Floor Statements

Mr. President, this past June, the National Association of Development Organizations, NADO, formed the Rural Planning Organizations of America, RPO America, a national voluntary organization, which was designed to strengthen our Nation's rural transportation planning, development, and infrastructure system.

Under the leadership of NADO, RPO America will support rural transportation planners and practitioners by providing professional development, peer networking, research and educational initiatives in order to promote and showcase the benefits and value of transportation planning and infrastructure development throughout our Nation's rural communities.

Investing in our rural roadways and bridges is more than just investing in concrete and steel; it is also an investment in our future. For this reason, it is essential that our Nation's rural transportation professionals be provided with the necessary tools and support to promote and showcase the value, benefits, and accomplishments of rural transportation planning and development.

Efficient transportation infrastructure plays a critical role in a successful and thriving community. Furthermore, a reliable transportation system within our Nation's rural community is not only critical to our rural communities but also to our Nation's economy.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing this newly formed organization that will support the role of rural transportation planners and the efforts to improve rural community access throughout the country.

Mr. President, I am very grateful to the chairman of the committee for giving me this opportunity to respond.

I was very pleased that my friend from Arizona finally called attention to the St. John's Bayou-New Madrid floodway project. This is a very important project. I invite the Senator out to see it sometime because this area, a large area of southeast Missouri, was converted to cropland in the early 1900s.

One can argue whether that was a good idea, but for over a century, it has been farmed and farmed successfully. They are not wetlands. There are no wetlands being drained there. This is cropland, and it is farmed. Some of the farming is done by very low economic people. Minority communities are located there. The minority community of Pinhook holds many of the farmers who farm this land.

We have had very compelling testimony before the Environment and Public Works Committee. When the late Jimmy Robbins, one of the leaders of Pinhook, came up and explained that without closing the St. John's Bayou-New Madrid floodway, every time the river comes up, the river floods Pinhook. The entire community is covered in floodwater. They have to get out high-wheel tractors and large farm tractors to ferry their children to school, to ferry them back and forth to work, to take care of their basic needs.

Do we want to subject these people to continued flooding?

My predecessor, Senator Tom Eagleton, back in 1976, proposed bringing relief to the minority communities living in the area that floods when the Mississippi River rises. Guess what. That was a mere 30 years ago because his project had been reviewed, re-reviewed, replanned, challenged, re-reviewed, re-reviewed, and the people of Pinhook continued to be flooded.

This is not about draining wetlands. This is a problem of what happens to the people who actually live there.

The purpose of the project is to protect communities, farmlands, and wildlife in a flood-prone area. No wetlands will be drained. The majority of the land has been leveled, improved, irrigated and is not functioning as wetlands habitat but is functioning as farmland.

The Corps has reevaluated operations for fishery habitat for the area and determined that this project still exceeds the 1-to-1 benefit-to- cost ratio. I can tell you it is a whole lot more expensive than it would have been had the project been done in a timely fashion after 1976. That is what happens when you study, when you threaten to bankrupt local communities trying to pay their share. You put the State at great expense to continue these operations.

Yes, we should study, and the amendment that has been proposed by Senator Inhofe and me provides for review to make sure the review is accurate. But to provide the additional bureaucracy, the additional hassle that the Feingold-McCain amendment provides does not in any way assure that the taxpayers will get a better deal, the environment will be better or that the needs of the people in the communities will be better satisfied.

I want to discuss, very briefly, the technical and scientific independent review amendment offered by Senator Inhofe and me and the peer review amendment offered by Senators McCain and Feingold. Although the difference between independent review and independent peer review appears to be semantic and minor, when you look at what is in them, you see the difference. Both proposed amendments address Corps reform and both address external review. Nobody is arguing to say there shouldn't be review, that we shouldn't take a look and see what needs to be done and how it needs to be done better. Everybody can focus on the problems of New Orleans. Well, when you look at the problems of New Orleans, there are many factors that go into account. We are not going to address those here. But you take a look at how money was spent locally that was supposed to be spent on levees, and you take a look at the decisions made along the way that were not well made.

Senator Inhofe and I have offered an amendment which is before us that is going to require an independent review by qualified, interested experts, compiled by the National Academy of Sciences, and the review will occur throughout the entire process. In other words, people such as representatives from the National Academy of Sciences, the IRC, the American Society of Civil Engineers, will be focusing on the project as it is developed. There are many stages in the development of these projects, and they need to be reviewed to make sure the work that is being done by the Corps is being done accurately.

This is a general operation of what happens before you go to a decision to move forward. There is the chief's report; it is referred. There are letters, OSA reviews, the Office of Management and Budget reviews, the Office of Management and Budget has to clear it, the Assistant Secretary of the Army recommends it to Congress, and then Congress approves it. All of these steps--there are about 103 separate steps that have to be followed. So it comes to the Congress as a policymaker to decide whether it is an appropriate policy. But all along that path, we want to have people who are scientifically qualified to make sure that if they are building a levee, they build a levee that will hold as projected. If they are building a lock, they want to make sure it will hold water, that it will be sound, that it will be safe, whether it is a levee or a lock.

As a result of the admission from the Corps that some of the problems existed with the planning and construction of the New Orleans levees, no one--not even the Corps--is denying that realistic reform is an important component of this WRDA bill. The challenge is to enact realistic reform that provides sufficient project review without creating unnecessary costs.

The Inhofe-Bond amendment proposed does just that. It provides reform that will establish greater accountability and assure us that scientific, technical standards are observed without adding unjustified delays and costs.

The peer review panels in the Feingold-McCain amendment are not clearly restricted to reviewing the scientific and engineering basis. The panels are permitted to get into policy, value, public controversy, and make the decisions that Congress and the local community are supposed to make. The local community decides whether to support it. Congress makes a policy decision. Congress has provided already for public hearings, public comment. Yesterday I went through the process of the number of meetings that had been held with Governors, with public hearings on the locks projects on the upper Mississippi, with the number of comments, the number of people who participated. There is tremendous public participation and input. Setting up a separate body to judge that input, rather than the Congress, is not, I think, good policy. We are supposed to make the policy based on the best scientific recommendations we can get. OMB has a crack at the policy when they send it up. But these policy reviews would be second-guessing the scientific decisions.

Let's think about how this would play out in the transition. Once the comment period moves beyond the technicality and the science, what independent experts are dictating the project approval? We should not dilute public review by giving technocrats a larger role in policy recommendations than is given to the general public. There is a reason why we rely upon the appropriate training and expertise of the people who are generating the process to develop and construct our infrastructure and safety needs.

Let's take a look at the local cost share that would go into the Feingold-McCain process. It doesn't even provide for integration of peer review until the end of the process. Making sure that the independent review begins as the process goes forward is the way that we assure the process is better. We want integration of the review all throughout before you make a major mistake and go off in the wrong direction. When you wait to have end-of-the-line peer review--does it make any sense to wait until a car is coming off of an assembly line, is rolled off the assembly line, to test to make sure that the lights work and the switches work? You test them before you put them into the car. That is what we are doing, we test along the line to make sure that what you are putting into the process works. You don't want to put components into a car only to find out, Hey, the lights don't work, the switches don't work, and then have to start tearing the car apart.

That is what the Feingold-McCain amendment does. It is end-of-the- line peer review. It invites multiple passes through the study process with unacceptable expense and delay, and it would, in effect, become a second study process. The first go-round, the local cost share, would increase, because they have to pay for it, the locals have to pay for it. It takes 1 to 3 years to go through the process in the first place, and then you start a peer review at the end and it could take another period of time, and if they send it back, you start it 1 to 3 years over. That becomes extremely expensive for the local cosponsors. It becomes extremely expensive for the taxpayers who are paying for the tab if you redo it without reviewing the project as you go forward. Doubling the time and moving the costs of a project outside of the realm of the local community's ability to pay makes no sense.

Now, of course, beyond the peer review process, there is the congressional process. Congress must authorize and fund studies on each project and then authorize and appropriate funds to construct each project. As we all know, the congressional process does take years. If my ancient memory serves me, this is the 2002 Water Resources Development Act. This was the bill that was due in 2002. Here we are 4 years later. Don't let anybody tell you that Congress doesn't review it and review it and review it and review it until it is lying on the floor gasping for breath.

The amendment Senator Inhofe and I propose establishes a peer review panel that provides a safety net. We are elected to represent the interests of constituents. We are not appointed bureaucrats. The amendment takes away our authority to act on behalf of our constituents and meet the needs of our local communities. It removes the checks and balances set forth in our Constitution by shifting power away to other people.

Now, why do we wait until the end of the line to do this peer review in the first place? The collaborative solutions to urgent flood and storm control and other important questions would be moved to the end of the process and sent back to the drawing board.

Let's try another analogy. We test our schoolchildren throughout each grade level and assess their progress. If a child has difficulty reading, it is flagged, and intervention and extra help should be provided. We do not wait until students reach the end of the eighth grade and then test them to see if they have learned to read in the first grade and send them back to the first grade. You ought to be testing them each year to make sure they are proficient, and you ought to be testing the hypotheses of this process throughout.

