Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I have an amendment to be considered. I consider it to be perhaps one of the most important amendments. It is referred to as the train and equip amendment.

What I am not going to do is take a lot of time today talking about it because in the event there is opposition to it, I want an opportunity to respond to that opposition.

Primarily, this is what our amendment would do: Under sections 1201 and 1204 of Title XII, it would allow the military to train and equip some of these countries where we see an opportunity to be using their resources and their militia as opposed to sending our troops there. Right now, in order to get it done, the process is one has to go through the State Department and then the Department of Defense. A good example is when the U.S. Government wanted to train and equip some of the Georgia forces for counterterrorism. Seven different authorities for funding and sources had to be stitched together to make this effort. It took 8 months. By the time 8 months goes by, the problem is no longer the same problem it was 8 months before.

What we would do is take existing O&M moneys, $750 million, that we would be able to use to train and equip in a streamlined way of doing this.

I will share some personal experiences and then I will yield the floor. We have been talking about the five African brigades, that we would be training and equipping various countries in regional areas in Africa to take care of some of the problems. I am sure

I am not the only one who has been in Djibouti and worked with our marines there. I have been very much concerned that they are not able to do as good a job and as fast a job at training some of the African forces as they could otherwise.

I have talked to President Museveni of Uganda. There are problems in the northern part of Uganda where they have adequate troops, but they are not trained and equipped to protect themselves against the global war on terrorism and would be dependent upon our troops if that should happen. It is far better for us to be able to train them than it is for them to have to be in a situation where they are going in untrained.

I say to my chairman, I visited with my counterpart in Angola. He is the second ranking member on the armed services committee there, although it is called something different. His name is Paiza. As we all know, in Angola they have been undergoing a civil war and there are endless numbers of troops. They have been bush troops. They have not been trained to do the kind of defense that would be necessary in our global war on terrorism. Consequently, what they say they need--they have the Unita forces, they have their forces on both sides of the civil war. They need to have an opportunity to train these people.

I also spoke with the President of Burundi 2 weeks ago when I was there. They had the fighting, as we all know, for a long period of time between the Hutus and the Tutsis, but they are now united. What they need, though, is to be able to be trained. I know that General Jones and others, and certainly Secretary Rumsfeld, feel very strongly that we need to have a streamlined process where we can go in and train these guys to do the job that otherwise American troops are going to have to do.

That is essentially what this is all about. I will wait until Monday to give a little more complete description of it.

At this time I would like to officially call up the amendment, No. 2432. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2432 for its consideration.

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

Parliamentary inquiry: Since we have this in proper form to be treated, are the comments I made to be used as time for the amendment?

Can you tell me how much time has been used?

So it will be 20-some minutes. At this point I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. President, I just made a presentation on my amendment No. 2432. I ask unanimous consent to add cosponsors--Senators Stevens, Roberts, Sessions, Ensign, Graham, Thune, and Kyl.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to Carlos Hill, an Air Force congressional fellow on my staff, during consideration of S. 1942.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Madam President, there have been many sincere, well- meaning efforts to put fiscal discipline into this legislation. Some people have tried to stop projects only to find out it does not save any money; it just causes them to rearrange their projects.

This amendment actually does that. This is the only amendment that does. I will read it for my colleagues:

All non-defense, non-trust fund discretionary spending

shall not exceed the previous fiscal year's level without a

two-thirds vote.

I retain the remainder of my time.

No.

No, I believe I have 30 seconds remaining.

Madam President, what the Senator from North Dakota said is exactly right. That is exactly what this amendment does. And if you are really serious about doing something about the deficit, this is your chance to do it.

This morning we passed the Agriculture appropriations conference report which had a very small increase, but last week we passed the Labor-HHS appropriations bill with $107 billion more than the previous year. This has to stop, and that is why this is a very significant vote.

Mr. President, I say to my conservative friends, this is going to be scored very heavily by conservative organizations, such as the National Taxpayers Union. I urge a positive vote.

Madam President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of the act for the consideration of the pending amendment. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Yes. I respectfully say I can do mine in probably 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside for the purpose of considering an amendment.

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

Mr. President, I want to make a couple of observations. I happen to be one of the very first Members of the Senate to go down after Katrina to Louisiana and Mississippi. In fact, actually, we went all the way from New Orleans to Alabama in a helicopter. The devastation that took place is incredible. It reminded me a little bit of the tornadoes we have seen in Oklahoma. The difference is a tornado normally will affect about 5 square miles as opposed to a couple thousand square miles.

