Floor Statements

Mr. President, I believe I am next in line to make remarks as in morning business, and I wish to do so.

Thank you very much.

Financial Crisis

Mr. President, to date I have received from Californians more than 50,000 calls and letters, the great bulk of them in opposition to any form of meeting this crisis with financial help from the Federal Government. I wanted to come to the floor to very simply state how I see this and some of the principles that I hope will be forthcoming in this draft. Before I do so, I wish to pay particular commendation to Senator Dodd, Senator Schumer, Senator Bennett, and others who have been working so hard on this issue. I have tried to keep in touch--I am not a negotiator; I am not on the committee--but California is the biggest State, the largest economic engine, and people are really concerned.

We face the most significant economic crisis in 75 years right now. Swift and comprehensive action is crucial to the overall health of our economy. None of us wants to be in this position, and there are no good options here. Nobody likes the idea of spending massive sums of Government money to rescue major corporations from their bad financial decisions. But no one also should be fooled into thinking this problem only belongs to the banks and that it is a good idea to let them fail. The pain felt by Wall Street one day is felt there, and then 2, 3, 4 weeks down the pike, it is felt on Main Street.

The turbulence in our financial sector has already resulted in thousands of layoffs in the banking and finance sectors, and that number will skyrocket if there is a full collapse. The shock waves of failure will extend far beyond the banking and finance sectors. A shrinking pool of credit would affect the home loans, credit card limits, auto loans, and insurance policies of average Americans. I am receiving calls from people who tell me they want to buy a house, but they can't get the credit or the mortgage to do so. Why? Because that market of credit is drying up more rapidly one day after the other. It would have a major impact on State and local governments which would lose tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hurricane Ike shut down refineries on the gulf coast 2 weeks ago, and now, today, people are waiting hours in lines for gasoline in the South. Similarly, the collapse of the financial sector would have severe consequences for Americans all across the economic spectrum: for the person who owns the grocery store, the laundry, the bank, the insurance company. Then, if the worst happens, layoffs. And even more than that, somebody shows up for work and finds their business has closed because the owner of that business can't get credit to buy the goods he hopes to sell that week or that month. Wages and employment rates have already fallen even as the cost of basic necessities has skyrocketed. Our Nation is facing the highest unemployment rate in 5 years, at 6.1 percent. Over 605,000 jobs have been lost nationwide this year. My own State of California, a state of 38 million people, has the third highest unemployment rate in the Nation at 7.7 percent. That is 1.4 million people out of work today. One and a half million people-- that is bigger than some States. We have 1.5 million people out of work, and one-half million have had their unemployment insurance expire and have nothing today.

Congress is faced with a situation where we have to act and we have to do two things. We have to provide some reform in the system of regulation and oversight that is supposed to protect our economy. We also have to find a permanent and effective solution to keep liquidity and credit functioning so that markets can recover and make profit. The situation, I believe, is grave, and timely, prudent action is needed.

Just last night, the sixth largest bank in America--Washington Mutual--was seized by government regulators and most of its assets will be sold to JPMorgan Chase. This follows on the heels of bankruptcies and takeovers of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. If nothing is done, the crisis will continue to spread and one by one the dominos will fall.

Now, this isn't just about Wall Street. Because we are this credit society, the financial troubles facing major economic institutions will ricochet throughout this Nation and affect everyone. So I believe the need for action is clear. But that doesn't mean Congress should simply be a rubberstamp for an unprecedented and unbridled program.

My constituents by the thousands have made their views clear. I believe they are responding to the original 3-page proposal by the Secretary of the Treasury. It is clear by now that that 3-page proposal is a nonstarter. It is dead on arrival and that is good. Secretary Paulson's proposal asked Congress to write a $700 billion check to an economic czar who would have been empowered to spend it without any administrative oversight, legal requirements, or legislative review. Decisions made by the Treasury Secretary would be nonreviewable by any court or agency, and the fate of our entire economy would be committed to the sole discretion of one man alone--the man we know today, and the man whom we don't know after January.

Additionally, the lack of governance or oversight in this plan was matched by the lack of a requirement for regular reports to Congress. This proposal stipulated that the economic czar, newly created, would report to Congress after the first three months with reports once every 6 months after that. This was untenable. Six months is an

eternity when you are spending billions a week. The Treasury Secretary asked Congress to approve this massive program without delay or interference. It is hard to think of any other time in our history when Congress has been asked for so much money and so much power to be concentrated in the hands of one person. It is a nonstarter.

Yesterday, shortly before we met for the Democratic Policy Committee lunch, we were told there had been a bipartisan agreement on principles of a possible solution, and many of us rejoiced. We know that our Members, both Republican and Democrat, have been working hard to try to produce something that was positive. Then, all of a sudden, it changed. One Presidential candidate parachuted into town which proved to be enormously destructive to the process. Now, negotiations are back on the table, and as I say, we have just received a draft bill of certain principles.

I would like to outline quickly those principles that I think are important. First is a phase-in. No one wants to put $700 billion immediately at the discretion of one person or even a group of a very few people, no matter how bright, how skilled, how informed they might be on banking or finance principles. The funding should come in phases and Congress should have the opportunity to make its voice heard if the program isn't working or needs to be adjusted.

The second point: Oversight, accountability, and governance. The Treasury Secretary should not and must not have unbridled authority to determine winners and losers, essentially choosing which struggling financial institution will survive and which will not. The original plan placed all authority in the hands of this one man, and this is why I say it was DOA--dead on arrival--at the Congress. We must assure that controls are in place to watch taxpayer dollars and make sure they are well-spent fixing the problem, and that oversight by a governance committee and the Banking Committees are strong, and that they give the best opportunity for the American people to recover their investment and, yes, even eventually make a profit from that investment. That can be done and it has been done in the past.

