Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, right before the recess, the distinguished majority leader and I had an exchange regarding the pension reform conference. Everyone acknowledges the conference is necessary. The pension reform bill is headed to conference. It is a very important piece of legislation that will affect the pensions of millions of working Americans. It has strong bipartisan support. It passed this Senate by a vote of 97 to 2.

This has boiled down to something that is fairly simple: Who will be the conferees? We have a right, of course, on our side to choose who we believe should be in the conference. The distinguished majority leader has the right to choose whom he wants to be in the conference. Arbitrarily, the majority leader said that conference would have seven Republicans and five Democrats. That is not acceptable. We have said that because of the complexity of this issue we need another Democrat. We are willing to maintain the margin of two where Republicans would have an advantage. But we believe it should be eight to six. Republicans would get another conferee. Democrats would get another conferee.

Now, certainly, we are eager to work on producing a conference report that will protect the benefits working Americans have earned, provide certainty to employers who sponsor pensions, and strengthen the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. I can see nothing harmful about having six Democrats instead of five. It is important to get the right people into the room when these issues are being discussed and decisions are being made. Remember, this conference will have jurisdictional aspects relating to the Finance and the HELP Committees.

When we had the corporate tax bill last year, there were 23 conferees--23 conferees. We are saying there should be, again, eight Republicans and six Democrats. Conferees on this legislation will need to resolve a number of important and very technical issues because we have different feelings than does the House. And when I say ``we,'' I mean Democrats and Republicans, as indicated by the overwhelming vote to get it out of here.

I have confidence in the abilities of the two lead Senators on our side, Senators Kennedy and Baucus. But this is one conference where the addition of a couple more sets of eyes is likely to lead to better legislation. So I would hope the majority leader would focus his attention on this issue and let the conference go forward. The only thing holding this up is whether this conference will have six Democrats or five in arriving at a bill that will be brought back to this body.

Mr. President, I rise to talk a little bit about this administration, the administration of George W. Bush. Unless there is a significant turnaround, this administration will not be remembered for its accomplishments. It, in fact, will be remembered for its incompetence. And this dangerous incompetence has made America less secure.

From Social Security to border security, the American people know that incompetence lies at the heart of this administration's failures. Ultimately, this incompetence has come with a price. It has made our country less safe and less secure.

We can talk about a lot of things, but this afternoon I will talk about a few. Let's talk about the prescription drug program. I support a Medicare drug benefit, but this administration has botched the program so badly that relatively no one has signed up for it. The President, in his Saturday address, said 25 million Americans have signed up for this program.

That is simply not true. Twenty of those twenty-five million, prior to this legislation passing, already had prescription drug benefits. And now, under this program, they have a lot less than they had before. So after all this talk, there are a few million new people who have signed up, and tens of millions of people are still left trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.

Of the seniors currently in the program, millions are paying more for their drugs than they were under the previous coverage. This includes thousands of seniors in Nevada who face more restrictions and higher costs. Millions more seniors were wrongly dropped from the system, leaving them without coverage for the life-saving drugs.

I had the opportunity, this morning, to meet with the Governors. They are terribly concerned because of this legislation being so poorly managed and, frankly, poorly written. The States have had to advance their hard-earned moneys to pay for the drug coverage of people who simply are cut off. They want to know when they are going to be reimbursed.

What about the President's incompetence in the war on terror?

In 2002, Osama bin Laden was trapped in the mountains of Afghanistan.

But instead of redoubling our resources to capture him, the President shifted to Saddam Hussein, and bin Laden was left to fight another day. As a result, the al-Qaida leader continues to plot and threaten us as we speak.

Meanwhile, terrorist attacks across the globe are up sharply over the last 5 years, and al-Qaida has morphed into a global terror franchise.

Government reform. What has the President done? President Bush promised to create a new tone in Washington. He has, but it hasn't been a pleasant tone. His incompetence has created the biggest culture of corruption our Nation has ever seen, with scandals in the House, the Senate, and the White House, and the country is paying a price for this corruption: higher gas prices, higher health care costs, and deficits year after year. Every Bush budget has broken a record of paying a higher deficit than the year before. But the problem is that he keeps breaking his own record.

It is difficult for me to comprehend how my friends on the other side of the aisle can allow this to go on. We were told by Alan Greenspan, when we were in the majority, that the deficit was the most important thing facing this country. So we did something about it--the Budget Deficit Reduction Act of 1993--and not a single Republican voted for it in the House or the Senate. Vice President Gore had to break the tie in the Senate. In the last 3 years of the Clinton administration, less money was being spent than we were taking in. We retired the debt by about a half trillion dollars. That certainly has not been the case during the Bush years.

Whether we like it or not, President George W. Bush will be President for the next 2\1/2\ years. We need him to govern competently. We cannot afford more of what we have seen since 2001. So today I offer three issues: The port security issue, Iraq, and Katrina--these are only three--where President Bush can work with us in order to turn his record into a record of progress and competence.

First, our ports. Now, the President said he would not allow any legislation to go forward; he would veto it. Of course, there has been a change of tone because even Michael Savage--I was in Reno and I wanted to listen to the news, and I flipped it on about 10 to 9 or 8--I don't remember the hour. Michael Savage was on. I never listen to him. I heard a lot about him, so listened. He spent that 10 minutes berating the President. Michael Savage does not very often do that. It is not only Michael Savage, but everybody in America is so upset about this port situation. Their decision to outsource our ports to Dubai shows they still don't understand the realities that exist in this world.

How in the world was the decision made to give another country control of our ports? It is not another company but another country that will be taking care of our ports. That is a state-owned company. The administration's decisionmaking process could not be more flawed. On the one hand, we have Secretary of Treasury Snow, who I am told from his CFX retirement got about $100 million, being asked to rule on this. Part of his CFX responsibility was CFX's involvement in ports. He was the one who made the final signoff on this, not Chertoff. This was not a security issue; it was a business issue. I am sorry to say that any time in this administration when it is business versus security, business wins.

No effort was made to brief Congress, relevant States, or the port authorities. The decision seems to have ignored the truth about Dubai, one of the seven city states of the United Arab Emirates. Of course, we are told now that the United Arab Emirates wants to be a friend of the United States. Everybody knows we need more friends in the world, that is for sure. But we cannot ignore the historical connection of the United Arab Emirates to terrorism and the proliferation of terrorism. The United Arab Emirates was only one of three nations in the world to recognize the government of the Taliban, the government which allowed Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida development.

The 9/11 Commission found that UAE represented a persistent counter- terrorism problem for the United States. Terrorism money has been laundered through UAE, and 11 of the hijackers flew from Dubai to the United States in preparation for the attacks.

Bin Laden's operatives are said to have used Dubai as a logistical hub after 9/11. In 2004, it was exposed that Dubai was the center of the world's largest nuclear weapons proliferation ring, as the AQ Khan network used Dubai to traffic nuclear weapons technology to the highest bidders.