I certainly wouldn't want anything that I say to imply that we are not deeply sympathetic to the problems of the people of Louisiana and Mississippi, and to a lesser degree in Alabama. But I have to observe, as I have been listening to this debate, that you can always pour more money on a problem. This is something we have seen in government forever.

The Senator from Montana outlined a lot of things on which we need to spend more money, as did many others over here. You can always do that. I would question whether it is the Federal Government's responsibility to take care of everything that happens when a disaster occurs. We didn't expect that in Oklahoma, and I don't think it should be expected. For one thing, we couldn't do it.

The other day, there was an op-ed piece by the senior Senator from Alaska, Mr. Ted Stevens. He talked about the 1964 earthquake and the devastation. He actually had to go out and repair his own house and do a lot of this work, and not even 10 percent of that was taken care of by the Federal Government. We have a mindset now that somehow the Federal Government has deep enough pockets to take care of all of these problems. Frankly, it is just not right.

It is not true. You can't have it. We are going to have to get a handle on this thing, and I want to help.

I can say them in a relatively short period of time. I have been working on a solution to this problem with an amendment for quite some time. I have actually wanted to offer it previously on appropriations bills. But to do that, I would have to initiate a program of negating paragraph 4 of rule XVI of the rules. I don't think that is appropriate. It has been done three times in the last couple of weeks by three of the Democrat Senators. I don't criticize them for it, but I think if I do this on the Republican side it would be the first time that procedure would have been exercised, and it would not be appropriate.

Last Thursday or Friday, toward the end of the week, I had a colloquy on the floor with Senator Frist, and we specifically discussed bringing up the amendment that I have in mind on the budget reconciliation bill. I am not

naive. It could be that there will be a budget point of order against it. It doesn't really make any difference. We are going to get a vote on this bill.

This is a very simple solution to a very complex problem. I understand a bill is going to be introduced which is going to eliminate all earmarks. That sounds real good. There is a big population out there that thinks this is going to solve the problem. But it doesn't solve the problem.

I mentioned this the other day when my junior Senator brought up a bill to do away with a bridge up in Alaska. I said: Look, you are looking at something where one of the few things that really works well in Washington is the way we handle the Transportation bill. What we do is determine by a formula that no one thinks is fair. Because you always want more in your own State, you take into consideration highway mortalities, the number of road miles, the donee status, and then you come up with a formula. That formula will allocate to the States an amount of money. This money, I might add, is money that has been paid in taxes at the pumps so that it goes to improving our transportation system. When you do this, if you send that to the States and they say, all right, you in the States determine the priorities that you have in the State of Florida, or in the State of New Hampshire, what do you think is the proper thing? That is either done by the elected representatives or by the local people.

In my State of Oklahoma, we have the transportation commission with eight commissioners in eight geographic areas of the State. They prioritize projects, and it is done very well.

With have earmarks to lock in these projects. That can be done, and these decisions are made locally.

There is a mentality in Washington that if a decision is not made in Washington, it is not a good decision. It is a little bit arrogant to say, Yes, the money has gone out to these States, but we in our wisdom do not think it should be spent on those projects that they think it should be spent on in this State--in this case, the State of Alaska, the well-known bridge, so-called Bridge to Nowhere, when, in fact, that bridge was a bridge that was for economic development, according to the Alaska Department of Transportation. They said out of 100 projects, that was No. 4 from the top because they want to develop that area and they cannot develop the area because people cannot get to the area. I am not sure whether I agree with that, but I don't care; that was their decision, not our decision in Washington to make.

If we were to pass a bill to eliminate all earmarks--it is not going to save money in the Transportation bill; almost all of that was below the line in formulas--all it would say is if you eliminate that earmark, then you are going to have to go back and decide what you want to spend that money on. The money is not going to be saved. The money is going to still go to some projects, but we will have dictated that from Washington, DC. I am not saying this critically, because some of my closest friends and good conservatives believe if you eliminate earmarks, you will resolve a problem. You are not going to resolve it.

But there is a way to do it. I have a very simple amendment that will do that. The White House has been looking at ways to cut unnecessary spending. The White House, to their credit, proposed a package of $2.3 billion in cuts. On October 24, 2005, Scott McClelland briefed the press regarding the White House's efforts, stating that certainly an area we have been looking at is rescinding spending increases, and congressional leadership has been looking at this for a long time.

