Floor Statements

Mr. President, I say to my friend, the junior Senator from Nevada, he is right on target as he always is. The Senator is right: The policy of appeasement is what we have been watching for a long time. I have often said an appeaser is a guy who feeds his friends to the alligators hoping they eat him last.

Hiram Mann said:

No man survives when freedom fails,

The best men rot in filthy jails,

And those who cry appease, appease

Are hanged by those they tried to please.

John Bolton is not that appeaser. I am so much in support of this man. I have been listening to the criticisms, and I cannot figure who they are talking about. My feelings about John Bolton can be summed up by the former Governor of Massachusetts, William Weld. He is not someone I very often quote, very often agree with, but William Weld said:

He's strong medicine, all right, but sometimes strong

medicine is needed, such as it is at the United Nations

today.

I think he is actually very correct in that. My colleagues know I have many concerns about the United Nations and about Kofi Annan. I have been quite outspoken and a critic of his and the United Nations in general. It seems every day we hear new reasons to express outrage about the performance of the United Nations.

There are clearly abundant problems in the United Nations, particularly related to the Iraqi Oil for Food Program. We are not talking about thousands of dollars; we are talking about millions of dollars. We are talking about dollars with ties to the actual family of Kofi Annan.

Do not get me wrong, the United Nations should be a tremendous force for good in the world by providing a place for countries to cooperate and pursue and achieve the original missions of the U.N. founders: to promote freedom, peace, respect for human rights.

Unfortunately, it has been a disaster. I have grave concerns about the means that have been employed, reportedly, to achieve those ends.

The U.N. peacekeeping missions have been questionable. In addition, these operations rely heavily on the use of U.S. troops and funding in a way that threatens our military readiness and unfairly taxes our resources.

Other serious concerns are questions about the focus of the United Nations on its inefficient structure and massive bureaucracy which wastes American taxpayer dollars. This is significant because the United Nations operates by collection of assessments and dues. Each member of the United Nations is required to pay a certain percentage of the organization's budget based on their size and based on their ability to pay. I never quite understood the formula.

Since January of 2001, the United States was assessed 22 percent of the regular budget of the United Nations even though all nations, regardless of size, get the same vote in the General Assembly. This leads to the situation where the United States is forced to both subsidize the United Nations and go along with many of the decisions that are against our national interests.

As Americans, we should have no problem leading the way on the global stage on issues of peace, human dignity, and liberty, but the U.N.'s action in recent years has made it clear that the organization has lost its moorings. Unless things change for the better, we will want to reevaluate our support.

In addition to financial matters, there are several other areas in which the U.N. has shown itself to be badly in need of reform. I mentioned the oil-for-food scandal. We know about that. That has received a lot of attention--not enough but a lot of attention.

One of the elements of the oil-for-food scandal has not gotten as much attention, and that is what Saddam Hussein's regime was doing with the money they got by skimming from oil contracts negotiated under the program. As we learned from Charles Duelfer's Iraqi Survey Group report:

The ISG has been investigating Iraq's procurement process,

sources of finance, the involvement of foreign firms, and the

specific types of goods that were sought, Iraq utilized a

complex and well developed procurement system hidden by an

effective denial and deception strategy. By the late 1990s,

Iraq, in contravention of U.N. sanctions, pursued the

procurement of military goods and technical expertise for

military capabilities . . .

. . . Money also was obtained from kickback payments made

on contracts set up through the U.N.'s Oil for Food Program.

Iraq derived several billion dollars between 1999 and 2003

from oil smuggling and kickbacks. One senior regime official

estimated Iraq earned $4 billion from illicit oil sales from

1999 to 2002. By levying a surcharge on Oil for Food

contracts, Iraq earned billions more during the same period.

. . . this was revenue outside U.N. control and provided

resources the regime could spend without restriction . . .

. . . Iraq imported banned military weapons, technology,

and dual-use goods through Oil for Food contracts. Companies

in several countries were involved in these efforts. Direct

roles by government officials are also clearly established.

If this is the kind of program the U.N. runs, I don't know how anyone can get away with saying it does not need serious reform.

Another outrageous abuse of U.N. authority took place in the Democrat Republic of Congo. The U.N.'s own watchdog department, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, investigated alleged abuse by the U.N. peacekeeping forces in the northeastern Congolese town of Bunia and found a pattern of sexual exploitation of women and children which it said was continuing at the time of the report. U.N. peacekeepers working in the Democrat Republic of Congo sexually abused girls as young as 13. I have been to both Congos many time, and I have watched these things going on.

The other day I was in the Congo and I saw a fleet of cars, about 400 cars. I asked what they were. They had the U.N. symbol. They were cars that were going to take the peacekeeping people to remote areas of Africa.

I suggest for the reading of anyone who is interested in that part of the country, ``King Leopold's Ghost.'' It tells what has happened in that country. I cannot help but believe that many of these U.N. peacekeepers are continuing to abuse these people, as we have seen in the past.

I have spoken many times on this floor about the redundant and counterproductive bureaucracy that has been built up, layer upon layer, providing cushy jobs with no accountability and little, if any, transparency. And I have also noted in the past the exorbitant cost of the renovation of the U.N. headquarters, for which American taxpayers are again footing the bill, we think. These issues, and others like them, remain unresolved and will continue to undermine the U.N.'s legitimacy around the world.

There are so many things we hear about over and over again, about the abuse of power of these peacekeepers going in, but I would like to share with you a personal experience. About 3 weeks ago, I was in Uganda, and in northern Uganda, on the southern Sudan border, there is a terrorist group there that has been operating for 30 years, with the same individual. They will go in and raid these camps, take these kids out--I am talking about 12-year-old kids--and arm them with guns, teach them to fight, and then send them back home to murder their parents. And if they don't do it, they cut their hands off.

Now, this is going on today. I saw it. I was there. Where is the United Nations? They are not there. They are not doing anything. I often wonder what they are doing. But something has to happen to change all of that.

That is where this nominee comes in. After reviewing John Bolton's credentials, I cannot tell you how strongly I endorse him. He has served as Under Secretary of State, is extremely qualified to hold the position of ambassador to the United Nations, and has an impressive record as an accomplished lawyer, diplomat, and scholar.

My colleagues have extolled Mr. Bolton's successes as a reformer in this Chamber before. He has a reputation of toughness, reliability, honor, and, yes, tenacity. Because of these very reasons, I believe Mr. Bolton will be extremely effective in this position and will best represent President Bush and the United States at the United Nations.

I have often watched the United Nations and have wondered sometimes, who is on our side? I can assure you, with John Bolton there, you are going to have someone on our side.

We have already spent a great deal of time discussing the Democrats' obstructionism this week, so I will only say a few words about that now. The various political ploys used to hold up Mr. Bolton's nomination were frustrating and ridiculous, and were based on nothing more than personal dislike, attacks on this administration's policy, and a misguided and irresponsible vision for the United Nations.

Now, I have heard criticism that John Bolton should not be confirmed because he has opposed the U.N. activities and he has said negative things about the United Nations. That is all the more reason we should confirm him in this position. I often think how they say: Well, he doesn't like the United Nations. Why should we send him as our representative? That is exactly the kind of person who needs to be there to effect some changes. It is like saying, if you have a prison, that you need to have a convict running the prison. No, you do not. You need to have somebody who is wanting to come up with some reforms. So we need somebody who will reform the mess that is up there.

There are a lot of us who have said for a long period of time that we ought to just get out, just give up, that the United Nations is not looking after our best interests. I think with John Bolton there that will change. He has a proven record of success. He will do a great job. It is broke. He can fix it. We need to confirm his nomination.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I am grateful to the chair of the Small Business Committee for her concern about the interests of small business. As chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the manager of the Highway bill on the part of the Senate, I agree that the Senate conferees on the Highway bill will secure the Senate Small Business Committee's consent before negotiating or agreeing to any changes to the Small Business Act or to any program relating to the Small Business Administration.

Mr. President, today I rise in support of this resolution recognizing the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association on its 50th anniversary and also recognizing its members' vital contribution to the oil and gas industry of the United States.

The Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association--OIPA--was founded by Roy Woods on January 13, 1955. Roy Woods and other founders possessed the leadership and vision to establish a unified voice for independent crude oil and natural gas producers.

The founders were independent oil and natural gas producers, and its membership still comprises independents, both large and small.

OIPA is my State's largest oil and gas advocacy group, representing over 1,500 member companies in the crude oil and natural gas exploration/production industry, as well as affiliated businesses. OIPA is also a member of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

OIPA's mission is to enhance and protect the ability of Oklahoma's independent oil and natural gas producers to conduct their business and to ensure a strong energy supply.

OIPA is a proactive and diverse organization striving to provide a broad range of services to its members and the industry it supports.

OIPA has worked successfully on behalf of Oklahoma independent producers on State and national issues, advocating for State and national governmental policies that protect and enhance the Oklahoma independent producers' ability to do business.

Most recently, I have worked with OIPA in the introduction of the Natural Gas Production Act of 2005--S. 926, which I introduced, that would extend section 29 to include natural gas produced from depths below 15,000 feet. This bill is strongly supported by OIPA members and I thank them for their support.

The Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association has been and will continue to be an invaluable asset in developing and promoting the oil and gas industry in the United States.

I am introducing this resolution as an expression of my appreciation. I congratulate the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association for its 50-year history and its contributions to the oil and gas industry in Oklahoma and the United States.

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

What is the regular order?

I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to speak as in morning business for such time as I consume.

Mr. President, over the past few weeks, I have debunked the notion of scientific consensus about global warming. The claim there is consensus rests on four fundamental pillars. My previous talks made clear that the first three pillars are made of sand.

It is not true, for example, that the National Academy of Sciences believes the science of climate change is settled. In fact, the report is replete with caveats, warning the reader of the many uncertainties associated with claims of global warming. Yet advocates continue to recite small excerpts while ignoring the caution about uncertainties contained within the same paragraph or even the same science.

It is also not true that the second pillar, the U.N. science report known as the IPCC, proves a consensus. The flagship study on which the IPCC report relies, known as the hockey stick, which shows an unprecedented rise in 20th century temperatures, has been thoroughly discredited by scientists on both sides of the debate. In fact, recently, and since 1999, there hasn't been anyone who has agreed there is authenticity to the issue. In addition, the U.N. report relies on an explosive increase in emissions from poor countries over the next century based on the political decision by the report's author that countries such as Algeria will be as wealthy or wealthier than the United States.

The third pillar, supposedly proving that the science is settled that the Arctic is melting, is based on political science. Arctic temperatures are no warmer than they were in the 1930s. Similarly, the thickness of the Arctic glaciers and the sea ice appears to vary naturally by as much as 16 percent annually.

These and other factors which the alarmists find inconvenient would seem to indicate that projections of an Arctic climate catastrophe are speculative, at best.

Today I conclude the series on the four pillars of climate alarmists by discussing the problems associated with global climate models.

Let me begin by briefly explaining the climate models and how they function. Climate models help scientists describe changes in the climate system. They are not models in the conventional sense; that is, they are not physical replicas. Rather, they are mathematical representations of the physical laws and processes that govern the Earth's climate. According to Dr. David Legates of the University of Delaware, climate models ``are designed to be descriptions of the full three-dimensional destruction of the earth's climate.'' Dr. Legates claims models are used ``in a variety of applications, including the investigation of the possible role of various climate forcing mechanisms and the simulation of past and future climates.''