I believe that frequent reporting to Congress is critical. Transparency, sunlight on this, is critical. So Congress should receive regular, timely briefings, perhaps weekly for the first quarter, on a program of this magnitude. A proposal should mandate frequent reporting and the public should be ensured of transparency to the maximum extent possible.

I also believe that within the first quarter--and this, to me, is key--a comprehensive legislative proposal for reform must be put forward. We must reform those speculative practices that impact price function of markets. We must deal with the unregulated practices that have furthered this crisis. Look. I represent a State that was cost $40 billion in the Enron episode during 1999 and 2000 by speculation, by manipulation, and by fraud. There still is inadequate regulation of energy commodities sold on the futures market. And that is just one point in all of this. We must prevent these things from happening. The only way to do it is to improve the transparency of all markets. No hidden deals. Swaps, in my view, should be ended. The London loophole should be ended.

We have to outline rules for increasing regulation of the mortgage- backed securities market, along with comprehensive oversight of the mortgage industry and lending practices for both prime and subprime lending.

Senator Martinez of Florida and I had a part in the earlier housing bill, which included our legislation entitled the SAFE Mortgage Licensing Act. We found that the market was rife with fraud. We found there was one company that hired hairdressers and others who sold mortgages in their spare time. We found there were unscrupulous mortgage brokers out there unlicensed, preying upon people, walking off with tens of thousands of dollars of cash. This has to end. It has to be controlled. It has to be regulated.

So I believe the crisis of 2008 stems from the failure of Federal regulators to rein in this Wild West mentality of those Wall Street executives who led those firms and who thought that nothing was out of bounds. Every quick scheme was worth the time, and worth a try. Congress cannot ignore this as the root cause of the crisis. It was inherent in the subprime marketplace, and it has now spread to the prime mortgage marketplace.

It is also critical that accurate assessments of the value of these illiquid mortgage-related assets be performed to limit the taxpayers' exposure to risk and structure purchases to ensure the greatest possible return on investment.

Taxpayer money must be shielded at all costs from risk to the greatest extent possible.

Reciprocity is not a bad concept if you can carry it out. The Government must not simply act as a repository for risky investments that have gone bad. An economic rescue effort that serves taxpayers well must allow them to benefit from the potential profits of rescued entities. So a model--and it may well be in these new principles--must be developed to ensure the taxpayers are not only the first paid back but have an opportunity to share in future profits through warrants and/or stocks.

As to executive compensation limits, simply put, Californians are frosted by the absence of controls on executive compensation. Virtually all of the 50,000 phone calls and letters mentioned this one way or another. There must be limits. I am told that the reason the Treasury Secretary does not want limits on executive compensation is because he believes that an executive then will not bring his company in to partake in any program that is set up. Here is my response to that: We can put that executive on his boat, take that boat out in the ocean, and set it on fire. If that is how he feels, that is what should happen, or his company doesn't come in. But to say that the Federal Government is going to be responsible for tens of millions of dollars of executive salaries, golden parachutes, whether they are a matter of contract right or not, is not acceptable to the average person whose taxpayer dollars are used in this bailout. That is just fact.

The one proposal that was made by one of the Presidential candidates that I agree with is that there should be a limit of $400,000 on executive compensation. If they don't like it, too bad, don't participate in the program. As I have talked with people on Wall Street and otherwise, they don't believe it is true that an executive, if his pay is tailored down, will not bring a company in that needs help. I hope that is true. I believe there should be precise limits set on executive pay.

Finally, as to tangible benefits for Main Street in the form of mortgage relief, there have been more than 500,000 foreclosures in my home State of California so far this year. In the second quarter of this year, foreclosures were up 300 percent over the second quarter of 2007. More than 800,000 are predicted before this year is over.

I have a city in California where 1 out of every 25 homes is in foreclosure. This is new housing in subdivisions. As you look at it, you will see garage doors kicked in. You will see houses vandalized. You will see the grass and grounds dry. You will see the street sprinkled with ``For Sale'' signs, and nobody buys because the market has become so depressed.

This crisis has roots in the subprime housing boom that went bust, and it would be unconscionable for us to simply bail out Wall Street while leaving these homeowners to fend for themselves.

Everything I have been told, and I have talked to people in this business, here is what they tell me: It is more cost-effective to renegotiate a subprime loan and keep a family in a house than it is to foreclose and run the risks of what happens to that home on a depressed market as credit is drying up, as vandals loot it, as landscaping dries up, as more homes in the area become foreclosed upon; the way to go is to renegotiate these mortgages with the exiting homeowner wherever possible. I feel very strongly that should be the case.

I don't know what I or any of us will do if we authorize this kind of expenditure and we find down the pike in my State that the rest of the year, 800,000 to 1 million Americans are being thrown out of their homes despite this form of rescue effort. Think of what it means, Mr. President, in your State. You vote for this, any other Senator

votes for it, and these foreclosures continue to take place and individual families continue to be thrown out of their homes. It is not a tenable situation.

I hope, if anybody is listening at all, that in the negotiating team, they will make a real effort to mandate in some way that subprime foreclosures be renegotiated, that families, wherever possible, who have an ability to pay, have that ability to pay met with a renegotiated loan. I have done this now in cases with families who were taken advantage of. We called the CEO of the bank, and the bank has seen that the loan was renegotiated, in one case in Los Angeles down to 2 percent. That is better than foreclosing and running the uncertainty of the sale of the asset in a very depressed housing market.

These are my thoughts. Again, it is easy to come to the floor and give your thoughts. It is much more difficult to sit at that negotiating table.

