Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am introducing today, on behalf of Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary and myself the FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2010. Since early in this Congress, I have been working with Chairman Leahy, both in my capacity as Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence and as a member of the Judiciary Committee, to enact legislation that extends expiring authorities for the collection of foreign intelligence against terrorists, proliferators, foreign powers, and spies, while ensuring that adequate safeguards exist for the protection of the civil liberties and privacy of Americans.

To that end, the Judiciary Committee reported, in October 2009, S. 1692, a bill that sought to accomplish two main objectives. One was to extend the life of three authorities under FISA which were then due to sunset on December 31, 2009, described as roving, lone wolf, and business records collection, all of which have been previously described to the Senate during the consideration of earlier extensions. Through two short-term measures, those sunsets have been extended to February 28, 2010.

The other main objective was to secure several amendments to statutes on intelligence collection that would improve the balance they strike between protecting national security and protecting civil liberties and privacy. In the course of this Congress, this second objective has been largely achieved through actions that have been taken by the Department of Justice and the FBI under administrative actions. On reviewing those actions, which have been described in a letter from the Attorney General to Chairman Leahy on

December 9, 2010, Chairman Leahy and I have determined that the one remaining action that we need to take legislatively this Congress is to extend the three important authorities that are now due to sunset on February 28, 2010. The Feinstein-Leahy bill will extend these sunsets to the same date as proposed in S. 1692, December 31, 2013. The Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence have asked the Congress to extend these authorities.

Additionally, the authority established by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, regarding collection of foreign intelligence against persons reasonably believed to be outside of the United States, is scheduled to sunset on December 31, 2012. The Feinstein-Leahy bill would extend that authority for one year, to December 31, 2013, so that all of the sunsets of authority under FISA occur on the same date. This will allow the Congress to consider all of the temporary authorities in conjunction.

By acting now on these approaching sunsets, Congress will ensure stability in the foreign intelligence collection system at a time of heightened threat levels and guarantee there are no inadvertent gaps in FISA collection at the beginning of next year.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation so we can achieve enactment this session.

Mr. President, as chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I would like to address the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty--called New START--that is now before the Senate for ratification.

This treaty has been carefully vetted. I am confident the Senate will come to the conclusion that this treaty is in our national interest and will cast the necessary votes for ratification. I strongly support ratification.

Before speaking about intelligence issues related to this treaty, it is important to remind ourselves about the extraordinary, lethal nature of these nuclear weapons.

I was 12 years old when atomic bombs flattened both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Hiroshima bomb, estimated to have been 21 kilotons, killed 70,000 people outright. You can see from this chart the absolute devastation this bomb caused in Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bomb, at 15 kilotons--somewhat less--killed at least 40,000 people immediately. This is Nagasaki. Another 100,000 or so who survived the initial blasts died of injuries and radiation sickness. By the end of 1945, an estimated 220,000 people had lost their lives because of these two bombs.

The horrible images of disfigured bodies and devastating ruins have stayed with me all my life. I was part of the generation of youngsters being raised who hid under our desks in drills about atomic bombs and atomic weapons being unleashed.

So here is Nagasaki before the bomb, and here is Nagasaki after the bomb. It gives you a very good look at what it was like.

Today, we live in a world with far more nuclear weapons and even more powerful destructive capabilities. In May of this year, the Pentagon made a rare public announcement of the current U.S. nuclear stockpile-- 5,113 nuclear warheads, including deployed and nondeployed and not including warheads awaiting dismantlement. According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia's stockpile includes 4,650 deployed warheads--deployed warheads--both strategic and tactical. Including nondeployed warheads, the estimate of Russia's arsenal is 9,000 warheads, plus thousands more waiting to be dismantled.

Many--and here is the key--many of these weapons are far in excess of 100 kilotons or more than five times the size of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some are far, far larger. Many of these weapons are on high alert, ready to be launched at a moment's notice, and their use would result in unimaginable devastation.

So I ask my colleagues during this debate to reflect carefully on the extraordinary, lethal nature of these weapons as we consider this treaty.

This treaty is actually a modest step forward, not a giant one. It calls for cutting deployed strategic nuclear warheads by 30 percent below the levels established under the 2002 Moscow Treaty to 1,550 each. It cuts launch vehicles, such as missile silos and submarine tubes, to 800 for each country. Deployed launch vehicles are capped at 700--more than 50 percent below the original START treaty.

According to the unanimous views of our Nation's military and civilian defense officials, this will not erode America's nuclear capability, our strategic deterrent, or our national defense.

The United States will still maintain a robust nuclear triad, able to protect our country and our national security interests.

As GEN James Cartwright, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former head of the United States Strategic Command, stated:

I think we have more than enough capacity and capability

for any threat that we see today or that might emerge in the

foreseeable future.

Additionally, these reductions in this New START treaty won't have to be completed until the treaty's seventh year, so there is plenty of time for a prudent drawdown. But while its terms are modest, its impacts are broad, and I wish now to describe some of the benefits of ratification.

I begin with the ways in which this treaty enhances our Nation's intelligence capabilities. This has been the lens through which the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has viewed the treaty, and I believe the arguments are strongly positive and persuasive. There are three main points to make, and I will take them in turn.

They are, No. 1, the intelligence community can carry out its responsibility to monitor Russian activities under the treaty effectively. No. 2, this treaty, when it enters into force, will benefit intelligence collection and analysis. And No. 3, intelligence analysis indicates that failing to ratify the New START treaty will create negative consequences for the United States.

My comments today are, of course, unclassified, but I would note that there is a National Intelligence Estimate on monitoring the New START Treaty available to Senators. I have written a classified letter to Senators Kerry and Lugar that spells out these arguments in greater detail. Members are welcome to review both documents.

Following President Reagan's advice to ``trust but verify,'' and in line with all major arms control treaties for decades, New START includes several provisions that allow the United States to monitor how Russia is reducing and deploying its strategic arsenal, and vice versa.

The U.S. intelligence community will use these treaty provisions and other independent tools, such as the use of national technical means, for example, our satellites, to collect information on Russian forces and whether Russia is complying with the treaty's terms. These provisions include on-the-ground inspections of Russian nuclear facilities and bases--18 a year; regular exchanges on data on the warhead and missile production and locations; unique identifiers, a distinct alphanumeric code for each missile and heavy bomber for tracking purposes; a ban on blocking national technical means from collecting information on strategic forces, and other measures I will describe later in these remarks.

Without the strong monitoring and verification measures provided for in this treaty, we will know less about the number, size, location, and deployment status of Russian nuclear warheads. That is a fact.

As General Chilton, Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, recently said:

Without New START, we would rapidly lose insight into

Russian nuclear strategic force developments and activities,

and our force modernization planning and hedging strategy

would be more complex and more costly. Without such a regime,

we would unfortunately be left to use worst-case analyses

regarding our own force requirements.

That is what a ``no'' vote on this treaty means.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made the same point earlier this month. He said that if the United States doesn't ratify the treaty, Russia will have to respond, including augmentation of its stockpile. That is what voting ``no'' on this treaty means.

So these monitoring provisions are key, as are the trust and transparency they bring, and the only way to get to these provisions is through ratification.

In fact, we have not had any inspections or other monitoring tools for over a year, since the original START treaty expired, so we have less insight into any new Russian weapons and delivery systems that might be entering their force. The United States has essentially gone black on any monitoring, inspection, data exchanges, telemetry, and notification allowed by the former START treaty.

Last November, Senator Kyl and I traveled to Geneva to meet with United States and Russian negotiating teams. We met at some length with Rose Gottemoeller, the Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, who led the U.S. negotiating team. We also met with the senior members of her team, including her deputy, Ambassador Marcie Ries, Ted Warner, Mike Elliot, Kurt Siemon, and Dick Trout, who led the drafting efforts and represented the Departments of Defense and Energy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

These officials and many of the other members of the U.S. team were very impressive in their professionalism and experience. Several had participated in the negotiation of the original START treaty or the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty, the INF treaty. Several were inspectors who had conducted on-the-ground inspections in Russia under START and INF, or were weapons system operators who had been responsible for hosting Russian inspectors at U.S. bases.

This team was not composed of the uninitiated or of neophytes. They had both background and skill. They were acutely aware of the lessons learned over the past decades of arms control and negotiated this treaty with an understanding of what monitoring and compliance verification mean.