Thousands of climate changes studied rely on computer models. The Arctic Council, whose work I addressed last week, stated that arctic warming and the impact stemming from that warming are firmly established by computer models.

Quoting from him:

While the models differ in their projections of some of the

features of climate change, they are all in agreement that

the world will warm significantly as a result of human

activities, and that the Arctic is likely to experience

noticeable warming, particularly early and intensely.

Similarly, the IPCC, which I also discussed in the earlier talks, relied on such earlier models to project a long-term temperature increase ranging from 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Celsius and assorted and potentially dangerous climate changes over the next century.

According to Dr. Kenneth Green, Dr. Tim Ball, and Dr. Steven Schroeder, the politicians clearly do not realize that the major conclusions of the IPCC's reports are not based on hard evidence and observation but, rather, largely upon the output of assumption-driven climate models.

The alarmists cite the results of climate models as proof of the catastrophic warming hypotheses. Consider one alarmist's description, who wrote recently:

Drawing on highly sophisticated computer models, climate

scientists can project, not predict, how much temperatures

may rise by say 2100 if we carry on with business as usual.

He continues:

Although scenarios vary, some get pretty severe, and so do

the projected impacts of climate change, rising sea levels,

species extensions, glacier melting and so forth.

It sounds pretty scary, but the statement is completely false. It sheds no light on the likelihood or reliability of such projections. If, for example, a model shows a significant temperature increase over the next 50 years, how much confidence do we have in that projection? Attaching probabilities to model results is extremely difficult and rife with uncertainties.

In the 2000 edition of ``Nature,'' four climate modelers noted that:

A basic problem with all such predictions to date has been

the difficulty of providing any systematic estimate of

uncertainty.

This problem stems from the fact that:

These [climate] models do not necessarily span the full

range of known climate system behavior.

According to the National Academy of Sciences:

. . . without an understanding of the sources and degree of

uncertainty, decision-makers could fail to define the best

ways to deal with the serious issue of global warming.

This fact should temper the enthusiasm of those who support Kyoto- style regulations that will harm the American economy.

Previously, we have talked about the harm to the economy and have referred to the Wharton Econometric Survey which was conducted by the Wharton School of Economics. It gets into a lot of detail as to what is going to happen.

For example, to comply with Kyoto, it would cost the average family of four some $2,700 a year. So it is a very significant thing.

Now note, too, the distinction between ``project'' and ``predict.'' The alarmist writer noted earlier creates the misimpression that a projection is more solid than a prediction. But a projection is the output of a model calculation. Put another way, it is only as good as the model's equations and inputs. As we will see later in this presentation, such inputs or assumptions about the future can be extremely flawed, if not totally divorced from reality. And this, to be sure, is only one of the many technical shortcomings that limit the scientific validity of climate modeling.

Unfortunately, rarely does any scrutiny accompany model simulations. But based on what we know about the physics of climate models, as well as the questionable assumptions built into the models themselves, we should be very skeptical of their results. This is exactly the view of the National Academy of Sciences. According to the NAS:

Climate models are imperfect. Their simulation skill is

limited by uncertainties in their formulation, the limited

size of their calculations, and the difficulty of

interpreting their answers that exhibit as much complexity as

in nature.

At this point, climate modeling is still a very rudimentary science. As Richard Kerr wrote in Science magazine:

Climate forecasting, after all, is still in its infancy.

Models, while helpful for scientists in understanding the climate system, are far from perfect. According to climatologist Gerald North of Texas A&M University:

It's extremely hard to tell whether the models have

improved; the uncertainties are large.

Or as climate modeler Peter Stone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology put it:

The major [climate prediction] uncertainties have not been

reduced at all.

Based on these uncertainties, cloud physicist Robert Charlson, professor emeritus at the University of Washington-Seattle, has concluded:

To make it sound like we understand climate is not right.

This is not to deny that climate modeling has improved over the last three decades. Indeed, scientists have constructed models that more accurately reflect the real world. In the 1970s, models were capable only of describing the atmosphere, while over the last few years models can describe, albeit inadequately, the atmosphere, land surface, oceans, sea ice, and other variables.

But greater complexity does not mean more accurate results. In fact, the more variables scientists incorporate, the more uncertainties arise. Dr. Syukuro Manabe, who helped create the first climate model that coupled the atmosphere and oceans, has observed:

Models that incorporate everything from dust to vegetation

may look like the real world, but the error range associated

with the addition of each new variable could result in near

total uncertainty. This would represent a paradox: The more

complex the models, the less we know.

We are often reminded that the IPCC used sophisticated modeling techniques in projecting temperature increases for the coming century. But as William O'Keefe and Jeff Kueter of the George C. Marshall Institute pointed out in a recent paper:

The complex models envisioned by the IPCC have many more

than twenty inputs, and many of those inputs will be known

with much less than 90 percent confidence.

Also, tinkering with climate variables is a delicate business-- getting one variable wrong can greatly skew model results. Dr. David Legates has noted that:

Anything you do wrong in a climate model will adversely

affect the simulation of every other variable.

Take precipitation, for example. As Dr. Legates noted:

Precipitation requires moisture in the atmosphere and a

mechanism to cause it to condense (causing the air to rise

over mountains, by surface heating, as a result of weather

fronts, or by cyclonic rotation). Any errors in representing

the atmospheric moisture content or precipitation-causing

mechanisms will result in errors in the simulation of

precipitation.

Dr. Legates concluded:

Clearly, the interrelationships among the various

components that comprise the climate system make climate

modeling difficult.

The IPCC, in its Third Assessment Report, noted this problem, and many others, with climate modeling, including--this is a quote from their report; the very basis that many of the alarmists are basing their decisions on:

Discrepancies between the vertical profile of temperature

change in the troposphere seen in observations and models.

Large uncertainties in estimates of internal climate

variability (also referred to as natural climate variability)

from models and observations.

Considerable uncertainty in the reconstructions of solar

and volcanic forcing which are based on limited observational

data for all but the last two decades.

Large uncertainties in anthropogenic forcings associated

with the effects of aerosols.

Large differences in the response of different models to

the same forcing.

I want to delve a little deeper into the first point concerning the discrepancies between temperature observations in the troposphere and the surface. This discrepancy is very important because it tends to undermine a key assumption supporting the warming hypothesis--that more rapid warming should occur in the troposphere than at the surface, creating the so-called greenhouse ``fingerprint.'' But the National Research Council believes real-world temperature observations tell a different story.

In January of 2000, the NRC panel examined the output from several climate models to assess how well they mimicked the observed surface and lower atmospheric temperature trends. They found that:

Although climate models indicate that changes in greenhouse

gases and aerosols play a significant role in defining the

vertical structure of the observed atmosphere, model-

observation discrepancies indicate that the definitive

model experiments have not been done.

John Wallace, the panel chairman and professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, put it more bluntly. He said:

There really is a difference between temperatures at the

two levels that we don't fully understand.

More recently, researchers at the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, and the University of Arizona, examined the differences between real-world temperature observations with the results of four widely used climate models. They probed the following question: Do the differences stem from uncertainties in how greenhouse gases and other variables affect the climate system or by chance model fluctuations; that is, the variability caused by the model's flawed representation of the climate system?

As it turned out, neither of these factors was to blame. According to the researchers:

Significant errors in the simulation of globally averaged

tropospheric temperature structure indicate likely errors in

tropospheric water-vapor content and therefore total

greenhouse-gas forcing, precipitable water, and convectively

forced large-scale circulation.

Moreover, based on the ``significant errors of simulation,'' the researchers called for ``extreme caution in applying simulation results to future climate-change assessment activities and to attributions studies.

They also questioned ``the predictive ability of recent generation model simulations, the most rigorous test of any hypothesis.''

There does not seem to be much wiggle room here: Climate models are useful tools, but unable, in important respects, to simulate the climate system, undermining their ``predictive ability.''

Based on this hard fact, let me bring you back to the alarmist writer I referenced earlier. As he wrote recently:

Drawing on highly sophisticated computer models, climate

scientists can project--not predict--how much temperature may

rise by, say, 2100, if we carry on with business as usual.

Again, based on what I have just recounted, this is disingenuous at best. I think a fairminded person would find it horribly misleading and inaccurate.

Another serious model limitation concerns the interaction of clouds and water vapor with the climate system.

Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, professor of meteorology at MIT, reports of ``terrible errors about clouds in all the

models.'' He noted that these errors ``make it impossible to predict the climate sensitivity because the sensitivity of the models depends primarily on water vapor and clouds. Moreover, if clouds are wrong,'' Dr. Lindzen said, ``there's no way you can get water vapor right. They're both intimately tied to each other.''

In fact, water vapor and clouds are the main absorbers of infrared radiation in the atmosphere. Even if all other greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, were to disappear, we would still be left with over 98 percent of the current greenhouse effect. But according to Dr. Lindzen, ``the way current models handle factors such as clouds and water vapor is disturbingly arbitrary. In many instances the underlying physics is simply not known.''

Dr. Lindzen notes that this is a significant flaw, because ``a small change in cloud cover can strongly affect the response to carbon dioxide.'' He further notes, ``Current models all predict that warmer climates will be accompanied by increasing humidity at all levels.'' Such behavior ``is an artifact of the models since they have neither the physics nor the numerical accuracy to deal with water vapor.''

I think sometimes you have to look at the science and the contradictions, and even if we don't thoroughly understand what these people are saying, the fact is, they contradict each other. Sometimes you have to go back and look at reality. If they say the increase in the use of carbon dioxide and the presence of it is the major thing causing anthropogenic gases and global warming temperatures, look at what happened right after the war. After the war, they increased the use of CO2 by 85 percent. You would think that would precipitate a warmer period, but it didn't. It precipitated a cooling period. When you get back to the arguments and discrepancies, they agree there are problems.

Along with water vapor and clouds, aerosols, or particles from processes such as dust storms, forest fires, the use of fossil fuels, and volcanic eruptions, represent another major uncertainty in climate modeling. To be sure, there is limited knowledge of how aerosols influence the climate system. This, said the National Academy of Sciences, represents ``a large source of uncertainty about future climate change.''

Further, the Strategic Plan of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, CCSP, which was reviewed and endorsed by the National Research Council, concluded that the ``poorly understood impact of aerosols on the formation of both water droplets and ice crystals in clouds also results in large uncertainties in the ability to project climate changes.''

Climate researcher and IPCC reviewer Dr. Vincent Gray reached an even stronger conclusion, stating that ``the effects of aerosols, and their uncertainties, are such as to nullify completely the reliability of any climate models.''

Another issue affecting model reliability is the relative lack of available climate data, something the National Research Council addressed in 2001. According to the NRC, ``[a] major limitation of these model forecasts for use around the world is the paucity of data available to evaluate the ability of coupled models to simulate important aspects of past climate.''

There is plenty of evidence to support this conclusion. Consider, for example, that most of the surface temperature record covers less than 50 years and only a few stations are as much as 100 years old. The only reliable data come from earth-orbiting satellites that survey the entire atmosphere. Notably, while these temperature measurements agree with those taken by weather balloons, they disagree considerably with the surface record.