There is a simple solution to this. I have a one-sentence amendment that I will offer to the reconciliation bill. A lot of people think you have to get long and involved verbiage before you can do something good. When I was in the House in 1994 on the issue that ended up being considered the greatest single reform in the history of the House of Representatives, that was my amendment. It was one sentence. You do not have to have long, complicated sentences.

I will read the one sentence that is in this amendment. I know one of the cosponsors of this is the Presiding Officer. It says:

Beginning with fiscal year 2007 and thereafter, all

nondefense nontrust fund discretionary spending shall not

exceed the previous fiscal year's levels without a two-thirds

vote.

Why a two-thirds vote? Something like Katrina comes along, something that is unanticipated, sure, two-thirds of the people may decide we should do something. That is not going to happen very often.

Let me be a little bit partisan because I have heard a statement--not a misquote but certainly taken out of context--one of the Republican Senators saying that all Senators are big spenders; they are all big spenders equally.

Frankly, that just is not right. Yet we do have a solution to this problem. I will show that spending is a partisan issue. This chart shows the Democrat amendments we have seen so far. I can update this. The bottom line is that it is $530 billion--half a trillion--for these Democrat amendments. They are from Senators Bingaman, Stabenow, Byrd, Akaka, Harkin, Kennedy, Dayton, Dorgan, Biden, Clinton. It goes on and on. These are amendments that were offered. These are amendments that were defeated--most of them. All the amendments were considered. If you add up all those amendments by the Democrats in this Senate, that is what you get--half a trillion. If you carry that out to the end of a 10-year period, it is over $1 trillion. Those are specific amendments offered.

We stood in the Senate a few minutes ago and listened to several Senators talk about how much more money we should be spending on these programs. We are going to hear it. I am sure tonight and tomorrow we will hear it. Nonetheless, that is a fact. My solution will not get into entitlements. That will be addressed with reconciliation. There are other ways of doing that.

Of course, right now the defense spending will have to stay up because we went down in our defense spending during the 1990s. We have to rebuild the military. We all understand. I believed the primary top functions that should be performed by Government would be national defense and infrastructure.

In the case of infrastructure, that is money people have paid. That is a moral issue. Most people believe that when they pay the high taxes at the pumps, somehow that will get into building roads and repairing roads. It should. Unfortunately, the highway trust fund has been robbed. The aviation trust fund and other trust funds have been robbed. They need to be kept intact.

However, this very simple solution is one that should pass this Senate. Because of a procedural vote, it might be a budget point of order and need 60 votes to pass. However, if you look at what many of my colleagues on the Democrat side have said--Senator Biden said specifically on more spending cuts:

If I had designed a deficit reduction plan, I would have

done it differently.

Senator Dorgan says that we need to provide spending cuts in a significant manner.

Senator Feingold says:

We also need to continue to cut spending in Federal

programs . . .

Senator Levin stated how we need to cut spending. The last thing he says in the 1993 reconciliation, the same thing we are talking about today:

Discretionary spending is frozen for 5 years.

He advocated freezing discretionary spending. That is exactly what my amendment does.

It says:

Beginning with fiscal year 2007 and thereafter, all

nondefense nontrust fund discretionary spending shall not

exceed the previous fiscal year's level without a two-thirds

of majority vote.

It is very simple, cut and dry, something that can pass. And there will be a vote on this, whether it is a procedural vote or a vote on the content. I hope those individuals who have a more complicated approach to this will recognize this is something that is doable.

I have had the unfortunate experience this year of trying to find every bill that comes up that is over either the budget or last year's spending, and I have opposed that because this is the only way we will get this back in order.

I recognize this is a time when we are going to have deficits. The American

people understand that. We do know we had a rebuilding job to do in the military. Then along came September 11, and we are in the middle of a war. We have to prosecute this war. Then Katrina and some of the other disasters have taken place. We recognize these are difficult times. This is one area in discretionary spending that we can do something.

I look forward to getting a vote on this.

Yes. I want to respond. I thought I had the floor.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: Do I have the floor?

All right. Well, let me do this. I think the Senator from Georgia wants to make a comment. I would like to yield to him. Then I would like to respond to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. President, I believe I have the floor.

Mr. President, I ask the Senator, would you like me to yield time to you? I am trying to finish this.

