. Yet we spend over $100 billion for ground-based interceptors in the national missile defense program as it has morphed into other programs to protect against an intercontinental ballistic missile.

We are told the great threat against our country comes now from rogue nations and from terrorist organizations. Does anybody really think a rogue nation or a terrorist group is going to attack us with an ICBM? Isn't it more likely, isn't it increasingly likely the threat will come in other ways? And isn't it true we are responding to that with much less money? We are responding to the lesser threat with more money, the greatest threat with less money. I do not understand that.

My colleague indicated that laser technology, for example, is more effective against a satellite if it is space-based laser technology.

So we put up a test bed, do a little research, put some technology up there with laser capability, and so do the Chinese and so do the Russians. Now you have two other systems up there much more effectively able to knock down a satellite. Wouldn't it be much smarter for all three of us to decide we are not going to weaponize space, we are not going to take an arms race to space?

That is why I say we have responsibilities in the world as a leader, the preeminent nuclear power in the world. We have responsibilities to decide this has to be an international discussion. I believe our greatest responsibility right now as a country is to lead in the direction of deciding we are going to try to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, prevent other countries from getting nuclear weapons, and try to shut down this potential to move weapons into space. That ought to be our responsibility. That is what will make this a safer world.

So my hope is we will defeat this amendment. I think this is a program which has justifiably been ignored by the authorizing committees and the money for which has been deleted by the appropriations committees. I appreciate very much the work of the appropriations committees to delete the $10 million that has been requested for the space test bed. I think that is the right choice for our country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I have a couple of minutes of comment. I know Senator Kyl withdrew his amendment. But I do want to have the Record corrected, because I was listening to part of the debate when I was back in my office. I think it is important to have an accurate Record.

My colleague from Arizona indicated that the space-based test bed program which I oppose is not a program that would primarily be a space-based missile defense program. He said it is about protecting satellites. That the space test bed is about protecting satellites. That is what my colleague was saying.

Let me read the unclassified portion of the Pentagon budget justification for the program.

The space test bed is being explored as a potential

solution to enhance ballistic missile defense.

I guess you can come to the floor and say: Well, that is not what it is. But you probably would have to ask the Pentagon to cut out this page from its budget justification book.

I want the Record to reflect something that is half way accurate. All of us understand what that program was intended to be. This is what the Defense Department says it was intended to be. So when I come to the floor and talk about why this program ought not proceed, it is not authorized, it has not been funded in either the House or Senate appropriations bills and, besides, it is a program that will eventually weaponize space by putting ballistic missile defense interceptors in space, I have the facts on my side.

Then to have someone say: Well, that is not what it was. Gosh, you must not understand it, Mr. Dorgan. Well, I am sorry; I do understand it. So does the Pentagon. They say again:

The Space Test Bed is being explored as a potential

solution to enhance ballistic missile defense capability in

the future.

I went to a small school, but I can understand this. And I read fairly fast. There is not a lot of reading on this page. So I wanted the Record to reflect what is accurate about the issue of the space test bed.

I think this country has an enormous responsibility with the question of nuclear weapons, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, attempting to find ways to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles to protect this country in dozens of different ways against threats that exist against our country.

I think it would be a profound mistake for this Congress to decide, without authorization, with very little debate, to begin funding a program that eventually will provide weapons in space. We would be apoplectic if we believed a program existed or was begun today in the Duma or in China, because we would believe it would be a threatening approach for them to weaponize space. I think they would view the same with activities we would undertake.

My hope is we can work with others in the world with respect to nonproliferation and with respect to protecting all of us from those who would be aggressive in our future.

By the way, my colleague suggested, because I said you can almost always find a general to support a program at the Pentagon--that I denigrated generals. My point was not to denigrate generals. But every program that exists, and every idea, has sponsors and support. You show me a program, I will show you a number of people who are involved in that program, believe in that program, and want that program to move. It is the generals and colonels and captains and lieutenants, and that is the way the system works.

Now, I promised I was going to compliment the manager and the ranking member. I did it before, but let me do it again. This is a big piece of legislation, hard to put together, and not easy to manage. But they have been on the floor now for some while trying to move this legislation through. Much of it is very important for this country. I hope we can move to final passage in an expedited way.

Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about the underlying appropriations bill. First, let me thank the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee. I think the work they have done on this bill is very important.