Finally, according to Freedom House, a nonpartisan and highly respected organization often cited by the Bush administration, the United Arab Emirates is not free, not democratic, and has been found to engage in human trafficking and forced child labor. So, of course, we need them to be our ally. I think they can be our ally on a range of issues, but right now we better stop and look at what we are doing.

There are significant national security considerations involved in this deal that have never been considered by the President. They must be considered in the post-9/11 world. That is what the law and our Nation's security require. After fumbling this process so badly, the President decided yesterday to accept the company's 45-day investigation of the port sale.

While this is a good first step, the administration's consistent involvement in this, which has not been positive, makes me skeptical. There is no indication that they will do better in 45 days than they did in 14.

The lesson of 9/11 is that we cannot leave any stone unturned. So I call upon this administration to take three steps concerning our ports and this sale, in particular. First, during the next 45 days, I urge the President to take a hard look at the national security implications of this arrangement. He cannot leave this decision to under secretaries and deputies. He needs to get involved and provide leadership.

Second, he needs to work with Congress to fix the review process. We need to make sure that all future sales of critical infrastructure go under an automatic 45-day review, and that the President personally signs off on deals such as this, and that Congress is kept informed throughout the process.

Finally, there is something else the President needs to do with our ports: Make a real commitment to port security. We have known for years how vulnerable our ports are. Only 5 percent of the containers coming into this country are inspected. For years, we have tried to make them more secure. Unfortunately, every time we bring a measure to the floor, it is defeated on a party-line vote. They have fought us every step of the way, going as far as eliminating grants to port security in next year's budget.

If the President is serious about protecting our ports, he will reconsider this decision and join with Democrats to do everything we can to keep our ports safe.

The President's second chance to turn incompetence into progress comes in Iraq. To be successful in Iraq, there must be victory on three fronts: the security front, the political front, and the economic or reconstruction front. Unfortunately, on all three fronts there is only incompetence by the administration right now.

On the security front, we have gone from having one Iraqi battalion capable of operating independently to zero. We have gone backward. Our troops and our generals are performing bravely, doing their job with honor every day. Unfortunately, they have been let down by our civilian leaders time and time again. The political leaders of this administration didn't have a plan to win the peace. They sent our troops into battle without the equipment they needed. According to Paul Bremer, Provincial Governor of Iraq, in his book, this administration denied the military's request to put more troops on the ground so we could control Baghdad and Iraq's borders. We know that General Shinseki said we would need more than 200,000 troops. He was fired. We know Larry Lindsay, who was the President's chief economic adviser, said the war would cost us $100 billion. He was fired.

The political front has been mired by similar incompetence. To achieve political victory, we need the Iraqi people to work together, but the raging violence between the Shia and Sunnis last week shows how far we are from that goal.

President Bush cannot fulfill his responsibilities simply by placing a periodic phone call to the Iraqi leadership. He needs to be personally involved. The job of bringing all the factions together has been delegated to our fine Ambassador on the ground. The Secretary of State was in the region last week, but she apparently didn't have time to stop in Iraq and impress upon the Iraqi leadership the importance of coming together to form a government.

On the reconstruction front, things are just as bleak. The Iraqi people still lack basic infrastructure. We don't know how many Iraqis are getting drinkable water. Their oil and electrical output continues to decline, and it is lower than before the war started. On reconstruction, only $3 billion has been delivered. The money has been spent, mired in fraud, with teams of Justice Department lawyers investigating contractor fraud and crimes by Americans running this civil authority.

It is long past time for President Bush to come forward with a strategy to complete the mission in Iraq. We are losing ground on the three key fronts: economic, military, and political. The window of opportunity for the Iraqi people and this administration to get things right grows smaller every day.

If the President is serious about our security, he will identify a strategy for achieving the remaining objectives that must be met in Iraq. We will pay a real price if the incompetence continues in Iraq. As the New York Times reported Friday, leaders across the Middle East fear that violence could spread from Iraq across the entire region. The President must get a handle on Iraq and do it now.

On these three issues and other issues, we reach out to the President. We are willing to work with the President, but he must understand that it cannot be only his way; we have to work together. If we do this, we can have a better country.

Mr. President pursuant to Senate Resolution 213, 109th Congress, the Senate authorized the Senate legal counsel to represent Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl in a pro se civil action in which the plaintiff complained that the Senator defendants violated their duties under the common law and the Federal Criminal Code by failing to investigate or prosecute the alleged commission of 1.6 million crimes. After the Senate legal counsel moved to dismiss the action, the plaintiff sought to amend the complaint to name 29 additional defendants, including Senators Bill Frist, Joseph I. Lieberman, Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, and Ted Stevens, as well as 14 judges and 10 executive branch officials.

In a January 13, 2006, Memorandum Opinion and Order, the district court accepted the amended complaint for filing and dismissed it. The court held that plaintiff's criminal claims failed on the merits and that plaintiff's civil claims were barred under the Federal Tort Claims Act for plaintiff's failure to exhaust his administrative remedies under the act. The court also prohibited the plaintiff from filing in that court any further claim arising out of the subject matter of the case against any of the 31 defendants.

Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of his case. Accordingly, this resolution would authorize the Senate legal counsel to represent the five additionally named Senator defendants on appeal in defending the dismissal of the amended complaint against all of the Senator defendants.

Mr President, reserving the right to object, first of all, on the PATRIOT Act, it is very unusual to bring a bill to the floor and allow no amendments.

I understand the history of this legislation. We had a cloture vote, and cloture was not invoked. It was a bipartisan vote that has now been resolved and that Senator Sununu has worked hard to bring it to the Senate. I think the majority of the Senate clearly favors this legislation, but Senator Feingold wants to offer amendments. Senator Leahy wants to offer an amendment.

First of all, we could agree to the motions that are now pending before the Senate on the PATRIOT Act. The so-called filling the tree was used to block Senator Feingold. We could adopt those amendments just like that because they are only date changes and mean very little. They mean nothing, frankly.

We could move every bill quickly here if we had no amendments. The distinguished majority leader is saying we are taking time with these amendments. That is what we do. Senator Feingold has agreed reluctantly, but he agreed, and I appreciate that very much. And Senator Leahy also agreed that there would be two amendments offered, one dealing with section 215, the other would deal with the so-called gag order. These two amendments would take an extremely limited amount of time to debate. We could vote on them today and finish this legislation. The majority leader has decided not to do that. He filled the tree, and that is his right. We understand that. But I think it is a mistake. I think it sets a bad tone for what we are trying to accomplish.

In regard to the matter before the Senate now, the unanimous consent request, which I will respond to, deals with an important piece of legislation. I acknowledge that, and we need to complete it. It will affect millions of working Americans. The bill has strong bipartisan support. It passed out of here by a vote of 97 to 2. As I reminded the distinguished majority leader off microphone, we in the minority worked very hard to get the bill passed. We eliminated amendments that people wanted to offer. It was a bipartisan effort by virtue of the extremely good vote we had.