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Iowa.

Parliamentary inquiry.

I believe the pending amendment is the Inhofe amendment. If I may beg the indulgence of the Senator from Iowa, if I could go ahead and conclude my remarks on my amendment and respond to the Senator from North Dakota, he could go back on the reconciliation bill and finish his remarks.

I don't want to do it unless the Senator from Iowa agrees, because his remarks are excellent. If I could finish, it would be a matter of a couple minutes, and then you could get back on the reconciliation bill, if that would be acceptable to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. President, let me go ahead and conclude.

First, I have a great deal of respect for the Senator from North Dakota, but I disagree with him. Let me point out a couple of things that I believe are not correct.

The Senator from North Dakota said a lot of these amendments were dealing with the same thing. They are not. If you look at them, each one has a subject matter. They are not dealing with the same thing. Secondly, he said they are offset. I would ask the Senator from North Dakota if he can name one that is offset. You can't because these are not offset. The budget analysts said all of these were not offset amendments. They were amendments that were offered, and they were offered by Democrats. And when you add up all the money that is in these amendments that they have offered--I believe most of these were rejected--it would have been an additional half-trillion dollars. It is very clear they are offered by the Democratic Senators.

I started off my remarks by saying we are in a unique situation now. Fortunately, the recession is behind us now. That is not a factor. But this President had to rebuild a military. Then 9/11 came. He had to get involved in a war. Then we had a couple of disasters that were almost unprecedented. I said at the beginning of my remarks, this is not something we can handle in 1 year or even maybe 2 years. But nonetheless, we have to do something specific to get into this thing and to get this thing done, and there is a way of doing it without overly complicating it. That is my amendment.

I would like to also respond to the Senator from North Dakota in his statement about tax cuts. I agree with the Senator from Iowa; they say over and over again that we want to have tax cuts, as if you are cutting revenues when this happens. There was a very great President of the United States that was elected in 1960. His name was John Kennedy. John Kennedy, in 1962, said--and these are his exact words; I don't have to read it because I memorized it: We have serious problems in this country. We are going to have to increase revenue. If you want to increase revenue, then you have to reduce marginal rates, and that will happen. He reduced marginal rates and, sure enough, the revenues did increase.

Then along came President Reagan in 1980. President Reagan started the 8-year period that had the greatest marginal rate tax cuts of any 8-year period in the history of America. If you take the total amount of money and add up the marginal tax rates in 1980, it was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion and almost doubled in that decade that was the greatest number of tax cuts in the history of this country. I know Democrats don't like to cut taxes. But you can increase revenue by cutting taxes, we have proven over and over again. It happened after World War I. It happened during the Kennedy administration. It happened during the Reagan administration, and it has already happened during the Bush 2 administration.

We can sit around and talk about these things. The bottom line is, if we want to do something about it, there is going to be a vote. You will have a chance to register your belief as to whether or not you want to do something about the deficit. It has already been suggested there will be a budget point of order. That is fine with me. That means there has to be 60, instead of a majority, to get it passed. At least at that time, when that vote takes place, the American people will know who in this Chamber is serious about reducing the deficit, about cutting spending.

With that, Mr. President, that is the argument I make on my amendment. I look forward to getting a vote at the appropriate time, whether it is a vote on my amendment or a vote on a budget point of order.

I yield the floor.

Up here.

Will the Senator yield? First of all, I did yield the floor. I don't have the floor anymore. But I am not going to be able to stay. I would like to respond to some of the things you have said as you progressed further. Would you yield to allow me to do so?

I appreciate that very much. First of all, I have been told by the budget analysts that, in fact, they were not offset. Some of them proposed tax increases. You could call that an offset. I don't. That is increasing taxes to do it.

We are getting off center from the purpose of my amendment. My amendment does something specifically that you can't argue against. You are either for or against it. As I look at these, these are specific amendments. It shows the amount, what the amendment does, and the years that would be affected. So it is true that that would be over a 5-year period because that is what the amendment was for. But if you take that on to the end of it----

You are yielding to me. Let me finish here. It would actually be over $1 trillion, if you carried it out to the end of a 10- year period. I understand what you are saying about 1 year, and that is fine.

These are all specific amendments.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I think the time has expired on our side. I am prepared to yield back. Things are getting a little redundant. I stand by this chart. I have a friendly disagreement with my good friend from North Dakota. I do agree that there are some offsets with tax increases. I do not consider that something that we should be embracing. There are still spending increases, budget increases, and we need to do something about it now.