I wish to talk especially about the issue of the bomber fleet in this country: B-2s, B-1s, B-52s. I do that for a very specific reason.

Right now a lot of our soldiers are in the field, in harm's way. They strap on body armor in the morning, get shot at that day. We are at war. All of us want to make certain our soldiers who have answered the call have everything they need to do what they need to do.

I do think, however, there are times in the Pentagon when a substantial amount of money is spent, far more than is necessary, and there is some waste. I wish to describe one of the things I find interesting and also somewhat troubling.

Our bomber force is a part of the force that gives us air superiority. When you provide air superiority and have control of the air it has a tremendous impact on our ability to fight a war. We have seen some recent examples about what impact that has.

Part of that force is made up of B-52 bombers. They were produced decades ago. They are kind of the ``gray beards'' of the bomber fleet. They are essentially bomb trucks that will haul

weapons to various parts of the world. The newest ones were built in the 1960s. But, of course, most of the plane has been rehabilitated and changed, the electronics and so on.

Former Air Force Chief of Staff GEN John Jumper said the B-52 and other aircraft will have greater access to targets in the future because of the F-22. With its stealth and supercruise characteristics, the F-22 will be able to precede other aircraft into combat zones to clear out any threats.

So we have been told we should fund the F-22. I have supported that. The F-22 is an unbelievably effective next-generation fighter. We are told we should support that because the F-22 goes in and essentially clears out the airspace; knocks out the radar and knocks out all things that could be a threat to our bombers and other aircraft, at which point the airspace is owned and you can bring in a bomb truck, for example.

Well, here are the costs of flying our bombers. The cost is: $78,000 an hour to fly a B-2, $48,000 an hour to fly a B-1, and $34,000 an hour to fly a B-52.

We are told the B-52 will be usable for another 30 years. Yet we are told by the Air Force planners that what they would like to do is retire the least costly bomb truck. That way, after we have cleared the air threat and have air superiority, they want to fly the most expensive bomb trucks in and have the least costly bomb truck retired. It makes little sense to me, from a taxpayer standpoint, but that is what we would try to do.

It also doesn't make sense when we look at the new bomber the Air Force is planning on. The earliest date it might be available is the year 2018. Of course, that will slip. They all slip.

The new bomber, we are told, that when completed, would have an unrefueled range of 2,000 miles. The B-52 has double that and more. The new bomber will have a weapons payload of 14,000 to 28,000 pounds; the B-52, 70,000 pounds.

Not only does the B-52 have more endurance and more payload than the new bomber. The B-52 is also fully paid for. It is usable for three more decades, and it flies at much less cost than the other two bombers we now have. But the Air Force wants to take a good number of B-52s and retire them at Davis-Monthan.

I make the point that the authorizing committee has indicated the Air Force should keep 76 of the B-52s. As we work through this and look at what our bomber fleet should look like, I think it will become clear that keeping the B-52s makes sense both for our defense capabilities and for the effect on the American taxpayer.

I am happy to yield.

Amendment No. 3126, As Modified

Madam President, how much time have I consumed?

I want to make a couple other points that are not related to this specific bill but to the emergency supplemental appropriations bill for the continuing Iraq War and fight against global terrorism. We have a $152 billion request in front of us with another $45 billion expected on top of that. All of this is emergency spending and none of will be paid for. This will take us to the neighborhood of three quarters of a trillion dollars or more, when spent, with respect to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other related matters. All of these costs will be added directly to the federal debt.

During wartime, in most cases, this country has decided it should pay for things that we consume and pay for the cost of wars. We did it in the Civil War. We did it in the Spanish-American War. We did it in World War I and World War II and other wars. We began a process by which we tried to pay for some of that which the war was costing.

The question about whether we should commit ourselves as a country to pay for war is an interesting question. In the Iraq war, our soldiers were sent to fight, and President Bush indicated we could best serve our country by going shopping. We should go to the mall to keep our economy moving.

We could also best serve our country, in my judgment, by deciding not to send our soldiers to fight and then come back later and pay the bill because we decided to charge all of it--every penny of it borrowed.

Let me read something Franklin Roosevelt said during one of his fireside chats:

Not all of us can have the privilege of fighting our

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

the privilege of working in a munitions factory or a ship

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

the weapons or raw materials that are needed by our armed

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

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

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

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

have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is

necessary, not only to supply our fighting men [and women],

but to keep the economic structure of our country fortified

and secure . . .

