Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I pay tribute to a great leader and an exceptional officer of the U.S. Air Force, MG Daniel J. Darnell, now serving as the Director of Legislative Liaison for Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, as he prepares to leave this position for one of even greater importance.

A command pilot with more than 4,500 flying hours, primarily in the F-15A/B/C/D and F-16C/D, Major General Darnell has commanded at the squadron, group, wing, and warfare center levels and has flown combat missions in Iraq, enforcing no-fly zones during operations Northern and Southern Watch. Major General Darnell continues to provide outstanding leadership, advice, and sound professional judgment on numerous critical issues of enduring importance to the Air Force, Congress, and this Nation.

Major General Darnell was born at March Air Force Base in California, where his father flew with Curtis LeMay as a B-29 radio operator, later retired as a B-52 tail gunner. He graduated as valedictorian from the Virginia Military Institute in 1975 and, immediately following graduation, he entered the Air Force and was recognized as a distinguished graduate from the Air Force ROTC Program. Major General Darnell was selected to attend pilot training at Reese Air Force Base in Texas and was again at the top of his class, graduating pilot training as a Distinguished Graduate. Upon completion of pilot training, Major General Darnell was selected to fly the F-15, the Air Force's premier air-to-air fighter. He was initially assigned to the 7th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Holloman Air Force Base but then moved overseas to Kadena Air Base in Japan. At Kadena, Major General Darnell again excelled in the air and on the ground leading to his selection as instructor pilot, flight examiner, and the sole F-15 aerial demonstration pilot in the Pacific.

In 1982, Major General Darnell was selected to attend the F-15 Fighter Weapons Instructor Course at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, an honor only bestowed on the top fighter pilots in the U.S. Air Force. After graduating, he returned to Kadena as the squadron weapons officer and then was assigned to McChord Air Force Base in Washington, first as the Chief of Standardization and Evaluation, and then as Chief of Weapons and Tactics. His weapons expertise, coupled with his superior leadership, led him back to Nellis Air Force Base and the U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School in 1986 where he was a Fighter Weapons Instructor Course instructor, flight commander and operations officer, providing the most advanced air-to-air training in weapons and tactics employment in the world.

Following a staff assignment to Headquarters Tactical Air Command at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, as the Chief of Weapons and Tactics, Major General Darnell was selected as the 20th commander and leader of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, ``America's Ambassadors in Blue.'' Major General Darnell flew the F-16 as Thunderbird lead for 2 years, performing hundreds of aerial demonstrations for millions of people all over the globe. In 1994, he was hand-picked to attend National War College in Washington, DC, where he received a master's degree in national security policy.

In 1997, Major General Darnell became the commander of the 12th Operations Group at Randolph Air Force Base where he was responsible for conducting joint and allied pilot instructor training as well as Air Force and Navy undergraduate combat systems officer training. He returned to the F-16 in 1998 and commanded the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina and then 31st Wing at Aviano Air Base in Italy.

Major General Darnell returned to Nellis Air Force Base in 2001 as commander, 57th Wing, the largest composite wing in the Air Force. During that time, he deployed to Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia where he was the Senior Director of the Combined Air Operations Center during the opening weeks and months of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In 2003, Major General Darnell was assigned to Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado as the commander of the Space Warfare Center where he was responsible for advancing America's space capabilities and employment concepts.

For the past 2 years, Major General Darnell has been the Director of Legislative Liaison. During that time, he laid the legislative groundwork for procurement of four new major weapon systems, including Joint Strike Fighter, Joint Cargo Aircraft, Next Generation Combat Search and Rescue platform, and the $20 billion KC-X, the Air Force's No. 1 acquisition priority. His leadership, vision, and political acumen allowed the Air Force to break through years of congressional restrictions on aircraft retirements, resulting in the landmark $4 billion 2007 National Defense Authorization Act language, a milestone year for Air Force recapitalization and fleet management. He flawlessly orchestrated the movement of more than 1,500 congressional delegation trips for Members and staff throughout the world.