I would say this: If the reverse were true, and if all of the amendments to increase the deficit came from the Republican side, I would still introduce this amendment.

I am going to yield back so that my friend from Florida can take up his amendment because he is next in line. But I would say this: Even if it were done on this side of the aisle as opposed to that side of the aisle, I would still say we have to do something for my 12 grandkids, and that is really get a handle on this.

My amendment is good. There are all kinds of people endorsing it. The National Taxpayer's Union is supporting my amendment. I am going to read it one more time and then I am going to yield back the remainder of my time and there will be a vote on it.

Beginning with fiscal year 2007 and thereafter, all

nondefense, non-trust-fund, discretionary spending shall not

exceed the previous fiscal year's levels . . . without a two-

thirds vote of Members duly chosen and sworn.

With that I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing on November 2 at 9:30 a.m. to receive testimony on the response to Hurricane Katrina.

committee on energy and natural resources

I have filed an amendment at the desk which I had hoped the Senate would vote on prior to passage of this bill. Unfortunately given the current parliamentary situation, the only way for a vote to occur on the important issue of fiscal responsibility is by suspending the rules. My amendment would not be in order at this time and therefore my option is to move to suspend rules XVI and XXII. Although clearly that motion is within my rights as an individual Senator, I do not believe that is the best way for this body to proceed. Our rules and precedents govern how we operate on these appropriations, bills and I think that we should work within that framework. Therefore, I am not going to make that motion because it is not an appropriate way for the Senate to address this amendment. I will say, however, that the Senate will vote on this issue. I will be back on this floor at the first opportunity available to this Senator and the Senate will work its will on this language.

Mr. President, would the Senator from Pennsylvania yield just for an announcement?

I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania.

I have been trying for some time to get an amendment in, and it is at the desk. I am not going to ask that it be brought up right now, but I am going to announce that regardless of the procedure that is used, I am going to get a vote on it between now and the passage of this bill. It is a one-sentence amendment that says: Beginning with fiscal year 2007 and thereafter, all nondefense, nontrust fund discretionary spending shall not exceed the previous fiscal years without a two- thirds vote of the Members.

It is very simple and straightforward. I am not going to do it right now, but I will do it before final passage.

I appreciate that. The reason I cannot stay, I chair the Environment and Public Works Committee. We have a very large hearing. I will be there for the rest of the afternoon.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me state the position we have on the committee. I have chaired this committee for 3 years. As the distinguished Senator from Virginia knows--he used to chair the same committee, as did the minority leader--we have a rule that we don't name courthouses after anyone who is living. I am going to object to this. However, if you want to have a vote on this, I will record myself as opposing it because I am not going to break the record. I think it is a good rule to keep. That is my position.

I object.

I object.

Mr. President, there is an easy way out of this. Let's don't make it complicated. Let's go ahead. He will have an amendment to this bill, have a vote on that. I will record myself as voting no. It will pass. I am sure it will pass. Everybody agrees, as far as Judge Bryant and Rosa Parks are concerned, that we want this to happen today. But I will object to that in terms of UCing it. I want to have a vote, and I will be recorded no. That solves the problem.

I have already objected to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, what I would like to do is urge the adoption of the Warner amendment to the underlying bill.

All right. Let's do it by voice vote.

Mr. President, let me recognize that Minnie Pearl is a tough act to follow. Nonetheless, we must move on. Today, I am going to announce a one-sentence initiative that I will try to put on the Labor- HHS appropriations bill. I won't be successful because there are some procedural reasons. It would take a supermajority. But at least we will get a vote down so we will have an idea about who in this Chamber is really serious about doing something about the deficit.

I had to oppose my dear friend and junior Senator from Oklahoma last week because of the unintended consequences of interfering with local self-determination, and I caution any effort that would substitute or preempt States' sovereignty in favor of centralized control in the Federal bureaucracy unless substantial cuts in spending are accomplished.

The Framers of the Constitution feared one thing above all else, and that was a tyrannical central Government made up of unaccountable Federal bureaucrats would someday be able to supersede States' rights in decisionmaking by locally elected representatives. There is nothing more conservative than this very principle of preserving local control against the centralized Government.