President Johnson said:

The test before us as a people is not whether our

commitments match our will and courage; but whether we have

will and courage to match our commitments.

When the emergency supplemental bill comes to the floor of the Senate this time, I am going to ask if we should begin to pay for some of this and to begin to ask for some sacrifice. At least in the easiest of areas for all of us to make a decision, let me show you $23 billion of revenue right now that we might use to offset some of that which otherwise will be described as emergency. I have a piece of legislation that will shut down offshore tax haven abuses. This is one I described 2 years ago on the floor of the Senate. It is the Ugland House, a five- story white house in the Cayman Islands, that is home to 12,748 corporations. They are not there. That is a legal fiction created by lawyers to allow those companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe in the United States. I have a piece of legislation, S. 396, that says if U.S. corporations are going to set up a paper company in an offshore tax haven simply to avoid paying taxes, it is not going to work. We close that loophole. Here is an obvious one we could change immediately: end abusive foreign sale and lease transactions. We can use some of these to pay for some of that which we are spending on the war. This is a case of the lease of 65 streetcars in Germany by a United States corporation, First Union Bank. Here is one in which Wachovia Bank bought a sewage system in a German city. Do they want to own a German sewer system? No, they want to save $175 billion in taxes through a tax loophole. We could close this right now.

I am going to suggest, when we bring another emergency bill to the floor--in this case nearly $200 billion--that maybe it is long past time for us to meet the obligation we have; that is, to ask all of us to sacrifice a bit. In this case, ask those who have exercised huge loopholes to avoid paying taxes in the United States. This is a picture relating to another bill I have. This is called the Radio Flyer. I expect every Member of the Senate when they were little toddlers rode in a little red wagon called a Radio Flyer. This was made in Illinois. It was made by an immigrant who over a century ago built the company that created the Radio Flyer. The reason he named it Radio Flyer is, he liked Marconi. He enjoyed airplanes so he decided to call his little red wagon the Radio Flyer. Guess what. After a century this is gone. There are no more red Radio Flyer wagons built in America. They have all gone to China. And by the way, the company that shut down the plant in the United States and moved the red

wagons to China in search of cheap labor got a tax incentive from this Congress to do it. We can shut that down immediately.

So these three ideas and a temporary 1 percent emergency tariff on imported foreign goods would raise some $23 billion in the first year alone. Do we need to wait? Do we need a month, a year, 10 years? I don't think so. All we need is the will and the commitment to do what is right. With respect to these issues, I believe we could do plenty of things that would begin to reduce the cost that will inure to our soldiers, who valiantly fight when asked to, when they come back and discover we have spent a lot of money but we charged it all. So they get to fight today and pay the bill tomorrow. I think we can and should do much better than that.

I have described in shorthand four proposals that I hope we will consider when we do the second piece of this issue of Defense appropriations.

Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens worked very hard on this legislation. This is one of the largest bills we consider in the Senate. There are a lot of issues, some very controversial. I appreciate the work they and their staff have done to put this together. It is not an easy appropriations bill to do. My hope is that as we work through this in the next day or so, we will be able to have final passage in a couple of days and get this into conference so we can resolve all of these issues.

I thank the chairman and ranking member for their work.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, October 4, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on backlogs at the Department of the Interior: Land into Trust Applications; Environmental Impact Statements; Probate; and Appraisals and Lease Approvals.

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

Mr. President, let me make a couple of comments. I will not take a long time.

I have to observe that there was a time when there was substantial courage in this Chamber. I recall we had some very large budget deficits growing over a long period of time, and we passed a new fiscal policy. I was here then some long while ago. It passed by one vote in the Senate and one vote in the House. That took some courage. Some people who cast those votes did not come back here, because they were very controversial votes.

But we turned our fiscal policy around in this country by making tough choices. We turned the Federal budget deficit into a Federal budget surplus and began paying down the Federal debt. In 2001, on this floor, in this Chamber, we had a debate about fiscal policy again. A new President came to the White House. President Bush said he was a conservative.

He said: Well, now, we have all of these surpluses. He and his friend, Alan Greenspan, were worried that the biggest problem facing America was that we were going to pay down our debt too rapidly. The President and the White House said: We have got all of these surpluses. Let's decide to give the wealthiest Americans some large tax cuts because I believe in trickledown economics. Put a lot in the top, and see if some will drain down a bit.