Senator Kyl and I also met two or three times during our trip to Geneva with the Russian delegation led by Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov, who is an experienced diplomat and negotiator. His delegation included representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defense, the General Staff, and key agencies such as RosAtom and RosKosmos. Like the U.S. delegations, the Russian delegation had among its members inspectors and weapons systems operators, including those from the Strategic Rocket Forces, the Navy, and the Air Force.

The treaty was still being negotiated at that time, but the rough outlines were very much coming into focus. I mentioned to the U.S. and Russian delegations that it would be difficult to get 67 votes in the Senate for a resolution saying the sky is blue. In order to get an arms treaty through the Senate, it would have to have strong monitoring provisions.

In a lengthy conversation over lunch with Russian Ambassador Antonov, I said that, as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I would have to walk onto this very floor and assure my colleagues that the provisions in this treaty are sufficient for the U.S. intelligence community to perform its monitoring role. I believe that Ambassador Antonov clearly understood that, and 1 year later I am able to say on this floor that the Intelligence Committee has reviewed the question of monitoring the New START treaty at length. It is adequate.

After the treaty was submitted to the Senate on May 13, 2010, 7 months ago, the committee began its review of its provisions and annex. We reviewed past intelligence community analyses on monitoring previous treaties and the tools available to monitor Russian behavior under this New START.

The intelligence community completed drafting its NIE on its ability to monitor the treaty's limits in June, 6 months ago. We received a copy on June 30, allowing members to review it before and after the Fourth of July recess. The committee held a hearing on the NIE with senior intelligence officials in July. Not a single one of them questioned the validity or the judgments of the estimates.

Following the hearing, the committee submitted more than 70 questions for the record and received detailed responses from the intelligence community. Those are obviously classified, but they can be seen.

In addition, the committee undertook its own independent review of the NIE and the treaty's implications for the intelligence community. Committee staff participated in more than a dozen meetings and briefings on a range of issues concerning the treaty, focusing on intelligence monitoring and collection aspects.

Based on the committee's review, after reading the NIE and other assessments, and having spoken to Directors of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, David Gompert, and Jim Clapper, it is clear to me that the intelligence community will be able to effectively monitor Russian activities under this treaty.

For the record, I wish to describe the monitoring provisions in this treaty, many of which are similar to the original START treaty's provisions.

No. 1, the treaty commits the United States and Russia ``not to interfere with the national technical means of verification of the other Party.'' That means not to interfere with our satellites and ``not to use concealment measures that impede verification.''

This means that Russia, as I said, agrees not to block our satellite observations of their launchers or their testing. Without this treaty, Russia could take steps to deny or block our ability to collect information on their forces.

Let me make clear, they could try, and perhaps block our satellites.

Like START, New START requires Russia to provide the United States with regular data notifications. This includes information on the production of any and all new strategic missiles, the loading of warheads onto missiles, and the location to which strategic forces are deployed. Under START, these notifications were vital to our understanding. In fact, the notification provisions under New START are stronger than those in the old START, including a requirement that Russia inform the United States when a missile or warhead moves into or out of deployed status.

Let me repeat that. There is an obligation that Russia inform us when a missile or a warhead moves into or out of deployed status.

Third, New START restores our ability to conduct on-the-ground inspections. There are none of them going on, none have been going on, for over a year. New START allows for 10 so-called type one on-site inspections of Russian ICBMs, SLBMs, and bomber bases a year. The protocols for these type one inspections were written by U.S. negotiators with years of inspections experience under the original START treaty. Here is how they work.

First, U.S. inspectors choose what base they wish to inspect. Russia is restricted from moving missiles, launchers, and bombers away from that base.

Second, when the inspectors arrive they will be given a full briefing from the Russians, to include the numbers of deployed and nondeployed missile launchers or bombers at the base, the number of warheads loaded on each bomber--this is important--and the number of reentry vehicles on each ICBM or SLBM.

Third, the inspectors choose what they want to inspect. At an ICBM's base, the inspectors choose a deployed ICBM for inspection, one they want to inspect. At a submarine base they choose an SLBM. If there are any nondeployed launchers, ones not carrying missiles, the inspectors can pick one of those for inspection as well.

At air bases, the inspectors can choose up to three bombers for inspection.

Fourth, the actual inspection occurs, with the U.S. personnel verifying the number of warheads on the missiles or on the bombers chosen. As I mentioned earlier, each missile and bomber is coded with a specific code, both numerically and alphabetically, so that you know what you have chosen, and they cannot be changed.

Under this framework, our inspectors are provided comprehensive information from the Russian briefers. They are able to choose themselves how they want to verify that this information is accurate.

The treaty also provides for an additional eight inspections a year of nondeployed warheads and facilities where Russia converts or eliminates nuclear arms.

Some people have commented that the number of inspections under New START, that is, the total of 18 I have just gone through, is smaller than the 28 under the previous START treaty. This is true. But it is also true that there are half as many Russian facilities to inspect as there were in 1991 when START was signed.

In addition, inspections under New START are designed to cover more topics than inspections under the prior START agreement. In testimony from the Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, or DTRA, Kenneth Myers, the agency doing these inspections, said:

Type One inspections will be more demanding on both DTRA

and site personnel, as it combines the main parts of what

were formerly two separate inspections under START into a

single, lengthier inspection.

That is important. The inspections are going to be better. So while the absolute number of inspections is down from 28 to 18, the ability to monitor and understand Russian forces is not lessened. I am confident we can achieve our monitoring objectives with 18 inspections a year. I also urge my colleagues to review the New START National Intelligence Estimate which addresses these issues in detail.

Let me discuss a couple of monitoring provisions that were included in the expired START treaty but are not in the treaty we are now considering. First, under START, the U.S. officials had a permanent presence at the Russian missile production facility at Votkinsk. You will hear about Votkinsk.

Inspectors could watch as missiles left the plant and were shipped to various parts of the country. New START does not include this provision. In fact, the Bush administration had taken this provision off the table in its negotiations with the Russians prior to leaving office.

New START does, however, require Russia to mark all missiles, as I have been saying, with unique identifiers so we can track their location and deployment status over the lifetime of the treaty, so it is not necessarily to have a permanent monitoring presence at Votkinsk.

The treaty also requires Russia to notify us at least 48 hours before any missile leaves a plant. So we will still have information about missile production without the permanent presence. Our inspectors and other nuclear experts have testified that these provisions are, in fact, sufficient.

Secondly, START required the United States and Russia to exchange technical data from missile tests--that is known as telemetry--to each other but not to other countries. That telemetry allows each side to calculate things such as how many warheads a missile could carry. This was important as the START treaty attributed warheads to missiles. If a Russian missile could carry 10 reentry vehicles, the treaty counted it as having 10 warheads. Information obtained through telemetry was, therefore, important to determine the capabilities of each delivery system.

New START, however, does away with these attribution rules and counts the actual number of warheads deployed on missiles; no more guessing whether a Russian missile is carrying one or eight warheads. With this change, we do not need precise calculations of the capabilities of Russian missiles in order to tell whether Russia is complying with the treaty's terms. So telemetry is not necessary to monitor compliance with New START.

Nonetheless, as a gesture to transparency, the treaty allows for the exchange of telemetry between our two countries only, up to five times a year if both sides agree to do so.

In fact, it should be pointed out that if the treaty included a broader requirement to exchange telemetry, the United States might have to share information on interceptors for missile defense, which the Department of Defense has not agreed to do.

Third, there has been a concern raised about Russian ``breakout'' capability, a fear that Russia may one day decide to secretly deploy more warheads than the treaty would allow, or to secretly build a vast stockpile that it could quickly put into its deployed force. I do not see this as a credible concern.

According to public figures, Russian strategic forces are already under or close to the limits prescribed by New START, and they have been decreasing over the past decade, not just now but over the past decade.

So the concern about a breakout is a concern that Russia would suddenly decide it wants to reverse what has been a 10-year trend and deploy more weapons than it currently believes are needed for its security. They would also have to decide to do this secretly, with the significant risk of being caught. Because of the monitoring provisions, the inspections, our national technical means and other ways we have to track Russian nuclear activities, Moscow would have a serious disincentive to do that.