As the author of the Transportation reauthorization bill, I was very pleased at the way we drafted the legislation. We took a formula so that we could allocate funds to the States but then didn't tell the States what to do with them and said: You determine what your priorities should be at the State level. I believe it is a very good process. I was proud to be a part of that process.

There is a mentality in Washington, DC, that if a decision isn't made in Washington, it is not a good decision. The controversial Ketchikan to Gravina Island bridge in Alaska has become a rallying point about boondoggles, and maybe it is a boondoggle, but the people in Alaska didn't think so. They have 100 projects. All States do it differently. But in Alaska, they list 100 projects that are the projects they want to have someday. That particular bridge is ranked in the top 4 of those 100. I think also that we have to recognize that we in Washington do not really know what is the best thing for them.

The other thing that is very important is that most of the money, had this amendment passed, is in accordance with the formula. So if we directed them not to build their bridge, that money could still be spent in Alaska on other projects. We would just be saying that you have to spend the dollars in a way that we in Washington say is best for you.

I will support future amendments that will save taxpayers' dollars. In the meantime, there is something we can do: support the one-sentence amendment that I will introduce.

Beginning with fiscal year 2007 and thereafter nondefense,

nontrust fund discretionary spending shall not exceed

previous years without a two-thirds vote.

That is very simple, very straightforward, and something that will work. I recognize that we are only talking in this case about 20 percent of the budget because we have so many entitlements and, of course, the defense spending. But those entitlements are being addressed right now in the budget reconciliation. We need to wait and see how that washes out.

I had this as kind of a mission for a lot of years. I introduced the first amendment in 1987, the first year that I was here over in the other body at that time. But it goes all the way back to 1969 when then Senator Carl Curtis from Nebraska came up with the idea. He was the one who always wanted to the pass the amendment as an amendment to the Constitution. So he said, Why don't you out in Oklahoma preratify a constitutional amendment, so if we get enough States to do it, that would give us the power needed to try to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

It never worked. I think the idea was right. I think this very simple solution is one we can address today. It will be something that will take care of these problems in a much simpler way and will maintain the authority out in the States where I believe it belongs. I have served as a mayor of a city, I have served in the State legislature, and I have served here. It has been my experience that the closer you get to home, the better the decisions, and that is consistent with what I am asking for today.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on October 6, 2005, I introduced S. 1832, the ``Fort Reno Mineral Leasing Act''. At that time I introduced letters of support for this legislation. Since then I have received a letter from Mrs. Donna Von Tungeln that I would like to submit for the Record.

Mrs. Von Tungeln and her late husband Henry Jo have been active supporters of preserving the historical buildings at Fort Reno. Their dedicated work to this project is greatly appreciated.

I ask unanimous consent the following letter be printed for the Record.

Mr. President, I do not have a better friend than my colleague from Oklahoma, but it does not mean we always agree with each other. I have had a policy in voting for amendments on bills that I have adhered to for a long time, and it is if a Senator has a bill or an amendment that takes authority from an elected official and places it in the hands of an unelected bureaucrat and it does not save money, then I think it is not good policy. Unfortunately, I think that is what this does.

My good friend Senator Coburn and I have talked about this. I know it is a difficult thing for a lot of people to understand. Many people are watching this. I happen to be the person with the No. 1 most conservative rating in the Senate and yet I am not about to put myself in a position where I am going to take authority away from someone who has to stand for election in a particular State and give it to someone who does not have to stand for election, period.

I do not think that is a good idea. If it were something that saved money, I would have a different position on it, but in that respect I will oppose this.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Fair Access Foster Care Act of 2005.

Therapeutic foster care is foster care for children with special medical, psychological, emotional, and social needs. These children need comprehensive support and attention, requiring a great deal of commitment and sacrifice from foster care parents.

Prior to the placement of a child, a potential therapeutic foster care parent must complete a certification process that involves a background check, a training program, and at least two home studies.

At Choices for Life Foster Care, Inc., a for-profit provider in Oklahoma City, counselors are in the home a minimum of 2 hours every other week once a child has been placed.

Generally therapeutic foster care children are not permitted to attend daycare and require ``line of sight'' supervision. That is, therapeutic foster care children must be in view of the foster parents at all times, except when attending school and other approved activities.

Recruiting parents to provide therapeutic foster care is a never- ending job. There are always children waiting for a match to be found. Therapeutic foster care children stay in crisis shelters for the transition period, adding a great deal of stress to their lives.