Some of us stood on the floor of the Senate and said, you know what, we have just finally turned this economy around, turned these huge budget deficits around. The plan under the Clinton administration worked, and we turned big deficits into big surpluses and began to pay down the Federal indebtedness.

Some of us stood on the floor of the Senate and said: Mr. President-- to President Bush--maybe we ought to be a bit conservative. What if something happens? These big surpluses for the next 10 years do not yet exist. Yes, there is a surplus now, but we do not have a 10-year surplus that exists. That is the projection. What if something happens? Why do we not be a bit more conservative in how we deal with this?

The President and his supporters said: No. No. No. What we are going to do is we are going to give very large tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. We want to do it right now. They won. They had the votes to win, and they turned this economy around, all right. They turned budget surpluses, in a period where we were actually paying down the Federal debt, into some of the largest Federal deficits in this country's history--once again, unbelievable.

So when I hear people talking about courage, let me say we had some courage on the floor of the Senate. I am proud to have been one of them who cast a vote that passed by one vote, that turned around this country's fiscal policy. And now we leave an example of a fiscal policy that was reckless, one of the most reckless fiscal policies I can ever imagine, given to us in 2001 by a new President who said he was conservative but who was not.

In fact, my colleague just described what we are spending and not paying for. Yesterday in the Senate Appropriations Committee, President Bush sent his Defense Secretary, he sent the Assistant Secretary of State, he sent the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to ask us for another $189 billion to prosecute the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, oh, by the way, the President said: I do not intend that we pay for any of that; put that right on top of the debt. We are going to charge it all.

That is the direction this White House is leading. That is what brings us to the floor of the Senate tonight, with a fiscal policy that has rung up an enormous amount of additional debt; the worst possible fiscal policy you can imagine.

You know what happened? Some of us said, maybe we ought to be a little bit conservative, a little bit careful. The President said: No. No. No. We are not going to do that. We are going to take these 10 years of estimated surpluses and we are going to spend them with tax cuts.

Here is what happened very quickly. We were in a recession. The President likes to say he inherited the recession. He did not. But very shortly after he took office, we experienced a recession. Then we experienced the terrorist attack of 9/11, and then a war in Afghanistan, then a war in Iraq, then an economic slowdown.

Would not it have been smarter to have a fiscal policy that was a bit more careful, one that would have given a bit more thought about how to best care for this country's finances? I know it is easy to blame. I watched today as we had people come to the floor of the Senate blaming this, that, and the other thing. It is easy to take the negative. I understand that. Mark Twain was once asked if he would engage in a debate. And he said: Oh, sure, as long as I can take the negative side. Somebody said: We have not told you the subject. He said: Doesn't matter. If I take the negative side, it will take no preparation.

So I understand those who come to the floor of the Senate and tell us what is wrong. But I can tell you about a fiscal policy that was right, because I supported it and am proud to have done it some years ago, that turned big deficits into budget surpluses and began paying down the Federal debt. That is the kind of fiscal policy we need. It is the kind of fiscal policy we had, and this administration and those who supported it in this Chamber turned their back on it 6 years ago. Now we have paid the price for those votes.

I hope those who describe these issues remember, remember what a good fiscal policy was and how to recapture it once again. Yes, it take a little political courage. Those of us who supported a fiscal policy that works understand how it worked when it happened.

We have a lot to be thankful for, living in this great country of ours; only one spot like it on the planet. We have responsibilities that are very significant here in this Chamber. There is plenty wrong with this country, plenty of things that need fixing. But it is a wonderful place that requires our stewardship to do the right thing. I only came to the floor as I listened this evening to point out that we have seen good fiscal policy and bad fiscal policy. I, and I think many others, recognize the difference. If all of my colleagues will recognize that difference, we can put this country back on track once again. That is what the American people deserve and expect from us.

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

I thank Senators Specter and Casey for raising this issue. Extending the section 508 program is critical for many North Dakota hospitals and is an important step to address the long-standing inequities in Medicare payment between urban and rural providers. I appreciate the commitment of the chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee and look forward to working with them to see that this extension is enacted.