We are eager to get to work on producing a conference report that will both strengthen the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and provide certainty to employers who sponsor other types of pensions. The virtual unanimity with which the bill passed the Senate does not mean, however, that there aren't issues that need to be resolved with the House.

We have 13 titles, and it involves many issues, including changing the myriad of rules that guide employers' pension funding requirements, establishes the proper interest rate for employer funding purposes, and for calculating lump-sum distributions paid to departing employees. There are a couple of other provisions, such as it increases premiums of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, protects older workers who are hurt by changes, the so-called cash balance pension plans, and finally, one of the issues is establishing rules to help employees with 401(k) plans get unbiased investment advice. It expands 401(k) plans to make it easier for employees to be automatically enrolled in these plans so they get better savings for their retirements and changes the rules to protect spousal benefits.

Some of these issues are very technical in nature, and there are very few Senators who understand them because they have worked on them. For example, on our side, Senator Harkin is an expert, and all of those people on the Labor Committee acknowledge his expertise in one field. Senator Mikulski, the ranking member of the subcommittee, is an expert in other areas.

So the point I am making is that the majority has said you will have a conference committee with seven Republicans and five Democrats. I am saying we need eight Republicans and six Democrats. It would allow me to offer somebody who I think is vitally important in allowing a better product to come back from the conference, at least the ability to debate it better.

We are not holding up this pension conference. We are not holding it up. I say the argument is just as easily made that it is being held up by the majority because they refuse to allow us to have 6 members to conference, 6 out of 100, on something that will affect hundreds of millions of Americans. I don't think that is asking too much.

So we are willing to go to conference in 5 seconds, 5 minutes. I have my conferees ready to go. We need six. It may sound easy putting these conference committees together, but it is not. I see on the floor the former majority leader and the former minority leader of the Senate, and Senator Frist, the present majority leader, is here. They know how difficult these conference committees are. But I have a unique problem on this bill, and I need another Democratic member. So I object, unless the ratio is eight Republicans and six Democrats.

This is not arm wrestling. This doesn't have to show who is the toughest, that we are all going to hang in there, and we are not going to allow this to happen. We are in the minority. We understand that. But we have certain rights also. I don't think it is asking too much to increase the size of this conference. One more Democrat is all we are asking for. In exchange for that, of course, you get another Republican.

So I hope the ratio--the majority will have two extra Republicans on the conference--is something to which the distinguished majority leader will agree.

Yes, I did, Mr. President. I ask that the request of the distinguished majority leader be amended to allow an eight-to-six conference, eight Republicans, six Democrats.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I say to my friend, the junior Senator from Mississippi, this is the first request we have had for a conference. The majority and minority staffs have worked on this. They have made significant headway, and I appreciate the work they have done. The House has not appointed their conferees, and they are certainly not going to today or tomorrow. So I think what we need to do is understand the importance of this and understand that we are ready to go to conference. We are ready to go to conference. It is a question of how many conferees we have.

I hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle would agree that it is important to go to conference and that we move forward as quickly as we can, allowing people from the Finance Committee--this isn't one committee. One reason it is complicated is that there are issues dealing with finance and the HELP Committee. So I object to the distinguished majority leader's request.

Will the distinguished Senator yield?

I should have done this. I have people sending me notes. Are we having anymore votes today?

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I hope we have the opportunity as soon as we get back to move forward on the pension conference. I hope we can do it even tonight. I don't want to see this pension bill, which is a matter that has been moved to this point on our legislative calendar on a very bipartisan basis, turned into a partisan issue. There has been too much work on a bipartisan basis to advance this bill, and it is very important to the American business community and to American workers. Billions and billions of dollars are at stake.

In fact, once the majority got serious about pension reform, consideration of this bill in the Senate has been a model of bipartisan cooperation. It would not have passed late last year without the Senate's Democratic caucus pushing for its consideration and working with Republicans to create a process by which a bipartisan consensus could be forged and acted upon by the Senate in a reasonable amount of time.

I agree that there have been unnecessary delays with regard to this legislation, and I regret that the full Senate could not act on this legislation until late last year. Consideration in the House and Senate was delayed last year for two reasons.

First of all, the administration pension proposal was narrowly focused on improving the solvency problems at the PBGC and failed to strike the necessary balance between improving pension funding and continuing the attractiveness of defined benefit pension plans to employers. It would have hastened the demise of defined pension plans, which today cover about one in five workers and provide workers greater retirement security because they provide a guaranteed stream of retirement income. The administration proposal generated little support among Republicans, but they weren't willing to buck the White House on policy grounds and instead deferred action on this legislation. That was unfortunate, but that is the way it is.

Consideration of the bill was also delayed by the decision of the House Republican leadership to hold pension reform hostage in order to advance their failed Social Security privatization plan. The House Republican leadership, as late as June of last year, was still delaying even committee consideration of the pension bill and wanted to couple pension reform with the proposal to privatize Social Security. It wasn't fair to hold this important bill hostage in order to advance the politically unpopular Social Security privatization plan. The political message to all those who cared about fixing the pension system was: Get behind our privatization plan for Social Security or you won't get your pension bill.

For example, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on April 30 of last year that ``House Republican leaders vowed Friday to push through Congress an overhaul not just of Social Security but `retirement security,' grabbing the baton President Bush handed them at his prime.'' In fact, Mr. President, not only prime time but at a news conference he held promising to run with it.

The prime is past.

The savvy legislative tactician who thrives on complex

issues, Thomas outlined a much broader legislative front than

President Bush has proposed. Thomas suggested changes to

private savings and pensions outside of Social Security as

well as to the 70-year-old program, saying he would deliver a

``retirement package for aging Americans.''

Chairman Thomas suggested this wide ranging proposal could

splinter the Democrats.

The Boston Globe reported months later in June:

Republicans in Congress want to turn aging baby boomer

fears of pension defaults heightened by the well-publicized

failure of the United Airlines plan to their advantage with

plans to link broad-based pension overhaul with elements of

President Bush's plan for personal Social Security accounts,

a move GOP leaders hope will break a logjam on Capitol Hill.

The strategy reflects a realization by GOP leaders that

their Democratic colleagues and even some Republicans are

steadfastly opposed to private accounts funded by a portion

of Social Security payroll tax.

Republican leaders hope to build on momentum generated by

the pension defaults and the shaky state of the federal

agency that insures pensions to make a case that retirement

security needs an across-the-board makeover and the type of

personal security accounts Bush has talked about should be

part of the solution.

Consequently, pension legislation languished in the Senate until the end of July. The inability of Senate Republicans on the Committee on Finance to produce a majority in favor of Social Security privatization, pressure by Senate Democrats to move ahead separately on pension reform, and high profile bankruptcies in the airline industry created enough pressure to break this logjam in the Senate.

Again, it was on a bipartisan basis. There was no filibuster, no obstruction, just inaction by the majority.