I once again thank those Senators on both sides of the aisle who really understand the nature of this crisis--that it isn't only Wall Street, that it does involve Main Street, and if there is a serious crash, it will hurt tens of millions of Americans, many of them in irreparable ways. So we must do what we must do, and we must do it prudently and carefully.

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

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Thursday, September 25, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to hear testimony on the nominations of Gracia M. Hillman, Donetta Davidson, Rosemary E. Rodriguez, and Gineen Bresso Beach to be members of the Election Assistance Commission.

Individuals and organizations that wish to submit a statement for the hearing record are requested to contact the Chief Clerk, Lynden Armstrong, at 202-224-7078.

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Howard Gantman at the Rules and Administration Committee, 202-224-6352.

Mr. President, I wish to inform all Senators that on Friday, September 19, 2008, the Committee on Rules and Administration approved amendments to the U.S. Senate Internet Services Usage Rules and Policies. These regulations are effective immediately.

The regulations were amended to accommodate Senate offices interested in utilizing social networking sites. I wish to emphasize that all Senate Web sites must be located in the senate.gov host domain, except for the exceptions specified in A3 of the regulations.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the amended regulations printed in the Record.

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Senator Feinstein pertaining to the introduction of S. 3493 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I make these remarks on behalf of my friend and colleague, Senator Boxer. She and I are cosponsoring legislation, which I will send to the desk at the end of my remarks.

On Friday, at 4:30 p.m., a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train, loaded with 225 commuters, leaving Los Angeles and traveling north through the San Fernando Valley, in the Chatsworth area, collided on a single track. The collision took place at about 40 miles an hour for each train. The engine of the Metrolink train was rammed two-thirds through the first car of the Metrolink train. Here it is. Here is the Union Pacific engine and this mess is the Metrolink engine and it rammed two-thirds through the first car. Thus far, 26 people are dead. Some were dismembered by the crash, some bodies had to be removed in a dismembered state from the train. There are 138 people in the hospital, 40 of them in critical condition, and more deaths could well take place.

This accident happened because of a resistance in the railroad community in America to utilizing existing technology to produce a fail-safe control of trains to avoid colliding with each other and to avoid one train from crashing into the rear of another. Both of these have happened in the past. Yet today there is no requirement for a safe control of track and train.

The House has passed a bill reauthorizing the Federal Railroad Administration. The Senate has passed a bill reauthorizing the Federal Railroad Administration. They both have provisions, although they are different, for safe train control in these bills. But nothing has happened. The bills have not been conferenced. This must stop.

Let me point out for a minute how positive train control works. Every train's position is tracked through global positioning, which is new technology that can monitor its location and speed. These systems constantly watch for excessive speed, improperly aligned switches, whether trains are on the wrong track, unauthorized train movements, and whether trains have missed signals to slow or stop. Each train also has equipment on board that can take over from the engineer if the train doesn't comply with the safety signals. The system will override the engineer and automatically put on the brakes. These systems exist and are in use today. They are in place in the Chicago-Detroit corridor and in the Northeast corridor. But the railroad industry resists them.

I believe rail in America has a very real future. California believes it has a very real future. As a matter of fact, in 5 weeks, California has on the ballot a $10 billion bond issue to create a high-speed rail spine down the center of California that runs from Sacramento all the way down to Los Angeles. Now, people aren't going to ride these trains unless they know they are safe, and we have an obligation, I believe, to provide that safety.

I am sorry to have to say this, but southern California has the most high-risk track in America. The majority of Metrolink's 388 miles of track, which crosses six counties, believe it or not, is shared with freight trains. This is untenable.

Let me ask a question: How can you put commuter trains, passenger trains, on the same track as freight trains going in opposite directions with nothing more than a couple of signals that can be missed, and have been missed, to avert disaster?

Again, over the years, the railroad resisted, saying these systems are too expensive. Well, how expensive is the loss of human life? The cost of any system doesn't come close to the cost of the lives that were lost this past Friday and that will likely be lost in the future.

To date, positive train control has been put to use only in limited areas, including, as I said, parts of the Northeast and Chicago and Detroit. Nine railroads in at least 16 States have these positive control projects, but California is not one of them. Why, I ask. It is critical, particularly when--given the element of human error, which we may well see in this instance--it may well have been a cell phone that was in use at the time of the accident by the engineer.

Let me tell you what sort of hours this engineer works. He works 5 days a week, and it is an 11-hour day. It is a split shift of 15 hours. Let me explain. He is due at work at 6 in the morning. He works until late morning, and then he has 4 hours off but returns to work from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. That is an 11-hour day in an engine on high alert in major populated areas. He performs a critical function, and he does it on an 11-hour workday on a split shift. I think that is untenable.

The NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board, has pushed again and again for positive train control systems, particularly after a deadly crash in my own State in Orange County in 2002. Three people died and two hundred sixty were injured. In the Orange County crash, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that a Burlington Northern engineer and a conductor were talking to each other. They failed to see a yellow warning light telling them to slow down. I think that same thing has happened again. Their freight train slammed into a Metrolink commuter train that had stopped on the same track.

Now, we know that positive, or safe, train control would prevent 40 to 60 accidents a year, 7 fatalities, and 55 injuries a year. So why hasn't it been put in place? I actually believe it is negligence, and I will even go as far to say I believe it is criminal negligence not to do so.

The report also concluded that positive train control could have prevented a fatal collision in Graniteville, SC, in 2005. In this accident, a rail employee failed to properly align a track switch. As a result, several cars derailed, deadly chlorine gases escaped, and nine people died.

Cost is used as the reason not to do this, but I ask: How can we afford not to do it, whatever the cost? How many accidents does it take? How many deaths does it take? How many injuries does it take? Experts estimate that the cost is about $2.3 billion to install safe, technological train controls on 100,000 miles of track around the United States--high priority track.