I strongly support reinstating the ability of States to deem necessary providers to be critical access hospitals. The Critical Access Hospital Program has helped ensure that the doors stay open at many hospitals in rural America. Without this program, many Medicare beneficiaries in my State would have to drive hours to receive health care. I think it is important to give States flexibility to deem necessary providers as critical access hospitals and not rely on a one- size-fits-all definition. If we don't address this issue, I am worried that one of our hospitals in western North Dakota, St. Joseph's Hospital, may not be able to survive. I appreciate Chairman Baucus' commitment to work with us to address this issue and to consider modifications to the Critical Access Hospital Program that would allow St. Joseph's Hospital in Dickinson, ND, to participate.

Mr. President, has the time for morning business expired?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes in morning business.

Mr. President, this afternoon, I will be attending a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Secretary of Defense will

be there, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be there, as will someone from the State Department, and they will be here supporting a proposal by the President to the Congress that we supply up to $200 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan--all of it declared ``emergency,'' none of it paid for, and that is $200 billion for this year. That will take us to almost three-quarters of a trillion dollars, with respect to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, all added to the Federal debt as a result of a request by the President that it be emergency spending.

I mention that only because we have been talking out here on the Senate floor about something called the children's health insurance program. It is a fraction of what we will be discussing this afternoon as emergency funding. The children's health insurance bill is fully paid for. That which came out of the Senate Finance Committee on a bipartisan basis to address the issue of health insurance for children and do so in a way that fully pays for it. It is a very different circumstance than exists with the President's request for war funding, for example.

But it is interesting to me that the loudest moans in the Chamber of the Senate come when we take the floor of the Senate to talk about taking care of things here at home, taking care of basic things in this country.

What is more basic than taking care of children and the health care of children? If it is not in first place, tell me what is in first place among your concerns about life. I am talking about the health of our children. If that doesn't rank No. 1, tell me what does. It ought to rank No. 1, front and center. Everybody individually, I think, would say the most important thing in my life is my children and my children's health. Yet we bring a bill to the floor of the Senate dealing with children's health, paid for, and it provides expanded coverage, coverage to those children who don't have coverage--millions of children whose health is now a function of how much money their parents have in their checkbook, and who, in some cases, are lying in pain, walking with a limp, suffering through agony but cannot go to a health care facility because their folks cannot take them because they don't have any money or insurance. Does anybody here believe we should not aspire to address that? And we have. We have a piece of legislation that is fully paid for----

Compared to what we will hear this afternoon, a request for $200 billion of emergency funding for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, none of it paid for, and this is a fraction of that to reach out to try to provide health insurance to America's children, particularly America's poor children.

I am happy to yield for a question.

I believe they have. It is a fact that this is paid for with revenue coming from the sale of cigarettes. It is also a fact that about 3,000 children a day will begin to smoke and become addicted to cigarettes, and 1,000 of them will ultimately die from that choice. The only chance you have to hook someone on cigarettes is to do it when they are kids. Does anybody know of anybody who is around 30 or 40 years old sitting in a La-Z-Boy recliner and watching television and thinking, what have I missed in life? What have I not yet done that I should do? And they come up with the answer that I ought to start smoking. Does anybody believe that would happen? Of course it doesn't.

We know now that smoking has dangerous health effects. The only chance you have to get someone to smoke, get them addicted for a lifetime, is to get kids addicted. So I think that which we do to persuade children not to smoke is something very important in our lives. It is also a contributor to a healthy lifestyle.

Yes.

In fact, the request before the Senate Appropriations Committee this afternoon for the war in Iraq is two requests: $145 billion that now exists for this year, and we expect another $50 billion on top of it. That is nearly $200 billion in one single year, totaling about three-quarters of a trillion dollars, over time none of it paid for. This program to provide health insurance to children is $7 billion a year fully paid for.

What bothers me about this issue is this clearly is an issue of trying to take care of things here at home. What is more important than taking care of a young child who is sick? It is interesting to me, we voted a while back about making English the national language. It is a reasonable request. If you want to become an American citizen, you ought to aspire to learn the language, English. Yet I come to the floor and I hear a foreign language. I don't understand what they are talking about: ``socialized medicine,'' ``Cuban-style, government-run health care.'' It seems to me they ought to speak English. I get so tired of people using these terms, such as ``socialized medicine.'' Yes, there is a government aspect to this issue. But as my colleague said, much of this is the private sector as well implementing it.