Despite these delays, Senators Grassley, Enzi, Boxer, and Kennedy, the chairman and ranking members of the Committees on Finance and HELP, worked through the committee and on the floor to draft and pass a bipartisan pension bill. The Committee on Finance reported its bill at the end of July. The HELP Committee reported its bill at the beginning of December. Committees agreed on a bipartisan basis to a compromise bill that merged the two approaches at the end of September.

The actual legislative work on this was relatively short, certainly, for something as complex as this. The bill passed the full Senate on November 16. At that time, I commended Members on both sides for the diligent work in hammering out a consensus bill, and again questioned why the Senate waited until November to address this important issue. In fact, I worked with the distinguished majority leader in making sure there were not a lot of extraneous amendments, and we could move forward.

There is no reason the Senate cannot move forward on this. We need to agree on a reasonable number of conferees. This is a bill, a very complex bill. What I am asking is there be three people from our HELP Committee who are Democrats, and four from the Committee on Finance, a total of seven. This is a very important bill. The reason we are not going to conference is the majority is not willing to give the Democrats another member--that is, they refuse to go with the ratio which the Republicans get, the best of that deal; they get two extra Senators. Now they say we have to do it with--I assume they want me to do two from HELP and three from the Committee on Finance. That is unfair.

I need, the country needs, a pension reform bill. That can only be done by going to conference. I plead with the majority, let's work this out. There is no reason we should not have a ratio of 8 to 6 that allows me to have three people from the HELP Committee who are experts in this field. They will move quickly. They are willing to work unending hours to resolve this matter.

A report in this morning's Congressional Quarterly suggests that outside interests are pushing for a very small conference, the smaller the better, in order to prevent some Senators who have positions on this most important issue, Senators who have worked on it for many years, from participating in the conference. That is too bad.

This legislation has reached this point and we are here today because of strong bipartisan support for moving forward. It has not been a partisan process thus far and I hope it will not become a partisan process. I expect the conference to be conducted in a bipartisan manner, no matter who gets appointed on what side. I am afraid the Republican majority has decided they want to create a political issue instead of trying to find a way around the impasse. The way around it is easy, 7 to 5 or 8 to 6. I hope we can continue working in a bipartisan way in order to get this bill to conference and enacted into law. It is an important piece of legislation.

It does not seem to me to be asking too much that the HELP Committee, which is so vitally important to the moving of this legislation, have three Democrats on the HELP Committee.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have spoken to the majority leader. In fact, he and I spoke last night and again today.

I am going to, in a minute or so, suggest the absence of a quorum.

I would ask Democratic Senators to stay around the floor. We are going to see, if working with our manager and Senator Conrad and others, we can maybe jointly agree on not having as many votes as are scheduled now.

So I would note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would be the last to put forward my proficiency in math, but I do think that math is wrong.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this point of order which has been raised is a difficult vote for Democrats and Republicans. I express to my friend, the Senator from Vermont, that I hope my advocacy here on this issue has not offended anyone. I know there was a time when it did offend my friend from Pennsylvania. I have already apologized in that regard, if in fact I offended him. But Senator Specter, Senator Leahy, and I have been in courtrooms long hours, and you have to put all of this stuff behind you, no matter the feeling at the time. Senator Frist has been in the operating room involved in very critical stuff. He looks at this a little differently than I do, but our intent is the same. We need to have this vote, find out what happens there, and move on to this legislation, or whatever else comes up.

Again, if I have offended Democrats or Republicans because of my advocacy on this issue, I apologize.

I have no objection.

Although people do not have to use all time.

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

Mr. President, I will use leader time, in that all time has expired.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the motion to waive the valid budget point of order raised by my colleague, Senator John Ensign. This is not a technicality, it is the absolute foundation of this flawed program, this trust fund. A vote on the budget point of order is the key vote on this bill.

Cloture was filed last night by the majority leader on both the bill and the Specter substitute amendment. The first cloture motion will ripen tomorrow morning. The effect of that action will be to ensure there will be no meaningful opportunity to amend this bill.

The chairman of the committee says we should not defeat the bill on a budget point of order and should instead attempt to improve the bill by amendment. Mr. President, please, that is not very sensible. The majority leader's decision to file cloture last night completely undercuts that argument. There is no serious chance this bill will be improved through amendment.

Why do I say that? After cloture is invoked on the substitute, only germane amendments will be in order, and after the substitute is adopted, no amendments at all will be in order. Many of the most important amendments to the bill are highly relevant but nongermane. There are lots of them.

How about the amendment of Senator Lindsey Graham to deal with environmental exposure to asbestos across the country? Senator Graham's amendment, which he has talked about for months now, dealing with asbestos exposure around the rest of the country would not be in order. That is hard to accept. There are many other amendments of comparable significance to that of Lindsey Graham. Any Senator with concerns about the bill should vote to sustain the point of order because the only meaningful way to improve the legislation is by committing it back to the Judiciary Committee.

I have said that Senator Durbin and I will work with Senator Cornyn and others to find an alternative approach along the lines of the Texas and Illinois State statutes. The pending bill may be well-intentioned, but it is ill-conceived. It would deprive asbestos victims of their right to obtain compensation for their injuries in court and throw them into an administrative system that is doomed to fail. It is doomed to fail.

If someone doesn't like the entitlement programs in this country, then you should hate this bill before us because it is another entitlement program, and it will make the black lung program look insignificant.

This program started at $3 billion; it is now $41 billion and on the rise still.

The trust fund is undercapitalized and structured in a way that will deprive seriously injured victims of fair treatment.

The bill is opposed by every major asbestos victims group, as well as numerous scientists and doctors and experts on asbestos-caused diseases, and nearly every labor union.

In addition, virtually the entire insurance industry and a large number of small- and medium-sized businesses oppose this bill. It is death to too many companies.

People stand on the floor of the Senate and talk about cases where they have had to file bankruptcy. When those companies went into bankruptcy, they did just fine. Victims did not get their money but others did. A lot of the companies have come out of bankruptcy.

Yesterday, Senator Frist and I received a letter signed by more than 350 individual veterans and their families, representatives of large numbers of people around this country.

Among other things in this letter, they state:

We are aware of the repeated claims by proponents of S. 852

that this legislation is good for veterans. We are also aware

that several veterans' organization officials have endorsed

the legislation. We, as individual veterans and families,

want to make it clear that these officials and organizations

do not represent the position, nor the complete position, of

the veterans' community. We strongly oppose this legislation.

We believe that a system as envisioned by S. 852 would

exacerbate, not relieve, the suffering of veterans with

asbestos-related diseases.

The budget point of order before us is significant and goes to the heart of the bill. In addition to being unfair to victims, the bill is unfair to the Federal taxpayer.

I repeat: I have received calls in recent days from Karl Rove saying: What are we going to do about entitlement programs in this country?

He, of course, is concerned.

We have a debt ceiling vote that is going to be coming up in the next several weeks. That is why he called me on behalf of the President.

If he is concerned about the entitlement programs that are now in existence, they should really be frightened about this one. This is open ended. Some have said it will be as much as $600 billion underwater.