Today, my colleague, Senator Boxer, and I are introducing legislation which takes the strongest parts of the House and Senate bills and beefs them up. This legislation would require positive safe train controls for major freight and passenger lines. By 2012, areas declared as high risk by the Department of Transportation must run with positive train control systems. Railroads would be required to develop plans to implement these controls within 1 year of enactment of the legislation. These plans must be submitted to the Secretary of Transportation also within 1 year of enactment. It sets a deadline of December 31, 2014, for safe rail control to be in place on all major freight and passenger lines in America. It would be mandatory, and it would require penalties for noncompliance, with fines of up to $100,000 per violation.

Passenger rail will not succeed in this country unless public safety is guaranteed. Again, on Friday, these trains hit at 40 miles per hour. What happens when trains pile into each other at 120 miles per hour?

I have asked the majority leader to include this in the continuing resolution. I don't know whether he will--I think it is a remote possibility--but I do believe we need to get this moving right now.

Once again, look at this. When we know there is global positioning that can be in place to shut down the freight train and the passenger train before they run into each other and we do nothing about it, then I believe this body is also culpable and negligent.

Mr. President, if I might, I send this legislation to the desk with a plea that it be enacted right away, with a plea that we get the planning moving, with a plea that we get 100,000 miles of high-priority track equipped with global positioning so this never again can happen in a high-priority passenger-freight train area where the trains are traveling on the same track. If we don't do it, it is going to happen again.

Mr. President, I make these remarks on behalf of my friend and colleague, Senator Boxer. She and I are cosponsoring legislation, which I will send to the desk at the end of my remarks.

On Friday, at 4:30 p.m., a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train, loaded with 225 commuters, leaving Los Angeles and traveling north through the San Fernando Valley, in the Chatsworth area, collided on a single track. The collision took place at about 40 miles an hour for each train. The engine of the Metrolink train was rammed two-thirds through the first car of the Metrolink train. Here it is. Here is the Union Pacific engine and this mess is the Metrolink engine and it rammed two-thirds through the first car. Thus far, 26 people are dead. Some were dismembered by the crash, some bodies had to be removed in a dismembered state from the train. There are 138 people in the hospital, 40 of them in critical condition, and more deaths could well take place.

This accident happened because of a resistance in the railroad community in America to utilizing existing technology to produce a fail-safe control of trains to avoid colliding with each other and to avoid one train from crashing into the rear of another. Both of these have happened in the past. Yet today there is no requirement for a safe control of track and train.

The House has passed a bill reauthorizing the Federal Railroad Administration. The Senate has passed a bill reauthorizing the Federal Railroad Administration. They both have provisions, although they are different, for safe train control in these bills. But nothing has happened. The bills have not been conferenced. This must stop.

Let me point out for a minute how positive train control works. Every train's position is tracked through global positioning, which is new technology that can monitor its location and speed. These systems constantly watch for excessive speed, improperly aligned switches, whether trains are on the wrong track, unauthorized train movements, and whether trains have missed signals to slow or stop. Each train also has equipment on board that can take over from the engineer if the train doesn't comply with the safety signals. The system will override the engineer and automatically put on the brakes. These systems exist and are in use today. They are in place in the Chicago-Detroit corridor and in the Northeast corridor. But the railroad industry resists them.

I believe rail in America has a very real future. California believes it has a very real future. As a matter of fact, in 5 weeks, California has on the ballot a $10 billion bond issue to create a high-speed rail spine down the center of California that runs from Sacramento all the way down to Los Angeles. Now, people aren't going to ride these trains unless they know they are safe, and we have an obligation, I believe, to provide that safety.

I am sorry to have to say this, but southern California has the most high-risk track in America. The majority of Metrolink's 388 miles of track, which crosses six counties, believe it or not, is shared with freight trains. This is untenable.

Let me ask a question: How can you put commuter trains, passenger trains, on the same track as freight trains going in opposite directions with nothing more than a couple of signals that can be missed, and have been missed, to avert disaster?

Again, over the years, the railroad resisted, saying these systems are too expensive. Well, how expensive is the loss of human life? The cost of any system doesn't come close to the cost of the lives that were lost this past Friday and that will likely be lost in the future.

To date, positive train control has been put to use only in limited areas, including, as I said, parts of the Northeast and Chicago and Detroit. Nine railroads in at least 16 States have these positive control projects, but California is not one of them. Why, I ask. It is critical, particularly when--given the element of human error, which we may well see in this instance--it may well have been a cell phone that was in use at the time of the accident by the engineer.

Let me tell you what sort of hours this engineer works. He works 5 days a week, and it is an 11-hour day. It is a split shift of 15 hours. Let me explain. He is due at work at 6 in the morning. He works until late morning, and then he has 4 hours off but returns to work from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. That is an 11-hour day in an engine on high alert in major populated areas. He performs a critical function, and he does it on an 11-hour workday on a split shift. I think that is untenable.

The NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board, has pushed again and again for positive train control systems, particularly after a deadly crash in my own State in Orange County in 2002. Three people died and two hundred sixty were injured. In the Orange County crash, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that a Burlington Northern engineer and a conductor were talking to each other. They failed to see a yellow warning light telling them to slow down. I think that same thing has happened again. Their freight train slammed into a Metrolink commuter train that had stopped on the same track.

Now, we know that positive, or safe, train control would prevent 40 to 60 accidents a year, 7 fatalities, and 55 injuries a year. So why hasn't it been put in place? I actually believe it is negligence, and I will even go as far to say I believe it is criminal negligence not to do so.

The report also concluded that positive train control could have prevented a fatal collision in Graniteville, SC, in 2005. In this accident, a rail employee failed to properly align a track switch. As a result, several cars derailed, deadly chlorine gases escaped, and nine people died.