There is also concern of an upward bias in the surface temperature record, caused by the ``urban heat island effect.'' Most meteorological stations in Western Europe and eastern North America are located at airports on the edge of cities, which have been enveloped by urban expansion. In the May 30, 2003, issue of Remote Sensing of Environment, David Streutker, a Rice University researcher, found an increase in the Houston urban heat island effect of nearly a full degree Celsius between 1987 and 1999. This study confirmed research published in the March 2001 issue of Australian Meteorological Magazine, which documented a significant heat island effect even in small towns.

Although climate modelers have made adjustments to compensate for the urban heat island effect, other researchers have shown such adjustments are inadequate. University of Maryland researchers Eugenia Kalnay and Ming Cai, in Nature magazine, concluded that the effect of urbanization and land-use changes on U.S. average temperatures is at least twice as large as previously estimated.

Finally, to expand on a point I raised earlier, climate models are helpful in creating so-called ``climate scenarios.'' These scenarios help scientists describe how the climate system might evolve. To arrive at a particular scenario, scientists rely on model-driven assumptions about future levels of economic growth, population growth, greenhouse gas emissions, and other factors. However, as with the IPCC, these assumptions can create wildly exaggerated scenarios that, to put it mildly, have little scientific merit. In 2003, scientists with the Federal Climate Change Science Program agreed that potential environmental, economic, and technological developments ``are unpredictable over the long time-scales relevant for climate research.''

William O'Keefe and Jeff Keuter of the George C. Marshall Institute reiterated this point recently. As they wrote, ``The inputs needed to project climate for the next 100 years, as is typically attempted, are unknowable. Human emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols will be determined by the rates of population and economic growth and technological change. Neither of these is predictable for more than a short period into the future.''

Put simply, computer model simulations cannot prove that greenhouse gas emissions will cause catastrophic global warming. Again, here's the National Academy of Sciences: ``The fact that the magnitude of the observed warming is large in comparison to natural variability as simulated in climate models is suggestive of such a linkage, but it does not constitute proof of one because--and this is a point I want to emphasize--the model simulations could be deficient in natural variability on the decadal to century time scale.''

It's clear that climate models, even with increasing levels of sophistication, still contain a number of critical shortcomings. With that in mind, policymakers should reject ridiculous statements that essentially equate climate model runs with scientific truth.

As I discussed today, climate modeling is in its infancy. It cannot predict future temperatures with reasonable certainty that these predictions are accurate. The physical world is exceedingly complex, and the more complex the models, the more potential errors are introduced into the models. We understand little about how to accurately model the troposphere and about the role of aerosols, clouds and water vapor. Moreover, there are enormous data gaps in the very short temperature records that we have. And surface data often conflict with more accurate balloon and satellite data.

Models can enhance scientists' understanding of the climate system, but, at least at this point, cannot possibly serve as a rational basis for policymaking. It seems foolish in the extreme to undermine America's economic competitiveness with policies based on computer projections about what the world will look like in 100 years. In short, we have no idea what the world will look like in 20 years, or even 10 years.

So this concludes the fourth of the pillars of climate alarmists, hopefully just to show the science is flawed.

I think it is clear, as I mentioned a minute ago, that the science is not there. Since 1999, the old argument of Michael Mann, the guy who invented the hockey-stick theory, where he was measuring the Earth's temperatures, we come into the 20th century--and that is the blade on the hockey stick--he intentionally left out the fact that between the years 700 A.D. and 1100 A.D., there is another blade on the hockey stick that went up the other way and temperatures were warmer than they are today.

If you read the Wharton Econometrics Survey, you will realize what will happen to America if we were to

sign on to this, the economic damage we would have to sustain, the fact it would double the cost of energy, double the cost of gasoline to run our cars, and it would cost the average American family $2,700, and you have to ask the question: If the science is not real and it would inflict that much danger, what is the reason we are doing it?

I think we can find the answer in quoting from Margot Wallstrom. Margot Wallstrom is the European Union's Environment Commissioner. She states that Kyoto is not about climate change, it is ``about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.''

One of your favorite people, I am sure, French President Jacques Chirac, in a speech during The Hague in 2000, said that Kyoto represents ``the first component of an authentic global governance.''

I think we have had an opportunity to discuss this over and over, and it is somewhat warming to me to realize that things are not getting that much warmer, and if that is happening, the science is not showing it is due to anthropogenic gases.

Consequently, we as policymakers, have to look at this and be sure before we make any rash decisions that the science is there. Clearly, the science is not there.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first of all, let me acknowledge that the senior Senator from Utah is so much more knowledgeable on all these issues than most of the rest of us--certainly much more than I am. He has been on the committee and has chaired the Judiciary Committee. He knows these things. He is an attorney. I am none of the above. I chair a committee called Environment and Public Works. But I think it is important for those of us who are not living this every day to express ourselves because we have just as strong feelings, even though we don't work with this on a daily basis.

Mr. President, what is the question pending before the Senate?

Mr. President, today, I want to enter into this debate, as we have so many times, on these judicial nominees, including Justice Priscilla Owen and Justice Janice Rogers Brown, both of whom are highly qualified.

Priscilla Owen was nominated by President Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a seat that has been designated a judicial emergency by the Judicial Conference of the United States. That means we have to fill the seat. She has served on the Texas Supreme Court since 1994 and was endorsed for reelection by every major Texas newspaper. She practiced commercial litigation for 17 years. She received her undergraduate degree from Baylor University and graduated third in her class from Baylor Law School in 1977. The American Bar Association has unanimously rated Justice Owen as ``well-qualified,'' the highest possible rating. She is the first nominee considered well- qualified by the ABA to be denied a floor vote by the Democrats.

Priscilla Owen even has significant bipartisan support from three former Democrat judges on the Texas Supreme Court and a bipartisan group of 15 past presidents of the State Bar Association of Texas. Justice Owen has served the legal field in many capacities. She was liaison to the Texas Supreme Court's mediation task force and on statewide committees on providing legal services to the poor and pro bono legal services. She has always been very sensitive to the poor.

Justice Owen organized a group called Family Law 2000, which warns parents about the difficulties children face when parents go through a divorce.

Similarly, President Bush has nominated Justice Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. This morning, I was at the White House. As I came back, I walked by that district court office and thought very much at that time about Justice Brown. She currently serves as an associate justice on the California Supreme Court, a position she has held since 1996. She is the first African-American woman to serve on California's highest court and was retained with 76 percent of the statewide vote in her last election.

It is kind of interesting that they use the term ``out of the mainstream'' quite often. Yet here is someone who got 76 percent of the vote in a statewide election. Justice Owen actually got 84 percent. I don't think anybody in this body has been able to gain those majorities.

Justice Brown was the daughter of a sharecropper. She was born in Greenville, AL, in 1949. She grew up attending segregated schools during the practice of Jim Crow policies in the South. Her family moved to Sacramento, CA, when she was in her teens, and she later received her B.A. in economics from California State, and earned her J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 1977.

She has participated in a variety of statewide and community organizations dedicated to improving the quality of life for all citizens of California.

For example, she has served as a member of the California Commission on the Status of African-American Males, as a member of the Governor's Child Support Task Force, and as a member of the Community Learning Advisory Board of the Rio Americano High School.

Two weeks ago, my colleague in the other Chamber, Congressman Dan Lungren of California--he is a Congressman I served with for many years when I was in the other body, and he went on to be the Attorney General from the State of California. He spoke of his professional experience with Justice Brown. I really think it is important to go back to people who have served with them at the grassroots level. He was in State government with her in the early 1990s. Congressman Lungren said:

. . . It is my observation that in the absence of the

opportunity to be voted up or down, to be subjected to a

debate on the floor of the United States Senate in the

context of such a consideration, that in fact the Janice

Rogers Brown that I know in the State of California . . . is

not the person that I hear discussed, the person that I hear

characterized, or the person that I see presented in the

press and other places.

When I was elected the attorney general in the State of

California and took office in January of 1991, I asked a

number of people who had previously served in the attorney

general's Office for recommendations of people who should

serve at the top level of the department of justice in my

administration. Her name (Justice Brown) was always offered

by those who had experience in that office.

During the confirmation hearings that we had, I had the

opportunity to review the opinions that she had written while

on the appellate court. Interestingly enough, every single

member of the appellate court on which she served recommended

her confirmation to the California supreme court. I recall at

the time that the chief justice of the California supreme

court, Justice Ron George, surprised the public hearing that

we had by actually putting on the table every

single written opinion that she had done and advising

everybody there that he had read every opinion that she had

written at that point in time, not once but twice, and

rendering his opinion that she was well qualified to serve on

the California supreme court.

Further quoting:

If you look at her opinions, they are the opinions of

someone who understands what I believe jurists ought to

understand, that their obligation is to interpret the law,

not make the law.

He concluded his statement by saying:

My point this evening is a simple one. That which we are

observing in the Senate is denying the American people an

opportunity to review the nominees of the President of the

United States. It is my belief that Janice Brown should be

presented to the United States Senate for consideration. She

is an American story. From the humblest background, she has

risen to the highest court in the most populous State in the

Nation. She subscribes to a judicial philosophy considered

radical in some circles, that the text of the Constitution

actually means something. She holds to a consistent

enforcement of individual rights that is not result oriented.

In my judgment, these are the qualities of a true jurist

and is why she should be confirmed to sit on the DC Circuit

Court of Appeals and, at the very least, that her story be

told in open debate on the floor of the United States Senate

in the context of the consideration of her nomination by the

whole body.

That is what we are attempting to do today. This is a debate that could quickly be brought to an end by a simple up-or-down vote. We offered the minority as much time as they wanted to debate these nominees, as long as an up-or-down vote would follow. But this hasn't happened.

As a matter of fact, at least seven of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle have actually stated the same thing--that nominees deserve an up-or-down vote regarding previous nominees, and they all received an up-or-down vote. The same people now that are objecting to an up-or-down vote are the ones who stood up and said we think they should have an up-or-down vote previously. Somehow that has changed from the 1990s, and they don't want that.

Let me remind them that Senator Durbin said this on September 28, 1998: We should vote the person up or down. That is all we want.

Senator Feinstein, on September 16, 1999, said a nominee is entitled to a vote. Vote them up or down.

Again, Senator Feinstein, a month later, said in October of 1999:

Our institutional integrity requires an up-or-down vote.

That is what we are talking about, our institutional integrity. I agree with Senator Feinstein from 1999.

On March 7, 2000, Senator Kennedy said:

The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court said, ``The

Senate is surely under no obligation to confirm any

particular nominee, but after the necessary time for inquiry,

it should vote him up or down, which is exactly what I would

like.

Senator Lautenberg said:

Talking about the fairness in the system and how it is

equitable for a minority to restrict the majority view, why

can we not have a straight up-or-down vote?

That was on June 21, 1995.

Senator Leahy, who actually chaired that committee, said:

When President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the U.S.

Supreme Court, I was the first Member of the Senate to

declare my opposition to his nomination. I did not believe

that Clarence Thomas was qualified to serve on the Court.