Moreover, instead of developing a breakout capability, Russia could decide instead to simply withdraw from the treaty just as the United States did when President Bush withdrew from the antiballistic treaty.

Finally, even in the event that Russia did violate the treaty and pursue a breakout capability, I am confident that our nuclear capabilities are more than sufficient to continue to deter Russia and to provide assurances to our allies. The bottom line is that the intelligence community can effectively monitor this treaty. If you vote ``no'' on this treaty, there will be no monitoring.

As I noted earlier, a second question relevant to New START is whether ratifying the treaty actually enhances our intelligence collection and analysis. This is above and beyond the question of whether the intelligence community will be able to fulfill its responsibility to monitor Russian compliance with the treaty's terms.

While I am unable to go into the specifics, the clear answer to this question is, yes. The ability to conduct inspections, receive notifications, enter into continuing discussions with the Russians over the lifetime of the treaty, will provide us with information and understanding of Russian strategic forces that we simply will not have without the treaty. If you vote ``no,'' we will not have it.

The intelligence community will need to collect information about Russian nuclear weapons and intentions with or without a New START treaty, just as it has since the beginning of the Cold War. But absent the inspector's boots on the ground, the intelligence community will need to rely on other methods.

A November 18 article in the Washington Times noted that:

In the absence of a U.S.-Russian arms control treaty, the

U.S. intelligence community is telling Congress it will need

to focus more spy satellites over Russia that could be used

to peer on other sites, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, to

support the military.

Put even more simply, the Nation's top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, was recently asked about ratification of the New START treaty. He responded:

I think the earlier, the sooner, the better. You know my

thing is: From an intelligence perspective only, are we

better off with it or without it? We're better off with it.

So Members should realize that if they vote ``no'' to ratify this treaty and lose out on its monitoring provisions, that means we are going to have to spend much more, and it is going to be much more difficult if not impossible to get certain information about Russian forces.

The final intelligence-related question on the New START treaty is, what impact ratification--or failure to ratify--will have on our other foreign policy objectives. I think this is important. We live in a different world today where there are nonstate actors, where there are two nations, Iran and Korea, moving to develop a nuclear weapon, and it is very important to be able to achieve a working relationship with the large powers that give confidence to other nations to stand with us.

This question can be addressed largely through open source intelligence. There have been numerous news reports and press conferences in the recent weeks about the broader effects of ratifying New START. Many supporters of the New START treaty have noted that ratification is a key achievement and symbol of the ``reset'' in Russian relations that Presidents Obama and Medvedev have sought.

But beyond generalities of an improved relationship, the Senate's rejection of New START would not only undermine our understanding of Russia's strategic forces, it could derail or disrupt a host of other U.S. policies objectives.

In Russia today, there is a heated debate over whether Moscow is better served by domestic reforms and engagements with the West, or by hard-line behavior that rejects cooperation

with the West. Russians view New START as a signature product of the reforms. This is the signature product of Russian reform and the new Russian President. They view the fate of New START in this Senate as a crucial test of the reformists' claim that Russia and America can work together. If we, the Senate, reject this treaty, we can confirm what Russian hard-liners have been saying all along, the United States is not a viable partner.

Here are a few real-world examples. Russia has been allowing the United States and other members of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to transport material into Afghanistan over Russian territory. This has assisted our war efforts, especially in light of recent attacks against convoys crossing through Pakistan.

Russia has withheld delivery of the S-300 advanced air defense system to Iran and supported the United Nations Security Council sanctions against Tehran. Tehran wanted to buy this sophisticated air defense missile defense system. Russia was going to sell it to them. Russia has withheld that sale.

That is a major achievement. Also, Russia and NATO partners agreed at the recent summit in Lisbon to a new missile defense system in Europe. This is an agreement for a missile defense system which Russia has fought violently over the past decade.

At that same summit, Foreign Ministers from Denmark, Lithuania, Norway, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Hungary spoke out in support of the New START treaty. As neighbors to Russia and the former Soviet Union, they praised New START as necessary for the security of Europe but also as an entrance to engage in tactical nuclear weapons treaties which pose an even greater threat from state or nonstate use.

There is no quid pro quo here. Russia has not agreed to support initiatives of the United States around the world if only the Senate would ratify the New START treaty. But as every Senator knows, when we are trying to get things done, relationships matter.

The relationship between the United States and Russia has been critical since we fought together in World War II and it will continue to be so. This is an unparalleled opportunity to enhance that relationship and to say, by signature and by ratification of this treaty, that, yes, the United States of America wants to work with Russia; yes, the United States and Russia have mutual goals; and, yes, with respect to Iran and other trouble spots, the United States and Russia can, in fact, stand together.

Let me move on to the nonproliferation reasons to ratify this treaty. New START demonstrates to the world that the two nations possessing more than 90 percent of the planet's nuclear weapons are capable of working together on arms reduction and nonproliferation. A ``no'' vote says we are not capable of doing that.

I believe this will pave the way for more multilateral efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons as well as restrictions on tactical nuclear warheads that could fall into the hands of terrorist organizations.

Let us not forget the centerpiece of our nuclear nonproliferation regime, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It is based on a clear bargain. Those with nuclear weapons agree to eventually eliminate them, and those without nuclear weapons agree to never acquire them. With the signing of the New START treaty, the Presidents of the United States and Russia are showing the other parties to the NPT that we are living up to our end of the bargain. Without New START, with a ``no'' vote on New START, we do not do this.

This will strengthen the resolve of other nations to maintain their commitments and uphold the credibility of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, to hold violators such as Iran and North Korea accountable and subject to sanction.

In fact, we are already seeing the benefits of commitments made in the New START agreement. The latest review conference of the NPT in May of this year ended with 189 parties recommitting themselves to the NPT after the 2005 conference collapsed. On June 9, the United Nations Security Council passed a fourth sanctions resolution on Iran for its violations of its commitments under the treaty with the support of China and Russia.

Ratification of New START also opens the door to further arms control agreements, both to further arms reductions and to address tactical nuclear warheads--the smaller yield devices that are in some ways more dangerous than the strategic weapons with which we are dealing now.

Ratification moves us down the path to a world without nuclear weapons as envisioned by Presidents Obama and Reagan. For years, the idea of a nuclear-free world was ridiculed as a fantasy. This may now be beginning to change. Don't turn it down. Republicans as well as Democrats have come around to the idea that eventual nuclear disarmament is not only desirable, but it is, in fact, doable and is consistent with our national security interests. Former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger have joined forces with former Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry to make this case.

In a January 4, 2007, op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, they called for U.S. leadership in building a ``solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.''

We can now do our part to build that consensus and help ensure that we never again see the destruction caused by nuclear weapons.

Once again, I return to these charts. I was 12 years old when I saw these pictures. I was 12 years old when I realized what a 21-kiloton and a 15-kiloton bomb can do. Many of the bombs in the U.S. and Russian arsenals are well in excess of 100 kilotons today. The number is classified but, trust me, they are well in excess. We can destroy the planet Earth with these weapons.

They are deployed and they are targeted. This treaty gives us the opportunity to reduce our arsenals--the U.S. and Russian stockpiles that now make up 90 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world. It is a big deal. To say no to this treaty is, in fact, to say we want to go back to the days of suspicion, of not working together, of the Cold War ethos that we will succumb to the Russian hardliners and take this first major test of Russian reform and effectively trash it. We must not do that.

Mr. President, with the months of debate over this Treaty, a small number of objections have been raised. I would like to address them now.

First, some Senators infer that our nuclear weapons will become unreliable over time. They say they won't vote for this treaty unless it is linked to modernization of the arsenal.

Let's be clear. Both the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy have certified that our arsenal is safe and reliable in each of the past 14 years. The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Tom D'Agostino has assured me of the surety of the stockpile. Our top scientists have told us that these weapons will remain safe and reliable for decades to come.

In fact, an independent group of scientists known as the JASONs, who advises the government on nuclear weapons, has reported that the National Nuclear Security Administration is successfully ensuring the arsenal's safety and reliability, through weapons ``lifetime extension programs.''

Their September, 2009 report said that through such programs, ``Lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence . . . ''

And President Obama has made a significant commitment to ensuring that we maintain a safe, secure, and effective arsenal by providing the necessary resources for as long as we have nuclear weapons.