Cost is used as the reason not to do this, but I ask: How can we afford not to do it, whatever the cost? How many accidents does it take? How many deaths does it take? How many injuries does it take? Experts estimate that the cost is about $2.3 billion to install safe, technological train controls on 100,000 miles of track around the United States--high priority track.

Today, my colleague, Senator Boxer, and I are introducing legislation which takes the strongest parts of the House and Senate bills and beefs them up. This legislation would require positive safe train controls for major freight and passenger lines. By 2012, areas declared as high risk by the Department of Transportation must run with positive train control systems. Railroads would be required to develop plans to implement these controls within 1 year of enactment of the legislation. These plans must be submitted to the Secretary of Transportation also within 1 year of enactment. It sets a deadline of December 31, 2014, for safe rail control to be in place on all major freight and passenger lines in America. It would be mandatory, and it would require penalties for noncompliance, with fines of up to $100,000 per violation.

Passenger rail will not succeed in this country unless public safety is guaranteed. Again, on Friday, these trains hit at 40 miles per hour. What happens when trains pile into each other at 120 miles per hour?

I have asked the majority leader to include this in the continuing resolution. I don't know whether he will--I think it is a remote possibility--but I do believe we need to get this moving right now.

Once again, look at this. When we know there is global positioning that can be in place to shut down the freight train and the passenger train before they run into each other and we do nothing about it, then I believe this body is also culpable and negligent.

Mr. President, if I might, I send this legislation to the desk with a plea that it be enacted right away, with a plea that we get the planning moving, with a plea that we get 100,000 miles of high-priority track equipped with global positioning so this never again can happen in a high-priority passenger-freight train area where the trains are traveling on the same track. If we don't do it, it is going to happen again.

Mr. President, I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to a longtime public servant who spent her career working hard to improve the quality of elections. Ms. Margaret Sims spent her entire career working for both of the agencies under the jurisdiction of the Rules Committee--the Federal Election Commission and the Election Assistance Commission. She passed away earlier this month after a long battle with cancer.

A resident of Burke, VA, Ms. Sims, known to her friends as ``Peggy'', was born in Schenectady, NY, and was a graduate of Wells College. She was an intern in the community services department at the AFL-CIO before starting her career at the FEC as an investigator. She also served as Director of Compliance and Election Administrative Research Specialist at that agency.

Long before the 2000 election and hanging chads, Ms. Sims was working hard with our Nation's election administration professionals to provide them with the best information available to help them do their job. While at the FEC, she assisted in developing voting systems standards and in the creation

of a guide and training tools to accompany the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. She was also part of the first U.S. delegation to the Trilateral Conference between Canada, Mexico and the United States held in Mexico City in 1994. This conference engaged the three countries in dialogue regarding their respective election processes so that each country might learn from the others.

She moved to the newly created U.S. Election Assistance Commission in 2004, where she assisted in guiding States in appropriate voting procedures and in training them how to report back to that agency. She provided guidance to the new EAC Commissioners and assisted them in developing a working knowledge of the election administration process. During the challenging implementation of the Help America Vote Act, hundreds of election officials relied on her assistance in getting the law right.

Because she worked in the field of elections, Ms. Sims was always nonpartisan. She proudly said that she would not even let her husband put a political bumper sticker on his car. Her emphasis on providing assistance in an impartial, unbiased way is a testament to her dedication. She did not care about who won or lost, she cared that the process was always fair.

She is survived by her husband and son, Dug and Jay Greevy, as well as her mother, two brothers, and a sister.

It is important to remember not only the life of Peggy Sims but also the impact of her work. She worked hard every day for civic leadership and better government. She rose above partisan labels. We honor her memory by recognizing her commitments to public service and to shaping better elections for our country.

Mr. President, if I may just for a moment echo the comments of the Senator from New York, this morning I watched on television the ceremony at the Pentagon. As I watched the calling of the names, a photo flashed on the screen of each individual. What you saw were young military men, you saw a lieutenant colonel, you saw the faces of whole families wiped out, young people, older people, you saw every race. In a sense, when you looked at the benches and the water flowing under the benches and the maples that will grow around them, as you listened to the sad song of the pipers, you realized what a great country this is and how we respect every single human life and how important that is; also, how important it is that the message remain true, that the message remain full of heart but also full of vigilance that this must never happen again in our homeland.

So I wish to join Senator Schumer and send our best wishes, our sympathy, our sorrow to these families 7 years later, and our thanks to those who gave their lives in the Pentagon.

I had a chance to sit down with the family of a captain of the American Airlines plane that flew into the Pentagon. It was very revealing because at the time they were convinced it was the heroic gesture of this captain in turning the plane away from the U.S. Capitol that played a role. I want them to know that I was thinking of them both during the Pentagon ceremony and the ceremony in front of the Capitol.

So all those victims remain in our hearts and in our minds, and we consecrate ourselves to work on their behalf.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Monday, September 15, 2008, at 11 a.m. to receive testimony on Voter Registration for Wounded Warriors: S. 3308, the ``Veterans Voter Support Act.''

Individuals and organizations that wish to submit a statement for the hearing record are requested to contact the Chief Clerk, Lynden Armstrong, at 202-224-7078.

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Howard Gantman at the Rules and Administration Committee, 202-224-6352.

Long before being elected to the Fairfield City Council, Matt Garcia's ambition and dedication inspired his community to be better and to do better. Since the 6th grade, friends remember Matt telling them that one day he would become the mayor of his hometown of Fairfield. Matt attended Armijo High School, where he served as vice president of his senior class and was selected as both prom king and homecoming king.