Even with strong reservations, I felt that Judge Thomas

deserved an up-or-down vote.

Again, 4 years later, Senator Leahy said:

. . . I also took the floor on occasion to oppose

filibusters to hold them up and believe that we should have a

vote up or down.

Senator Lincoln said:

It's my hope that we'll take the necessary steps to give

these men and these women especially the up-or-down vote that

they deserve.

That was in the year 2000.

Senator Sarbanes said:

It is not whether you let the President have his nominees

confirmed. You will not even let them be considered . . .

with an up-or-down vote.

I could go on and on. In fact, I did the other day. I went over so many of these people who are demanding an up-or-down vote. Not only are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle holding up these qualified judges by not allowing an up-or-down vote, I also believe they are discriminating against people of faith.

I will reiterate a quote from an article in the L.A. Times that I read on the floor in April regarding the filibuster of qualified nominees, such as Justices Owen and Brown. It states, and I am quoting now the L.A. Times which has never been accused of being a Republican newspaper:

These are confusing days in Washington. Born-again

conservative Christians who strongly want to see President

Bush's judicial nominees voted on are leading the charge

against the Senate filibuster, and liberal Democrats are

born-again believers in that reactionary, obstructionist

legislative tactic. Practically every big-name liberal

senator you can think of derided the filibuster a decade ago

and now sees the error of his or her ways and will go to

amusing lengths to try to convince you that the change of

heart is explained by something deeper than the mere

difference between being in the majority and being in the

minority.

I know that both Justice Brown and Justice Owen are active members of churches and are distinguished women of faith.

Justice Brown has taught adult Sunday school at her church for more than 10 years, and Justice Owen teaches Sunday school and is the head of the altar guild at her church.

One has to ask the question, Have we come to the point in America where Sunday school teachers are disqualified by the strength of their faith and the boldness of their beliefs?

The Bible urges us, like Justices Brown and Owen, to be bold in our faith. I Timothy 3:13 says:

For they that have used the office of a deacon well

purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in

the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 4:16 says:

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that

we may obtain mercy. . . .

I agree with Justice Brown, as she recently told an audience, that people of faith were embroiled in a war against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots, according to a newspaper quoted in an April 26, L.A. Times article.

One example of this attack is our parental notification and consent laws which require girls under 18 who are seeking an abortion to either notify or obtain permission--either notify or obtain permission--from one or both of her parents. Many States have such laws. However, there are many instances where these protective laws have been struck down by liberal judges who are bypassing the law and legislating from the bench.

For example, on August 5, 1997, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren. The court held that the 1987 statute requiring minors seeking abortion to obtain parental consent or judicial authorization violates the California Constitution's explicit right to privacy.

This is outrageous. Parents have a right to know what their children are doing. Children who are not old enough to vote or drink, why should they be old enough to have an abortion without at least telling their parents? We are not talking about getting permission, we are talking about notifying them.

In another case, Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, the Supreme Court held that statutes, which allow a parent or guardian to absolutely prohibit an abortion to be performed on a minor child, were unconstitutional.

There are a number of such cases. The whole point is this is outrageous.

We keep hearing people say these two justices are out of mainstream America, and I suggest to you, Mr. President, that it is the individuals who are making the accusations who are out of the mainstream. It was not long ago that they did polling on all these traditional values, and it would seem to me that the traditional values are in the mainstream. It is the liberals who are opposing these nominations who are out of the mainstream.

To give an example, by 85 to 15 percent, Americans say religion is very or fairly important in their lives. Only 15 percent say it is unimportant.

In the case of Government should help faith-based initiatives to help the poor, 72 percent of Americans agree. On the issue of whether violent attackers of pregnant women who kill the baby should be prosecuted for killing the baby, 84 percent say yes. That is mainstream.

On the issue of whether children should be allowed to pray in school, 78 percent of Americas agree.

And 73 percent of Americans favor a law requiring women under the age of

18 to get parental consent for any abortion. Democrats are with the 24 percent who oppose it.

That is mainstream America, Mr. President. Also, 74 percent oppose removing all references to God from oaths of public office--74 percent--and 91 percent of Americans want to keep the phrase ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Those who are opposing them are on the other side of these issues. I suggest this all averages to over 78 percent of the American people believe these issues, and that is clearly the will of the American people. That is mainstream. That is what our Founding Fathers talked about when they founded this great country, this one Nation under God.

We have said it over and over again. I see the distinguished Senator from Nevada is here to speak. I agree with all the liberal Democratic Senators who in the 1990s said: All we want is an up-or-down vote; that is all we are asking today. They got theirs, now we deserve ours.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the consecutive votes in relation to the pending amendments on the highway bill begin at noon today, with the additional time equally divided as before, and that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the votes in relation to the pending amendments; provided, that following the first vote, the Senate then stand in recess as under the previous order, with the remaining votes occurring after the recess. I also ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided before each of the votes in the stacked series.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 706 be withdrawn.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that following the first vote, Senator Landrieu be recognized for 5 minutes as in morning business prior to the recess.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am very happy we finally got to this point. We are operating under unanimous consent at this time.

We will have for the next 45 minutes a discussion and then a vote on the Allen amendment at 12 o'clock. We will have this 45-minute period of time to talk about the highway bill, and hopefully we can confine arguments to that, with the exception of 5 minutes for Senator Landrieu right before the vote takes place.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, yesterday when we passed our substitute amendment, which was No. 761, there were some technical inaccuracies in obligations and limitations for the 5 fiscal years. I ask unanimous consent to make those technical corrections to the amendment 761. This has been agreed to by both sides.

Mr. President, I know there are a lot of Members interested in the Allen amendment. We are close to final passage. We may have a couple of amendments after we return at 2 o'clock, at which time we will want to debate those. We will be limited to 2 minutes on each side for those amendments. I encourage Members who want to be heard on those amendments that we will be considering after 2 o'clock, this is the time to do it. This is the only time Members will have.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, this has been an effort that has been bipartisan all the way around. It has been 3 years in the making. For all of us to get along this well for 3 years--I hope it does not end after this is over.

I compliment you and Senator Baucus, along with Senator Bond, and the Democrats and Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee who are so cooperative.

Mr. President, shortly we will be voting on final passage of H.R. 3, the highway bill. Of course, we have talked about how long this has been in the making. We are finally to that point. The product is a good product. There are some who still today are not happy with the way the formula has treated their States.

There is nothing more difficult than dealing with a formula. This is a formula that deals with so many different factors. We have donor States, donee States, large States, small States, passthrough States, we have States with unusually high delegate rates. All these things are a consideration. During this debate we have discussed these at length the last 3 years.

A lot of people think we are spending too much. I put my conservative credentials up against any one of the 100 Members. I have been rated No. 1 as most conservative Member in this Senate. Yet there are two areas where we need to spend money: One is the national defense and infrastructure is the other one.

This is a life-and-death bill. We have to do something to save some lives. People who are saying we are spending too much on this, I think they forget that we have had two very great Senators in the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus, who we went to and said: This is what we really need to have for America. Can you make sure it is paid for and make sure we can do it without a deficit? They assured us that we can.

I see Senator Baucus is here to speak. Of course, I repeat one more time how much I appreciate him and Senator Grassley for the work they have done so that this is a bill that is paid for, this is a bill that is not going to add to the deficit, and I want to make sure that people understand that.

By the way, the work they did has been ratified by the Joint Tax Committee. That is the proper body. They have said yes, they can come up with--actually, the amendment is $11.2 billion more in contract authority--they said they can do it and it is not going to add to the deficit; it is not going to be deficit spending.

Before we run out of time, I do wish to thank some other people. I will let Senator Jeffords and Senator Baucus thank their staff, but I just want to say I wish the American people really knew the hours that are put in on something like this. I am talking about all night long and many hours. I start with Ruth Van Mark, who has been with me for 17 years now. I know there have been many sleepless nights working on this bill; Andrew Wheeler, James O'Keefe, Nathan Richmond, Greg Murrill, Marty Hall, Angie Giancarlo, John Shanahan, Rudy Kapichak, James Gentry, Alex Herrgott, Dave Lungren, Alex Marx, and many more who put in countless hours.

But also on Senator Frist's staff, if you look back all during the consideration of this bill, we have had the help of Libby Jarvis, who is always there; Dave Schiappa has been there on a daily basis, Eric Ueland, Dan Dukes, Laura Dove; and the people from the Department of Transportation, who have been over here spending their hours on the Senate floor with us: Susan Binder, Edward Ross Crichton, who has done over 1,000 formula runs for us over the last 3 years. He will be glad when this thing is finally passed, I think; Dedra Goodman, Carolyn Edwards, Thomas Holian, Sue Anna Celini, and, of course, I thank the hard-working people of the legislative counsel because they have actually drafted this 1300-page bill and the hundreds of amendments. They include Carcie Chan, Heather Arpin, Michelle Johnson-Weider, Heather Burnham, and Gary Endicott.

Anyway, this has taken a lot of hours, a lot of years working on this. It is going to finally be a reality. I will just say we are going to have an amendment that will come up this afternoon, the Sessions amendment. I would suggest it is very important for people to understand that it would only cut contract authority, it has nothing do with spending more or less money. It is not going to have any effect on the deficit, and it is very important people understand that.

So it is a good bill, and I appreciate working with so many people on this so closely to make this come to the point where we are today.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are 12 minutes away from the vote that will be taken and then recessing until 2 o'clock and coming back and finishing probably two votes and then final passage. There won't be time to debate the point. There will be a couple minutes equally divided. The Senator from Arkansas wants to participate in that.

Since I will not be able to talk about the Sessions amendment, let me make a couple of points. I don't have a better friend in this body than Senator Sessions. He and I are both very conservative, always ranked that way. He has an amendment to cut the transportation bill by $10.7 billion and the intent is for $5 billion of that amount to be taken from mass transit and $5.7 billion to be taken from the highway program.

The interesting thing about this is the amendment would only cut contract authority, which is the upper limit of what may be spent on the program. There is no reduction in guaranteed spending. Everybody knows last year in our bill, there was $318 billion in contract authority and $303 billion in guaranteed spending. That is the figure you are concerned with. There is no reduction in guaranteed spending on the Sessions amendment. Guaranteed spending is the amount the bill requires to be spent on the program. So there is no change in actual spending or the deficit.

The amendment also ignores the complexity of the formula. As a result, the amendment drops the contract authority of some donor States below the minimum rates of return identified in the bill. For example, Arizona's rate of return would drop below 90.3 percent in 2005 and 90.9 percent in 2006 as opposed to 92 percent. It is a huge difference. Keep in mind that is contract authority.

It is not just the donor States that are hurt by the amendment. Pennsylvania, an older State, for example, would lose $258 million in contract authority and drops from a 15-percent increase over TEA-21-- that would be 7 years ago--down to 11 percent, undoing the gains they received at that time.

Finally, I remind everybody that Senators Grassley and Baucus increased the amount of money. The Sessions amendment is supposedly going to take back that $11.2 billion increase. But when we passed that amendment, the Finance Committee--and it is their job; read the Senate rules, that is what the Finance Committee is supposed to be doing, go in there and find the money--they said: Yes, we know we can spend the additional $11.2 billion. It is not going to increase the deficit. And then they came along, and that fact was verified by the Joint Committee on Taxation. They are the ones who said what the Finance Committee said is right.