The President's fiscal 2011 budget asks for $11.2 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a 13.4-percent increase over the fiscal 2010 budget.

This includes $7 billion for weapons activities to maintain the safety, security, and effectiveness of the arsenal, an increase of 10 percent, or $624 million from fiscal year 2010.

The President has submitted a plan calling for $80 billion over the next 10 years. In November, he added an additional $4.1 billion over the next 5 years alone to that enormous sum.

Modernization of the nuclear stockpile is surely a major priority, and I will fight to make sure these funds are

appropriated. But these questions and concerns have now been addressed, and should not hold up this treaty.

Second, critics have claimed that New START will impede current and planned missile defense efforts.

They point to language in the preamble of the treaty that notes the inter-relationship between offensive and defensive strategic arms.

They point to the unilateral statement issued by Russia upon signing the treaty indicating that our missile defense plans could prompt Moscow to withdraw from the agreement.

And they note that the agreement prohibits both countries from converting additional ICBM silos or submarine launch tubes for missile defense interceptors.

These arguments are without merit.

First, the preamble language simply acknowledges what we all know: that there is a relationship between strategic offensive and defensive arms. It will not inhibit our missile defense efforts in any way.

Similar language can be found in the original START agreement, and it has not inhibited our missile defense efforts over the past two decades.

Second, the Russian unilateral statement is not a part of the agreement, and the United States is not bound by it in any way. In fact, the United States issued its own unilateral statement clearly stating that it will move forward with its missile defense plans.

Again, it should be noted that the Soviet Union issued a similar unilateral statement when START was signed and it had no impact on our missile defense plans.

Finally, regarding the prohibition on converting additional ICBM silos and SLBM launch tubes for missile defense interceptors: simply stated, our military has no plans to do so. This doesn't block the United States from anything it plans or wants to do.

It is actually cheaper to build new missile defense launchers than to convert existing launch tubes or silos. And the treaty places no constraints whatsoever on that construction.

The Secretary of Defense, the uniformed military leadership, and the head of the Missile Defense Agency have testified this treaty will not harm missile defense.

These concerns have been raised, debated, and answered. It is time for ratification.

Mr. President, the choice before us is not New START and the treaty that some of my colleagues would prefer to have. Rather, the choice is between New START and no arms control treaty at all. To me, that choice is easy.

Either we make progress on reducing our nuclear arsenals and lay the foundation for further reductions including on tactical nuclear weapons or we do not.

New START is in our Nation's national security. Every day that passes without ratification is another day without inspectors on the ground in Russia and a decrease in mutual transparency and trust.

The Senate has a long tradition of overwhelming support for treaties like this one: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was approved 93-5; the 1991 START agreement which was approved 93-6; and the 2002 Moscow Treaty which was approved 95-0.

There is nothing in this treaty to suggest that the vote on its ratification should be any different. This should be an easy step for the Senate to take, a step that should be taken in the spirit of protecting our Nation and the world from the devastation of a nuclear war.

I urge my colleagues to support this agreement.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, I regret that such an error was made. I would like to reconfirm that my colleague, Senator Mikulski, should not be listed as a sponsor for this project.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Nancy Peterson, a fellow in Senator Webb's office, be granted the privilege of the floor throughout the Senate's consideration of the New START treaty and the fiscal year 2011 Omnibus Appropriations Act.

Madam President, I also am one of those who worried over this vote over the weekend that we passed yesterday. I spoke on this very floor about the fact that I did not like the estate tax. I did not think wealthy Americans needed a sustained tax cut. Then I began to make some calls to economists. What I found was a kind of double-edged sword. One, they did believe the package had a stimulative nature of anywhere between .6 and 1.1 percent, .6 being about 600,000 jobs--so 600,000 to 1.2 million jobs; unemployment insurance was stimulative; the payroll tax cut was stimulative, et cetera; and that we needed to do this.

But then the flip side. And the flip side was, we are now reaching 63 percent of GDP in debt. What will happen is one day, if this continues, we will go off a cliff economically.

Some time ago, during the end of the Bush administration, many of us were on a phone call. We heard Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke say that we are on the brink of a major collapse of this economy. Everything could go down--banks, credit institutions, et cetera.

I never thought this could ever happen in America. I now know that the unprecedented can, in effect, happen in America, and that when we vote for a package that puts almost $1 trillion additional on debt and deficit, we had better have a way to make a pivot, as some people have called it, and do those things that can curb expenditures.

We are fortunate. This National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility outlines a course. Not everything do I agree with, just like the tax bill. But, nonetheless, it is a course of action which can bring down this debt and bring down this deficit. I am very proud of those Members who voted to sustain this report. Even with 11 Members, I think it gives the kind of substantial ability to this report to bring it before this body.

I would hope that before we have to raise the debt ceiling, we would have before us a package, that we would set limits on spending, that we would freeze pay across the board, that we would make substantial across-the-board cuts in travel, in printing, and those things, not because that is a big item but because it is an item that wakes up people. I found that on a city level. It exists on a State level, and it exists on a Federal level.

There is much we can do, and I think at 63 percent of GDP, this debt and deficit says to America: America, be concerned. America and American business, come home. Build your plants here. Help us rebuild this great country. Help us build the industries of the future. But at the same time, right now, we have got to make very deep cuts across the board.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which will prevent tax increases on middle-class Americans, provide targeted investments in American businesses, and continue much- needed relief for the unemployed.

After wrestling with my concerns about upper-class tax rates and the estate tax provision, I have come to the conclusion that this bill is necessary in order to preserve and promote our economic recovery.

Between the extension of tax rates for the middle class, the patch for the alternative minimum tax, and several extensions of previous tax policy, almost $500 billion goes toward preventing a substantial tax increase on working Americans.

A tax increase on that scale would significantly hamper the economy and place further strain on families struggling to stay afloat during uncertain economic times.

The words spoken by former President Clinton last week underscore a strong point made by a man who knows something about how to forge legislation necessary to move our Nation forward.

He said:

The agreement taken as a whole is, I believe, the best

bipartisan agreement we can reach to help the largest number

of Americans, and to maximize the chances that the economic

recovery will accelerate and create more jobs . . .

That is what we must do: focus as much effort as possible on creating jobs and supporting industry in the United States. We must adapt to the changing contours of the global economy and ensure we retain our competitive position as the world's greatest economic power.

I was very pleased to hear that the Treasury grant provision was included in this package. It illustrates the kind of policy necessary to encourage the industries of the future.

The Treasury grant program is responsible for $18.2 billion in renewable energy development in just the past 2 years. That is 1,465 projects around the country.

With the program extended, California alone could see at least 141 more projects break ground next year. That would mean an additional 27,000 megawatts of energy and tens of thousands of jobs in high- unemployment counties.

High-tech companies in California and across the country will also benefit from a 2-year extension of a key research-and-development tax credit.

And the president of the National Association of Manufacturers called this

provision ``key to manufacturers' competitiveness and ability to create jobs.''

In the end, that is the bottom line. Will the economy be substantially better off if this bill passes? If the answer is yes, then there is simply no other option.

In the past few days I have spoken to a number of prominent economists about what this bill would mean for our economic recovery. With unemployment levels at 9.8 percent nationally and 12.4 percent in California, it is crucial that the economy start growing at a fast enough rate to create more jobs.

The consensus is that the provisions before us will immediately hasten the pace of the recovery, creating enough momentum to get us to the point of self-sustaining economic growth.

However, we must follow this bill with measures that address tax reform in order to create a simplified system that addresses the inequalities that have become apparent over the last decade.

From 2003 to 2007, income for families in the top 5 percent of taxpayers increased by 7 percent, while 95 percent of taxpayers' incomes remained stagnant.

The average income of the top 1 percent of earners increased by 10 times as much as that for the bottom 90 percent.

During the expansion of 2002 to 2007, families saw their medium income drop by $2,000, the first time Americans have seen their incomes drop during a period of economic growth.

In 2007, the top 10 percent took home almost half of the country's total earnings, the highest level of income inequality in our Nation's history.

Clearly, our current Tax Code does not work for most Americans. As we get back on our feet, we must shift our focus to economic policies that promote opportunity and allow for the continued pursuit of the American dream.

The point today is that we have two options. We can swallow our distaste for a few of the provisions included in this package for the sake of struggling Americans everywhere.