Common sense says that independent review is effective only if it is used throughout the process. Can you imagine an employee working on a project and planning for several years, and then during the end-of-the- line review finding a technical error and having to go back to the beginning? Not only is that unnecessarily delaying and expensive, but it kills the motivation of employees, and it delays. I, along with Senator Inhofe, propose independent peer review during this study process.

One other thing, the inclusion of the expectation of litigation. Their amendment talks about judicial review and invites judicial review. Well, that is another cost adder that will continue to impose burdens on communities and delay the effectiveness of the ability to construct needed projects. With the clear-cut incentives to litigate, we are going to see more lawsuits and less projects. Clear-cut opportunities to litigate, if the committee is unhappy with the chief's report, will only complicate the cost-benefit analysis, when it is already too challenging to place a value on human life and the economic lifeline of the country. The Corps study process already takes too long and will be too expensive, and it will continue to delay the progress we need.

Media reports and editorials have criticized what went on, and they play the blame game--they burden the Corps with the blame. But Senators should understand that the Corps needs to have an improved process, and we are going to do our best to make sure that process is driven by sound science throughout the process.

About 80 of our colleagues signed a letter saying, Bring this bill to the floor. The 80 colleagues who are signed on to that letter believe they have projects in their communities, in their States, that are important. If you wish to continue to delay the passage of the WRDA bill for another 2, 4, 6, 8 years, then forget about the environmental benefits--the environmental benefits which are more than half of the authorization of this project, and the environmental benefits which the Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, and other responsible environmental groups say need to happen. Trying to delay the bill or trying to delay the process of implementation of Corps studies and recommendations is very costly and denies us the ability to accomplish things that are important for the safety, the well-being of our communities and the people who live in them.

Mr. President, I urge our colleagues to oppose the Feingold-McCain amendment and to support the Inhofe-Bond amendment.

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, we have had a lot of talk about all of the things that the Corps has done wrong and the problems in the past. I don't think anybody believes that there is not a need for reform, review, independent review by experts who can comment on and who can provide valuable input to the Corps. The Corps has learned a lot of lessons, and the Inhofe-Bond proposal creates a mechanism for improving technical quality of the projects that move forward, not an incubator for more lawsuits to delay needed projects.

The Inhofe-Bond amendment would encourage independent review of technical information and science, not a review of policy decisions, which are appropriately made in the executive branch and by this body. We don't want to outsource our policy decisions to some other group, as the Feingold-McCain amendment would do. We want to continue an open, fair, and public review of recommendations, and not create a public review created by special interests designed to undo projects for reasons other than policy reasons.

We support stabilizing, not destabilizing, Federal/ non-Federal interests in reliance on the Corps. We support Presidential oversight of independent review, not handing government functions over to some unelected commission.

When you take a look at the past work of the Corps, you see that the Corps now currently provides 3 trillion gallons of water for use by local communities and businesses. The Corps manages a supply of one- quarter of our Nation's hydropower. The Corps operates 463 lake recreation areas. The Corps moves 630 million tons of cargo valued at over $73 billion annually over the inland water system. It manages over 12 million acres of land and water.

The levees that have been properly constructed have prevented an estimated $76 billion in flood damage within the past 25 years, with an investment of one-seventh of that value. These are the tremendous values that can be provided if we can pass this bill and if we can make sensible Corps reform, without providing major hindrances and roadblocks.

I hope that the 80 Senators who joined with us in saying ``bring this bill to the floor'' will realize that there is such a thing as appropriate review and there is such a thing as unnecessary, late-stage second guessing, which can be extremely expensive and can delay the benefits that could come from the work of the Corps.

The McCain-Feingold independent review amendment has a tremendous potential to delay project construction. They wait until the end of the process, and any mistakes found at the end of the process, as envisioned in the Feingold-McCain amendment, would necessitate a repeat of the study to correct the problems--beginning over again. Clearly, this would delay project construction and drive up costs.

Under our proposal, since reviews are integrated into the process, any mistakes made or improvements suggested could be corrected and incorporated at the time. As I said earlier today, it is like waiting to test students in the eighth grade to see if they have first-grade reading capabilities. If a child cannot read at the first-grade level when he or she finishes the first grade, give them remediation then, help prepare them for the second grade; don't wait until they get to the eighth grade and say we just wasted 8 years of this child's education because they could not read at the first-grade level. This essentially--testing at the eighth grade level for first-grade compliance--is what the Feingold-McCain amendment would do.

Let's be clear about it. We passed a bill 2 years ago that had all sorts of regulatory redtape and delays. This was opposed by the House, which could not agree on a conference with us. That is why we lost this bill. Putting in a batch of redtape and bureaucratic delays is going to make possible negotiations with the House extremely difficult and could lead to no bill being passed again.

So the 2002 Water Resources Development Act that we are still trying to pass in 2006 would go into 2007 and 2008. The benefits that come from the authorized projects in this bill will be delayed. I want the 80 Senators who want to see this bill passed--because they have projects that are important--to understand that the review that is necessary is being incorporated in the Inhofe-Bond amendment. It is being incorporated in a sensible timeframe, reviewing with representatives from the National Academy of Science, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Independent Research Council, as the project goes along.

Everybody knows there needs to be review. The Corps has learned a lot of lessons from mistakes. We ought to learn from our mistakes. One of the mistakes we have made is to try to burden the process and make it so cumbersome it can't work.

If you don't want to see the Corps providing water supply, protecting against floods and hurricanes, making sure we have the most efficient, economical, environmentally friendly, energy-friendly means of transportation, then support more bureaucracy, more redtape, and more delays.

If, on the other hand, you want to see the Corps do the job and get the job done right, then I ask my colleagues to support the Inhofe-Bond amendment and let us get on about the business of protecting people from floods, from hurricanes, and making sure that our waterways continue to be an efficient energy-conserving means of transporting bulk commodities.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the time and also for the kind remarks. I appreciate the excellent leadership he has provided and the bipartisan nature with which he and Senator Jeffords brought this bill to the Senate.

It is important to take a look at the substance of what is going on in these prioritization amendments now before the Senate which deal with fiscal deadlines and requirements and, in turn, how projects should be prioritized. I hope our colleagues will listen carefully to the context of the WRDA legislation and the Corps reform.

Worthwhile projects of the Corps of Engineers should be funded. The inadequate funding of the levees in New Orleans was a bad mistake. We need to fund worthwhile levees, but the best route is not the total overhaul of the Corps and passage of the Feingold-McCain amendments, in this case, specifically, the prioritization amendment.

The Feingold-McCain amendment proposes a complete overhaul by establishing a new bureaucracy, the Water Resources Planning Coordinating Committee. We need another bureaucracy in the Federal Government like a bear needs tennis shoes. This idea is essentially a reprise of the Water Resources Council that existed during the Carter administration which was discredited due to its inability to get anything done. That is not surprising when you have members ranging from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Secretary of Homeland Security. These are just a few of the Cabinet members, along with others, proposed to provide review under the Feingold-McCain amendment. The Secretary of the Army is on there, not even a Cabinet position. I look forward to the Secretary of the Army, for example, providing input and review to the Department of Education on No Child Left Behind. That is essentially the same thing as having the proposed Feingold-McCain council consisting of noninterested, nontrained Cabinet members with other heavy responsibilities involved in the Corps of Engineers' very complicated 103-step process to come up with priorities and approval of projects.

Beyond a lack of interest in expertise, this council is structured for projects to fail. A meeting of the minds is very difficult. This is probably the reason such a council does not exist in any other forum. In the rare event a consensus would emerge, the 50 percent local cost share would increase to the point where communities could no longer afford to make their contributions for essential projects.

It sounds like a time-consuming, expensive, headache-producing bureaucracy to me, and I have seen them before. I can tell one when I see it. This is one area where trained experts who understand the process, from planning to construction, should be running our water project formulation process. There is a reason we rely upon those with appropriate training and expertise to develop and construct our infrastructure and safety needs. These decisions should be based on sound science, not on political judgment of people with no expertise in the area.

With thousands of projects and costs that change annually, prioritization of the projects and the process directed by Feingold- McCain would be extremely cumbersome. Achieving stability and prioritization would be nearly impossible.

The amendment Senator Inhofe and I have proposed would categorize and prioritize projects on scientifically sustainable reports. These reports will provide Congress with the necessary information to make tough values-related decisions. Our proposed approach supports and encourages a holistic approach to water resource management by considering a wide range of important factors.

Feingold-McCain fails to address multipurpose projects and thus results in inadequate cost-benefit ratios. Modernizing our locks and dams and improving our levees contribute to the entire way of American life: enhancing flood control, transportation, hydropower, water supply, and recreation. Each purpose of the project served determines demands prioritization, weighing all benefits in the analysis. And even then, how do you truly value safety and the health of human life?