Matt Garcia was a driven young leader who cared for his community deeply, and will be remembered by friends and colleagues as honest, passionate, and full of life. Matt served Fairfield with enthusiasm and a commitment to creating a better world. His dedication to his goals and dreams of improving his community will live on in those whose lives he touched.

Mr. President, today, Senators Rockefeller, Whitehouse, Hagel, Feingold and I introduce legislation to end coercive interrogations and secret detentions by the Central Intelligence Agency.

These practices have brought shame to our Nation, have harmed our ability to fight the war on terror, and, I believe, violate U.S. law and international treaty obligations.

It is time to repudiate torture and secret disappearances. It is time to end the outsourcing of coercive interrogations to the lowest bidder. It is time to return to the norms and values that have driven the United States to greatness for decades, but have been tarnished in the past 7 years.

It is now public knowledge that the Bush administration, in the Vice President's words, turned to ``the dark side.'' The ``gloves came off.'' In the name of counterterrorism, the CIA resorted to waterboarding--an interrogation technique invented in the Spanish Inquisition to force false confessions and punish enemies.

In a mistaken effort to gain better intelligence, the CIA used this same technique that the Justice Department has prosecuted and the State Department has decried overseas. The administration used warped logic and faulty reasoning to say waterboarding technique was not torture. It is.

Waterboarding is the only technique to be publicly confirmed by this administration. There are others that have not been acknowledged but are still authorized for use. This has to end.

But we will never turn this sad page in our Nation's history until all coercive techniques are banned, and are replaced with a single, clear, uniform standard across the United States Government.

That standard is the one set out in the Army Field Manual. Its techniques work for the military and for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If the CIA would abide by its terms, it would work for the CIA as well.

The first provision in this legislation requires the Intelligence Community to follow the Army Field Manual. That is already the law for the Department of Defense.

It is supported by 43 retired generals and admirals and by a bipartisan group of former Secretaries of State and Defense, Ambassadors, and national security advisors.

Majorities in both houses of Congress passed this provision earlier this year, sending a clear message that we do not support coercive interrogations. Regrettably, the President's veto stopped it from becoming law.

The second provision in this legislation requires that access to any detainee being held by the intelligence community be provided to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Access by the ICRC is a hallmark of international law and is required by the Geneva Conventions. We believe that granting access to the ICRC is the best way to ensure that the same right will be afforded to U.S. forces if they are ever captured overseas.

But ICRC access has been denied at CIA black sites in the war on terror. This has, in part, opened the door to the abuses in detainee treatment. Independent access prevents abuses like we witnessed at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. It is time that the same protection is in place for the CIA as well, in the well-established rules that the military has used for years.

Finally, this legislation contains a ban on contractor interrogators at the CIA. As General Hayden has testified, the CIA uses outside contractors to conduct these interrogations.

We should not be using coercive interrogation techniques at all. But I firmly believe that outsourcing these interrogations to private companies is a way to diminish accountability and to avoid getting the Agency's hands dirty. I also believe that the use of contractors leads to more brutal interrogations than if they were done by Government employees.

We remain a nation at war, and credible, actionable intelligence remains a cornerstone of our war effort. But that is not what the CIA detention and interrogation program has provided.

Every single experienced interrogator tells us that coercive techniques will get someone to say what the interrogator wants to hear. But that doesn't make it true.

In fact, coercive interrogations and the threat of torture produced the information that Saddam Hussein was providing al Qaeda with WMD training. That wasn't true, but it helped lead us to war in Iraq.

Military and FBI interrogators also tell us that when they build a rapport with a detainee, they get more information, and more valuable information, than when it is coerced.

Beyond that, our Nation has paid an enormous price because of these interrogations. They cast shadow and doubt over our ideals and our system of justice. Our enemies have used our practices to recruit more extremists. Our key global partnerships, crucial to winning the war on terror, have been strained.

Look at two of our closest allies in the world. The British Parliament no longer trusts U.S. assurances that we will not torture detainees. The Canadian Government recently added the United States to its list of nations that conduct torture.

This is not the country that we want to be. Torture and disappearances do not befit the nation that I know.

It is time to restore America's integrity.

It will take time to resume our place as the world's beacon of liberty and justice. This bill will put us on that path and start the process. I urge its passage.

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

Mr. President, today, Senators Rockefeller, Whitehouse, Hagel, Feingold and I introduce legislation to end coercive interrogations and secret detentions by the Central Intelligence Agency.

These practices have brought shame to our Nation, have harmed our ability to fight the war on terror, and, I believe, violate U.S. law and international treaty obligations.

It is time to repudiate torture and secret disappearances. It is time to end the outsourcing of coercive interrogations to the lowest bidder. It is time to return to the norms and values that have driven the United States to greatness for decades, but have been tarnished in the past 7 years.

It is now public knowledge that the Bush administration, in the Vice President's words, turned to ``the dark side.'' The ``gloves came off.'' In the name of counterterrorism, the CIA resorted to waterboarding--an interrogation technique invented in the Spanish Inquisition to force false confessions and punish enemies.

In a mistaken effort to gain better intelligence, the CIA used this same technique that the Justice Department has prosecuted and the State Department has decried overseas. The administration used warped logic and faulty reasoning to say waterboarding technique was not torture. It is.

Waterboarding is the only technique to be publicly confirmed by this administration. There are others that have not been acknowledged but are still authorized for use. This has to end.

But we will never turn this sad page in our Nation's history until all coercive techniques are banned, and are replaced with a single, clear, uniform standard across the United States Government.

That standard is the one set out in the Army Field Manual. Its techniques work for the military and for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If the CIA would abide by its terms, it would work for the CIA as well.

The first provision in this legislation requires the Intelligence Community to follow the Army Field Manual. That is already the law for the Department of Defense.