Or we can take a big risk with the economic recovery by allowing tax rates to reset to 1990s levels. The people that would hurt the most are the very same people we are trying to help.

I choose to do what is absolutely necessary for the benefit of the Americans that need help most, and that is why I will support this bill.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the DREAM Act. This important legislation would give eligible young people, who were brought to the United States as children, the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the United States.

This bill addresses just one small piece of the immigration debate, but it has a profound impact on the lives of undocumented youth. I have supported the DREAM Act since it was first introduced in 2001 by Senators Hatch and Durbin. Since then, the DREAM Act has had wide bipartisan support. It passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee twice.

Each year, approximately 65,000 undocumented youth graduate from American high schools. Most of these undocumented youth did not make a choice to come to the United States; they were brought here by their parents. Many of these young people grew up in the United States and have little or no memory of the countries they came from. They are hard-working young people dedicated to their education or serving in the Nation's military. They have stayed out of trouble. Some are valedictorians and honor roll students; some are community leaders, and have an unwavering commitment to serving the United States.

Through no fault of their own, these young individuals lack the immigration status they need to realize their potential. Because of their undocumented status, they are ineligible to serve in the military and face tremendous obstacles to attending college. For many, English is their first language and they are just like every other American student.

Now reaching adulthood, these young people are left with a dead end. They can't use their educations to contribute to their communities. They can't serve the country they call home by volunteering for military service.

The DREAM Act provides an opportunity for these students to fulfill the American dream. It would permit students to become permanent residents if they came here as children, are long-term U.S. residents, have good moral character, and attend college or enlist in the military for 2 years.

These students would have to wait for 10 years before becoming lawful permanent residents and undergo background and security checks and pay any back taxes. This is a multistep process, not a free pass.

In addition, DREAM Act eligible students would not be eligible for in State tuition at State colleges and universities or Federal education grants. These students would only be eligible for Federal work study and student loans.

The DREAM Act also contains tough criminal penalties for fraud and excludes students from participation in health insurance exchanges, Medicaid, food stamps, and other entitlement programs.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the DREAM Act would increase Federal revenues by $2.3 billion over 10 years and increase net direct spending by $912 million between 2011 and 2020. In addition, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that enacting the bill would reduce deficits by about $1.4 billion over 10 years.

I would like to tell you about a few college students in California, who would benefit from the DREAM Act.

Arthur Mkoian came to the United States from Armenia with

his mother when he was 3 years old. Arthur attended Bullard

High School in California, maintaining a 4.0 grade point

average. Arthur graduated in 2008 as his class valedictorian.

He is now in his second year at U.C. Davis, majoring in

biochemistry. Arthur maintains A grades, and is on the Dean's

Merit List. He hopes to continue on to study medicine, but

without the DREAM Act, his future remains uncertain.

Nayely Arreola came to the United States with her parents

and younger brother in 1989, when she was only 3 years old.

Her family made their home in California, working hard to

succeed. The family was taken advantage of by a negligent

immigration attorney, who was later disbarred, who took away

their chance to legalize their status. Despite this, Nayely

is an excellent student. She was the first member of her

family to graduate high school and went on to graduate from

Fresno Pacific University. While she was in college, Nayely

maintained outstanding grades and became president of her

class.

Ivan Rosales came to the United States when he was 10

months old. His family settled in San Bernardino, CA, where

Ivan excelled in school. He found out about his undocumented

status in the 7th grade when he could not accept an award he

earned at a science fair because he didn't have a Social

Security number. Ivan is a presidential scholar who graduated

within the top 1 percent of high school graduates in San

Bernardino County. He is currently a senior at the California

State University and is a pre-med biology major. He hopes to

become a doctor in the army someday and says that it would be

an honor to provide care to the brave men and women risking

their lives for this country.

The United States is worse off if it lets the talents of these young people go to waste. They have demonstrated their commitment to this country's ideals through their academic success, leadership, and dedication to their communities. It is in the Nation's best interest to provide talented young people the ability to become full members of our society.

The DREAM Act has widespread support from labor, business, education, civil rights, and religious groups, who recognize that the potential of these young people should not be lost.

The presidents and chancellors of several universities including the University of California, California State University, the University of Washington, Arizona State University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Utah, and Washington State University recently wrote a joint letter expressing their support of the DREAM Act. In that letter, they state that in this age of international economic competition, ``the U.S. needs all of the talent that it can acquire and these students represent an extraordinary resource for the country . . . it is an economic imperative.''

Businesses such as the Microsoft Corporation support the DREAM Act. The Microsoft Corporation believes in the DREAM Act because, ``It is essential to our nation's competitiveness and success to nurture the talent we have and to incorporate bright, hardworking students into the workforce to become the next generation of leaders in this country.''

Retired GEN Colin Powell, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former Secretary of State, and other current and former military leaders support the DREAM Act because it would greatly enhance military recruitment. The DREAM Act is included in the Department of Defense's fiscal year 2010-2012 Strategic Plan to help the military ``shape and maintain a mission-ready All Volunteer Force.''

In 2006, then-Under Secretary of Defense David Chu testified that many of the DREAM Act eligible students have the attributes needed in the military--``education, aptitude, fitness, and moral qualifications.'' They should not be prevented from joining the military because of their undocumented status.

These students have been raised in the United States and educated here. Often times, they did not choose to be here, but this is the only home they know. They have worked hard to graduate from high school under adversity. Many are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to serve in the military of this country--the country they feel is their own. They are class presidents, gifted athletes and musicians, aspiring scientists, engineers, teachers, and physicians. We should not put up a barrier to their potential to give back to this country. Instead, we should pass the DREAM Act and allow these students to succeed.

Mr. President, I offer today private relief legislation to provide lawful permanent residence status to Shigeru Yamada, a 28-year-old Japanese national who lives in Chula Vista, CA.

The Senate passed S. 124, a private relief bill on behalf of Mr. Yamada on Friday; however, that version of the private relief bill did not include an explanation of the zero budgetary impact of the bill. For this reason, I am introducing and seek passage of a new version of this private bill for Mr. Yamada, so that the Congressional Budget Office's assessment of the zero budgetary impact of this bill can be taken into consideration when this bill reaches the House of Representatives.

Mr. Yamada legally entered the United States with his mother and two sisters in 1992 at the young age of 10. The family was fleeing from Mr. Yamada's alcoholic father, who had been physically abusive to his mother, the children and even his own parents. Since then, he has had no contact with his father and is unsure if he is even alive.

Tragically, Mr. Yamada experienced further hardship when his mother was killed in a car crash in 1995. Orphaned at the age of 13, Mr. Yamada spent time living with his aunt before moving to Chula Vista to live with a close friend of his late mother.

At the time of her death, Mr. Yamada's family was living legally in the United States. His mother had acquired a student visa for herself, and her children qualified as her dependents. Her death revoked his legal status in the United States. In addition, Mr. Yamada's mother was engaged to an American citizen at the time of her death. Had she survived, her son would likely have become an American citizen through this marriage.

Mr. Yamada has exhausted all administrative options under our current immigration system. Throughout high school, he contacted attorneys in the hopes of legalizing his status, but his attempts were unsuccessful. Unfortunately, time has run out and, for Mr. Yamada, the only option available to him today is private relief legislation.

I ask my colleagues to once again support this private relief bill on behalf of Mr. Yamada.

What was the fourth one?

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

Mr. President, I rise to support the Middle Class Tax Cuts Act of 2010, which gives permanent tax relief to struggling American families who need it most. By extending the current rates for 98 percent of taxpayers, this bill provides the certainty and security necessary to protect working Americans, while at the same time indicating that we need help and that we ask upper income Americans to help address our growing fiscal deficits.

Make no mistake; extending current tax rates for the middle class is crucial in order to encourage economic growth. The economic turmoil of the last 3 years has left many American families cash-strapped and struggling to stay afloat. Every extra dollar is critically important. The evidence bears this out. Analysis by the Congressional Budget Office indicates that lower and middle-income taxpayers have a higher tendency to spend every dollar they earn. Consequently, by ensuring tax rates don't rise on lower and middle-income earners, we prevent a dramatic decline in consumer spending that could have a negative impact on this fragile economic recovery.