Major General Darnell's mastery of complex issues and decisive leadership guided Air Force relations with Congress through a myriad of difficult issues to include Base Realignment and Closure, Total Force Integration, and a 40,000 personnel drawdown. Additionally, he was responsible for effectively communicating a consistent Air Force message that was the driving force behind approval of an unprecedented multiyear funding authorization for the F-22A Raptor, garnering approximately $411 million in Air Force savings.

On behalf of Congress and the United States of America, I thank Major General Darnell, his wife Vickie, and their entire family for their continued commitment, sacrifice, and contribution to this great Nation. I congratulate Major General Darnell on his selection to the rank of lieutenant general and wish him success as he transitions into his new job as Deputy Chief of Staff for Air, Space and Information Operations, Plans and Requirements.

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

Mr. President, today we had a very interesting hearing where we had General Casey and Secretary Geren and others before the Armed Services Committee. I want to make sure that before we leave on this recess we have one more chance to talk about the significance of the McConnell-Stevens emergency supplemental appropriations bill. It is vital to our troops overseas, and it is important to the future of our Armed Forces.

As Senator McConnell stated earlier today--and I am quoting now--he said:

Because we have a responsibility to provide this funding to

our men and women in uniform as they attempt to protect the

American people, we need to get a clean troop funding bill to

the President.

I would like to associate myself with these words and these remarks and also express my support for the supplemental he has sponsored.

The emergency supplemental offered by the Democrats, on the other hand, is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the 110th Congress. It is a bill we all know does not have the 60 votes needed to pass. This is not new to this Congress. We have had 61 votes related to Iraq measures; 29 of those votes were here in the Senate. If those on the other side of the aisle want to continue to play politics, now is not the time to do it.

The current war supplemental expires in 2 days--now, the reason I know that is true is that happens to be expiring on my birthday--which I hope I don't--and the Department of Defense will be required to start pulling from their nonwartime budget to pay for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I understand that some of my colleagues want us out of Iraq regardless of what the facts on the ground may be, but not sending a clean supplemental bill to the President before we go home for the Thanksgiving recess is an absolute travesty. Forcing the Department of Defense to start reprogramming funds to keep our brave men and women fully equipped in Iraq and Afghanistan will jeopardize our efforts to maintain, sustain, and transform our Armed Forces, not to mention create an accounting nightmare. We went through this once before and we saw the trauma that resulted from it.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, in a November 8 letter, stated

that a delay in war funding would force us in December to begin preparing to close facilities, laying off Department of Defense civilian employees, and delaying contracts. According to England, it would completely drain the Army's operations and maintenance accounts by the end of January, and the training of the Iraqi security forces will be delayed without this supplemental.

While fighting the war on terror, we cannot forget about our efforts to sustain and transform our Armed Forces. Pulling money away from such projects will cost us dividends in the future. We talked about that this morning, that we have a lot of things that are happening for our ground forces. We have the future combat systems we are involved in right now, and we cannot allow FCS to keep sliding as it does.

Other countries that are potential adversaries would be in a position actually to have better equipment than we do. A good case in point would be our best artillery piece happens to be called a Paladin. It is World War II technology. It is actually one where, after every round, you have to get out and swab the breech. People do not realize that. There is an assumption out there in America that America has the best of everything--the best strike vehicles, the best lift vehicles--and it is just not true. We do not. But this is one of the problems we will have if we do not continue to fund these efforts.

I have a hard time understanding why now, of all times, we would withhold funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why now, when we are turning the corner in Iraq and our troops are making remarkable progress under the leadership of General Petraeus, would we hand the enemy off, tell them to lay low until December of 2008, and you can have the country then?

This proposed emergency supplemental by the Democrats sends the wrong message to our troops fighting in Iraq and in Afghanistan. It tells them: We will give you the funding to fight your war, but we don't believe in what you are doing.

I do not presume to speak for every American service man and woman fighting overseas, but I have met with a great many of them and have spoken with many of the families back home. It is kind of interesting that I have had the opportunity--and I say opportunity in a very sincere way--to have visited the area of responsibility of Iraq more than any other Member; actually, some 15 times, and I will be returning there in 2 more weeks. So when I talk about the military, these are the ones whom I have talked to on the ground. I watched Ramadi change from the al-Qaida declared capital to Iraqi control. That was a year ago right now when they declared Ramadi would become the terrorist capital of the world. I can remember Fallujah, when we were going from door to door, our marines, who were doing a great job. It is now completely secure, but not by Americans. It is secure by the Iraqi security forces.