Each State has a different standard for determining whether children need therapeutic foster care. Once a child is identified, most State governments contract with private agencies to place the child in a home.

In my State of Oklahoma, fifteen agencies contract with the State government to provide therapeutic foster care services. Of those 15 agencies, 5 operate under a for-profit status, 10 operate under a nonprofit status. The bottom line is that 62 percent of therapeutic foster care children are managed by for-profit agencies, and we must maintain the availability of care for these children.

Therapeutic foster care agencies receive funding from Medicaid and Title IV-E maintenance payments from the United States Department of Health and Human Service, HHS. The 1996 Welfare Reauthorization Act attempted to correct a discrepancy between treatment of children managed by for-profit agencies and by nonprofit agencies via removing the word ``nonprofit'' from title 42 of the United States Social Security Code. Unfortunately, the deletion was only made in one of the three sections addressing this issue, thus causing therapeutic foster care agencies to remain subjected to arbitrary regulation.

Only recently was it brought to the attention of Oklahoma's Department of Human Services that additional legal changes were needed. Most State governments face the same problem.

My bill amends the United States Code to allow all therapeutic foster care agencies to receive maintenance payments from the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

The Congressional Budget Office has indicated that any costs associated with this legislation would be insignificant.

There are over 500,000 children in foster care today. A large number of these children require therapeutic care. The business model of for- profit agencies should not prohibit Title IV-E maintenance cost reimbursement. Now is not the time to prevent highly qualified agencies from placing these children in safe homes.

I have long been dedicated to quality care for my constituents in Oklahoma and across America. My bill to help alleviate the flu vaccine shortage, my

work to expand access to life-saving cardiac defibrillators, and my bill to freeze the Federal medical assistance percentage for 10 years to ensure that States continue to receive adequate Federal funding highlight this commitment.

I thank Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Craig, and Ms. Landrieu for cosponsoring this bill.

Please join me in supporting this bill to assist on out States in the endeavor to serve these five-hundred-thousand-plus vulnerable children.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time under the quorum calls be counted equally on both sides.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank my dear friend from Arizona.

Because of the unique circumstances that exist today, I am going to be doing something that is totally different than I normally do on this the annual hypocrisy day in the Senate. I am actually going to vote for this. Normally, I vote the other way. The reason I am is because--the Senator from Arizona and I both came here in the same year; we have been here 19 years--I have never seen a situation like there is today. We have a President who inherited a military that needed to be built up again. At the same time, we go into a war, and then Katrina happens. I think everywhere we can we need to tighten belts. For that reason, I will go ahead and support it this time, which normally I don't.

I say this in almost a humorous way. It is the annual hypocrisy day. Everyone is always down here so they can go home and say: Look what I have done. I have stopped us from having a pay raise. Aren't I wonderful? I need to be reelected.

There are several dynasties in the Senate. They have been here for many years. We have the Rockefeller dynasty, the Kennedy dynasty. I love the people. I disagree politically with them most of the time, but we have these. It is a fact. But the question I would ask is, Should you have to be a Kennedy or a Rockefeller to join the Senate? I don't have this problem. I have other sources of income. I am very thankful for that. I have other things I put this money into, other than salary.

But I would say this: We have had a lot of colleagues, top-notch people. I remember Dan Coats. He was a Senator from Indiana. Democrats and Republicans alike would say that he made some of the greatest contributions to this body that anyone has ever made. Senator Dan Coats was limited in his income. He found that each year that went by, they would stop a cost-of-living increase. With his kids going to college, he resigned. He had to retire from the Senate because of that. Do we want the Dan Coatses here, or do we want just people who are wealthy in their own right?

I say this in a friendly way. I love everybody who is going to vote for or against this thing. But in the future, we are going to change it. I came down last night. I was looking at my monitor in my office. I saw that this amendment was coming up. I ran down to put in a second- degree amendment. That second-degree amendment would have read, because this is the last free ride a lot of these people are going to get around here, we are going to make it out in the open so everybody knows what is really going on. This idea of saying ``no but take the dough'' is going to be a thing of the past.

My amendment read:

To provide that any Member of Congress who votes for any

amendment (or against

the tabling of any amendment) that prevents a cost of living

adjustment for Members of Congress shall not receive the

amount of that adjustment.