Senator Sessions and I are always in the top three most conservative Members when the ratings systems come out of all 100 Senators. I want people to know my view on the amendment. I know the Senator is well meaning, but it is one I will be opposing for those very reasons.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, it is my understanding we are now going to the Sessions amendment.

I object. Two minutes on each side.

Mr. President, I offer Senator Lautenberg a moment to make a statement. He has been working with us on his amendment. It has been withdrawn.

I certainly yield to Senator Lautenberg for no more than 5 minutes.

Amendment No. 619, as Modified

Mr. President, the distinguished junior Senator from Alabama, one of my closest friends, made a very reasonable request for 6 minutes equally divided. If he wants to restate the request, it is without objection.

I have a unanimous consent request to make. I ask unanimous consent that Lautenberg amendment No. 619 be modified with the changes at the desk and be accepted. Further, I ask that upon disposition of the Sessions amendment, the Inhofe substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to, all without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, in these 2 minutes, let me suggest two things I don't want to happen. I don't want my good friends who are conservatives on the Republican side to vote for this Sessions amendment with the idea that this is a conservative amendment. If you want to prove yourself and your conservative credentials as this being the way to do it, it is not.

I am looking at the current rating of the American Conservative Union. I am very proud of Senator Sessions because he is the ninth most conservative Member of this Senate. But guess who the No. 1 most conservative is. It is me. I stand here opposing--though I hate to do it--this amendment for that one reason.

The second reason is, this is very important. Inadvertently, I know it was not the intent of the Senator from Alabama, they omitted the wrong sections. So the sections of title I they amended are section 1101 and 1103 and nothing in title III. If you want to give guaranteed spending, you have to get to title III or section 102 of title I. That is where it is.

So all we have done with this amendment is attempt to reduce the contract authority which does not make any difference in terms of how much money is going to be spent. It is very important for people to understand that because I would not want them to be thinking you will be able to reduce something by doing it.

Second, the other point I want to make is, we have a Finance Committee. It is headed by Senator Grassley, and the ranking minority is Senator Baucus. They have done a great job. We have gone to them with this bill and said we need to be able to pay for this, but we need a little bit more money. Can you find it? They found it.

The Joint Tax Committee validated what they said and, consequently, we have something that will not add to the deficit. It will do a little better job of taking care of donor States that will not be taken care of if this amendment should pass. I ask Members respectfully to reject the Sessions amendment.

Have the yeas and nays been requested?

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his attention to steel grid reinforced concrete decking and the potential it holds. I look forward to working with Senator Santorum on this issue.

direct deliveries of aviation fuel

I understand and appreciate the Senator's concerns. While I cannot make any guarantees on a final outcome, I will continue to work to see if there is a way to address the critical needs of his State.

I would.

I assure the Senator that I am willing to discuss with my fellow conferees the idea of including in the conference agreement on this legislation language adding PM-10 to the CMAQ apportionment formula.

Mr. President, I yield to Senator Bond.

Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri is accurate. We have been talking about this for 3 years now. I do not think there is anything new that can be said, but I do renew my congratulations and thanks to all the staff who worked on this bill, certainly Senator Jeffords, Senator Baucus, and Senator Bond.

I agree it would be nice if we had something with which everyone agreed. It is impossible to do. The only way to do that is in a way that is not desirable. We did a formula, and we took into consideration all the factors--donee, donor States, size of the States, passthrough, fatalities--and I think we have a good bill.

I yield back the remainder of my time. Have the yeas and nays been requested?

I withhold my request for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, first of all, no. I am not going to make any additional remarks. I was going to put us into morning business. I understand the Senator had some things she wanted to talk about.

I ask unanimous consent there now be a period for morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes on any subject, with Senator Boxer going first.

I have no objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 17, 2005, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on ``Examining the Current Legal and Regulatory Requirements and Industry Practices for Credit Card Issuers with Respect to Consumer Disclosures and Marketing Efforts.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 17, 2005, at 10 a.m., on Port Security.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on Tuesday, May 17 at 9:30 a.m. to consider pending calendar business.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on the Commission on Africa report.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 17, 2005, at 9:30 a.m., for a hearing entitled ``Oil For Influence: How Saddam Used Oil to Reward Politicians and Terrorist Entities Under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 17, 2005 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a business meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a closed hearing regarding nuclear security. Only Members and staff with Top Secret security clearance are able to attend. The Hearing will be held in S-407 in the Capitol.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``The Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Strengthening Our National Security'' on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 2:30 p.m. in Dirksen 226.

Witness List

Panel I: the Honorable Asa Hutchinson, Chair of the Homeland Security Practice, Venable, L.L.P., Former Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC; Margaret D. Stock, Assistant Professor of Law, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY; and Mark Reed, Border Management Strategies, LLC, Tucson, AZ.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Retirement Security and Aging, be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 10 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. President, we are at the point now where I believe we are going to hear from a number of Members who have submitted amendments and some who simply want to talk about the bill, some who want to talk about the formulas. We have had some requests for time. It is my understanding that we are going to have our vote at 5:30. It does mean we have limited time between now and then. Let me just make a comment or two about this and then ask--

Of course.

Mr. President, as I was saying, we do have a lot of people who want to be heard on this bill. I believe I have said several times this could very well be the most significant vote we will have this year. It is a vote that we actually had last year. Senator Jeffords and I worked for 3 years on this bill, along with Senator Bond and Senator Baucus. The four of us have been shepherding this bill. Now it looks as if we are very close to getting a bill.

Last year, our bill was funded at $318 billion. It was passed on to conference, and we lacked one signature of getting a conference report, so it did not happen. As a result, we are operating on our sixth extension. I know the occupant of the chair understands the significance of this. It means all the reforms we have in here, streamlining reforms, will not be a reality if we are not able to pass a bill, if we have to operate on a seventh extension. It means we are not going to have any help for the donee States. We will not have any help for the sparsely populated States. We are not going to be able to have the commission that is going to look into new ways of funding highways. We started off back in the Eisenhower administration. Since he started the national highways program, we have been funding them essentially the same way ever since, but this bill appoints a commission that is going to be creative and do a lot better job than we have done before.

The formula--you always find someone objecting to the formula. It takes into consideration about 10 different things: size of the State, density of the State, the donor status of the State--things that are very significant in order to be totally equitable. One of the factors is the highway fatalities in the State on a per capita basis. That has to tell you something. If one of the States has a lot more fatalities on the highway, it means they have greater needs. My State of Oklahoma has terrible bridges. We are ranked dead last. We were tied with the State of Missouri, but I think we are now last. We want to correct that. We want this bill. It is very important that we have this bill. We are going to have our vote tomorrow, and we want to hear from anyone down here.

I ask Senator Jeffords, did you want to make any comments at this time?

I don't see Senator Baucus. I ask Senator Bond, do you want to make any comments?

Senator Thomas.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for an excellent point, and that point is we are on our sixth extension now. Some extensions are 30-day extensions, some of them are 6-month extensions, and you can't expect the contracting community out there to be able to plan in an efficient way to spend the money to build the highways, to build the

bridges, or repair the highways if they can't plan in advance. This would give us 5 more years on a 6-year authorization. It is absolutely imperative.

I say to my colleagues that we are now operating on the bill, so whoever seeks recognition can get recognition as he or she desires.

I don't believe we are yielding time.

Reserving the right to object, I don't want to object, but we have a short period of time until we have to go to the highway bill vote. We have a long list of people who want to speak on the highway bill. What I would ask of the Senator from Hawaii is that instead of his speaking for 15 minutes, he go ahead and start, and if anyone wants to seek recognition on the highway bill, they could do so.

Mr. President, we have several requests to speak prior to 4 o'clock and then more prior to 5:30 on the highway bill which is the regular order. So far, those speakers who want to speak in morning business have been kind enough to say that they would not mind being interrupted, if necessary, if someone came down to talk about the highway bill. I appreciate that and remind my colleagues that we don't have a lot of time between now and the vote at 5:30.

The Senator from Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, has a title under this bill. If you don't mind, I am sure there will be time.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his comments on the highway bill. It is very significant. It probably could very well be the most significant bill we will be voting on this year.

If I can get the attention of the Senator from North Dakota, I have had occasion to give four 1-hour China speeches on the floor of this Senate in response to the 2004 report to the Congress on the China Economic and Security Commission. I do not know whether the Senator from North Dakota has read that yet, but I am going to call that up with a resolution to implement the recommendations.

This is far more serious than even some of the issues the Senator from North Dakota mentioned in his excellent comments. If we look at how China is now using up the resources we are depending upon, if we go to any of the countries in Africa, such as Nigeria and the coast of Guinea where they have huge reserves, we find the Chinese are building huge stadiums, coliseums, and roads, and paying for it themselves to get the corner on those markets we will be dependent upon at some time. They are dealing with countries such as Iran and exchanging nuclear technology.

I have been deeply concerned about the Chinese, not just in what they have been able to do in terms of their nuclear capabilities, but also their conventional capabilities. It was in 1998 that GEN John Jumper came forth and said something that startled a lot of people, but we knew it all the time, and that is the Russians are now making a strike vehicle, an SU-30, that is better than our strike vehicles, the F-15 and F-16. And then we find out China has purchased, in one purchase, 240 of these vehicles. Their buildup of conventional forces and what they are doing economically to this country is very disturbing to me. It has to be addressed.

I hope the Senator from North Dakota will join us in trying to implement the recommendations of this 2004 study--it was 4 years in the making--of the security and economic problems we are facing today as a result of the Chinese buildup.

Mr. President, first, this Commission worked 4 years. They studied it from a security and economic standpoint. It was bipartisan and had every expert one can think of on the Commission. They came out with some very strong recommendations. I would hope the Senator from North Dakota and the Senator from South Carolina might want to expand what they are doing after reading the recommendations. Maybe we can join forces at a later date and have a resolution recommending the adoption of the recommendations of this Commission.

Mr. President, again, we are on the highway bill. Senator Jeffords, the ranking member of the EPW Committee, and I worked so well together on this. I have to say before he makes his comments, there are a lot of provisions in this bill that he likes better than I like, and there are provisions I like better than he likes. That is what it is, that is how we got to where we are today. It has been a great working relationship, and I anticipate we are going to be successful in getting this bill passed.

Mr. President, the Senator from Vermont brought up a very interesting point when he said this bill will save lives. We have a whole safety core in this bill. This was done in the Commerce Committee's portion of the bill. That is why when we have a very complicated formula, one of the factors in the formula is the fatality rate on a per-capita basis of the States because that is one indicator that there is a problem with surface transportation and a problem that can be corrected with this bill.

We had called this bill the SAFETEA bill because it has the safety provisions that will save lives. I can speak for my State of Oklahoma and many others that more than half the States are above this average in terms of fatalities. We need to do something about this. We cannot do it if we extend it.

I do not think people realize that if we do not pass this bill by tomorrow and get it to conference and back from conference prior to the termination of this sixth extension--and that is May 31--then we will have to get another extension. If we get another extension, we will be doing the same thing we have done over the last 2 years with extensions, and that is continue it as it was under the 7-year-old TEA- 21. There have been a lot of changes since then.