I visited the Patrol Base Murray south of Baghdad and met with local Iraqis who came forward and established provisional units of neighborhood security volunteers. These individuals heard that the Americans were coming and were waiting to greet them when they arrived.

I watched these Neighborhood Watch and Concerned Citizens groups take root in Anbar Province--I think everyone realizes now that Anbar Province is kind of the success story over there--local civilians who were willing to take back their cities and their provinces. These citizens actually go out and paint circles around undetonated IEDs and RPGs, and it is something they are doing so we don't have to do it. Now in Iraq, in visiting the joint security stations, you see that our kids, instead of going back to the green zone in Baghdad, for example, go out and actually live with the Iraqi security forces and develop intimate relationships with them. When you see these operations take place, it is very gratifying.

We had the report yesterday up in 407 in a security environment about the successes in Iraq, and while that was a classified briefing, the information they gave is not classified. When you look, you can compare, as shown here--and I wish I had a chart so it could be shown-- October of 2005, the Iraqi security forces had 1 division headquarters, 4 brigade headquarters, and 23 battalions they were leading in their own areas of responsibility. Now, 2 years later, in October of 2007, the Iraqi security forces have 10 division headquarters, 33 brigade headquarters, and 85 battalions. It shows that two-thirds of the entire area we have in Baghdad is now under control and under security. More than 67,000 Iraqis are serving as the concerned local citizens assisting coalitions and Iraqi security forces to secure their own neighborhoods.

Locals in Baghdad's east Rashid district are helping secure forces and locate IEDs. All of these things are going on right now.

I want to wind up. I know the majority leader has time he wants to share with us. But I have to say that Lieutenant General Odierno stated on November 1:

Over the past four months, attacks and security incidents

have continued to decline. This trend represents the longest

continuous decline in attacks on record.

None of this is to say the war is over. We understand that. But I would have to say this: When I listened to my very good friend, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, talk about the doom and gloom, the facts that he cited just flat aren't true. We are winning. We are aggressively winning. Good things are happening. I have to say you don't get that from reading reports. You need to go over there and look for yourself.

The senior Senator from Massachusetts and I agree on a lot of things. He has been very active with me on doing something about the western Sahara problem. He is concerned about what Joseph Coney is doing in northern Uganda. We are together on a lot of things. But as far as Iraq is concerned, he has never made a trip--not one. I have been to A.O.R. 15 times. You have to go over there. I see it as our responsibility as Members of this Senate body. We are encouraged to go over by the military because this encourages our troops who are over there. When you go, they look at you in the eyes and they say: Why is it a lot of the American people don't agree with what we are doing over here? They know there were actually several terrorist training camps in Iraq prior to the time we were over there. In one they were teaching people how to hijack airplanes. All of those are closed down now. It has been a very significant thing. Nothing is more important than continuing along the lines of victory as we are today and finishing the job we have been carrying on in Iraq.

I applaud all of the young people over there. I said today in this hearing that I was a product of the draft and I always felt we would never be able to conduct this type of activity unless we had compulsory service. I have always supported compulsory service. But when I go over and I see these young volunteers, all of them total volunteers who are over there, the dedication they have, the commitment they have, I get very excited and I realize I was wrong. Those guys are doing a great job and we don't need to have compulsory service because we have great, dedicated Americans who are volunteering on a daily basis. The retention rates have never been higher than they are right now. Those individuals who come to the end of their term are reupping in numbers and in statistics we have never seen before. So good things are happening. We need to get this supplemental finished so we can have the continuity of funding over there and not have to rob other areas of our defense system. I am hoping we will be able to do this.