Media reports and editorials have criticized and played the blame game. As a result, the Corps has received more than its share of public ridicule. What is not well publicized is the good work that the Civil Works Program of the United States Army Corps of Engineers has already done in its exhaustive inhouse budget prioritization. The Civil Works Program has the only infrastructure project analysis that is required to have cost-benefit ratios grounded in economic theory and extensive ongoing economic analysis.

From its inception, each economic water resource infrastructure project goes through multiple ``winnowing'' processes. In recent years, only 16 percent of the proposed projects generally pass on a ``national benefit,'' a positive benefit to cost ratio. Unless a project meets this threshold, the process will not allow for a favorable report of the chief of engineers.

The second winnowing is cost-share requirements where both studies and

construction require percentages of local moneys to match the amounts from the Federal Government as well as other contributions such as lands, easements, and rights-of-way.

Unless exempted by Congress, if a local cost-sharing agreement does not come forward, a project is not eligible for Federal funds.

Next is the actual budget appropriations process, which begins at the 38 districts of the Corps of Engineers 18 months before a President's budget is delivered.

Performance-based budgeting requires a highly detailed process, sorting the projects by benefits and costs and rated in a variety of categories, including risk factors for the environment, safety, security, and operations.

Each of the ``economic'' Corps projects is then subject to ``diminishing returns'' analysis that defines specific measurable performance benefits that may be gained through a number of levels of incremental funding.

In addition, unique elements or circumstances, such as judicial findings and orders, are taken into account. The recommendation is then sent to the Corps Division office that merges all district inputs into a division recommendation which goes to the Corps headquarters in Washington.

Once at headquarters, they are reviewed, merged, cross-walked, racked, stacked, jacked, and tacked, and finally nationally ranked on a benefit scale, to deliver a list to OMB.

I am exhausted--and I know my listeners are exhausted, those who are still listening--merely summarizing the current standards and the process that has to be followed--and we did not go into the 103 steps currently existing before the request even reaches Congress for appropriations.

But the Bond-Inhofe amendment goes further and categorizes and prioritizes projects scientifically and makes a supportable report to make it easier for us to make the important judgments. It is a time- consuming and extensive process already. The last thing the process needs is additional bureaucratic steps and redtape from those who have already skewed priorities and lack the expertise to make decisions.

OMB has its own criteria and priorities, with recent trend analysis showing they favor environmental restoration projects. For example, within the fiscal year 2007 construction account, only 90 out of the approximately 655 projects were accorded ``priority status'' that would allow for some level of funding.

The Feingold-McCain amendment would only add additional steps, lengthen the timetable, with fewer funded projects, the loss of jobs, and the inability to provide safety and the transportation we need.

Finally, of course, there is a congressional process where we must authorize and fund the projects. We establish our priorities, and they are contained in the amendment, the Bond-Inhofe amendment.

The Feingold-McCain amendment proposes a council that lacks the necessary expertise and adds redtape. We believe the Bond-Inhofe amendment makes sense, and it will add to what the WRDA legislation already includes: reasonable Corps reform amendments that would strike a balance, that disciplines new projects to criteria fairly applied, while addressing a greater number of water resources multipurpose priorities.

I urge my colleagues to support the Inhofe-Bond amendment and to oppose the Feingold-McCain amendment.

I yield the floor.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the managers' amendment at the desk be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, we have been advised by both sides a voice vote would suffice on this measure. Many Members want to be recorded, but if we all speak loudly we can do that without going through the time of a rollcall vote.

I suggest to my colleague from Vermont, if his side is happy with it, we accept a voice vote.

I move to reconsider the vote.

I thank all Senators for the passage of this very important bill. There has been tremendous bipartisan cooperation. I especially thank Senator Jeffords and Catharine Ransom, Jo-Ellen Darcy, and the great leadership of our chairman, Senator Inhofe. He did an outstanding job, with the great help of Angie Giancarlo, Ruth Van Mark and Stephen Aaron.

On my staff I express a special thanks to a fellow, Letmon Lee, who has worked on this tirelessly for better than 2 years, Karla Klingner, on my staff, Brian Klippenstein, who worked so hard. I believe we have a product we can take to the House.

It is long overdue that we pass the Water Resources Development Act. It was due to be passed in 2002. We have finally done it. My thanks to both sides.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, children endure a lot. They cannot always tell us what is wrong. Often they do not know themselves. So it takes a special person to work with young people and help identify their problems. Every child deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential, but it takes more than a bookbag full of pencils, paper, books and rulers to equip children with the tools necessary to succeed in school.

The most important tool kids will take to school is their eyes. Good vision is critical to learning. Eighty percent of what kids learn in their early school years is visual. Unfortunately, we overlook that fact sometimes. According to the CDC only one in three children receive any form of preventive vision care before entering school. That means many kids are in school right now with an undetected vision problem. One in four children has a vision problem that can interfere with learning. Some children are even labeled ``disruptive'' or thought to have a learning disability when the real reason for their difficulty is an undetected vision problem.

Without any vision care, some of our children will continue to fall through the cracks. I sympathize with these kids because I suffer from permanent vision loss in one eye as a result of undiagnosed Amblyopia in childhood. Amblyopia is the No. 1 cause of vision loss in young Americans. If discovered and treated early, vision loss from Amblyopia can be largely prevented. Had I been identified and treated before I entered school, I could have avoided a lifetime of vision loss. Parents are not always aware that their child may suffer from a vision problem. By educating parents on the importance of vision care and recognizing signs of visual impairment we can help children avoid unnecessary vision loss.

To ensure that children get the vital vision care that they need to succeed, today I am introducing the Vision Care for Kids Act of 2006 which will establish a grant program to complement and encourage existing state efforts to improve children's vision care. More specifically, grant funds will be used to: (1) provide comprehensive eye exams to children that have been previously identified as needing such services; (2) provide treatment or services necessary to correct vision problems identified in that eye exam; and (3) develop and disseminate educational materials to recognize the signs of visual impairment in children for parents, teachers, and health care practitioners.

We need to do this. We must improve vision care for children to better equip them to succeed in school and in life. The Vision Care for Kids Act, endorsed by the American Academy of Ophthalmology, American Optometric Association, and Vision Council of America, will make a difference in the lives of children across the country.

Mr. President, children endure a lot. They cannot always tell us what is wrong. Often they do not know themselves. So it takes a special person to work with young people and help identify their problems. Every child deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential, but it takes more than a bookbag full of pencils, paper, books and rulers to equip children with the tools necessary to succeed in school.

The most important tool kids will take to school is their eyes. Good vision is critical to learning. Eighty percent of what kids learn in their early school years is visual. Unfortunately, we overlook that fact sometimes. According to the CDC only one in three children receive any form of preventive vision care before entering school. That means many kids are in school right now with an undetected vision problem. One in four children has a vision problem that can interfere with learning. Some children are even labeled ``disruptive'' or thought to have a learning disability when the real reason for their difficulty is an undetected vision problem.

Without any vision care, some of our children will continue to fall through the cracks. I sympathize with these kids because I suffer from permanent vision loss in one eye as a result of undiagnosed Amblyopia in childhood. Amblyopia is the No. 1 cause of vision loss in young Americans. If discovered and treated early, vision loss from Amblyopia can be largely prevented. Had I been identified and treated before I entered school, I could have avoided a lifetime of vision loss. Parents are not always aware that their child may suffer from a vision problem. By educating parents on the importance of vision care and recognizing signs of visual impairment we can help children avoid unnecessary vision loss.

To ensure that children get the vital vision care that they need to succeed, today I am introducing the Vision Care for Kids Act of 2006 which will establish a grant program to complement and encourage existing state efforts to improve children's vision care. More specifically, grant funds will be used to: (1) provide comprehensive eye exams to children that have been previously identified as needing such services; (2) provide treatment or services necessary to correct vision problems identified in that eye exam; and (3) develop and disseminate educational materials to recognize the signs of visual impairment in children for parents, teachers, and health care practitioners.

We need to do this. We must improve vision care for children to better equip them to succeed in school and in life. The Vision Care for Kids Act, endorsed by the American Academy of Ophthalmology, American Optometric Association, and Vision Council of America, will make a difference in the lives of children across the country.

Mr. President, I am, regretfully, limited by having to be at a markup in a subcommittee I chair, and I will limit my remarks to about 15 to 18 minutes.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I particularly thank our leader, Senator Frist, and the minority leader, Senator Reid, for bringing WRDA to the floor. This is a long and arduous process, and we are grateful they were able to bring together this tremendously important bill.

I pay special thanks to the chairman of the committee, Senator Inhofe, and his staff, and the ranking member, Senator Jeffords, and his staff. This has been a truly bipartisan process--a lot longer process than we intended because this was supposed to have been the 2002 WRDA bill. Nevertheless, we have the much needed Water Resources Development Act before us, authorizing projects under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

These projects are of tremendous value to the entire Nation. They provide drinking water, electric power production, river transportation, recreation, flood protection, environmental protection and restoration, and emergency response.