All those Senators representing donor States, such as my State of Oklahoma--I can remember when Oklahoma would only get back 75 percent of what they sent in, and now we have made improvements. The bill passed 7 years ago, TEA-21, brought up the minimum to 90.5 percent. If we had passed the bill we had last year at a higher funding level, that would have been 95 percent.

In other words, every donor State or every State would get back 95 percent of what they sent in. That would be better than the 90.5 today. At this reduced funded level, it will be about 92 percent.

The point is this: If we do not pass a bill, it is not going to happen. We are not going to have any relief for the donor States. The safety core program Senator Jeffords talked about--he is right, it is a life-or-death issue. If we do not pass this bill, people are going to die. People are going to die because we don't have any safety provisions in the extension so none of those would be adopted.

We have streamlining provisions. I think we all hear stories about how some of our antiquated rules, regulations, and statutes have made it almost impossible to get roads built and have made them cost something close to 15 percent more. We have streamlining provisions and reviews of this process in the bill, but if we don't pass the bill we will be operating under an extension, and that is not going to happen.

I mentioned earlier today this all started with President Eisenhower, actually Major Eisenhower, back in World War II when he realized he was unable to move troops and equipment around the United States to prosecute World War II as well as he should have been able to. So when he became President, he decided to have this National Highway System and we passed this bill. We have been operating the same way since then, almost 50 years now, raising money to pay for our infrastructure in America the same as we did 50 years ago.

We have done two things. First, we are giving the States the ability to be creative. I know a lot of people think no decision is a good decision if it is made in Washington. I have learned, after having been in State government and mayor of a city, that the closer you get to the people, the better the decision is and the more accurate it is. We recognize this. We allow the States not just to do things in general but also to come up with creative funding mechanisms, where they exercise the maximum of the private sector involvement in order to get these problems resolved.

In this bill we hope to pass, we even have a national commission to explore how to fund transportation in the future. This is something that will not happen if it is an extension. So we need to have this. That is why it is important.

We have the Safe Routes to School provision. I could probably name 20 different provisions of this very large bill, but this is one that several Members had a great passion for. I know several Members in the other body, as well as Senator Jeffords, were concerned about the Safe Routes to School provision. This is something that will save young people's lives, but if we do not do it and instead operate under an extension, we will not have that provision in there.

Anyone who has been in business and who has watched and waited, knows what you have to go through to get contracts, how you plan the financing, and that when you get the labor pool and your resources, in order to get the very most from them, you have to plan years in advance. The problem with the extension is it could be a 2-month extension or a 1-month extension or it could be 6 months. They are out there trying to address serious problems such as we have in Oklahoma with our bridges.

By the way, we have had several losses of life in my State of Oklahoma--two in the fairly recent past--due to bridges crumbling and killing people. So we need to correct this problem. We cannot do it unless we pass the bill.

A lot of the States are complaining right now, the border States-- California, Arizona, Florida, Texas--about the fact that, because of NAFTA, a lot of excess traffic is going through their States. We want to do something about that and we are doing it. We have a borders provision in this bill that gives them some of that relief. We will not be able to do that if we do not pass the bill. It is not going to work with an extension.

Right now we have chokepoints such as the canals we have in Oklahoma. People do not realize they are navigable. I remember many years ago when I was in the State senate, in order to try to get the point across to people that we have a navigable channel that goes all the way to my hometown of Tulsa, OK, or Catoosa, and in order to show this we managed to take a World War II submarine, the USS Batfish, from Texas, in the boneyard, and moved it all the way to Oklahoma, and it is sitting in Muskogee to tell that story.

The point is, if we have channel traffic activity, we have railroads, we have air, and we have surface, this provides chokepoints. We address the chokepoints as a major part of this bill.

The last and maybe most important thing is we have firewalls. When a person goes to the pump and pays Federal excise taxes when they buy a gallon of fuel, that person expects that money will go to improving highways and go to transportation. That is a no-brainer. That is what is supposed to happen. That is what we told the people is going to happen. But that is not what is happening. The insatiable appetite of members of an elected body to spend somebody else's money is something we have to deal with on a regular basis. So we have a trust fund and people pay money into the trust fund, but every time they have a chance to steal money out of the trust fund, they do.

What the Finance Committee tried to do, and I applaud them, they have put this together so they cannot do this that easily. For example, someone was complaining about the way this finance package is working. They said we have this program where we have hybrid cars so we give them financial advantages to encourage them so we can look out for the environment and save money on fuel and not aggravate the already existing energy shortage problem we have in America.

What do they do? They give them that money. But they take it out of the trust fund. It has nothing to do with

that. This is environmental policy, economic policy, but it is paid for by the trust fund. This is wrong.

In 1998, when President Clinton was President, he had a balanced budget amendment. He was going to balance the budget. But a lot of that money, $8 billion, was out of the trust fund to go toward the deficit. At that time I voted against it. All my conservative friends said, You want to do something about the deficit, don't you? But I said, Not on the back of the highway trust fund.

The point I want to make is there have been raids on the trust fund, and not just the highway trust fund but others. In this legislation we hope to pass tomorrow, we have firewalls built in so they can no longer raid the highway trust fund. If there is no other reason to pass this bill, this would be enough of a reason.

There will have been some complaints concerning our approach. There are two different basic approaches that one might take, putting together something such as the allocation of money that goes to the States. One is used in the other body. I served 8 years on the Transportation Committee in the House of Representatives. I know how that works over there. Frankly, it is more on projects than anything else. Not that there is anything wrong with that, except it would seem to me, and it seems to the majority of people in this body, better if you allocate on formula an amount of money then that goes back to the States and those States determine how to use it. In the State of Oklahoma we have eight transport districts, eight transportation commissioners. They sit down in a room. Certainly they know more about the needs in Oklahoma than we know here in Washington, DC. So we allocate the money in accordance with a lot of factors.

We have low-income States as a factor. If you are in a State such as Wyoming or Montana that has a low population density, yet you have to have roads to get across it, that is a consideration. If you have a high fatality rate, as we mentioned before, that is a consideration. We want to consider the number of interstate lane miles they have, the age of those, the traffic on those--all these things are factors that are in a formula. It might be politically a lot smarter to line up 60 Senators and say this is what we are going to do in your States and forget about all the rest of them and just do projects. We could do them. It is perfectly legal. We elected not to do that. We elected to do it the hard way with a complicated formula, and by the way, that is one nobody likes and that is probably a pretty good indication it is a pretty good formula. There are things I don't like. There are areas where I don't believe Oklahoma is being treated fairly. I am sure every one of the 100 Senators in this body can say the same thing.

We are still waiting now. We will be having a vote. We are 2 hours away from the vote. So we will wait for those to come down.

Amendment No. 706 to Amendment No. 605

On behalf of Senator Snowe, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment 706.

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

Mr. President, I observe Senator Snowe is en route and unless someone else wants to gain access to the floor, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Let me reserve the right to object and ask the Senator if he would amend his unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business. However, if a Member comes with an amendment-- since the cutoff is 25 minutes away--the Senator agrees not to speak for more than a couple of minutes.

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 unanimous consent, since we are right to the 4 o'clock deadline, that the managers' amendment proposed by myself and the ranking member be introduced at a time after 4 o'clock.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I also am going to thank staff. This was not easy. We have endured 3 years now. Ruth VanMark has been with me 18 years and has all of the background in the other body in the Transportation Committee. They will all be glad to get a good night's sleep at some time. We go from here into conference.

I suggest that we be aware that our 4 o'clock deadline has passed now. We have exempted the managers' amendment so it can be done at a later time. We are now down from 173 amendments to 7, so we have 7 to be voted on between now and tomorrow. At the conclusion of that, we will then vote on final passage and send it to conference. I hope leadership is working on both sides of the aisle to appointing conferees and that we can get it to conference and get it back.

I keep responding that I believe we can do this within the May 31 deadline and avoid an extension. We can show that things can happen in an expeditious way in the Senate, whether people believe it or not. If we get this passed tomorrow, we would have time to do it, if we are committed to making it a reality.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator from Texas for her comments. I know the depth of her interest and the passion she has for doing everything she can for her State.

I have said several times on the floor of the Senate how difficult it is to come up with formula approaches. It is difficult. It is a tough thing to do. There are so many factors that go into it, such as the interstate lane miles, miles traveled, principal arteries, cost to repair and replace deficient highway bridges, weight nonattainment maintenance areas, low-population States, donor States, donee States, fast-growing States. Again, it would have been so much easier to do it the way it has been done before and the way we have done it, actually, in the other body just by making a political list, and when we get to the 60 votes saying: All right, that is it, the other 40 of you guys, it is your problem.

We try not to do that. There is not one State represented in this Senate that cannot complain about some parts of the formula. We have tried hard. When we passed the bill out of committee, starting in 2005 through 2009 in Texas, 90.5 percent was all the way to 2009, and then it was 92 percent. Now in 2006, 2007, 2008 at 91 percent and going to 92 percent.

Of course, the Senator is right that Texas is a very large State, so it represents very large amounts of money. But it is a half percent more in each of those 3 years of 2006, 2007, 2008. We have

tried to do it. We tried to work with each one of the States.

As I say, I know her depth of interest. We spent many hours trying to work out variances.

The problem we always have is nothing happens in a vacuum. If we take care of a problem in Texas, then that aggravates a problem in Pennsylvania.

So formulas are tough. They are tough to deal with politically. They are tough to deal with rationally. I think we have tried to do the very best we can. With that, I am glad to yield the floor.

It is a very reasonable request the Senator from Texas is making. I observe we talked about this ``above the line/below the line.'' We plowed this furrow several times. However, when you get in conference, there are things that can be done. I can assure the Senator the State of Texas will be well represented in conference. I am sure we will hear proposals, and there will be some give and take in all areas.

Of course, we will be dealing with another whole body over there, so it is hard to predict what will come out. But we will try to get to it expeditiously and see that Texas--as I say, they will be well represented. I think we all understand that.

We are now waiting. We are, as I said before, down to about seven amendments. There could be a germaneness problem with some of them. Some of them could be worked out. My guess is, other than the managers' amendment, which Senator Jeffords and I will be propounding, there are probably, realistically, maybe four votes that we will be having. That is my guess what it will be. We have announced already we are going to have one tonight at 5:30, which is just an hour and 6 minutes from now.

After that, we invite Senators to stay here and debate their amendments. I think we probably will not have votes until tomorrow morning. We can debate these amendments. I think by that time there may be as many as three or four amendments that would be appropriate for us to debate. Then we can get on to the final passage.

As it is right now, we have plenty of time tonight. We have another hour and 5 minutes before the vote. I am sure Senator Jeffords joins me in making this request: Members who are authors of these amendments, they know who they are, come down. We are open for business. Come down and debate your amendments.

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 will briefly talk about a provision in the Commerce title of the highway bill. We have the Commerce title, Banking, Finance, and EPW title. Section 7370 creates a hazardous material cooperative research program. It authorizes $2 million a year for each year, including 2006 through 2009, for hazardous material transport research projects on topics that are ``not adequately addressed by existing Federal private sector research programs.''