Today's job numbers are bad. They indicate we are far below what is necessary to reduce the unemployment rate. Unemployment remains persistently high--12.4 percent or over 2.2 million people in my State, California, unemployed and 9.8 percent or 15.1 million people across America unemployed. With economic growth projected to be slow in the near future, those numbers will likely not come down for some time.

America is hurting right now. Those who can should step up and help. I know of no millionaire who needs a sustained tax cut of 4.6 percent or who has asked for one. But I know several who are willing to step up and help. That is the irony of this debate.

Conversely, the evidence is extremely poor for extending tax cuts for wealthy Americans. When the CBO analyzed the number of different policies aimed at creating jobs, sustained tax cuts for the wealthy came in dead last. Interesting. On the other hand, permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy would require $700 billion more in deficit spending. They are unpaid for.

In light of this report issued Wednesday by the President's fiscal commission, of which some of my colleagues are members, I simply cannot argue for extension of the upper income brackets.

It would be one thing if I could say the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy contributed to an era of substantial economic growth and prosperity. But here is the key: History does not support that.

In 2001, the first set of Bush tax cuts was proposed as a means of stimulating the economy as we emerged from the dot-com bubble. Of course, we were also projected to have a $5.6 trillion, 10-year budget surplus. We all know that when President Clinton left office, he left a surplus.

In light of these facts--the fact that there was money, there was a surplus--I voted for the first round of Bush tax cuts. I believed the government surpluses should be returned to the American people. But as President Bush was leaving office, we were forced to confront some very sobering truths. The 10-year budget deficit was projected to be $6.3 trillion, not the $5.6 trillion surplus we had thought. There was a total turnaround. The national debt had increased by over 80 percent.

The argument made by Republicans, if we remember, during that time was that deficits don't matter. It doesn't matter that the Iraq war was not funded. The tax cuts didn't matter. ``Deficits don't matter'' was reiterated throughout this Chamber, and the belief was that lower income tax rates would actually increase revenue for the Federal Government. This has been debunked by recent history.

CBO data shows that changes in law between 2001 and 2005 resulted in deficit increases of $539 billion, and the Bush tax cuts accounted for nearly half that amount.

However, the most scathing indictment against extending these tax cuts for the wealthy is illustrated in our recent history of inequality and wage stagnation. From 2003 to 2007, incomes for families in the top 5 percent of taxpayers increased by 7 percent, while incomes for the other 95 percent of taxpayers remained stagnant. So from 2003 to 2007, the only incomes that increased were the top 5 percent. Everybody else remained stagnant. So the economy was clearly working for the other 5 percent but not for anybody else.

The average income of the top 1 percent of income earners increased by 10 times as much as that for the bottom 90 percent. That is an amazing figure, if you think about it, that the top 1 percent gained 10 times more in income than all of the other bottom 90 percent of taxpayers.

During the expansion of 2002 to 2007, families saw their median income drop by $2,000. That is the first time Americans have seen their incomes drop during a period of economic growth. So there was growth, but the median income was dropping during that period of time.

During this period, also, income tax rates for the top 1 percent of earners were reduced by twice as much as rates for anyone else. The top 1 percent today--and under the Bush years--are paying less in taxes than they did in the Clinton years. So there was actually a drop in rate for the top 1 percent.

In 2007, the top 10 percent took home almost half of the country's total earnings, which translates to the highest level of income inequality in our Nation's history in that year, 2007.

We face a number of daunting problems. Our national debt is now in excess of $14 trillion. If we continue deficit spending, we will unquestionably begin to constrict economic opportunity for this generation and those that follow.

Our economy is struggling to grow at a pace that will start providing jobs, we hope, for over 15 million out-of-work Americans. I think income inequality today is at a historic high, and it is an unacceptable high.

In light of these facts, I do not see the merit in the argument that a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will have a materially beneficial impact on the economy, and I applaud Chairman Baucus for introducing a responsible bill recognizing these stark realities.

If we were to do this, we increase income inequality. If you continue to lower taxes for the top brackets, all you do is increase income inequality. You grow the gap between the rich and the poor. I would suggest that bodes ill for the United States of America.

Chairman Baucus also included two key provisions in this bill, and I would like to take a few moments to speak about them.

This summer, I introduced a bill that would allow family farmers to defer their estate tax payments until they sold the farm or took it out of operation as a farm. The idea was to make sure small working family farms avoided having to make crippling decisions about their land when it came time to pay the estate tax. Let me explain why.

Family farms today in America are land rich and cash poor. Farm incomes have not kept pace with rising land values in this country, which puts family farms in a precarious position when it comes to settling estate tax bills. Because family farmers often have little cash on hand to pay the estate tax, they can be forced to sell land to developers in order to make good on the estate tax. Over multiple generations, this can decimate the operation of a farm.

This proposal before us today would preserve the existence of family farms by allowing them to defer paying the estate tax until they are taken out of operation and to reassess it at a stepped-up value at that time. By doing this, we can preserve and strengthen existing family farms, which I strongly believe are part of the fabric of this country.

This provision would not be available to everyone. It includes income and asset restrictions in order to ensure that the deferral benefit goes only to farmers who need it most and not agribusinesses. If farmers who elect deferral fall out of compliance with the requirements, they would face a recapture penalty in the amount of the estate tax owed. It is my hope in this way we can help ensure the continued existence of family farms, and I applaud the chairman for including this provision.

The legislation also includes a 2-year extension of the highly successful Treasury Grant Program, which has been widely credited with maintaining strong economic growth in the renewable energy sector in 2009 and 2010 despite the severe economic turndown.

The grant program has proven a particularly effective job creation tool. According to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study, the program has enabled hundreds of renewable energy projects to move forward and save more than 55,000 American jobs in the wind industry alone.

Prior to the economic meltdown, clean energy project developers relied on tax equity partnerships with investors to take advantage of clean energy tax incentives. In 2008, the economic meltdown froze the $8 billion tax equity market, jeopardizing billions of dollars in clean energy investment. The Treasury Grant Program proved an effective replacement for these partnerships, supporting about $18.2 billion in clean energy investment to build 8,600 megawatts of renewable energy generation through October 25 of this year.

With most utilities and developers still unable to utilize existing production and investment tax credits, and our Nation's economic recovery dependent on the creation of new jobs, this 1-year extension of the grant program is critical.

According to a survey of all leading participants in the tax equity market, without an extension of the program, the anticipated financing available for renewable energy is expected to decrease by 56 percent in 2011.

In contrast, a recent study found that a 1-year extension of the Treasury Grant Program would result in nearly 65,000 more jobs in the solar industry alone and enough additional solar power to power more than 1.2 million homes.

So it is important to emphasize this is not a new Federal incentive program. It simply allows clean energy companies to utilize existing investment and production tax credits without having to partner with Wall Street banks.

This proposal, however, does include one serious problem, which I and many of my colleagues oppose: an extension of wasteful subsidies and tariffs for ethanol. The Baucus draft would extend, for 1 year, the ethanol tariff at 54 cents per gallon while lowering the tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline from 45 cents to 36 cents. This increases the real trade barrier on ethanol imports. Fuel importers will pay a real 18 cents per gallon tariff on ethanol that they do not have to pay if they choose to import oil instead.

This will only make America more dependent on foreign oil from OPEC states. It will increase the competitive advantage that oil already has over cleaner, climate friendly ethanol imports from democratic, sugar- producing states including Brazil, Australia, and India. This is bad trade policy, bad environmental policy, and bad energy policy.

This provision is in direct conflict with the Imported Ethanol Parity Act, a bill I have introduced on a bipartisan basis. This bill would require the ethanol tariff to be lowered to the same level as the ethanol subsidy. I believe the tariff should be lowered to 36 cents per gallon, at a minimum, in this bill. Keeping the tariff at 54 cents does not make sense.

Even the ethanol lobby itself does not believe the tariff should be this high. In a statement just this week, the primary ethanol lobbying group, the Renewable Fuels Association, put out a statement saying:

The tariff simply exists to offset the value of the tax

credit, preventing American taxpayers from subsidizing

foreign ethanol producers.

Bottom line: If the ethanol tariff served only as an offset, it should be at the same level as the subsidy, not 18 cents higher.