The budget point of order raised by Senator Ensign is clearly valid. Yesterday, responding to an inquiry from

Chairman Gregg of the Senate Budget Committee, the Congressional Budget Office reaffirmed its conclusion from last August that the bill violates section 407 of the Budget Act. You can manipulate, twist, and try to say it doesn't say what it says, but they say it violates section 407 of the Budget Act. CBO estimates that enacting the bill as amended would cause an increase in net direct spending.

In the same letter, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that in the years 2006 through 2015, the cost of the fund will exceed industry contributions to it by at least $6 billion. The only way to make up that difference is to borrow it. Who do you borrow it from? From the Federal Treasury.

In a letter to Senator Conrad today, the Congressional Budget Office highlighted the extraordinary uncertainties associated with the cost of this bill.

Senator Conrad read parts of this into the Record today, as have others.

Senator Conrad, of all people in this body, of all people in this body, is seen as a fair man. His main concern about what is going on in Government today is spending.

I remind everyone that when Senator Conrad was elected in 1986, he took a vow. He said: If the budget is not reduced by the time I stand for reelection, I will not run for reelection. He fulfilled that commitment because the budget deficit had not gone down. He is a man of his word.

Unfortunately, the sitting Senator, Mr. Burdick, died, and as a result Senator Conrad is back with us. But he gave up his Senate seat because he believed the deficit was not right.

I think those of you on the other side of the aisle who have worked with Senator Conrad would have to acknowledge that when he deals with matters of fiscal responsibility of this country, he is fair. His own individual analysis indicates that this will be at least $150 billion and maybe as much as $290 billion in the red.

I remind my colleagues that this bill effectively creates an entitlement for asbestos victims and obligates the Federal Government to provide compensation to those victims. Throughout the fund's existence, the Federal Government is obligated to pay regardless of the actual amount raised by the fund through company contributions; thus this obligation remains so long as the fund is operational. Experts conclude that the amount of payouts will outpace the contributions to the fund not just in the near term but in the long term as well.

I say to my friends, Democrats and Republicans, read the Wall Street Journal of today. If there is ever a publication that is concerned about what is happening to the financial situation in this country, we all have to acknowledge it is the Wall Street Journal. I don't like a lot of their political editorials. But whenever they talk about money, I read and listen.

In an editorial this morning, that newspaper pointed out, for example, repeating what I said, that the black lung program ``which was initially supposed to cost $3 billion and was later supposed to be financed by the coal industry, it has since paid out more than $41 billion, borrowing some $9 billion from the Treasury.''

They acknowledge that the bill before us is bad.

There are alternatives to solving this difficult problem. My friend, the distinguished junior Senator from Texas, is on the Senate floor. I pledge to work with him on his proposal to establish a medical criteria system that will assure a more orderly resolution of the asbestos claims. That is the way it is going to be no matter what the outcome of this. The current bill is not the answer.

I urge my colleagues to establish a medical criteria system that will do what we think should be done.

I very much appreciate the work of Senator Leahy and Senator Specter. I think these two Senators have done a wonderful job and are doing the best they can.

If my friend, Senator Specter, is on the floor, I would be happy to ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to speak to respond to anything I have said, if he believes that is appropriate.

No one on our side will object. I have finished using my leader time. I would be happy, if he feels so inclined, to ask unanimous consent that he be given whatever time he wants to respond to what I said.

How much time does the Senator need or want?

As minority leader, I was entitled to 10 minutes. I think anything over that would be out of the ordinary.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Specter be allowed to speak for up to 6 minutes.

Mr. President, through the Chair to the distinguished majority leader, how many votes does the majority leader intend to have tonight?

Mr. President, the distinguished majority leader mentioned the PATRIOT Act. While the Presiding Officer is in the chair, I express my personal appreciation for the many hours of work he put forth in resolving the PATRIOT Act dispute. It was a bipartisan problem. The distinguished junior Senator from New Hampshire worked long and hard to come up with a conclusion. I appreciate being advised during the process as he was visiting with the White House. Of course, as has been said, the Presiding Officer didn't get everything he wanted, certainly I didn't, but it is a much better piece of legislation than when it came back from the House. So I compliment and applaud the Senator from New Hampshire for his hard work.

I say through the Chair to the distinguished majority leader, we are ready to move forward on this legislation. As has been explained by the Senator from Tennessee, we have at least one Senator who is going to make us go through all the procedural hoops, so that will take some time. But the vast majority of the Senators over here want this matter to move forward, and we will offer help in any way we can to move this along, with the understanding that there are some who want to make sure that all of the procedural hoops are jumped.

Mr. President, we do have eight motions to instruct. I doubt very seriously there will be any others. I will say this: This is the procedure, and if the minority wanted to stall this budget reconciliation conference, we could do that. Under the rules of the Senate, we could have, instead of the 8 motions to instruct, 80 or 800. We are not in any way trying to prevent this legislation from going through. As bad as it is, we recognize that we have had a fair shot at it on the floor on a number of occasions. But the eight instructions are instructions that are well taken, and we hope the conferees will follow these instructions. We don't know if any of them will be agreed to. We certainly hope so, but it is certainly something that is worth debating.

I was surprised to hear that the distinguished majority leader, when he announced we were going to this piece of legislation, this budget matter, did not call it what it has been called for more than a year; that is, the Budget Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. I guess everyone has come to the realization that the Budget Deficit Reduction Act does not reduce the deficit; it increases it by $50 billion. And I guess there has been a change of name, calling it the Taxpayer Relief Act. I guess if you are rich, it is a Taxpayer Relief Act, but for the poor and middle class, it increases the deficit and it is not a fair piece of legislation.

On asbestos, I believe there are two groups of people who really need to make sure Congress takes care of them: those people who, through no fault of their own, get the dreaded mesothelioma and they die, and asbestosis, which is aggravating and serious, and they die; one just takes longer than the other. The goal of the Senate should be to make sure these two groups of victims are compensated for their pain and suffering, which came about through no fault of their own. What we want to try to avoid are the bad cases, the ones that are taking too much of the court's time and taking valuable resources from these people who are really sick.

I made a commitment to the junior Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn, that I believe we need asbestos legislation. I really do believe that. I have told him I would be happy to work with him and Senator Durbin, as my designee, to try to come up with legislation that is patterned after successful programs in Illinois and Texas, where there is medical criteria set up.

For example, in Illinois, they have a pleural registry where people are able to list their names if they work around asbestos, the statute of limitations is tolled, and then if something happens to them down the road, they are not prevented from going to court as a result of the statute of limitations. It would do away with the bad cases.

As I said, we are committed to coming up with legislation such as that. Senator Cornyn offered some, but there wasn't an ample amount of time to debate his suggestion, and that is too bad. But we are willing to work with him on something similar to what he came up with. I believe it is important that we do that, and I am certainly making a commitment that we will work to see what we can come up with on medical criteria legislation to, in effect, get rid of the bad cases and allow these two sets of victims to move forward.