The section goes on to require that at least one of the studies ``provide an assessment of the need and feasibility of substituting less lethal substances than toxic inhalation hazards in the manufacturing process.''

I oppose the provision and hope it can be removed in conference. I will be actively opposing it in conference to see it is removed. There is no such language in the House portion.

The concept at the heart of this provision is called inherently safer technology and it is not about transportation but a longstanding wish of some of the environmental extremist communities. The EPW has spent the last 4 years working on the issue of chemical security and this issue of FIST has arisen several times in the context of the security debate. The idea of inherently safer technology predates September 11. It was around long before the tragedy of September 11. It has never been about security. It has never been about transportation. It is a concept that dates back more than a decade when the extremist environmental community--Greenpeace and others--was seeking bans on chlorine, the chemical used to purify our Nation's water. After September 11 they decided to play upon the fears of the Nation and repackage FIST as a solution to potential security problems. Now they seek to repackage it again as a transportation issue, which it is not.

This issue is not about security. It is not about transportation. It is about trying to find a research justification for giving the Federal Government authority to mandate that a private company change its manufacturing process or the chemicals they use. The study's parameters reveal this intent when it states ``substituting less lethal substances than toxic inhalation hazards in the manufacturing process.''

There are entire books written about the subject of FIST by various groups, including current efforts by the Center for Chemical Process Safety and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers to update their 1996 ``gold book'' on the subject. These are chemical process experts. The Federal Government is not.

I do not believe mandatory FIST is good for our Nation's security. Besides that, it is not a transportation issue. If it is something you want to debate in the Senate as a freestanding bill, do it that way, but do not sneak around behind and throw little a part into this bill through the Commerce title that has nothing to do with transportation.

I mention this and anything else we find in the bill that perhaps we have overlooked that has nothing to do with transportation, we will make every effort to make sure it gets out when it is in conference.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the Senator from Louisiana is being modest because he has had a great deal of influence on the amendments. A critical problem in Louisiana is beach erosion. He has persuaded our committee, in an articulate way, to become much more aggressive in solving that problem. We are a much better committee because of him. I thank him for his hard work on the committee.

It is my understanding the senior Senator from Massachusetts wishes to speak.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to give a progress report. We are down to four or five amendments now. Many of them have been agreed to or have been withdrawn. We don't have anyone at this moment who is going to ask for a vote tonight. We had previously scheduled a vote at 5:30. We did not anticipate at that time that we would be getting the cooperation we are getting from the Members who have worked things out. So I announce on behalf of the leadership that we will not be having the vote at 5:30 tonight.

Let me make a couple of comments. I know anxieties are high concerning the so-called nuclear option, or what we call the constitutional option. I hesitate to take up time. If anybody comes to talk about the highway bill, we will stop and talk about the highway bill.

If you stop and realize what we really want, what we have been asking for is a vote. People are entitled to have a vote on the floor of this Senate. They are nominees. You may not like the nominees of the President for the circuit court positions, but certainly these people at least deserve an up-or-down vote.

It is kind of interesting to see how the minority has changed its mind from just a short period ago.

Senator Biden on March 19, 1997, said:

But I also respectfully suggest that everyone who is

nominated ought to have a shot, to have a hearing and to have

a shot to be heard on the floor and have a vote on the floor

. . . It is totally appropriate for Republicans to reject

every single nominee if they want to. That is within their

right. But it is not, I will respectfully request, Madam

President, appropriate not to have hearings on them, not to

bring them to the floor and not to allow a vote . . .

Senator Boxer on May 14, 1997, said:

According to the U.S. Constitution, the President

nominates, and the Senate shall provide advice and consent.

It is not the role of the Senate to obstruct the process and

prevent numbers of highly qualified nominees from even being

given the opportunity for a vote on the Senate floor.

Senator Daschle on October 5, 1999, said:

I find it simply baffling that a Senator would vote against

even voting on a judicial nomination . . . We have a

constitutional outlet for antipathy against a judicial

nominee--a vote against that nominee.

Senator Durbin on September 28, 1998, said:

I think that responsibility requires us to act in a timely

fashion on nominees sent before us. The reason I oppose

cloture is I would like to see that the Senate shall also be

held to the responsibility of acting in a timely fashion. If,

after 150 days languishing in a committee there is no report

on an individual, the name should come to the floor. If,

after 150 days languishing on the Executive Calendar that

name has not been called for a vote, it should be. Vote the

person up or down. They are qualified or they are not.

Senator Feinstein on September 16, 1999, said:

A nominee is entitled to a vote. Vote them up; vote them

down . . . What this does to a [nominee's] life is, it leaves

them in limbo . . . It is our job to confirm these judges. If

we don't like them, we can vote against them. That is the

honest thing to do. If there are things in their background,

in their abilities that don't pass muster, vote no.

On October 4, 1999, she said:

Our institutional integrity requires an up-or-down vote.

And on May 19, 1997, Senator Feinstein said:

Mr. President, the time has come to act on these

nominations. I'm not asking for a rubber stamp; let's hold

hearings on those nominees who haven't had them, and vote on

all of them, up or down, yes or no.

Senator Kennedy on January 28, 1998, said:

The Constitution is clear that only individuals acceptable

to both the President and the Senate should be confirmed. The

President and the Senate do not always agree. But we should

resolve these disagreements by voting on these nominees--yes

or no.

And on February 3, 1998:

We owe it to Americans across the country to give these

nominees a vote. If our Republican colleagues don't like

them, vote against them. But give them a vote.

Senator Kohl on August 21, 1999, said:

[T]here are many other deserving nominees out there. Let's

not play favorites. These nominees, who have to put their

lives on hold waiting for us to act, deserve an `up or down'

vote.

Senator Lautenberg on June 21, 1995, said:

Talking about the fairness of the system and how it is

equitable for a minority to restrict the majority view, why

can we not have a straight up-or-down vote on this without

threats of filibuster? When it was Robert Bork or John Tower

or Clarence Thomas, even though there was strong opposition,

many Senators opposed them. The fact is that the votes were

held here, up or down.

Senator Leahy on June 21, 1995, said:

When President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the U.S.

Supreme Court, I was the first member of the Senate to

declare my opposition to his nomination. I did not believe

that Clarence Thomas was qualified to serve on the Court.

Even with strong reservations, I felt that Judge Thomas

deserved an up-or-down vote.

On October 14, 1997:

I cannot recall a judicial nomination being successfully

filibustered. I do recall earlier this year when the

Republican Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I noted

how improper it would be to filibuster a judicial nomination.

October 22, 1997:

I hope we might reach a point where we as a Senate will

accept our responsibility and vote people up or vote them

down. Bring the names here. If we want to vote against them,

vote against them.

June 18, 1998:

If we want to vote against somebody, vote against them. I

respect that. State your reasons. I respect that. But don't

hold up a qualified judicial nominee . . . I have stated over

and over again on this floor . . . that I would object and

fight against any filibuster on a judge, whether it is

somebody I opposed or supported; that I felt the Senate

should do its duty. If we don't like somebody the President

nominates, vote him or her down.

September 16, 1999:

I . . . do not want to see the Senate go down a path where

a minority of the Senate is determining a judge's fate on

votes of 41 . . . [D]uring the Republican administrations I

rarely ever voted against a nomination by either President

Reagan or President Bush. There were a couple I did. I also

took the floor on occasion filibusters to hold them up and

believe that we should have a vote up or down.

Again on September 16, 1999:

I do not want to get having to invoke cloture on judicial

nominations. I think it is a bad precedent.

October 1, 1999:

Nominees deserve to be treated with dignity and dispatch,

not delayed for 2 and 3 years. We are talking about people

going to the Federal judiciary, a third independent branch of

Government. They are entitled to dignity and respect. They

are not entitled atomically for us to vote aye, but they are

entitled to a vote, aye or nay.

October 3, 1999:

When we hold a nominee up by not allowing them a vote and

not taking any action one way or the other, we are . . .

doing a terrible disservice to the man or woman to whom we do

this.

March 7, 2000:

The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court said:

``The Senate is surely

under no obligation to confirm any particular nominee, but

after the necessary time for inquiry it should vote him up or

vote him down.'' Which is exactly what I would like.

October 11, 2000:

I have said on the floor, although we are different

parties, I have agreed with Gov. George Bush, who has said

that in the Senate a nominee ought to get a [floor] vote, up

or down, within 60 days.

Senator Levin on June 21, 1995, said:

The President is entitled to his nominee, if a majority of

the Senate consent.

Senator Lincoln at a press conference on September 14, 2000, said:

If we want people to respect their government again, then

government must act respectably. It's my hope that we'll take

the necessary steps to give these men and these women

especially the up or down vote that they deserve.

Senator Reid on March 7, 2000, said:

Once they get out of committee, let's bring them here and

vote up or down on them. . . . I think anybody who has to

wait 4 years deserves an up-or-down vote.

. . . If there is a Senator who believes there is a problem

with any judge, whether it is the one we are going to vote on

at 5 o'clock or the two we are going to vote on tomorrow, or

Thursday, they have every right to come to talk at whatever

length they want. But with Judge Paez, it has been 4 years.

There has been ample opportunity to talk about this man. He

has bipartisan support.

On June 9, 2001, in an interview on Evans, Novak, Hunt, and Shields said:

[W]e should have up or down votes in the committee and on

the floor.

Senator Schumer on March 7, 2000, said:

The basic issue of holding up judgeships is the issue

before us, not the qualifications of judges, which we can

always debate. The problem is it takes so long for us to

debate those qualifications. It is an example of Government

not fulfilling its constitutional mandate because the

President nominates, and we are charged with voting on the

nominees.

. . . I also plead with my colleagues to move judges with

alacrity--vote them up or down. But this delay makes a

mockery of the Constitution, makes a mockery of the fact that

we are here working, and makes a mockery of the lives of very

sincere people who have put themselves forward to be judges

and then they hang out there in limbo.

These are people who are now saying they do not want to have a vote on these nominees. We have nominees who have been waiting not for weeks or months but for years. I believe some of these Senators who before had a philosophy that everyone is entitled to a vote ought to turn around and give the current nominees a vote. I have a great deal of respect for these people, except I would like to have them express some level of consistency.

The issue has become a bit clouded and confusing. When one talks about the various polls, I suggest that one can word a question to get almost any kind of answer one wants. When it gets down to the facts, the Constitution says the President nominates and the Senate is either to confirm or not confirm. It does not say anything about a mandatory supermajority. It just says confirmed. That is a simple majority, Mr. President.

Again, I invite Members to come to the Chamber. We are going to keep the floor open. There will not be any votes tonight on the amendments. We are down to about four amendments, although they should be debated tonight if at all possible. We need to get the debates behind us so we will be prepared to vote tomorrow morning.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, while we are waiting for Members to come down to the Senate floor to offer their amendments, to talk about their amendments, and be prepared for votes tomorrow morning, I will share with you that we have had a lot of erroneous reports concerning what is going on in Iraq and in other sensitive areas of the world. Quite frankly, I believe the greatest disservice that has been done to our troops in Iraq has been by the press, by the press not giving an accurate accounting as to what is really happening there.