Also, this proposal would be extraordinarily expensive. Oil companies are required under the Renewable Fuels Standard to use 13.95 billion gallons of biofuel in 2011. At 36 cents per gallon, the subsidy would cost the U.S. Treasury more than $5 billion to pay profitable oil companies to follow the law. We cannot afford such a subsidy to oil companies that will use the ethanol anyway.

I believe it is important to underscore who is bearing the brunt of the pain being doled out by the economic downturn and the subsequent weak recovery. The top 2 percent of taxpayers are not the ones suffering during this crisis. In fact, with sales of luxury goods set to surge to their highest peak since the recession began in 2007, the recovery for the richest Americans seems well under way. They are able to do well for one reason or another in this economy. But it is the income groups below them who are not, who cannot get the loans, who cannot meet the payrolls, whose homes are being foreclosed on, who have great difficulty surviving in this most difficult economic marketplace.

So let's not forget why we are faced with this impending tax increase in the first place. The Bush tax cuts were designed to sunset because they were not paid for. They were not paid for because we were told they would lead to higher revenues. In fact, that has not happened. It is time to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy Americans expire.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the Coburn-McCaskill amendment, which would impose a 3-year moratorium on earmarks.

This amendment is a direct attack on the authority vested in the Congress to determine how Federal funds are spent, despite the fact that this power is clearly established in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.

I, for one, take great exception to this attack. It would set a dangerous precedent, in my view, to simply turn over a blank check to the executive branch and undermine the power that the Constitution grants Congress. What if an administration is not focused on the needs of a particular State, perhaps because that State didn't vote for that President?

For years I have fought for funding of flood control in Sacramento. Sacramento is one of the most endangered cities in the country when it comes to catastrophic risk of flooding. Neither Democratic nor Republican administrations have requested sufficient funding for the flood control improvements that will protect lives and property in that community.

As the Senator elected to represent the people behind those levees, shouldn't I be able to fight for the funding, whether or not the President agrees? I was elected by the people of California to represent the needs of California. And the people of Sacramento certainly believe they need flood control. This is my duty as a Senator. Isn't that why we have a Congress?

As a coequal branch of government, we shouldn't be forced to approach the administration with our hat in hand every time we believe something needs to be done.

Another flaw in this amendment is the well-trod idea that it will save this country money. Simply put, that is incorrect.

Discretionary spending is a popular target to attack. But the truth is that earmarks make up less than one-half of a percentage point of all Federal spending.

Earmarks are not the problem, so banning earmarks is not the solution.

The real problem is entitlement spending. But tackling entitlement reform is neither easy nor popular. So, instead, we attack earmarks. It sounds good, and it gets applause. But we all know that it doesn't solve the problem.

This amendment won't save this country one penny. It will merely shift the power of the purse from Congress to the White House and executive agencies.

If you want to reduce discretionary spending, it must be done through the budget process.

I am also concerned about the process the Coburn-McCaskill amendment sets forth for waiving this new rule.

Rather than putting into effect a traditional budgetary point of order, which requires a three-fifths vote to waive, this amendment calls for a two-thirds vote.

This means that if this amendment is approved, funding a public works project would require the same number of votes as constitutional amendments, impeachments, treaties, or the expulsion of Senators.

Why should the question of an earmark rise above the three-fifths requirement to invoke cloture on the very bill containing the earmark?

Finally, this amendment disregards the significant reforms that have already taken place to make the process transparent.

Since Democrats regained control of the Senate, the following reforms have been enacted: Members must publicly certify that they have no private interest in earmarks they request. Members must post their earmark requests on the internet. Every bill with earmarks includes a table listing the Senators who made the requests. This is the most transparent earmark process ever, and I believe the reforms have worked.

The earmark process has been abused in the past, but I firmly believe that eliminating the discretion of Congress to appropriate taxpayer dollars is folly. A knee-jerk reaction that tips the balance of power toward the executive branch is not the solution.

Let me say this: I am open to further reform if it will make the process even more transparent.

The House of Representatives already bans earmarks to most private firms, and I would support doing so in the Senate.

I believe the best use of earmarks is to provide funding for projects that are essential to the public good, such as water infrastructure improvements in a city such as East Palo Alto that cannot provide clean water to its residents without a funding share from the Federal Government, or interoperable communications equipment in Contra Costa and Alameda Counties, which can be used when an earthquake or other catastrophe strikes.

I believe this amendment is wrong for the Senate, it is wrong for our States, and it is wrong for the people we come here to serve.

Handing over a fundamental responsibility to the executive branch, at a savings of zero dollars to the taxpayer, is not the solution. Continued reform of a process that is important to so many of our communities is the better alternative.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill to raise the cap on rail liability in cases of gross negligence. This bill was originally introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Elton Gallegly of the 24th District of California, and I thank him for all of his hard work on it.

When Congress passed the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act in 1997, it included a small provision imposing a strict cap on liability in railroad crashes. The cap is now contained in 49 U.S.C. Sec. 28103 and states that the ``aggregate allowable awards to all rail passengers, against all defendants, for all claims, including claims for punitive damages, arising from a single accident or incident, shall not exceed $200,000,000.''

What this means is that regardless of the circumstances no matter how many people are killed or injured in a train crash, and no matter what caused the crash total liability for all of the passengers hurt or killed in the crash cannot exceed $200 million.

The problem is that when a real catastrophe occurs, this number is just not sufficient and there is no way around it.

Let me tell you what happened 2 years ago in California.

On September 12, 2008, a commuter train in Chatsworth, California carrying more than 200 people crashed head-on into a freight train.

The carnage from this crash was unspeakable. Twenty-five people were killed. Their bodies, many torn to pieces, had to be extracted from heaps of steel and wreckage.

Another 101 people were injured. Volunteers and rescue crews worked that day to help pull them from the wreckage. Emergency response agencies transported over 100 people to hospitals. Their injuries ranged from blood in the brain and collapsed lungs to bone fractures, gashes, and scratches.

For some people, the crash was a horrible, harrowing experience, but they have been able to return to the lives they had before.

For others, the families of the 25 people who died and for those who suffered the most serious of injuries, life will never be the same.

According to the final report of the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, no unexpected equipment malfunction or weather problem was responsible for this crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board report states: ``the probable cause of the September 12, 2008, collision was the failure of the Metrolink engineer to observe and appropriately respond to the red signal because he was engaged in text messaging that distracted him from his duties.''

The NTSB found, in other words, that the engineer wasn't paying attention, and he sailed through a red signal, crashing head-on into the freight train. In fact, the report finds that he was so busy texting that he never even hit the brakes.

According to the report, on the day of the crash, the engineer sent 21 text messages, received 20 text messages, and made four outgoing telephone calls while he was driving the train.

NTSB wrote,

the investigation further revealed that this amount of

activity was not unusual for this engineer. Wireless records

for the 7 days preceding the accident showed that on each

workday, the engineer had sent or received text messages or

made voice calls during the time he was responsible for

operating a train. Two days before the accident, he sent or

received about 125 messages during the time he was

responsible for operating a train. He had also made phone

calls during these periods.

Astoundingly, the NTSB found that ``the content of all of the engineer's text messages over the previous 7 days, including those during and outside the times the engineer was responsible for operating a train, indicated that the engineer and, a teenage boy, had been coordinating to allow, the teenage boy, to operate, Metrolink, train 111 on the evening of the accident.''

Although texting while driving the train was clearly prohibited under the operating rules of Veolia Transportation, who employed and oversaw the engineer under contract with Metrolink, this engineer had been violating these ruled habitually and had not been stopped.

The conductor who worked with the engineer on Metrolink train 111 observed him using his cell phone while driving the train a month before the accident. According to NTSB, ``He said he spoke to the engineer about it and he later brought the incident to the attention of a supervisor.'' But the behavior obviously continued.

Bottom line: The report says the engineer wasn't paying attention to the passengers' safety, he was sending text messages on his cell phone, and no one else took action to stop this dangerous behavior. As a result, 25 people died.

This is unbelievable. And it is unacceptable.

Since the Chatsworth Crash, I have worked to improve rail safety. In October 2008, Congress passed and the President signed the ``Rail Safety Improvement Act,'' which included a key provision that I strongly pushed requiring

mandatory collision-avoidance systems on America's major passenger, commuter, and freight lines.

But this $200 million liability cap remains in place.