This FAIR Act we have before the Senate is anything but fair. I have explained how this bill will harm victims by trapping them in administrative claims systems which are irreparably defective and doomed to failure.

One of the primary reasons the trust fund is doomed to fail is because of unrealistic and sloppy calculations that led to the $140 billion trust fund in the first place. In designing this bill, the bill sponsors have not adequately assessed the number of future claims by asbestos victims, the borrowing costs necessary for the trust fund to function, and the administrative costs associated with operating the trust fund and claims system.

Last August, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the program could generate as much as $150 billion in claims, leaving the trust fund way short, billions of dollars short. As I have explained, even that figure understates the problem because the bill does not adequately take into account the trust fund's borrowing costs, further depleting the compensation available to victims. The CBO estimates approximately $8 billion will be borrowed before the first decade, an amount that will saddle the fund with huge debt-

service costs over the life of the program. The Senate Budget Committee, through its own analysis, also concludes that taxpayers will have to finance a significant amount of the fund's debt service. Contributions to the fund will occur over a 30-year period, but most of the claims are expected in the early years of the program. That is what the borrowing is all about.

I have spoken to Karl Rove, one of the President's top men. He is talking about setting up some kind of a task force made up of Members of Congress and others to look at the huge costs that are out there. They are getting higher every day.

We will have a vote in the next few weeks on increasing the debt ceiling from $8.2 trillion to--I don't know how high the administration wants it raised. If people are concerned about the deficit, they have to look at this bill before the Senate, this asbestos bill. Other experts believe it is on even less solid fiscal footing than CBO. For instance, the Bates White economic consulting firm has concluded the program will cost as much as $600 billion or more. This is not some front by the asbestos lawyers. It amended its analysis and found another $90 billion error in CBO's analysis because the CBO underestimated the number of cancer victims who will likely file claims.

The pending question on this bill is a long-term spending budget point of order by Senator Ensign, my colleague from Nevada. The 2006 budget resolution prohibits any net increase in direct spending in excess of $5 billion in any of the four 10-year periods from 2016 through 2055. Based on its own estimates, which are inadequate, the CBO concluded that enacting the asbestos bill would violate that spending prohibition.

In the substitute bill, the bill's sponsors attempted to cure these budgetary concerns and assured this body that there will be no Federal borrowing. Their efforts failed. First, the substitute contained new language that the bill: is not intended to increase the deficit or impose any burden on the taxpayer.

Stating the intention, however, cannot erase the effects of this bill. The bill will increase an entitlement for asbestos victims and has obligated the Federal Government to provide compensation to those victims. Throughout the fund's existence, the Federal Government is obligated to pay regardless of the actual amounts raised for the fund through company contributions, and this contributions remains so long as the fund is operational.

Last week I gave the example of 4 companies, each an American company over 100 years old. They will all go bankrupt if this bill passes. One is an engineering/consulting firm. One makes wire. They will go out of business. Right now, they have taken care of their asbestos claims. They, like a lot of businesses, purchased insurance. One of the companies pays nothing, zero, for asbestos claims. If this bill passes, they will pay $19.5 million a year. They cannot do it. They will go broke. It is unfair. Based on the timing issues and expected shortfalls discussed above, taxpayers most certainly will shoulder some of the costs related to this fund.

The managers' substitute bill provides that in assessing whether there are sufficient moneys in the trust fund to continue paying out the claims, the administrator of the fund can only consider nontaxpayer resources, but these funds include funds borrowed from the taxpayer. If anything, this language increases the likelihood that the trust fund administrator will be forced to use taxpayer dollars to finance the fund.

Let's be realistic about this. Black lung was supposed to cost $3 billion; it is now up to $41 billion. Once these programs start, these entitlement programs, Congress does not cut them off. Despite the bill's sponsors' best efforts, the bill continues to have enormous financial implications for the Federal Government and the American taxpayers. Federal spending on asbestos claims facilitated by this bill will violate the 2006 budget resolution and require borrowing of taxpayer dollars in order to function.

Again, the budget point of order is valid and should be sustained. But if the point of order is sustained, that will not be the end of the asbestos debate. We need to do something. I have stated now, today, for the third time, I am committed to work with Senator Cornyn, and Senator Durbin is my designee to work with him to come up with an approach that will allow these asbestos cases that are bad to get out of the system. We can move forward on this issue. But the pending bill is not the way to do it. It is a bad bill, and in light of the serious budget problems we are having in the country, with an $8.2 trillion debt ceiling about to be violated, it is important that we get this bill off the floor and do other things. One of the things we will continue to do is, this year, work on the asbestos litigation problem.

Mr. President, first, I agree we should be moving forward on the pension conference. It is very important. We are ready to do that.

I would also suggest that this budget reconciliation could already have been finished. We over here didn't choose what the majority leader brought to the floor. Instead of bringing to the floor the conference report dealing with taxes, he decided to bring asbestos, a bill that wasn't ready to come to the floor. We were ready to move on this any time last week.

I say to my friend, the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, whom I have so enjoyed working with over the years, if we were truly trying to delay this legislation, we could do that. Under the rules, which I think should be changed, instead of having the 8 motions to instruct which we have, we could have 80 or 800. The rule is not good. We need to change this whole budget setup.

Again, if this legislation had been brought to the floor last week rather than the asbestos legislation, we could have finished it.

Also, I think we have been fairly direct in our amendments which we have on the conference report. They are not on subjects that are outside of the scope of this bill. We have one, which will be a motion to instruct, to not raise the debt ceiling. There will be another one regarding the need to replenish the military--which all experts say is $50 billion--and replace vehicles and other such things because of the war in Iraq; both Guard and Reserve, $50 billion; to take some of the tax cuts and give it to our military; and the same with veterans health benefits. There is a very important amendment dealing with energy to help make us a little more energy independent.

I am not going to go through all of the motions to instruct other than to say they are important, and also, frankly, we haven't been much of a participant in the conference, anyway. We might as well give the conferees some idea of what we are thinking since they do not invite us to the meetings.

I agree with the Senator from Mississippi; it is important that the budget process be changed. I think it is right--if we had wanted to, we could stop this thing from ever moving forward. Rather than spending a few hours on it, we could spend weeks on it. That would be wrong.

I hope we can have a bipartisan group of Senators take a look at how we can change this whole budget process in the Senate. It is subject to a lot of abuse, no matter who is in power.

I suggest that on our motions to instruct we are willing to move forward on those quickly. We complained about the 8 o'clock votes. We are willing to finish the votes tomorrow, but it will take a little bit of time.

Further, it is my understanding that maybe the Republicans have some amendments they want to offer. We have eight. I don't see our side having more. Under the rule we could have more, but I think that would be all.

I look forward to working with my friend from Mississippi to make sure we can move forward on this legislation, particularly the pension reform, which is so important to the country.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending matter before the Senate be set aside so I can offer a motion on behalf of Senator Menendez.