I thank you very much for the time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Chairman Boxer for all of her work and efforts. One thing that is kind of interesting about this is, it shows you this bill has the support of everyone, philosophically, across the whole scope. One of the ratings that came out recently rated me as the No. 1--ACU rating--conservative Member of the Senate, and Senator Boxer was No. 97. So she is a proud liberal, I am a proud conservative, and we proudly both support this bill. That is an accurate statement.

Let me say to Senator Boxer and the Democrats who have been so supportive, they have done a good job talking about what we have done over the last 7 years. This is 7 years of work, Mr. President. It is one we have all worked together on. To the right, to my conservative friends, let me say the President cast his veto. I think the veto was ill-advised. When the President comes through with his vetoes of big spending bills that exceed the budget--maybe SCHIP when it comes in--I will support sustaining his veto, or when Labor-HHS comes along that will be over and above the budget, I will be one of the first ones on the floor to support the President in sustaining the veto.

Last night, we had a lot of time. We weren't confined to a short period of time. I had an opportunity to do something I enjoy, and I had some kind comments about it from some of my Democratic friends. I was giving the history, back to 1816, of authorization versus appropriations. It is interesting because right now we are continuing to make that same argument. I think that is the strongest argument in favor of this bill. What is at stake is the authorization process.

I am going to ask my conservative friends to support this override for two reasons. First of all, as was said by many before me--and I have to say it again--it doesn't spend a cent. This is not a spending bill. If your idea is it is out of range, and you cannot support it because it spends too much, that is the wrong way to look at it. We have worked 7 years to put together this bill. Mr. President, there are 751 projects in the bill, and each one has gone through an authorization process, whereby we have received a report from the Corps of Engineers on each one, and it has taken a long time to get this done.

One of the critics said last night: Why should we authorize more? We have not appropriated all that we have authorized in the past. That is my point. We have 751 projects and probably, judging from the past, we will only authorize maybe 70 percent of those, and they would not be authorized at the highest level. So that is why we have the discipline in place to keep excessive spending under control.

Let's just say--and it will not happen because we are going to override the veto--we did not override the veto and we don't have this bill. There is no way of coming back with a different bill. It cannot be done procedurally. We know that. We would be operating to appropriate for what has not been authorized. That absolutely would not work. It takes all of the preparation, criteria, and reports out of the process.

So, anyway, we don't know how many of these will ultimately be funded. I have to tell Senator Boxer I will be down here opposing some of the things we are authorizing today because that is the way the system works. That is where we have to have fiscal discipline. We have rule XVI, which says, if the appropriators come out and appropriate money that exceeds that which we authorize, it will take a 60-vote point of order margin on rule XVI. I will come down and personally lodge that point of order.

So I say this: This bill does offer the maximum fiscal discipline, and I ask my conservative friends to join us in this veto override, and then join me in sustaining the vetoes on spending bills. Again, this is not a spending bill.

Mr. President, I understand the yeas and nays are automatic.

Mr. President, would the Senator from North Dakota like to have a minute or so?

Yes.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his comments. He is exactly right. If there was time, I would repeat some of the things we talked about last night that the Senator from North Dakota was very complimentary on regarding the history of appropriators versus authorizers since 1816.

I believe what is at stake is the authorization system, which I believe is the only discipline we have in the appropriations process.

Mr. President, I wish to honor the members of the radiation protection profession and to recognize that the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors and the Health Physics Society have resolved that November 4-10, 2007, should be named National Radiation Protection Professionals Week.

Since Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen's discovery of x-rays on November 8, 1895, the use of radiation has become vital in the Nation's health care, defense, security, energy, and industrial programs. However, if misused, this vital technology can harm and injure those using it or benefiting from it. Members of the radiation protection profession make it their life's work to allow government, medicine, academia, and industry to safely use radiation. By providing the necessary leadership, these professionals protect people from radiation hazards thus enabling society to reap benefits of this remarkable technology. I encourage all citizens to recognize the valuable resource represented by their professional scientific organizations, such as the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors, the Health Physics, the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologies, and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. I deeply appreciate the commitment of these professionals and professional organization, and their contribution to our Nation and the world. I invite my colleagues to join me in celebrating National Radiation Protection Professionals Week.