That means that under current law, the train operator, Metrolink, and the company that hired and oversaw the engineer, Veolia, believe they only have to pay $200 million total to all of the victims of the Chatsworth crash and their families.

It doesn't matter how tragic the families' losses were. Or how high the survivors' medical bills are. Or how much has been lost in their ability to work and care for their families. The cap is $200 million total, regardless of the circumstances.

This is terrible public policy, should never have been adopted, and needs to be changed.

In a large crash involving hundreds of people and very serious injuries, a court needs to be able to award the damages that it finds are necessary to care for the victims and their families--to pay their medical bills and to compensate for wages they will never again be able to earn.

The bill I am introducing is straightforward. It would raise the liability cap in any case where a court finds gross negligence or willful misconduct to $500 million. And it would do so retroactively to ensure that those who were injured or whose family members were killed are not unfairly deprived of the benefits of what was really the right policy in the first place.

I understand that the rail industry believes that the cap on damages keeps their insurance costs and risk exposure down, and I appreciate all the feedback that has been provided by California's passenger rail systems.

I look forward to working with them to make sure this legislation will not have any unintended consequences. I do not expect this bill to be considered and enacted this week. Facing that reality, I will work with the interested parties, including California High Speed Rail Authority and CalTrain, to further refine this legislation. There will be an opportunity to introduce an improved product as a ``first day bill'' in the next Congress.

But I believe we must do everything we can first to improve safety on our rail lines and second to ensure that when the very worst occurs and people are injured or lose their lives in these accidents, they and their families are fairly compensated.

I urge my colleagues to work with me to amend this law and raise the cap in cases of gross negligence.

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

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill to raise the cap on rail liability in cases of gross negligence. This bill was originally introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Elton Gallegly of the 24th District of California, and I thank him for all of his hard work on it.

When Congress passed the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act in 1997, it included a small provision imposing a strict cap on liability in railroad crashes. The cap is now contained in 49 U.S.C. Sec. 28103 and states that the ``aggregate allowable awards to all rail passengers, against all defendants, for all claims, including claims for punitive damages, arising from a single accident or incident, shall not exceed $200,000,000.''

What this means is that regardless of the circumstances no matter how many people are killed or injured in a train crash, and no matter what caused the crash total liability for all of the passengers hurt or killed in the crash cannot exceed $200 million.

The problem is that when a real catastrophe occurs, this number is just not sufficient and there is no way around it.

Let me tell you what happened 2 years ago in California.

On September 12, 2008, a commuter train in Chatsworth, California carrying more than 200 people crashed head-on into a freight train.

The carnage from this crash was unspeakable. Twenty-five people were killed. Their bodies, many torn to pieces, had to be extracted from heaps of steel and wreckage.

Another 101 people were injured. Volunteers and rescue crews worked that day to help pull them from the wreckage. Emergency response agencies transported over 100 people to hospitals. Their injuries ranged from blood in the brain and collapsed lungs to bone fractures, gashes, and scratches.

For some people, the crash was a horrible, harrowing experience, but they have been able to return to the lives they had before.

For others, the families of the 25 people who died and for those who suffered the most serious of injuries, life will never be the same.

According to the final report of the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, no unexpected equipment malfunction or weather problem was responsible for this crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board report states: ``the probable cause of the September 12, 2008, collision was the failure of the Metrolink engineer to observe and appropriately respond to the red signal because he was engaged in text messaging that distracted him from his duties.''

The NTSB found, in other words, that the engineer wasn't paying attention, and he sailed through a red signal, crashing head-on into the freight train. In fact, the report finds that he was so busy texting that he never even hit the brakes.

According to the report, on the day of the crash, the engineer sent 21 text messages, received 20 text messages, and made four outgoing telephone calls while he was driving the train.

NTSB wrote,

the investigation further revealed that this amount of

activity was not unusual for this engineer. Wireless records

for the 7 days preceding the accident showed that on each

workday, the engineer had sent or received text messages or

made voice calls during the time he was responsible for

operating a train. Two days before the accident, he sent or

received about 125 messages during the time he was

responsible for operating a train. He had also made phone

calls during these periods.

Astoundingly, the NTSB found that ``the content of all of the engineer's text messages over the previous 7 days, including those during and outside the times the engineer was responsible for operating a train, indicated that the engineer and, a teenage boy, had been coordinating to allow, the teenage boy, to operate, Metrolink, train 111 on the evening of the accident.''

Although texting while driving the train was clearly prohibited under the operating rules of Veolia Transportation, who employed and oversaw the engineer under contract with Metrolink, this engineer had been violating these ruled habitually and had not been stopped.

The conductor who worked with the engineer on Metrolink train 111 observed him using his cell phone while driving the train a month before the accident. According to NTSB, ``He said he spoke to the engineer about it and he later brought the incident to the attention of a supervisor.'' But the behavior obviously continued.

Bottom line: The report says the engineer wasn't paying attention to the passengers' safety, he was sending text messages on his cell phone, and no one else took action to stop this dangerous behavior. As a result, 25 people died.

This is unbelievable. And it is unacceptable.

Since the Chatsworth Crash, I have worked to improve rail safety. In October 2008, Congress passed and the President signed the ``Rail Safety Improvement Act,'' which included a key provision that I strongly pushed requiring

mandatory collision-avoidance systems on America's major passenger, commuter, and freight lines.

But this $200 million liability cap remains in place.

That means that under current law, the train operator, Metrolink, and the company that hired and oversaw the engineer, Veolia, believe they only have to pay $200 million total to all of the victims of the Chatsworth crash and their families.

It doesn't matter how tragic the families' losses were. Or how high the survivors' medical bills are. Or how much has been lost in their ability to work and care for their families. The cap is $200 million total, regardless of the circumstances.

This is terrible public policy, should never have been adopted, and needs to be changed.

In a large crash involving hundreds of people and very serious injuries, a court needs to be able to award the damages that it finds are necessary to care for the victims and their families--to pay their medical bills and to compensate for wages they will never again be able to earn.

The bill I am introducing is straightforward. It would raise the liability cap in any case where a court finds gross negligence or willful misconduct to $500 million. And it would do so retroactively to ensure that those who were injured or whose family members were killed are not unfairly deprived of the benefits of what was really the right policy in the first place.

I understand that the rail industry believes that the cap on damages keeps their insurance costs and risk exposure down, and I appreciate all the feedback that has been provided by California's passenger rail systems.

I look forward to working with them to make sure this legislation will not have any unintended consequences. I do not expect this bill to be considered and enacted this week. Facing that reality, I will work with the interested parties, including California High Speed Rail Authority and CalTrain, to further refine this legislation. There will be an opportunity to introduce an improved product as a ``first day bill'' in the next Congress.

But I believe we must do everything we can first to improve safety on our rail lines and second to ensure that when the very worst occurs and people are injured or lose their lives in these accidents, they and their families are fairly compensated.

I urge my colleagues to work with me to amend this law and raise the cap in cases of gross negligence.

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

Mr. President, today I wish to express my concern about the detention of seven leading members of the Baha'i community in Iran: Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm.

The seven leaders were arrested in 2008 and accused of espionage and propaganda against the state. In June, the Iranian Government sentenced them to 20 years in prison, a sentence which was subsequently reduced to 10 years.

The State Department, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have all expressed concern about the harsh sentence and the lack of due process in these cases.

The seven Baha'i leaders were held for 2 years without formal charges and access to legal representation and they were convicted behind closed doors.

The Senate added its voice to this case by passing a resolution introduced by Senator Wyden, S. Res. 71, calling on the Government of Iran to release the seven leaders and respect the freedom of religion of the Baha'i community.

These convictions are yet another example of the abuses suffered by the Baha'i community, the largest religious minority in Iran with more than 300,000 members.

The Baha'i are denied official recognition of their faith by the state and are barred from establishing places of worship and schools. According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Baha'is cannot serve in the military and are barred from government jobs and benefits.

In condemning the sentences as a violation of Iran's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated: ``Freedom of religion is the birthright of people of all faiths.'' I could not agree more.

As a U.S. Senator representing approximately 30,000 Baha'i Americans in California, I urge the Iranian Government to release these seven leaders and allow the Baha'i community in Iran to practice their religion freely and without fear of persecution.