Few agencies in the Federal Government touch as many citizens as the Corps does. The Corps provides one-quarter of our Nation's total hydropower output, operates 463 lake recreation areas, moves 630 million tons of cargo valued at over $73 billion annually through our inland system, manages over 12 million acres of land and

water, provides 3 trillion gallons of water for use by local communities and businesses, and has prevented an estimated $706 billion in flood damage within the past 25 years with an investment of less than one-seventh that value.

During the 1993 flood, which we experienced in Missouri with great devastation, an estimated $19.1 billion in flood damage was prevented by flood control facilities in place at the time.

WRDA, as I indicated, is a bipartisan bill, traditionally produced by Congress every 2 years, making possible America's major flood control projects, coastal protection, environmental protection and restoration, transportation, and recreation on our major waterways.

Despite its importance, we have not passed a bill since 2000. The longer we wait, the more unmet needs pile up and the more complicated the demands upon the bill become, making it harder and harder to win approval.

The public voice is loud, clear, and spoken often regarding how they feel about the need for our long-overdue and much needed WRDA legislation.

We believe the bill before the Senate is a good one that balances the needs of States for environmental restoration of key waterways and for navigation projects that create economic growth.

The bill before us will create jobs, spur economic development and trade competitiveness, and improve the environment. And it is financially responsible.

To say it is widely supported is an understatement. It passed the EPW Committee by voice vote. Eighty of our colleagues signed a letter to leadership urging floor action--80 out of 100. It is tough for us to get 80 together on anything, but they said: We want this bill. The House cleared it with an overwhelming vote of 406 for it.

Environmental restoration, in the last 20 years, has become a primary Corps mission.

Our water resources perform a variety of functions simultaneously. They can provide transportation and protection from floods and habitats for many species. Similarly, when it comes to Corps projects, navigational and flood control projects can and should be environmentally sound. Environmental restoration can help prevent or minimize flooding during the next major storm, and many other benefits.

The Corps is leading some of the world's largest ecosystem restoration projects. And the commanding feature of this bill is its landmark environmental and ecosystem restoration authorities. More than half of the cost of the bill consists of authorization for environmental restoration projects.

Think of all the major waterways that are important to America--to our environmental heritage, to recreation, and to commerce. This bill affects all of them.

Among the projects in this bill are those that will restore wetlands in the Upper Connecticut River Basin in Vermont and New Hampshire; restore oyster habitat in the Chesapeake Bay; restore fisheries in the Great Lakes; implement an environmental management program for the Rio Grande River; continue restoration of the Everglades; restore areas of coastal Louisiana damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; restore habitat on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois waterways; restore oyster habitat on Long Island Sound.

Flood control is also important. If we have learned anything from Mother Nature in the last 15 years, it is that we frequently need protection from her storms. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are just two of the latest devastating examples.

As I said, the good news is Corps projects had an estimated $706 billion in flood damage within the past 25 years with an investment one-seventh that value. This legislation authorizes flood control projects in California, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Minnesota, Kentucky, South Carolina, Idaho, Washington, and Missouri, to name a few.

While the majority of this legislation is for environmental protection and restoration, a key bipartisan economic initiative included provides transportation efficiency and environmental sustainability on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.

As the world becomes more competitive, America must also become more competitive. Between 1970 and 2003, the value of U.S. trade increased 24-fold and 70 percent since 1994. That is an average annual growth of 10.2 percent--nearly double the pace of the GDP growth for the same period. We can expect demand for U.S. exports to continue increasing dramatically over many years.

We have to ask ourselves where the growth in transportation will occur in the next 20 to 50 years to accommodate the growth in demand for commercial shipping. The Department of Transportation suggests that congestion on our roads and rails will double in the next quarter century.

Now, those who drive on the highways know how crowded they are. How would you like to see all of the transportation that we now put on water go on the roads? Ask any farmer who has found difficulty getting rail availability to ship product, commodities, because there is heavy demand. Water transportation is a great untapped capacity.

One medium-sized barge tow carries the freight of 870 trucks. On the road are 2.25 100-car unit trains, 250-car unit trains, and 1 barge carries the equivalent of 15 jumbo hopper cars. Now, how does that translate into the use of energy? We ought to be concerned about energy conservation. Well, the good news is that water transportation conserves fuel and protects the air and environment. How? How far will one gallon of fuel move one ton of freight? If you are going by truck, one gallon of fuel can move a ton of freight 59 miles. If you are going by rail, it can move it 386 miles. But if you are going by water, it can move it 522 miles. That is almost 10-to-1 more efficient than trucks and 1.5 times as efficient as rail. The rail just isn't there. The rail system is overcrowded already.

Over the past 35 years, waterborne commerce on the Upper Mississippi River has more than tripled. The system currently carries 60 percent of our Nation's corn exports and 45 percent of our Nation's soybean exports, and it does so at two-thirds the cost of rail--when rail is available.

In Missouri alone, we ship 34.7 million tons of commodities with a combined value of more than $4 billion. That is not just farm products. It includes coal, petroleum, aggregates, grain, chemicals, iron, steel, minerals, and other commodities, and, yes, the corn, soybean, and wheat that we export overseas.

Our navigable waterways are in environmental and economic decline. Jobs and markets and the availability of habitat for fish and wildlife are at stake. The American Society for Civil Engineers grades navigable waterways infrastructure D- with over 50 percent of the locks ``functionally obsolete'' despite increased demand.

So we have developed a plan that gets the Corps back in the business of building the future, rather than just haggling about predicting the future.

This legislation contains authorization for funding to improve navigation on a number of our major waterways in several States, including Louisiana, Texas, Alaska, Virginia, Delaware, and Maine.

A key piece of the bill modernizes locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. We authorize capacity expansion on locks 20 to 25 on the Mississippi River and Peoria and LaGrange on the Illinois.

New 1,200-foot locks on the Mississippi River will provide equal capacity in the bottleneck region. Upstream from the Keokuk, there is a lock 19 which is 1,200 feet, and below them at St. Louis are locks 26 and 27. They are also 1,200 feet. These 600-foot locks serve as major water roadblocks to transportation of our products to the world markets and inputs to users upstream.

One-half of the cost of the new locks will be paid for by private users who pay into the Inland Waterways Trust Fund. Additional funds will be provided for mitigation and small scale and nonstructural measurements to improve efficiency.

If you are for increased trade, commercial growth, and job creation, you cannot get there without supporting the basic transportation infrastructure, as our chairman has so eloquently pointed out. New efficiency helps give our producers an edge that can make or break opportunities in the international marketplace.

As we look 50 years into the future, we have to ask ourselves a fundamental question: Should we have a system that promotes growth or should we be confined to a transportation straitjacket designed not for 2050 but for 1950 with paddle wheel boats?

We must ask ourselves if dramatic investments should be made to address environmental problems and opportunities that exist on these great waterways?

In both cases, the answer, to me, is simple. Of course we should improve and modernize. The choice is a very important one today as we have a global economy. Our farmers are the most efficient in the world, but transportation costs can knock them out of the world market. We know our competitors are modernizing their water transportation.

Here is a very troubling picture. This is one of our foremost exports right now. You know what they are exporting? Not renewable crops that come from our fields. These are 2 towboats and 30 barges headed for Argentina. Argentina and Brazil and other Latin American countries are taking imports from our water transportation system because they have the waterways to use them and we don't. Do you want to make a one-time sale of the barges or towboats, or do you want to have sales every year on the goods and commodities these can produce?

Seventy years ago, some argued that a transportation system on the Mississippi River was not justified. Congress, fortunately, decided that its role was not to try to predict the future but to shape it and decided to invest in a system despite the naysayers. Over 84 million tons per year later, it is clear that the decision was wise.

The veteran chief economist at USDA testified that transportation efficiency and the ability of farmers to win markets and higher prices are ``fundamentally related.'' He predicts that corn exports over the next 10 years will rise 45 percent, 70 percent of which will travel down the Mississippi River--if the river has the capacity to carry it.

The decision to improve these waterways has not been taken lightly. As has already been pointed out, all decisions and procedures have been documented and coordinated with an interagency Federal Principals Group, independent technical reviews and stakeholders, and have been made available for public review and comment.

The Corps of Engineers spent $70 million completing a study that was anticipated to take 6 years and cost $12 million, but it actually took 14 years to complete. During that period, there have been 35 meetings of the Governors Liaison Committee, 28 meetings on the Economic Coordinating Committee, among the States along the Upper Mississippi and Illinois waterways, 44 meetings of the Navigation and Environmental Coordination Committee; and there have been 3,879 public involvement activities concerning the Upper Mississippi River alone.

Additionally, there have been 130 briefings for special interest groups and 24 newsletters. There have been 6 sets of public meetings in 46 locations, with over 4,000 people in attendance. To say the least, this has been a very long, very transparent, and very representative process.

While we have been studying, our competitors have been building. Given the extraordinary delay so far, and given the reality that large- scale construction takes decades, further delay is no longer an option.

That is why I am pleased to join the bipartisan group of Senators who agree that we must improve the efficiency and the environmental sustainability of our great resources.