I am a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and as such I have taken on the responsibility of spending time in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, and different places where terrorism may come due to the squeeze in the Middle East. But as far as Iraq is concerned, I will share a couple of experiences.

One was a couple days after the January 30 election. So many people in the media were trying to say the election is not going to come off on January 30, it is not going to happen; democracy is not going prevail there; they are not going to be able to make the deadlines; they are not going to be able to handle the elections and they are not capable of doing it on their own; they do not have the security because they would have to provide all the security for the elections. Yet a few days after that, you might remember, of the three elements over there, the Sunnis were the ones--not the Shiites or the Kurds--but the Sunnis were the ones wanting to obstruct the elections--the most anti- American of all the groups. Yet the day after the election, the two primary Sunni leaders stood and said publicly that they were surprised it went the way it did. They wanted to be in on this. They wanted to participate. We know subsequent to that they have.

I remember testimonials by different people who had participated in that election. One was a lady who said she could not read the ballot because of the tears in her eyes. She couldn't see the ballot.

Another person told me through a translator that she was in there to vote, and it occurred to her at the time they were voting that this was not just the first time in 35 years of a bloody regime of Saddam Hussein, but it was the first time in 7,000 years that they had an opportunity for self-determination.

It is a huge thing happening over there. Who would ever have dreamed at any time in the last 35 years that they would actually be participating in a free election?

Now we have seen what has happened since then. Sure, the terrorists over there who do not want this to happen are out there and they are killing as many of the Iraqis as possible to try to obstruct this new freedom that is coming their way.

The last time I was there, I decided it would be a good idea to spend time in the Sunni triangle. That is where most of the hostilities are. It was the Sunnis who were the ones holding out last, the ones who were supporting Saddam Hussein. I recall going to Falluja, just a matter of a few weeks ago, and in Falluja there was a general whose name was Mahdi. He was the general, the commanding officer of the brigade. He was the brigade commander for Saddam Hussein. He hated Americans and he had the background to demonstrate how deeply that hatred went, the murders and all these things going on.

Yet that general, after we moved the Marines into Falluja and they started going door to door, and they were embedded with the Iraqis, this general was so impressed with the Marines that he made a statement. When they rotated the Marines out and said the Marines were going to have to go into a rotation, they had become so close working and fighting together that when they all got together before the Marines left, he said they all cried. There was a general looking at me saying: We cried because we didn't want the Marines to leave. He renamed the security forces of Falluja the Iraqi Marines. He named them after us.

While we were there in Tikrit, the home of Saddam Hussein, there was an explosion. It was at a place they called a police station, but it was a training area where they were training Iraqis for the security forces. It killed 10 immediately and seriously injured 30 more so they could not be trained. The families of these 40 individuals who were either killed or were severely injured offered up another member of each of their families to substitute for the one who was killed or the one who was injured. It was the type of sacrifice you would never dream possible a few years before--a few days before, really.

I remember going all over the Sunni triangle in a Blackhawk helicopter, 100 feet off the ground. That is the only safe way to get there. There are terrorists who have SAMs, surface-to-air missiles, although some pretty crude.

Many American families who have sent care packages to the troops over there--candy, cookies, these different

things--what they have done with these is repackage them and, as we were going over the Sunni triangle and looked down at these small villages, all the kids were out there and we threw them candy and things like that, and they were waving American flags and cheering. This is not the picture you get from the media.

I applaud the job our guys and gals have done over there, our troops. Of course, many have lost their lives, but people don't stop to realize how many more lives would have been lost if we had not been involved in that area, offering that kind of freedom.

Now we see a lot of terrorists are going into other areas. One of the good things I would announce that is going on right now is down in Africa we are now in the process of assisting Africans in forming five African brigades, and these African brigades, we will put them in a position to help them train themselves so when something like this erupts down there it will not be the Americans who have to do it.

I just wanted to take this time to applaud our troops for the great job they are doing. I really believe, as great a disservice as the press has provided, that the people of America know better. They are showing they do know better.

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 unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside for the consideration of the managers' amendment.

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

Mr. President, I ask for adoption of the amendment.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the regular order with respect to the Dorgan amendment, No. 652.

Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the amendment is not germane.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Ensign amendment No. 636 and the Schumer amendment No. 674 be withdrawn.

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

Mr. President, first, I thank the ranking member of our committee, Senator Jeffords, for the hard work he has done, as well as Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, who have worked very hard and, of course, Senator Bond, who is chairman of the transportation subcommittee of the committee I chair.

This has been 3 years in the making. What we are looking at right now is very significant. We are to the point now where we are down to a handful of amendments that remain--probably the most significant bill that would be passed this year. It appears that under the rules of cloture, we probably will have our vote on this and be able to take amendments between 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock on Monday, and vote on some amendments starting at 4 p.m. I hope we vote on quite a few. I think we will end up with about six more total votes before this is done.

If we get some of those out of the way Monday night, by Tuesday, when we go in, we will be able to finish and have final passage on this bill and send it to conference. We went through this exercise a year ago and we were able to get it to conference. Unfortunately, we lacked one signature of getting a conference report and getting it back here.

This time that will not happen. People are aware of the fact it is critical that we have a bill. We cannot operate on any more extensions.

Let me remind everyone there are two choices right now. We are operating under six extensions. When you have an extension, all you do is take the previous authorization and extend it. That means you don't get any of the good things we have done in putting this bill together. We are operating on a bill that passed 7 years ago. We have done some things that are far better for America and for every State represented if we pass the bill as opposed to an extension. If we pass a bill, we are going to be able to take care of donor States' rate of return. If we don't pass a bill, we will not be able to do that. Last year's bill would have brought every State from the 90.5-percent participation up to 95 percent. Since this is not funded at as high a level as it was last year, it would only guarantee an ultimate return of 92 percent.

One of the biggest parts of this program--and we have been calling it SAFETEA because we have the SAFETEA core programs included. They came through the Commerce Committee. When you look at the deaths on the highways and the problems we are having out there--in my State of Oklahoma, we have had two deaths from bridge accidents, crumbling and falling on people and cars down below. Without the bill, we won't be able to have those SAFETEA programs. It is a matter of life and death to have this bill, streamlining provisions in order for us to act quickly and get these roads built. That will not happen under an extension. We will have to pass the bill.

In this bill, we actually put together a national commission to explore new ways of financing roads. When you look at our National Highway System, as Senator Jeffords and I have mentioned several times, it started in the 1960s, during the Eisenhower administration. It came to his attention that we had a problem when he was Major Eisenhower during World War II and trying to move services and troops and personnel and equipment across America. He realized the problems. When he became President, he started the National Highway System. It is built now--not maintained but built. We have been financing roads, bridges, and maintenance in the same way for almost 50 years now. We have this national commission that will explore new ways to get private participation in funding and transfer most of this to the States, where it belongs. That is not going to happen if we are on an extension.

There is Routes to School Program. We have had young people die and this addresses that. Again, if we don't pass the bill, we will not have the Safe Routes to School provisions, and we are going to have to operate on an extension. That is not acceptable.

There are border programs. We have several border States and we need to address their special needs with the transportation as a result of NAFTA and other programs, coming from other countries through the United States. We have a border program to accommodate that. We are not going to have it if we don't have the bill passed, because there will be an extension of a 7-year-old bill.

Lastly, is the firewall protection of the trust fund. I think everyone knows there is an irresistible propensity around Washington to spend other people's money, and when they see an opportunity to get a pet project by taking something out of the trust fund, they do it. Consequently, we have a lot of policies that are passed here, whether it is using ethanol or fuel-efficient cars, these programs to encourage them to do it, they get benefits and that comes out of the trust fund. That is a raid on the trust fund. This builds firewalls so that cannot happen. Without that, the raids will continue. That is why it is important we pass this bill. I know we are going to pass it. We have no doubt about that. Last year, we passed it to conference 76 to 21. I anticipate we will have that same margin of victory when we send this bill to conference.

We have been appealing for people to bring amendments to the floor. We are to the point now where people are working on the amendments, so that is going to have to wait until Monday afternoon. Again, that will be between 2 and 4 o'clock. I hope staff will be sure to advise their Members that is the time we will want to consider these amendments. If they want a vote on Monday, they better have their amendment down here, discussed, and debated between 2 and 4 o'clock.

The last point I want to mention is that somebody has received very unjust criticism. We have done a very good job--keep in mind we have been working on this 3 years now--we have done a very good job on the formula approach. What we want to do in our Senate bill is equitably distribute money to States based on certain criteria to be considered.

For example, if you are a donor State, then there is a factor that adjusts the distribution that comes to the State. If you are a donee State, it is the same thing. If you are an owed State, it is the same thing. If you are a small State or a State with low population, such as Montana and Wyoming, that is a factor in this formula.

We have factors on the death rate. My State of Oklahoma has a higher- than-average death rate on the highways on a per capita basis. It tells you something. What it tells you is there is a problem. We are going to have to correct the problem because people are dying.

The bottom line is, this is a life-or-death bill. So it is very important that we get this done. I appreciate the dedication of what we refer to as the big four, the leaders of this legislation--the chairman of the committee, which is myself, Senator Bond, Senator Jeffords, and Senator Baucus. It has been a great team effort. It has been a bipartisan effort. There has not been one vote that has not been bipartisan. That is a change around here--people are working together. Maybe we will learn a lesson and this will expand to some of the other areas.

It is my understanding, unless someone else has something to say about the bill--we have covered it pretty well now for the last 10, 12 days--we are down to the short rows, and we are ready to move on to the 2 hours on Monday and then, of course, final passage on Tuesday.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, during World War II, Native Americans heard the call of their country and enlisted in the Armed Services in unprecedented numbers. Many of these brave men performed the role of code talkers, using a code language derived from a variety of American Indian languages to ensure secure and rapid communication of information on the battlefield. Through three wars and five decades, enemy forces were never able to break the U.S. code language thanks to the service and ingenuity of Native American code talkers. These patriots provided an invaluable service to the United States and our allies and deserve recognition for their bravery.

Until 1968, information related to the code talker's activities during both World Wars remained classified by the Department of Defense. The postponement in learning about the essential role of Native American Code Talkers has resulted in delayed recognition of these war heroes. The first step in recognizing these men came in 2000 when President Bush signed into law legislation authorizing Congress to award gold medals to the 29 Navajo code talkers as well as a silver medal to each man who later qualified as a Navajo code talker. While this legislation was a step in the right direction, it failed to recognize a number of Native Americans who also served as code talkers but were not members of the Navajo Nation.

During the first World War, Choctaw code talkers served with distinction in France. By transmitting in their native tongue a variety of open voice messages relating to unit movements, U.S. forces completely surprised the enemy during battle. Following the success of the Choctaw code talkers,

soldiers from the Navajo, Sioux, Comanche and Meskwaki tribes, along with members of 14 other tribes, served as code talkers in some of the most dangerous operations in both theaters of World War II.

Today I introduce the Code Talkers Recognition Act to honor those who were overlooked when medals were awarded to the Navajo code talkers in 2001. This bill authorizes the presentation of commemorative medals on behalf of Congress to Native Americans who served as code talkers during any foreign conflict in which the United States was involved during the 20th century. I ask my colleagues to help honor the heroic contributions of these gentlemen by cosponsoring and passing this legislation.