It is supported by 43 retired generals and admirals and by a bipartisan group of former Secretaries of State and Defense, Ambassadors, and national security advisors.

Majorities in both houses of Congress passed this provision earlier this year, sending a clear message that we do not support coercive interrogations. Regrettably, the President's veto stopped it from becoming law.

The second provision in this legislation requires that access to any detainee being held by the intelligence community be provided to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Access by the ICRC is a hallmark of international law and is required by the Geneva Conventions. We believe that granting access to the ICRC is the best way to ensure that the same right will be afforded to U.S. forces if they are ever captured overseas.

But ICRC access has been denied at CIA black sites in the war on terror. This has, in part, opened the door to the abuses in detainee treatment. Independent access prevents abuses like we witnessed at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. It is time that the same protection is in place for the CIA as well, in the well-established rules that the military has used for years.

Finally, this legislation contains a ban on contractor interrogators at the CIA. As General Hayden has testified, the CIA uses outside contractors to conduct these interrogations.

We should not be using coercive interrogation techniques at all. But I firmly believe that outsourcing these interrogations to private companies is a way to diminish accountability and to avoid getting the Agency's hands dirty. I also believe that the use of contractors leads to more brutal interrogations than if they were done by Government employees.

We remain a nation at war, and credible, actionable intelligence remains a cornerstone of our war effort. But that is not what the CIA detention and interrogation program has provided.

Every single experienced interrogator tells us that coercive techniques will get someone to say what the interrogator wants to hear. But that doesn't make it true.

In fact, coercive interrogations and the threat of torture produced the information that Saddam Hussein was providing al Qaeda with WMD training. That wasn't true, but it helped lead us to war in Iraq.

Military and FBI interrogators also tell us that when they build a rapport with a detainee, they get more information, and more valuable information, than when it is coerced.

Beyond that, our Nation has paid an enormous price because of these interrogations. They cast shadow and doubt over our ideals and our system of justice. Our enemies have used our practices to recruit more extremists. Our key global partnerships, crucial to winning the war on terror, have been strained.

Look at two of our closest allies in the world. The British Parliament no longer trusts U.S. assurances that we will not torture detainees. The Canadian Government recently added the United States to its list of nations that conduct torture.

This is not the country that we want to be. Torture and disappearances do not befit the nation that I know.

It is time to restore America's integrity.

It will take time to resume our place as the world's beacon of liberty and justice. This bill will put us on that path and start the process. I urge its passage.

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

Mr. President, I rise in support of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 that would renew major programs that ensure our Nation's students have access to a college education.

This important legislation would increase grant aid to our neediest students, provide new measures to address rising college costs, and would reform the student loan system so that it better serves students.

Students and their families in California and nationwide are struggling to pay the growing costs of a college education.

Specifically, this bill will increase Pell grants from $4,800 to $6,000 for 2009 and to $8,000 for 2014. Over 625,000 California students rely on Pell grants to afford college.

It will allow low-income students, for the first time, to receive Pell grants year round, including summer school. This will help students complete their degree programs more quickly.

It will allow military servicemembers to defer payments, interest free, on Federal direct loans while they are on active duty. Our service men and women risk their lives for our Nation and deserve to not have to worry about paying their student loans while they are on duty.

It will authorize the U.S. Department of Education to award competitive grants for Teacher Preparation Programs that help recruit and retain high-quality teachers in high-need schools.

It will require the U.S. Department of Education to publish detailed data about college pricing trends on its website to ensure more transparency.

It will simplify student financial aid forms by creating a new 2-page form for low-income students, and phase out the current 7-page form within 5 years.

It is critical that we help make college more affordable and accessible for students at a time when they are taking on more debt to pay for school.

More than half of California students who graduate from 4-year public colleges have debt averaging over $12,000.

Nearly 1 year ago, the President signed into law major legislation that provides over $17 billion in new grant aid to low-income college students--$2.5 billion of which would go to help California's students. And the key reforms in the renewal of this Higher Education legislation before us today will further help ensure that college is more affordable for our young people and that they receive the education they deserve to succeed.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. This legislation makes a number of long overdue changes and improvements in the Consumer Product Safety Commission and their ability to protect children and other consumers. It will impose mandatory toy safety standards, in place of the current voluntary standards; create an online database, which parents and consumers can search for reports of safety problems; provide whistleblower protections to employees of manufacturers, retailers and distributors to promote prompt reporting of any safety hazard; and authorize a much needed funding increase for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ensure that these reforms are carried out.

Most importantly, this legislation bans the use of six phthalates in many children's products and child care articles. It will ban the use of more than .1 percent of three phthalates--DEHP, DBP, or BBP--in toys for children ages 12 and under and childcare articles for children ages 3 and under; and place an interim ban on the use of more than .1 percent of three additional phthalates--DINP, DIDP, and DnOP--in any toy that can be placed in a child's mouth or a child care article for ages 3 or under.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission will convene a Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel, CHAP, to fully examine the science on the effects of phthalates and any phthalate alternative. After this study, they will determine whether the interim ban should remain in place.

I believe they will find that the ban is essential to the protection of children's health.

Let me say, it is about time. The United States is often behind the rest of the world when it comes to chemical policy. The same has been true for phthalates. These chemicals have been restricted in at least 31 nations, including European Union--27 countries--Argentina, Fiji, Japan, Korea, and Mexico.

It took action from three States--California, Washington and Vermont--before we have reached this point.

It took voluntary action from the country's largest toy retailers: Wal-Mart, Toys ``R'' Us, and Target, all of which have announced that they will stop selling products that contain phthalates.

With the passage of this legislation, parents throughout this country will have the same assurances as parents in the E.U., in Argentina, in Japan, and all of these other counties. They will be sure that the toys they give their children do not contain a dangerous plasticizer.