Mr. President, on behalf of the junior Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, I offer the following motion to instruct the conferees on tax reconciliation.

Mr. President, this motion is to instruct the conferees to insist on relief from the alternative minimum

tax--known as AMT--in the final bill they report back from the conference committee.

It reaffirms the Senate's position that AMT relief should take priority over extending tax cuts for capital gains and dividends.

If the conference agreement fails to include relief from the AMT, 15 million taxpayers will face higher tax bills this year.

The Senate has expressed its support for AMT relief two times as this legislation has made its way through the legislative process.

First, the Finance Committee included AMT relief in the bill that it reported to the Senate floor.

Then, during floor consideration the Senate overwhelmingly approved the amendment offered by Senators Menendez, Schumer, Kerry, Feinstein and others that expressed the Senate's desire that AMT relief take priority over tax cuts for capital gains and dividends.

That amendment was approved by the Senate by a vote of 73 to 24.

The conferees for the Senate should respect the Senate's instructions and include AMT relief in the final bill.

There are two reasons that the Senate conferees should insist on including AMT relief in the final bill and reject tax cuts for capital gains and dividends. First, AMT relief is needed to protect taxpayers this year. Married couples with children are most affected by the AMT.

Absent any relief for next year, nearly three-quarters of married couples with two or more kids and income between $75,000 and $100,000 will be subject to the AMT.

In contrast, almost 50 percent of the benefits of a reduction in the tax rates on capital gain and dividend income goes to taxpayers with $1 million or more, which is .3 percent of all taxpayers. The average tax cut for these taxpayers will be about $32,000.

The higher AMT exemption levels that were enacted in 2003 expired at the end of last year. Without this provision, middle-class taxpayers will be hit with higher AMT liabilities when they file their 2006 returns. The lower tax rates for capital gains and dividends do not expire until 2009.

Second, extending lower tax rates on capital gains and dividends reflects misplaced priorities. The benefits of lower taxes on capital gains and dividends go disproportionately to wealthy taxpayers.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, jointly run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, about 50 percent of the benefits of lowering taxes on capital gains and dividend income goes to taxpayers with $1 million or more of income.

In 2005, the average tax cut for millionaires was nearly $38,000. In contrast, 92 percent of taxpayers received a tax cut of less than $100 as a result of the reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

At a time when we face record budget deficits, Congress should not consider tax cuts whose benefits so clearly go to the most well off in our country.

Mr. President, it is not often that you see a legislative plan with such bipartisan opposition. The asbestos bill before the Senate is an example of how you should not proceed on a piece of legislation. I have explained throughout the week, as have others, that the so-called FAIR Act is not fair. I have explained how this legislation will harm victims by trapping them in an administrative claims system that is irreparably defective and doomed to fail. It is a bill that is not only unfair to victims but to businesses, except for a few large corporations. Major industries oppose this, such as the insurance industry. It is terribly unfair to the American taxpayer, terribly unfair to the veterans.

The trust fund set up under this bill to pay for victims' claims is woefully underfunded. Expert after expert has opined that $140 billion will not be sufficient to satisfy expected claims, and it doesn't properly account for expected borrowing and administrative costs. Adding insult to injury, the mechanics of the trust fund claims system unacceptably abridge the rights of victims with unworkable startup and sunset provisions.

It is no surprise that the asbestos bill that has reached the Senate floor is in such poor shape when it is the product of such an unusual legislative process. Ordinarily, Senate deliberation on a bill is open and transparent. But consider all the ways this bill is shrouded in mystery.

First, we still do not know which companies will contribute to the asbestos trust fund and how much each company will contribute. Senator Durbin asked for a list on the floor yesterday, and in response the distinguished manager of the bill, Senator Specter, said: Well, we didn't have to subpoena Government agencies. Well, they had to be private companies. Whom are they? He would not say. It is not clear that the list Chairman Specter obtained by subpoena even lists the contribution amounts. We don't know. For a bill such as this, not to know? Without this information, the Senate can have no confidence that the trust fund will raise $140 billion or, in fact, anything.

Second, the sponsors have promised a managers' amendment. Mr. President, as I said on the floor yesterday, I don't have the legislative experience of the distinguished President pro tempore, but I have a lot of experience--three decades of legislative experience. This is, by far, the worst piece of legislation with which I have ever had to deal. But think about this--and I want all Senators, all Democrats and all Republicans, to understand what is happening. Anyone who has a problem, they can go to Senator Specter and they will stick it in the managers' amendment. One of my colleagues had five concerns. Within a short period of time, it was all taken care of in the managers' amendment.

Of course, nobody can see the managers' amendment. It is composed of over 40 amendments. How could anyone vote for a piece of legislation such as that--a managers' amendment with 42 separate amendments? Now, these amendments were not put in, in a conference committee. People complain about that. But at least in a conference committee, you have people working together, sticking things in. Sometimes Democrats complain and sometimes Republicans complain--whoever is in the minority here: Well, we didn't get enough consultation; you cut us out of the process. But at least you had a group of Democrats and Republicans in the process. Here, you have one person making a decision as to what is going to be in the managers' amendment. There is no way to know what is in it. How could anyone say: OK. You have taken care of me, but I don't want to see the other 40 amendments--because with this legislation, similar to all legislation, you put something in one spot, and you have to take something out someplace else.

Well, another way this bill is shrouded in mystery is, yesterday, we received a statement of administration policy on this bill. Ordinarily, these documents contain several pages of detailed analyses of pending bills. The administration outlines its problems with the bill. This is standard procedure. It is a detailed analysis of the bill. Yesterday, the statement on this 400-page bill that some say should be $280 billion, not $140 billion, is 2 paragraphs. One of them is a short paragraph:

Although the administration has serious concerns about

certain provisions of the bill, the administration looks

forward to working with Congress in order to strengthen and

improve this important legislation before it is presented to

the President for his signature.

Mr. President, what can we expect? What does this mean? What provisions do they not like? How are they going to work with Congress? This bill is not ready for Senate floor consideration.

The letter contains no list of which provisions raise concerns or what the concerns are, just an implicit promise that once the bill gets to conference, the White House will rewrite it to its satisfaction.

Finally, also in the mystery shroud, yesterday, we learned that the managers intend to evade a valid budget point of order by including language in the bill to prohibit more than $5 billion in payments each 10-year period, even though that would leave the program paying far less than $140 billion in claims. One of the complaints everybody has is that the trust fund will have their money stolen, in effect, with this legislation. The insurance industry, the businesses, and not the least of which are the claimants, the victims--they don't have enough money with $140 billion. Now they are going to be told that to avoid this point of order, they will limit how much money can be paid. If it is not enough, limit what the victims get. It is a terrible situation. This bill, if it weren't so serious, would be an example of how not to handle legislation, with a managers' amendment that contains more than 40 amendments, and the basis for the legislation is secret. Members of the Judiciary Committee--not someone in the Commerce Committee or the Appropriations Committee--nobody, not even members of the Judiciary Committee, are entitled, according to the manager of the bill, to see how they arrived at the $140 billion. He said that on the Senate floor.