I am so tired of people saying the Government can't do a thing. How about those firefighters climbing the World Trade Center and giving their lives as those buildings came down? You know what, they were on the public payroll, were they not? Public service, that is what they were doing. Government workers. How about the teachers taking care of our kids today in the classroom? Government workers; yes, they are. How about Dr. Francis Collins working at NIH, who gave us the owners manual for the human body with the mapping of the genome code? Are we proud of him? Government worker.

I am a little tired of this language--``socialized medicine,'' ``Cuban-style system.'' What a load. That is thoughtless rather than thoughtful debate. This is not some massive socialized medicine program.

I say to my colleagues, look a 4-year-old child in the eye who is hurting and say to them: You know what, we made a decision that the question of whether you get to see a doctor or get to go to a clinic or get to go to a hospital today is a function of how much money your parents have, and if they don't have the requisite amount of money, I am sorry, youngster; tough luck. I am sorry. Just bear the pain. We shouldn't do that. As a country, we shouldn't do it.

What is a higher priority than our children and our children's health? How on Earth, given what we are doing, spending money in this Chamber, a $200 billion request this afternoon before the Senate Appropriations Committee, none of it paid for, on an emergency basis, $200 billion, and now

we come with a $35 billion request fully paid for to address the issue of children who do not get health care, children who, when they get sick, do not have adequate health care--what is more important for this country?

I don't understand. I have said from time to time, we have all these events in the Olympics for running and jumping. If ever there were an event for sidestepping, I have some gold medal candidates in this Chamber. Sidestepping the important issue--they don't want to talk about the question of why do you not want to address the health care of children. They want to talk about other issues--socialized medicine. It is a foreign language to me, but maybe not to some.

I guess I would ask this question: Can we--not just on this subject but other subjects as well--can we come to the floor of the Senate and take some pride in taking care of business at home? My colleague from Oregon and I offered the only amendment that cut down a bit the $20 billion--yes, with a ``B''--$20 billion this Congress passed for reconstruction in Iraq. A massive amount of it was wasted. Talking about health care, guess what. We gave a $243 million contract to a private contractor to rehabilitate 142 health care clinics in Iraq. An Iraqi doctor went to the Health Minister of Iraq and said: I would like to see the health clinics that were rehabilitated. The money is all gone. The Iraqi Health Minister said: In many cases, those are imaginary health clinics. The money is gone. Reconstruction in Iraq-- how about taking care of things at home? How about doing first things first? And you tell me what is in second place. The first place, in my judgment, is taking care of America's kids, and we don't do this through some massive Government program, through some socialized health care system, some Cuban-style system of Government programs. We do this in a thoughtful way, and we do it in a way that works.

How do we know it works? Because this program has existed and been an exemplary program, and it has given low-income families an opportunity to believe that when their kids get sick and they don't have money and are having a tough time, they can still take their kids to a doctor. God bless them for knowing that and God bless the Congress and the President for doing something about it in past years.

It is very different now. We are trying to expand the program to millions of additional kids, and we are told somehow this is a program that is unworthy, it cannot be done this way, it is some sort of big bureaucratic mess. Nothing could be further from the truth--nothing.

I hope when the dust settles this week and we do the conference report, I hope we understand that this conference report is bipartisan--Senator Grassley, Senator Baucus, Senator Hatch, Senator Kennedy, and so many others have advanced this legislation on the floor, Republicans and Democrats. Let's pass this legislation, and let's hope the small amount of opposition in this Chamber will not deter us from doing what we know is best for the country. And, second, let's expect this President to sign it. I know he has threatened to veto the bill. Let's expect him to sign it because it is taking care of business at home and doing first things first.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing, along with Senators Stevens, Schumer, Ensign, Kerry, Kohl, Feingold, Clinton, Feinstein, and Nelson of Florida, the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007. We seek with this bill to ensure that millions of Americans who signed up for the ``Do-Not-Call'' registry do not face a resumption of unwanted calls from telemarketers next year when registrations on the registry begin to expire.

Most Americans are unaware that their registration on the list is set to expire after 5 years. The expiration is unnecessary, most people who initially wanted to be rid of telemarketing calls likely still want to block these calls. The system automatically removes numbers that are disconnected and reassigned.