And make no mistake, these chemicals are dangerous. When children chew on toys filled with phthalates, these chemicals leach from the toy, and into their bodies. Phthalates have been linked to a variety of reproductive defects.

The science on phthalates is still evolving. But today, we are acting out of precaution: removing potentially dangerous substances from products until they are shown to be safe.

Our current system for dealing with chemicals requires that regulators show that a chemical is dangerous before it can be removed from the market. We have this backwards: the burden should be placed on the manufacturers to prove to us that the chemicals they want to put in everyday items are safe. Our children should not be guinea pigs for untested chemicals.

The interim ban on three phthalates marks a departure from this longstanding ``use chemicals first, ask questions later'' approach. These chemicals will be permitted back into toys only if they are proven to be safe, the very hallmark of the precautionary principle.

We need to move fully in this direction. It is my belief that chemical additives should not be placed in products that can impact health adversely until they are tested and found to be benign. I look forward to working with my colleagues to see that we exercise the same caution with all chemicals.

This is a sea change in our Nation's chemical policy, and predictably, we faced strong opposition from industry. Many people contributed to this victory here today, and I would like to mention a few.

I would like to thank Chairman Inouye, Senator Stevens, and Senator Pryor for their steadfast support throughout this process.

This would not have been possible without my home State colleagues, Senator Boxer and Congressman Waxman. They supported this from the beginning, and their work ensured that the best product possible emerged from conference.

David Strickland, Alec Hoehn-Saric, and the Commerce Committee staff have been invaluable. They worked long nights and weekends to reach an agreement on this provision, and I appreciate it.

Kristin Wikelius and Chris Thompson of my staff, who quickly learned about this issue and worked hard to move this through the legislative process.

Dozens of grassroots groups from across the country supported my amendment and rallied their members to do the same. I will ask to have a list of these groups printed in the Record.

This Coalition was led by the Breast Cancer Fund, based in my home city of San Francisco. Their work, expertise, and support made this happen.

On another matter central to children's health, I am very pleased that this bill includes a provision that I sponsored to require secondhand cribs that are sold and used in the marketplace to have the same product safety standards as new cribs.

This bill will close a loophole in consumer product safety standards, and help reduce injuries and deaths that come from used cribs that have missing or broken parts.

Currently, U.S. consumer product safety standards apply only to new cribs and not to the sale or commercial use of secondhand cribs, which cause most crib-related infant injuries and deaths.

The measure included in the conference report would prohibit commercial users, such as thrift stores and resale furniture stores, to sell, resell or lease unsafe used cribs that are structurally unsound, and prohibits hotels, motels, and daycare centers from using unsafe cribs, and adds secondhand cribs to the list of child and infant products covered by the Consumer Product Safety Act, the law that already applies to new cribs and other children's products.

The safety standards for secondhand cribs will now match the safety standards for new cribs, including crib slats should be no more than 2\3/8\ inches apart to prevent infant from slipping through the slats and corner posts should not be higher than 1/16 inches above the end panels of the crib which prevents infant's clothing from becoming tangled on the crib.

Every year, more than 11,300 children require hospital treatment from crib-related injuries and over 30 children die from injuries sustained in cribs.

Most of these injuries and deaths occur in secondhand cribs that have dangerous features.

The language included in this conference report is similar to proposals that Representative Ellen Tauscher and I have worked on for many years.

I am very pleased that this legislation will help give parents the peace of mind that secondhand cribs are just as safe as brandnew cribs.

The phthalate ban, the expansion of crib safety protections, and the entire Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act are hard-fought victories for children and all of those concerned with their safety.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this conference report, and I urge the President to sign this into law the moment it lands on his desk. We have waited years to take action against chemicals like phthalates, and we should not wait any longer.

I ask unanimous consent that the list of groups supporting my amendment be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I wish to honor Steve Thompson, his stellar career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the dedication to solving our most difficult natural resources problems that he has demonstrated time and again throughout his career. Thompson is retiring on August 4 after 32 years with the Service.

I know Steve as the regional director of Region 8, formerly the California and Nevada Operations Office, CNO, a job he assumed in 2002. From the regional headquarters in Sacramento, CA, he oversaw Service programs in California, Nevada, and Klamath Basin that administer the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act and managed 51 national wildlife refuges and 3 national fish hatcheries.

His many honors include being chosen in 1994 as the first ``Refuge Manager of the Year'' by the National Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Refuge Association. Even more notably, in September 2007, Thompson earned the Distinguished Executive Award, the highest Presidential Rank Award given to career senior executive service employees and the first time a Service employee has been so recognized.

I have worked now with Steve on many issues, including the Cargill salt ponds purchase and ongoing restoration, efforts to restore the Klamath River, habitat conservation planning, and CALFED. For his dedication to help find a way to purchase the Cargill salt ponds, Steve can feel pride at the migratory birds that now have a place to rest in San Francisco Bay on their long journeys along the Pacific flyway.

For his utterly tireless work to find a way to restore the Klamath River, we do not yet know what result will ensue. But thanks to Steve's leadership, we perhaps have a once in a generation opportunity to restore the River and its fisheries while providing certainty to farmers.

What I always found with Steve is that he is completely dedicated to finding that straight and narrow path through the bureaucracy to actually solve our biggest natural resource problems.

Others might find reasons why a solution can't be found or why it might be imperfect from some idealized perspective. Steve just dedicates himself to finding that solution.

He is a straight shooter. He tells you what he is going to do to solve a problem, and then he gets the job done.

All of us who care about California's natural resources will miss him.

Steve, I want to congratulate you on your years of remarkable service to our Nation's fish and wildlife and the people who value them. I hope you can now enjoy a little fishing and a few quiet moments to contemplate what you have so honorably protected.