I am not too sure the Judiciary Committee should have jurisdiction of this bill. I think maybe it should have been a joint referral to the Environment and Public Works Committee. I have not spoken to the chairman of that committee, Senator Inhofe. I have been chairman of that committee on two separate occasions. I will bet Senator Inhofe wonders why his committee hasn't had something to do with this. I have had some differences with the Senator from Oklahoma, but I have never, ever had a problem with him not telling me or anybody on the committee how they arrived at the numbers. We did over $300 billion at one time on a highway bill, and there were no secrets as to how the numbers got in there. There were computer printouts. Sometimes it took several hours for the printouts. But here we don't know where they came up with these numbers.

This is not the way to legislate. It demeans the Senate, demeans the legislative process. I recognize that people consider me partisan on a lot of occasions, and maybe they have a right to do that. I try not to do it, but sometimes things happen. But I want the record to be spread that this is not a partisan attack on this legislation. There are people who believe this legislation is unfair. I see my friend from Alabama, and he can speak for himself, as we all know, but I have understood--I have not talked to him personally, but I understand that he is concerned about the trust fund amounts that will be set up to pay the claims. They are going to be stripped of their money in this legislation.

The whole premise of this bill is flawed. It deprives Senators and the public of an opportunity to consider the bill on its merits. The Senate should operate in the spirit of transparency and candor, not secrecy. The proponents claim there is an absolute asbestos litigation crisis in this country and this crisis requires that we act on this deeply flawed legislation. There is no asbestos litigation crisis, Mr. President.

We have an asbestos disease crisis. The consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen stated:

There is no logjam of asbestos cases in the courts.

[Moreover], [t]he best obtainable statistics . . . do not

support the oft-repeated contention that an avalanche of

asbestos lawsuits is paralyzing state and federal courts.

Consider some of these facts. In Federal courts, which account for 20 percent of asbestos cases, new Federal filings for asbestos liability have been on the decline, both in recent years and compared to much higher levels at the start of the 1990s. Most recently, new Federal filings have declined from 9,111 in 1998 to 1,400, a drop of 84 percent, according to the U.S. Administrative Office of our courts.

Asbestos suits as a fraction of all product liability suits have fallen considerably, from two-thirds of all cases in 1990 now to 4.2 percent in 2004. The number of asbestos product liability trials in Federal courts is down sharply in recent years, from 271 in 1991 to zero in several recent years, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In State courts, among tort cases disposed of by trial in 2001, in the Nation's 75 largest counties--which together account for about 23 percent of the population--there were 31 asbestos trials, .4 percent of an estimated total of 7,948 cases. Among major categories of State cases, asbestos product liability cases going to trial had the shortest median period for disposition for 2001, the latest period for which data is available. While the disposition time for other cases was little changed since 1996, the disposition time for asbestos trials fell by 80 percent, from 50 months to 10 months.

Overall, the rate of growth for new asbestos claims has markedly slowed. In the mid-1980s, the number of claims for mesothelioma, other cancers, and

nonmalignant cases each was growing by 25 percent annually, but now the rate of growth is down by 76 percent for mesothelioma, down by 96 percent for other cancers, and down by nearly half for nonmalignant cases.

Even the largest number of asbestos claimants in a single year, 2002--about 95,000--amounts to a little more than one-half of 1 percent of new annual State and Federal cases.

Our system of justice is unique. State courts have seen the problems and they have done something about them. I have talked to Republican Senators and Democratic Senators. Texas has a system we should take a look at here. Illinois has a great system. What they have established is what they call a pleural registry. What they do there, if you have been around asbestos and you think you might get sick--because some of these periods of dormancy can be for years and years--you give your name and the statute of limitations is tolled. If nothing happens to you, no problem. If 10, 20, 30 years later something comes up, you can go into court. It has worked great in Illinois, where a lot of cases were being filed. It protects the most serious cases, the mesothelioma and asbestosis.

There is no litigation crisis. These facts contradict any assertion there is some type of asbestos litigation crisis overwhelming the courts.

In addition, the pleural registry and the system they have in Texas and other States--take, for example, US Gypsum. My brother worked for US Gypsum his whole professional life. They had a lot of problems with asbestos. Why? Because that is what they manufacture stuff with. With US Gypsum, they set up a program and settled all their cases. Right now they have settled all their cases for about $900 million. Other companies have done the same thing. They have gotten money together: ``Let's get rid of this litigation.'' So anyone talking about a crisis with litigation--the crisis is these big companies are trying to escape responsibility.

I read here on the floor the day before yesterday an example of four companies, hundred-year-old companies, that pay nothing in asbestos now. But one company, even though they paid not a penny for asbestos litigation, under this proposal will pay $19.5 million a year. They will go bankrupt and a 100-year-old American company is gone.

We do not need to pass this defective legislation. We should instead pass legislation to help the thousands of victims of asbestos exposure and the companies that have contributed to their injuries.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Reserving the right to object, is this a vote on the Cornyn amendment? My understanding was there was going to be a tabling motion. If it is on the Cornyn amendment, I don't agree, but if it is on the tabling motion, I am willing to agree to 4:15. But if it is on or in relation, I am not willing to do that at this time.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the manager on this side of the aisle is Senator Durbin. I wonder if the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania would change the unanimous consent request so the time would be divided between Senator Durbin and Senator Specter.

Mr. President, I have a very brief statement on an unrelated matter. Could I be recognized?

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

Mr. President, I know the distinguished majority leader filed cloture on Eric S. Edelman to be Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Senator Levin has indicated he is agreeable to letting that go forward on a voice vote. We are ready to do that as soon as necessary when the majority leader believes it is appropriate.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I know there is no consent order in effect. We were of the understanding that we were going to go back and forth with amendments--there would be a Republican amendment, a Democratic amendment. If that is not the case, I am certainly willing to live by that, but I thought that was the agreement. I certainly have not spoken to the managers of the bill, Senator Specter and Senator Leahy, nor did I, in fact, speak to Senator Durbin, but that was my understanding.

Mr. President, if I could, we have no problem with Senator Kyl offering the next amendment. The only problem is we have not seen it. Could we have some idea of what it is all about?

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, this afternoon, I rise to extend the thoughts and prayers of the entire Senate to Senator Ken Salazar who left the Capitol last night to be with his mother, Emma.

Mrs. Salazar is suffering from very delicate health. She was taken early this morning from her home in Alamosa, CO, to Denver for hospitalization.

The entire Salazar family is together in Denver as we speak comforting her and each other during this very difficult time.

I want them to know that the thoughts of everyone in this Chamber are with them.

Those of us who have come to know Ken Salazar know what a gentleman he is and how family oriented he is.

I spoke to him last night as he was getting ready to leave, and he is very concerned about his mom.

We wish Ken and his family the very best. I hope all Members of the Senate family would keep this good man and his family in their prayers.