The transportation efficiency provisions are supported by a broad- based group of the States, farm groups, shippers, labor, and those who pay taxes into the trust fund for improvements.

Of particular note, I appreciate the strong support from the carpenters, laborers, operating engineers, Iron Workers, Teamsters, the Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Group, and the construction and energy and agriculture people.

Also, I mention specifically the good efforts of Senators Talent, Durbin, Obama, Grassley, and Harkin, who have given strong bipartisan support.

For some, the bill is too small; for others, it is too big. It is important to understand the budget implications in the real world. We are contending with difficult budget realities. It is critical to be mindful of those realities as we make investments in the infrastructure that support those who make and grow and buy and sell things so that we can expand our economy, create jobs, and, yes, pay taxes and secure our future.

This is an authorization bill that doesn't spend a single dollar, not one. Like other authorization bills, it makes projects eligible for funding under constraints administered by Congress. The Appropriations Committee and the President will have final say. Those who don't make it won't be funded.

The WRDA process simply allows for projects to be considered during the process of appropriations. I hear some suggest we should not authorize anything new until everything previously authorized has been funded. That is nonsense because it falsely assumes that all projects authorized 5, 10, 15 years ago are higher priority than those we have now. That is not true.

In fact, we have eliminated the authorization for 56 projects totaling over $500 million in savings. The remaining projects will be subject to the appropriations process.

People have talked about Corps reform. I want to make sure we reform it and don't kill it. I agree that we need to be sure every project is authorized, is needed, and is economically justifiable.

The Corps continues to make agency-wide planning improvements that are responsive to stakeholders' needs and responsible to taxpayers.

The Corps includes independent review in all project studies and review by outside independent experts for larger, higher risk and complex projects. Peer review is integrated into project development.

The Corps is developing new tools to examine regional and watershed issues that will allow a broader view of complex water resource issues.

The bill contains provisions that will further improve the reliability of Corps analyses of projects.

Now, there are many--particularly community leaders around the country--who believe there is already too much redtape, delay, cost, and uncertainty. There are those who want less redtape. I strongly agree with them. Others want more redtape. But I think we strike a necessary balance in the bill.

We have embraced a commonsense, bipartisan proposal by Senators Landrieu and Cochran that requires major projects to be subject to independent review.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 more minutes.

Mr. President, the Landrieu-Cochran proposal requires that necessary mitigation for projects be completed at the same time the project is completed or no longer than 1 year afterward. This will impose a cost on communities, particularly smaller ones, but it is not as onerous as regulations proposed 2 years ago which ultimately prevented a final agreement between the House and Senate. For some, the new regulations are too onerous; for others, not enough. As I said, I believe we strike a balance.

This legislation is supported by over 250 organizations representing the environment, agriculture, labor, and chambers of commerce. I ask unanimous consent that the letter from the National Waterways Alliance listing these groups be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, anybody who wants to know if this is broadly based can look at the list of all of these groups. As I said, they include environmental, labor, agriculture, chambers of commerce, construction, energy, local entities. MARC 2000 in my State has been a very strong supporter.

I thank all of these people who support the bill. I thank my colleagues and their staffs for the hard work devoted to this bill and the difficult issues it presents. I particularly thank Chairman Inhofe for his forbearance. I look forward to the debate on this bill and final passage.

I hope my colleagues listen carefully to the debate because we have included significant Corps reform that will achieve all the benefits that legitimate requests for Corps reform entail, but it will not subject the process to unending, wasteful delays and further redtape that sank the bill the last time we tried to send it to the House.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank our chairman and manager of the bill for yielding time. I join him in urging that my colleagues oppose the amendment to strike the provision to decommission the Hopper Dredge McFarland.

As has already been stated, the McFarland is an expensive, 39-year- old hopper dredge which costs $79,000 a day to operate, more than double what a more technologically capable commercial dredge would cost. The McFarland imposes a wasteful expenditure of scarce resources on Corps dredging projects.

The Energy and Water bill will provide money for removing asbestos from the McFarland, another expense we don't need. In addition, it needs between $20 million and $40 million in upgrades to bring its safety and operational efficiency to minimal levels of acceptability in comparison with state-of-the-art private sector dredges.

Since 1978 the dredging industry has developed the capability to perform the majority of the Corps' dredging work.

This came as a result of Public Law 95-269, which directed the Secretary of the Army to dredge by contract, if he determines private industry has the capability to do such work and it can be done at reasonable prices and in a timely manner.

Under the law the Secretary ``shall retain only the minimum federally owned fleet'' to ``carry out emergency and national defense work'' and may set aside ``such amount of work as he determines to be reasonably necessary to keep such fleet fully operational . . . for as long as he determines necessary.''

During the last decade the Corps has successfully followed a ``use industry first'' policy.

Today's facts: industry is more capable; has provided more than reasonable prices; and responds routinely in a timely manner and successfully to emergencies.

All four government dredges, including the ready reserve dredge Wheeler, are fully operational.

The data does not support the continued operation of the 39-year-old McFarland or spending an additional $20-40 million on its modernization. The vision provided by Congress and implemented by the Corps has resulted in a vibrant and competitive marketplace.

As the Corps' November 2005 Hopper Dredge Report to Congress points out, generally, the combined industry/Corps hopper fleet has been able to meet demand.

With the January 2006 launching of the hopper dredge Glenn Edwards, industry has added 18 percent additional hopper capacity to the combined Federal/private hopper dredge fleet.

With a hopper capacity in excess of 13,000 CY, the Glenn Edwards is configured to dredge in all deep draft commercial ports in a highly effective manner. Therefore, ability to meet the Nation's hopper dredging needs has been greatly enhanced since the Corps' Hopper Dredge Report to Congress was released.

Industry by and large does most of its work for the Corps under contract.

Therefore, if an emergency arises and industry dredges are all working, the Corps has the ability to reassign a private dredge working elsewhere under Corps contract to do an emergency dredging job.

Most of the dredging requirements on the Delaware River, particularly in the upper reaches near Philadelphia and Wilmington, can be accomplished through the use of nonhopper dredges. In fact, it is more efficient to dredge with a nonhopper dredge in the case of the McFarland because material must be pumped out of the hopper by private pumping equipment in the upper reaches of the Delaware River.

The Corps hopper dredge Wheeler was placed in ``Ready Reserve'' by the Congress in WRDA in 1996 as insurance that a hopper dredge would be available to respond to urgent and emergency dredging needs in the gulf, on the Mississippi River, and on the east coast.

The Wheeler has actually been used on the east coast to respond to emergencies when a private hopper dredge is not available. Therefore, the Wheeler is working exactly as Congress intended--as insurance for use during emergencies.

We should be looking for ways to make the operation of our major activities more efficient by using private sector facilities where they can be done more reasonably and more effectively rather than spending large amounts of Federal dollars just to keep the dredge in operational capability. Paying a very high charge for it every day when there are better rates available warrants the recommendation in the WRDA bill that we decommission the Hopper Dredge McFarland.

I urge my colleagues not to support the striking motion.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

As the subcommittee chairman and cosponsor of two amendments to be considered, I foresee that possibility and would not object to reasonable modifications to the filed amendments.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor Mr. Dick Champion, director of the Independence Water Pollution Control Department.

Mr. Champion is an exceptional leader and public steward dedicated to the improvement of Missouri's and the Nation's environment and public health. It is my pleasure to congratulate Mr. Champion on becoming the new president of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, NACWA, formerly the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, AMSA, Mr. Champion is ideally suited for this national leadership position.

Mr. Champion began his career in water pollution control in 1969. He has been with the City of Independence, MO, Water Pollution Control Department for the past 27 years and has been director of the department since 1983. The department is responsible for the Sanitary Sewer Utility, the Storm Water Management Program, the Household Hazardous Waste Management Program, and related environmental compliance.

He was appointed by the Jackson County Executive and legislature to the Jackson County Stormwater Commission, to coordinate regional stormwater policy and planning. Since its creation in 2001, Mr. Champion has been serving as vice-chair of the commission.

He has been an active member of NACWA since 1992, was elected to the board of directors in 1999, and now serves at NACWA's vice president and chair of the Strategic Planning Committee. Mr. Champion will become NACWA's president on July 18--an impressive accomplishment and one that will no doubt help secure NACWA's role as the leading advocate for sound water quality policies.

Mr. Champion earned a BS degree in political science with an emphasis in local government and public administration from Central Missouri State University in 1973. As a student and throughout his career Mr. Champion has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to public service and the improvement of water quality in Missouri. The fish and fishermen of Missouri owe a great deal to his tireless work to guarantee clean water.

With Mr. Champion as president, NACWA will no doubt build on its reputation as the leading advocate for responsible national policies that advance clean water and a healthy environment. Simply stated, when I hear the term ``environmentalist,'' I think of public servants like Mr. Champion first.

Again, it is my sincere pleasure to congratulate Mr. Champion on becoming president of NACWA. I look forward to working with him and NACWA to ensure continued water quality progress for Missouri and the Nation.

Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from Texas for outlining so many of the very important issues facing this country and the Senate today.

I will talk about something that is extremely important to families, to people through the United States. That is the war on terror. How are we going to take the steps to prevent another September 11 attack in the United States?

I don't think anyone who has followed the progress of the Islamofascist terrorists who have threatened us believe we are going to be safe if we try a fortress mentality, to step back and say no one is going to hit us, they don't care about the United States. They do.

We work in a very secure place. People who visit us have to go through all kinds of security. Yes, we have built up some good barriers, good protections. High target areas such as the Congress and the White House are protected.

For the vast majority of places in America, there is no way you can build a security system such as we have here because of the high priority this rates in terms of terrorist interests. After September 11, we started some very serious consideration of what we needed to do to fight against terrorism.

I will read a very good editorial that appeared September 24, 2001.

The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track

terrorists through money-laundering activity and is readying

an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists.

Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the

recruitment of specialized investigators and greater

cooperation with foreign banking authorities.

Washington should revive international efforts begun during

the Clinton administration to pressure countries with

dangerously loose banking regulations to adopt and enforce

stricter rules. These need to be accompanied by stronger

sanctions against doing business with financial institutions

based in these nations.

That is exactly what the Bush administration did. They set up the Terrorist Financing Tracking Program, a very effective program. This program went on clandestinely without any public notice or disclosure.

As the chairman of the subcommittee that funds the Treasury Department and as a Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was briefed on it. I was briefed on the effectiveness of it and how valuable a tool it is to be able to follow the money because the terrorists did not know we could follow when they transferred money from al-Qaida or Hamas or Hezbollah to someone in the United States; or transferred money from a so-called charity in the United States back to a terrorist organization. They did not know how we were doing it. It was effective.

A number of the major terrorist captures we have made, the terrorist operations designed for the United States that we have interrupted, were enabled by the terrorist tracking program.

When the 9/11 Commission made its final report of its recommendations on December 5, 2005, they gave varying degrees of ratings, from the very best being A, to F being a very bad job, to all of the different activities we had undertaken to make our country safe, to make our homeland safe. Regrettably, many of them only got Bs. The Director of National Intelligence, the National Counterterrorism Center, they got Bs. Some of them got even lower grades, working with other countries.

But the one that led the rating was terrorist financing. We were doing the best job fighting terrorist threats to the United States by terrorist-financing tracking. We were, until last week. Because that editorial I read from about the need for that, about the need for international cooperation, was a New York Times editorial of September 24, 2001.

Well, the New York Times has blown the cover--blown the cover--on this very important terrorist-financing activity. Now the terrorists know there is a Belgian-based cooperative called SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The SWIFT operation has a facility in the United States to which the Treasury Department issued narrowly targeted administrative subpoenas to get information on specific terrorist organizations and where their money transfers went. But now the terrorists know.

SWIFT is regulated by central bankers. The oversight committee knew about it. The oversight committee had in it the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Belgium. Their committee members overseeing SWIFT knew how this program was operating, and they knew it was operating lawfully.

But the New York Times, continuing its recent tradition, has decided that its right to publish is more important than the American public's right to be safe from terrorist activities. This is another chapter in a very sad series of revelations of our most sensitive intelligence- tracking activities.

Newspapers knew in World War II we could crack the codes of the Axis, that we were able to monitor the defense and military moves of Germany. But they did not expose it. Why? Because they knew our national interest required us to be able to keep confidential, to keep out of the hands of our enemies, the techniques by which we gathered the intelligence, which helped us win World War II--and which had, until recent disclosures, helped us be able to win the war against terrorist attacks in the United States.

Well, the New York Times has decided that its right to publish takes precedence over America's right to have intelligence collection methods that are not disclosed to the people of the United States and, thus, to the terrorists we attempt to track.

Sadly, as I have traveled around the world, meeting with our intelligence agencies, our military people--all across the globe--I found out, since the disclosures--beginning with the disclosure of the renditions of terrorists to other countries, the activities of the President's terrorist surveillance program--our intelligence capabilities have been compromised. Intelligence operatives tell us collections are way down. We don't know how we can replace these tools that have been disclosed by the New York Times and others.

In February, at the open hearing in the Intelligence Committee, I asked CIA Director Porter Goss: What has the damage been? What has the damage been to our intelligence system from this disclosure? He said: It's been very severe. Let me repeat, very severe.

Then again, when Michael Hayden was in a public hearing on his confirmation to be Director of the CIA, I asked him again--and this was before the disclosure of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program--I said: What has been the impact of these disclosures on our intelligence system? He said: These disclosures have now applied the Darwinian theory to terrorists because the only terrorists we are capturing are the dumb terrorists. The smart terrorists know what we are doing, and they know how to avoid it. Therefore, they can plan their attacks, and we are severely crippled.

Well, disclosure of this Terrorist Finance Tracking Program is a very severe blow. This one particular program has had, in my view, as many successes as any of the other programs, and it has been a vital part of building the intelligence network that we need, gathering the information we need to identify and take out those people who are planning to launch deadly terrorist attacks in the United States.

I regret to tell my colleagues, my constituents in Missouri, and the people in America that we are much less safe.

This program, the SWIFT Program, did not need to be exposed. The Secretary of the Treasury has written to the New York Times a rebuttal to the disclosure they made. They said: Oh, there is a great need for the people to know this. Well, unfortunately, when the people of America know it, the terrorists know it.

Secretary John Snow, with whom I have worked on this program, laid it out very well. He said in a statement on June 22 of this year: After President Bush made it clear that ensuring the safety of our people from terrorist attacks was our No. 1 priority, one of the most important things the Treasury could do is to follow the flow of terrorist money. They don't lie. Skillfully followed, they lead us to terrorists themselves and, thereby, protect our citizens.

He said:

Given our intimate knowledge of the global financial system

and financial flows, along with our close working

relationships with financial institutions around the world,

Treasury is uniquely positioned to track these terrorist

money flows both internationally and domestically.

He said:

I am particularly proud of our Terrorist Finance Tracking

Program which, based on intelligence leads, carefully targets

financial transactions of suspected foreign terrorists. . . .

It is an essential tool in the war on terror. . . . It is not

``data mining''. . . . It is not a ``fishing expedition''. .

. . today's disclosure [is] so regrettable, because the

public dissemination of our sources and methods of fighting

terrorists not only harms national security but also degrades

the government's efforts to prevent terrorist activity in the

future.

If there are people sending money to help al Qaeda, then we need to know about it. We also need to take advantage of that knowledge to follow the money trail and thwart them.

He reports that the 9/11 Commission gave its highest level of recognition to this work.

Well, Mr. President, when we disclose how our allies are working with us, we not only give the terrorists information on how to avoid disclosure, how to keep their activities secret, what we do, and what is very serious, is we tell our allies that we cannot keep a secret. Our allies are getting more and more reluctant to deal with us on any international cooperative missions when everything we do is blown and all of a sudden they read in their papers in the United States how they have cooperated with the United States.

Now, that is not a very popular thing for some of these governments to do, and it makes it far more difficult for us to say: Hey, let's work together on a clandestine intelligence-gathering program that will keep your country safe and our country safe. Bam, they read about it in the newspapers. Well, this makes not only terrorists more able to get around our existing intelligence-collection assets, but it makes our allies far more reluctant to cooperate with us.

Mr. President, I regret to tell you and my colleagues how serious this has been.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the letter to the editors of the New York Times by the Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow; a copy of the September 24, 2001, editorial from the New York Times; and a copy of the Final Report on 9/11 Commission Recommendations, in which they said this terrorist financing program was the best.

I would say also, it is fully compliant with the regulations, with the Constitution, and with statutes. If anybody wants to know, I will be happy to talk with them. There was no genuine public right to know that was satisfied by blowing this program. It was legal, and it was effective. No longer will it be effective, and no longer can we be as safe as we were before these disclosures started.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise in support of the nomination of Henry M. Paulson to be Secretary of the Treasury. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the Nation's 74th Secretary of the Treasury.

From what I know about him from reputation, from his work on Wall Street, and from what I have learned in my discussions with him, I believe Hank Paulson will bring a kind of strong leadership, unique expertise, and knowledge of global financial markets and will be fully capable of keeping our country competitive in a global economy.

Mr. Paulson is a strong choice for Treasury Secretary for many reasons. Most people know of his talents, the intimate knowledge he has of the financial markets, and his ability to handle crises. He is considered a hard worker who is dedicated to his job and who understands the importance of strong and capable management to run a large organization.

Today I spoke about the SWIFT program, the very important Treasury terrorism finance tracking measure that was regrettably blown by the newspapers last week. When I talked to him, he obviously did not know about it. I did not know it was going to become an item of news. But as he seeks to repair our relations with banks across the world, his experience in dealing with international financial matters will be a great benefit.