The automatic expiration will only create a hassle for Americans as they start receiving calls again and have to go through the process of re-registering. The U.S. Government would have to spend money to let people know they need to sign up again.

This bill would prevent the automatic expiration and removal of numbers from the registry.

Congress established the ``Do Not Call'' registry in 2003. It quickly became one of the most popular consumer protection programs in history. Congress did not provide for automatic expiration of ``Do Not Call'' list registrations, but the FTC and FCC included an automatic five year expiration for registrations when they wrote the rules for implementing the program.

That was not what Congress intended. As things stand today, 52 million Americans will either have to re-register on October 1, 2008, or get ready to hear their telephones ringing during supper time again with unwanted, commercial solicitation calls.

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

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Conrad to introduce legislation called the Northern Plains Heritage Area Act. This legislation would designate a core area of historically significant resources in Burleigh, McLean, Mercer, Morton and Oliver counties in North Dakota.

This National Heritage Area extends nearly the entire length of the last of the free-flowing Missouri River in North Dakota, the last place the river can be seen as it was seen by Lewis and Clark and the ancestors of today's Mandan and Hidatsa tribes.

But what makes this area a particularly good fit for a National Heritage Area designation is the distinction arising from the patterns of human activity shaped by geography. This is the northern extremity of Native agriculture on the Great Plains.

The scenic breaks of North Dakota's Missouri Valley overlook a rich agricultural tradition stretching back a thousand years. Along the length of the State's remaining free-flowing Missouri River, from Huff National Landmark on the south to the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site on the north, the Northern Plains Heritage Area would encompass the ancient homeland of the Mandan and Hidatsa nations.

While farming methods have changed, the agricultural traditions and the scenic, cultural and historic values remain. The same attributes of geography and climate that attracted the Mandan and Hidatsa later appealed to homesteading farmers and ranchers and the energy industry, all of whom benefited from the natural resources of the land.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing, along with Senators Stevens, Schumer, Ensign, Kerry, Kohl, Feingold, Clinton, Feinstein, and Nelson of Florida, the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007. We seek with this bill to ensure that millions of Americans who signed up for the ``Do-Not-Call'' registry do not face a resumption of unwanted calls from telemarketers next year when registrations on the registry begin to expire.

Most Americans are unaware that their registration on the list is set to expire after 5 years. The expiration is unnecessary, most people who initially wanted to be rid of telemarketing calls likely still want to block these calls. The system automatically removes numbers that are disconnected and reassigned.

The automatic expiration will only create a hassle for Americans as they start receiving calls again and have to go through the process of re-registering. The U.S. Government would have to spend money to let people know they need to sign up again.

This bill would prevent the automatic expiration and removal of numbers from the registry.

Congress established the ``Do Not Call'' registry in 2003. It quickly became one of the most popular consumer protection programs in history. Congress did not provide for automatic expiration of ``Do Not Call'' list registrations, but the FTC and FCC included an automatic five year expiration for registrations when they wrote the rules for implementing the program.

That was not what Congress intended. As things stand today, 52 million Americans will either have to re-register on October 1, 2008, or get ready to hear their telephones ringing during supper time again with unwanted, commercial solicitation calls.

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

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Conrad to introduce legislation called the Northern Plains Heritage Area Act. This legislation would designate a core area of historically significant resources in Burleigh, McLean, Mercer, Morton and Oliver counties in North Dakota.

This National Heritage Area extends nearly the entire length of the last of the free-flowing Missouri River in North Dakota, the last place the river can be seen as it was seen by Lewis and Clark and the ancestors of today's Mandan and Hidatsa tribes.

But what makes this area a particularly good fit for a National Heritage Area designation is the distinction arising from the patterns of human activity shaped by geography. This is the northern extremity of Native agriculture on the Great Plains.

The scenic breaks of North Dakota's Missouri Valley overlook a rich agricultural tradition stretching back a thousand years. Along the length of the State's remaining free-flowing Missouri River, from Huff National Landmark on the south to the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site on the north, the Northern Plains Heritage Area would encompass the ancient homeland of the Mandan and Hidatsa nations.

While farming methods have changed, the agricultural traditions and the scenic, cultural and historic values remain. The same attributes of geography and climate that attracted the Mandan and Hidatsa later appealed to homesteading farmers and ranchers and the energy industry, all of whom benefited from the natural resources of the land.

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