That is a very logical and responsible thing to do. I am looking for something else to put this on so that next year, when the annual hypocrisy day comes, we will be able to be a little bit more responsible.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I proudly rise to introduce the ``Fort Reno Mineral Leasing Act''.

Fort Reno was established as a frontier cavalry post in 1874, and it played a key role in the settlement of the west. It is a historic site of National significance and it is listed on the National Register of Historic places. Over 9,000 visitors view the fort each year.

In 1948 the U.S. Army turned its lands and buildings, at Fort Reno, over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today, the original site remains intact as a complete frontier post. Dozens of buildings constructed by the military, as early as the 1880's, still stand around the Historic District.

The Agricultural Research Service administers the fort site which includes the Grazinglands Research Facility, the Fort Reno Historic District, and the Fort Reno Science Park.

Many of the historic buildings are in desperate need of restoration. A small agency like the Agricultural Research Service is not financially able to keep up with the continued costs of maintenance of so much aged infrastructure. Independent studies show that over $18 million is now needed to restore the most important of the many old officers' quarters and other key buildings.

I have been an active supporter of Fort Reno and its facilities. For instance, several years ago I helped secure a Save America's Treasures Grant of $300,000 to assist a local historical organization with the costs of stabilization of exteriors on those deteriorating buildings that are most in need of renovation. In fiscal year 2004, I arranged for an appropriation of $2.1 million for construction of two greenhouses for use in research on forage grasses that is conducted by the Agricultural Research Service at the Fort Reno site.

The legislation I am introducing today will provide a revenue- neutral, non-appropriated source of funding which will be adequate to restore the historical buildings of Fort Reno, so that they will be here for future generations.

In addition, this bill authorizes the development of the oil and gas that lies beneath Fort Reno's 6,737 acres and places those funds in a special account in the U.S. Treasury that will be utilized for restoration and maintenance of those facilities. These funds will also be used to assist with handling visitors to the fort, historic interpretation and related activities. The remaining funds will be used to pay down the national debt.

The Fort Reno Mineral Leasing Act is fully supported by State legislators, local municipalities, the Chamber of Commerce, farm groups, the USDA, and the ARS Administrator at Fort Reno.

I look forward to seeing this Oklahoma-specific legislation enacted and am proud to have Senator Coburn as my original cosponsor.

I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I proudly rise to introduce the ``Fort Reno Mineral Leasing Act''.

Fort Reno was established as a frontier cavalry post in 1874, and it played a key role in the settlement of the west. It is a historic site of National significance and it is listed on the National Register of Historic places. Over 9,000 visitors view the fort each year.

In 1948 the U.S. Army turned its lands and buildings, at Fort Reno, over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today, the original site remains intact as a complete frontier post. Dozens of buildings constructed by the military, as early as the 1880's, still stand around the Historic District.

The Agricultural Research Service administers the fort site which includes the Grazinglands Research Facility, the Fort Reno Historic District, and the Fort Reno Science Park.

Many of the historic buildings are in desperate need of restoration. A small agency like the Agricultural Research Service is not financially able to keep up with the continued costs of maintenance of so much aged infrastructure. Independent studies show that over $18 million is now needed to restore the most important of the many old officers' quarters and other key buildings.

I have been an active supporter of Fort Reno and its facilities. For instance, several years ago I helped secure a Save America's Treasures Grant of $300,000 to assist a local historical organization with the costs of stabilization of exteriors on those deteriorating buildings that are most in need of renovation. In fiscal year 2004, I arranged for an appropriation of $2.1 million for construction of two greenhouses for use in research on forage grasses that is conducted by the Agricultural Research Service at the Fort Reno site.

The legislation I am introducing today will provide a revenue- neutral, non-appropriated source of funding which will be adequate to restore the historical buildings of Fort Reno, so that they will be here for future generations.

In addition, this bill authorizes the development of the oil and gas that lies beneath Fort Reno's 6,737 acres and places those funds in a special account in the U.S. Treasury that will be utilized for restoration and maintenance of those facilities. These funds will also be used to assist with handling visitors to the fort, historic interpretation and related activities. The remaining funds will be used to pay down the national debt.

The Fort Reno Mineral Leasing Act is fully supported by State legislators, local municipalities, the Chamber of Commerce, farm groups, the USDA, and the ARS Administrator at Fort Reno.

I look forward to seeing this Oklahoma-specific legislation enacted and am proud to have Senator Coburn as my original cosponsor.

I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record.