He has a string of very important challenges facing him. We have the deficit, which is running out of control by reason of unsustainable entitlement spending. The value of the dollar is falling. How much of a problem is that? How do we deal with it? There is a tax gap in the IRS of roughly 15 percent of the money that is owed or some $345 billion that is not collected. He needs to work through the IRS to cure that. We have a Tax Code that is so complicated, even professional tax preparers disagree on what the implications of many normal transactions are. He will have to fight terrorism financing. He is going to have to confront the issues of dealing with rogue nations such as Iran, and others, through economic sanctions and getting others in the world community to join with him.

As of yesterday, as the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that handles the Treasury, IRS, and other agencies, I have found that they have

water in their basement and they have extremely mundane problems like that, to the global issues that face any Treasury Secretary. I think even the media understands that this is a man who has experience and whose is held in high respect by major world financial leaders, as well as American financial leaders, and he will serve us well.

As chairman of the Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary, HUD, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, and as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I look forward to working with Mr. Paulson in meeting these challenges.

Even though he is a sophisticated Wall Street financier, I was pleased to find out that he is basically a Midwest farm boy at heart. We had a very useful and productive discussion about growing native grasses such as big and little blue stem and Indian grass and how to burn them in the spring to make sure the crops come back without weeds or other non-natives. So he has a strong foot in reality, a Midwest farming background, but he also has a very strong background and expertise in financial matters, and he has respect on Wall Street.

I urge my colleagues to support the nomination of Hank Paulson. This is a time when we have many serious issues, and having him confirmed by this body will be a great asset to us in dealing with everything from international negotiations, terrorism financing, and the other significant economic challenges the world presents today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the floor manager of the bill. As we have heard, the end of al-Zarqawi is a significant blow to al-Qaida operations in Iraq. It is another clear indication of the progress we are making. In addition, the documents we captured at that time indicate that the al-Qaida terrorists themselves know that we are making progress. They are worried that time is now on our side. They know they cannot withstand our military forces.

But even before our troops eliminated one of America's fiercest enemies, some at home had described the current situation in Iraq as bleak. Now they are introducing measures for a timetable for withdrawal from the region.

The insurgents will no doubt consider the debating of this measure one of the best pieces of news they have had this year. That is because the terrorists know that time is on our side unless we give them a timetable for withdrawal. We know that a timetable for withdrawal will undercut the momentum that the insurgents themselves say we have gained in Iraq.

As I have talked to our troops who have been in the field, they say, doesn't

anybody understand that the terrorists watch our media? They have calendars. If they know we are going to get out on a certain date they will declare victory, lay back and wait to take over the country after we have departed.

I would imagine that the terrorists are dumbfounded, yet ecstatic with this self-destructive proposal. I am dumbfounded and aghast. If insurgents had any representation in the Senate, I am sure they would support it. I am not saying my Democratic colleagues are in any way intentionally aiding the insurgents or undermining our troops, but regrettably that is what it would do. I implore my colleagues on both sides to consider the facts and the words of the insurgents themselves, who view this as a time when they are losing.

Last Monday night, when our President was addressing a group outlining in detail the program of progress and how we are going to build up the security forces in Iraq so they can take over, and committing to finishing the job we in Congress overwhelmingly endorsed, Mr. Howard Dean was on national television claiming that Republicans were sitting in air-conditioned offices asking others to do the work in Iraq. He stated:

Republicans are great about sending other people's children

to war.

I take issue with the words of Mr. Dean, the voice of the Democratic National Party. First, our brave young men and women volunteered to serve, to go to war to keep America safe from the terrorists who struck on 9/11 and who would strike again if they had the chance.

Second, 77 of us on this floor, Democrats and Republicans, voted to support the President to carry out the mission that President Clinton first outlined about regime change in Iraq.

Finally, I say to Mr. Dean personally, my only son returned from Iraq over a year ago and is preparing to go back. When I told him we were going to have this debate, I asked him: What is your view on it? I got this e-mail back. He said:

In case anyone is paying attention, there is progress being

made. AMZ himself indicated as much in the confiscated

letters around the time of his death. If al-Qaida, No. 1,

confesses the U.S. is having good success, who here in conus

has the standing to contradict us?

I don't get it. I am not wild about going back to Iraq but

I'd sure as heck would rather do that than essentially

invalidate everything we have done to date by leaving too

early and inviting chaos.

Happy Father's Day.

That was a message from one of the people who are serving us in Iraq, and he speaks for all the other young people he knows.

I implore my colleagues, let our troops finish what we started, what most of us voted for. Let's leave Iraq self-sufficient, free, and stable, an Iraq no longer a safe haven for terrorists, threatening to bring WMD and terrorist attacks to our shore. Let's leave when the job is done, not before. Let's not defeat our mission with political attacks on the President and the Secretary of Defense as we have heard today, and on those of us in Congress, giving the terrorists a victory politically by laying out for them a ``get out of jail free'' card, giving them a timetable for withdrawal whether or not Iraqi security forces are fully capable of controlling their country.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to talk about all of the interesting things going on in Iraq. We saw yesterday the surprise, very important visit by the President to the new Iraqi Cabinet under Premier Nouri Kamal al-Maliki. This marks one more significant step in efforts to bring national unity to Iraq. We all must remember that just a few short years ago, Iraq was ruled by a murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein. According to the Iraqi Survey Group's Charles Dilfer, Iraq was a far more dangerous place even than we knew. We may not have had the intelligence right, but the intelligence was focusing on the fact of how dangerous this place was. Dilfer said that Iraq was overrun with terrorists, like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was then in al-Ansar Islam and later changed that to al-Qaida in Iraq, the butcher who brazenly beheaded innocent Americans and others on television.

Dilfer said that Saddam Hussein had the ability to produce chemical and biological weapons that he had in the past and he was willing and able to sell them to terrorists who could deliver them to our country. This milestone, unfortunately, received not enough attention or appreciation in the media. This is not an isolated example of people trying to downplay good news in Iraq. As Peter Wehner wrote in the Wall Street Journal on May 23:

Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass

the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a

unit government despite terrorist attacks and provocations.

Yet, for some critics of the President, these are minor

matters.

We have seen time and again the focus of our media, and thus, what many Americans hear is just the killings, the slaughter of innocents in bombings and suicide attacks. We read the tragic stories of the loss of Americans. But the real story, when you talk to our troops on the ground, is how much good they have been doing. They have been completing their mission. They have been pacifying large areas of the country. Schools and hospitals are being built. Women are enjoying newfound freedom. Yet for television, if it bleeds, it leads. That is the only stuff we hear about.

We are told of massacres and chaos, but we aren't told that millions of Iraqis who fled to other countries as refugees by the millions in past years under Saddam Hussein are returning; 1.2 million refugees have returned to their homes. We rarely see positive stories about seminaries which, under Saddam, held only a few dozen students and now have 15,000 pupils from 40 different countries. We don't read about the increase in the value of the Iraqi dinar, the record number of media outlets, the tremendous growth in small businesses forming the economic foundation for Iraq, and the revival of Iraqi agriculture. These stories were told very well by a well-known Iranian journalist, Amir Taheri, who published an article in Commentary magazine available on their Web site talking about how Iraq has improved--a man who has watched Iraq for 40 years.

I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

This follows closely the story we found when on a codel with my colleagues, Senators Bayh and Obama, in Iraq in January. We talked to our people, military and civilians. We had a great meeting with President Talabani and top-elected Sunni and Shi'a officials at the time who all pledged they were going to work together for a unity government.

Now that the President and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have formed a Cabinet, this is one more significant step. It is a big step, and it has been completely overshadowed by the killing of al-Zarqawi. But for the long term, this formation of a government is one more step that is vitally important. I am delighted the President was there to highlight it.

It doesn't mean the violence is over. The killing of al-Zarqawi was widely celebrated by our troops abroad and at home because they knew this ruthless butcher was the face, the media darling of al-Qaida in Iraq. There is a supreme irony that he went out with his spiritual adviser. Good time to have your spiritual adviser with you. For al- Zarqawi, he and his spiritual adviser are going to find out at the same time just how good the spiritual advice Sheik Rahman gave him was.

We know his loss will be a significant loss because of his ability to play the media with his ruthless killings. But we know he will be replaced. They are bringing up another successor to him already. Let us hope that successor has the same short shelf life that al-Qaida's operation commanders, such as Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, Abu Faraj al- Libi, and Hamza Rabia, have had. They have all been captured or killed. We hope we will be able to continue that effort.

We hear some of our colleagues from the other side saying what a few in the media are saying, that we need to bring our troops home immediately. We have sorrowful parents who are very much concerned about their children going into harm's way. They want them brought home immediately. Let me speak to that directly. As a father of a son who was in Iraq and is preparing to go back, I can tell you that it is not without a good bit of concern that we see our young people going into harm's way. But we are very proud of them. We are very proud of them to know that they are willing to stand up and take the risk of going to war to defend our freedom and peace and security in the world. They are doing a good job. Yes each death of an American soldier or marine or airman is a tragedy. As a parent, you suck in a little wind and say a prayer when you hear about them. But these brave young men and women who are volunteers go there because they know they have a higher mission. By carrying the fight to the terrorists, they help make our country safer.

It is no accident that our country has not had a major attack since September 11, not only because of homeland security but because of the strong efforts we have taken in Afghanistan and Iraq to disrupt terrorist strongholds, the safe havens for terrorists.

Our young men and women over there are in harm's way. But they are not afraid of taking the risk of war. Let me tell you what they really fear. They fear that a lack of political will in this body and in the United States will cause a premature withdrawal of our troops before the Iraqi Government has adequate military and police in place to provide the security that country needs to continue to grow and flourish and be safe from terrorism. They worry that if we bring our troops back before the Iraqi military and police are able to secure the country, there will be chaos--chaos which fosters the rejuvenation of terrorist groups, chaos which will permit a form of state-sponsored terrorism, preparation of chemical and biological weapons that could be used against us, so the next 9/11 might be with a weapon of mass destruction. They know there is a danger that violence between the factions, the Shi'a and the Sunnis, could engulf Iraq and maybe the rest of the Middle East.

They want to complete their mission. They didn't go there and take the risk and make the sacrifice and see some of

their colleagues lose their lives and have to take inventories of their personal belongings and send them home. Yet they fear the lack of political will to continue and succeed in the necessary battle more than they fear the dangers of the battlefield. If we walk away, the sacrifices of these brave men and women will have been in vain. We have to complete the transformation and the transition in Iraq to a functioning government of national unity, able to defend the country against terrorists and insurgents.

I hear some of my colleagues talking about how tragic the activities were in Haditha. They have seized on reports of horrible incidents. They are presuming the American soldiers are guilty without having a hearing. They want to set up a 9/11-type commission. What a tragedy it would be if we were to follow the political game plan to make guilty parties out of soldiers who have not even had their day in court in order to win political points against the Department of Defense and the President.

As we all well know, these events will be thoroughly investigated. If there was wrongdoing, it will be prosecuted. We prosecuted the out-of- line soldiers who were at Abu Ghraib. We don't tolerate those things. We don't tolerate misconduct. Our military justice system will prosecute any who are guilty. But please, let us not jump to the conclusion that they are presumed guilty because of reports of outrageous actions. There are other sides to the story. Let the normal process work. There could be hearings in the appropriate committees, the Armed Services Committee or the Appropriations Committee, if they are warranted. But to set up another commission now is a dangerous political game and one I hope we will not accept. Instead of demanding more commissions, we should be demanding that the facts come out. If any wrongdoing took place, those who did it will be punished accordingly.

There are those who want to continue to take cheap shots at the administration over anything that goes wrong in the war. When you have wars, unfortunately, things go wrong. There is no guaranteed success rate. It is not an unbroken path of success. We need to look at what went on in Haditha. The negative news reports will continue, and we expect the news media, when there are negative things, to report on them. But we would hope they would also report on the positive things that are done. If we had followed the advice of all the naysayers earlier this year who dominate our television with their defeatist political rhetoric, we would not have seen free elections in Iraq, a unity government, or the elimination of al-Zarqawi. He would be running free, plotting his next attack and seeking to reach out beyond Iraq to neighbors, possibly in the United States. Thankfully, we did not pull out of Iraq. Iraq is a much different place, a much more hopeful place because America and its brave men and women are committed to making the world a safer place.

I sincerely and deeply urge my colleagues not to let our troops down, not to bring them home because parents are concerned about them. We value and honor their service. Let them do their jobs and let the process of the military justice system go forward before we jump to the conclusion that American soldiers are guilty because we don't happen to agree with the war or the efforts they are making.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor LTG Daniel James III who recently retired as Director, Air National Guard. To say that General James has had a distinguished career at the National Guard Bureau would be an understatement due to his unmatched success in formulating, developing, and coordinating all policies, plans, and programs affecting more than 106,000 Guard members throughout the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.

The general personifies the model commander with a career in the military that spanned almost four decades. He earned his commission as a distinguished graduate of the University of Arizona's ROTC program in 1968. The general is a command pilot with approximately 4,000 hours in fighter and trainer aircraft. A combat veteran with two Distinguished Flying Crosses, General James completed two Active-Duty tours in Southeast Asia, logging 500 combat hours as a forward air controller and F-4 Phantom aircraft commander. Prior to becoming ANG Director, General James was the Adjutant General for Texas National Guard headquarters. In June of 2002, he was appointed to the position as Director, Air National Guard.

In closing, I ask my fellow colleagues to join me in expressing our deep appreciation for the numerous contributions Lieutenant General James has made on behalf of our brave service men and women. It is my honor to recognize the general for his distinguished service to our Nation. Recalling our national anthem, to our veterans and Armed Forces, I say, we would not be ``the land of the free'' if we were not also ``the home of the brave.'' We wish Daniel and his family continued success as he closes out his service to the Air Force and the people of this grateful Nation.

Madam President, 5 years ago Congress took steps to end the death tax. Now the American people expect us to finish the job.

We need to end permanently the tax that punishes American values of savings and investment and of building small businesses and family farms and ranches.

The death tax punishes the American dream--making it virtually impossible for the average American family to build wealth across generations.

The death tax is anti-savings, anti-family, and anti-investment. It is quite simply un-American.

If we don't act now, the death tax will come back in just a few years. Under current law the death tax is phased out in 2010 but comes back in full force in 2011. That is a ridiculous and untenable policy.

The death tax should be completely and permanently repealed now in order to make the Tax Code fairer and simpler and to eliminate the harmful drag this tax has on the economy.

According to the Small Business Administration, more than 70 percent of all family businesses do not survive through the second generation, and 8 percent do not make it to a third.

The death tax is one of the leading causes of the dissolution of small businesses.

It hits those who own small businesses and family farmers the most. When faced with the death tax, farmers and ranchers are in an especially tough spot with most of their assets tied up in land and buildings, livestock and equipment. This gives them little flexibility when settling estates. Unlike an investor with a stock portfolio, they can't simply sell off a block of stocks and move on.

We can all understand budget shortfalls due to a multitude of national and international events. But it is wrong to argue that we can shore up the budget by imposing a death tax on hard-working farmers and small business owners who are the backbone of the American economy.

In reality, the death tax collects little revenue, less than 1.5 percent of Federal revenue.

According to the CATO Institute, compliance with the death tax costs the economy about what the Treasury collects.

A recent study analysis in 2005 by professors at Carnegie Mellon University suggest that repeal would cause a net increase in Federal revenues through dynamic growth effects and increased capital gains receipt.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that repealing the death tax would create an extra 200,000 jobs per year.

Debate usually focuses only on the taxes that estates actually pay, ignoring the real costs this tax imposes on owners of small businesses and family farms. These include estate-planning costs, compliance costs at death, and overall economic growth.

Americans are paying millions of dollars every year to lawyers and accountants just hoping their children will not have to sell off the family business to pay the death taxes. Most small businesses and ranches will not be viable if the children have to sell off half to pay the tax.

That money would be much better spent creating jobs, upgrading family farms, or saving for retirement or a child's college education.

Eliminating the death tax is a matter of fairness.

When folks work their entire lives to build up and pass on a business or family to their children, the kids should not get hit with a huge tax when they die. That is just not the American way.

Americans overwhelmingly agree that it is wrong to tax property and earnings that have already been taxed before. Polls consistently show over 70 percent of Americans support repeal.

Let's have the courage to separate death and taxes.

Today, I and Senator Jim Talent introduce the Easement Owners Fair Compensation Act of 2006. This bill will right a wrong done to property owners from whom the government took property without compensation. It will also ensure that future property owners are treated fairly when the government seeks to take their property through eminent domain.

In 1992, the federal government confiscated property owned by 102 St. Louis County, Missouri residents through the Federal Rails to Trails Act. The taking imposed an easement on their property for a public recreational hiking/biking trail. A trail easement was established on their property on December 20, 1992. After twelve years of bureaucratic fighting and delay, the Justice Department admitted the government's takings liability and agreed to pay the property owners $2,385,000.85 for their property, interest and legal fees.

However, two days before the U.S. Court of Claims was scheduled to approve the compensation agreement, the U.S. Federal Circuit issued the Caldwell decision regarding a rails-to-trails takings case in Georgia. That decision established the statute of limitations for rails-to- trails claims as the date of notice of interim trail use, not the date the trail easement was imposed on the property, as previously assumed. Under the new date, the statute of limitations on the St. Louis County takings claim had expired. The Justice Department accordingly sought dismissal of the claims without payment and the Court of Claims judge agreed.

This bill is a Senate companion to H.R. 4581 introduced by Representative Akin and cosponsored by Representatives Carnahan and Emerson. The legislation sets the statute of limitations as beginning on the date an interest is conveyed. It also allows for reconsideration of past claims dismissed because of this issue.

Without this bill, we will allow the wrong committed by the federal government to stand. The federal government took private property, admitted it owed the property owners over $2,000,000, and then refused to pay because of a technicality. That is no way to treat our citizens. That is no way to run a rails-to-trails program. That is no way to encourage future recreational hiking and biking. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.