I ask that both of their resolutions be printed in the Record at this time.

Mr. President, it is my understanding, for clarification--because we have changed this a little bit--that our final decision is we are going to have an hour and a half kind of equally divided for those of us who are for overriding the veto, and then after that there will be an hour and a half for the other side, and we can divide our time as we want since we are agreeing on this. Is that correct?

Yes, that is fine.

Good. The bottom line is, we are going to have an hour and a half to state why we think this is not a good veto and to override it.

Mr. President, I do have a number of people, Republicans, who want to come down and be heard who did not have a lot of time for preparation. I am very glad this is coming up right now, but, hopefully, they are still going to be around.

First of all, Senator Bond has been very helpful in this effort and is a very senior member of this committee that put this legislation together. I will yield him whatever time he shall use. Ten minutes.

Mr. President, there will be other Members who want to come down to speak. When that happens, if staff will remind me, I will interrupt my remarks in order to give them time.

But I want to approach this legislation a little bit differently. I could be standing here and saying some of the same things my good friend from Missouri said in terms of things that are in this authorization bill that are critical to my State of Oklahoma, but I think my State of Oklahoma already knows that. I already talked to them about it.

We have things in this bill, and they are not all projects that will be built, but these are projects that the Corps of Engineers has carefully gone through, prioritized, and determined should be done.

Let me give you an example. We have work on the most devastating Superfund site in America called Tar Creek in northern Oklahoma. That is something that is going to be addressed in this legislation. We are more than 50 percent through resolving that problem, but more needs to be done--things such as a lake called Arcadia Lake that is close to the central part of the State. The city of Edmond has been in not a lawsuit but a legal difference with the Corps of Engineers now for many years, and they were almost forced to pay several million dollars for water they never did receive. So a lot of this bill clarifies problems that are out there, and it is necessary.

I think the Senator from Missouri made it very clear, the last time we had a bill was the year 2000--7 years ago--and actually that bill, 7 years ago, was only a 1-year bill. A lot of people think it was a 2- year bill. It was a 1-year bill. We are supposed to have these every year or 2 years, but we have not had one.

Last year I can remember standing here on the floor, and I think we actually got it passed, but then we ran out of time before adjournment took place.

It is very difficult for me to do this because I love our President, but I think he has been ill advised in this case because, as has been pointed out by the Senator from Missouri, this bill does not spend a dime. For people to walk around--and I am doing quite a bit of time on talk radio to make sure the public is aware of this--this is an authorization bill.

In a minute, I am going to explain the history of authorization versus appropriations. I hope there are some people who are listening, particularly conservative people. The reason I say that--we are all rated around here for being conservative or liberal. I happen to be rated by the American Conservative Union, and several other organizations, not No. 2, I say to my friend from Colorado, not No. 3, but No. 1--the most conservative Member of the Senate. Yet I am standing here asking this Senate to override the President's veto of the authorization bill called WRDA.

Now I see my friend, the junior Senator from Louisiana, is wanting to have some time. I will be glad to yield to him, and then I am going to come back and kind of go over some history at that time.

How much time would the Senator like? Ten minutes?

I yield the Senator 10 minutes.

Mr. President, first of all, I thank the Senator from Louisiana. He has been an excellent member of the committee. He has certainly been looking out after the very serious problems that exist even today in his State of Louisiana, problems that exist as a result of Katrina and other things that were happening before, such as beach erosion and other problems they have.

I also thank Senator Boxer. We joke around about this a little bit. We are kind of opposites in terms of philosophies, but we do come together in agreement on the process we use in determining what should be done for infrastructure in this country.

Now, I said just a few minutes ago that I have what some would think is a distinction, and some would question that, but I am rated anyway as the most conservative member of the Senate, and here I am standing up asking my colleagues to join me in overriding a veto that the President should not have made. I think if there are any discerning people who really want to know why, it is pretty heavy lifting to follow this through, but I think it is important to do that.

There are some things that work in government and a lot of things that don't work. My colleagues have heard me say this before when we were talking about the transportation bill, the fact that it is something that does work, where people who are using the transportation system are putting money into it. It comes from a trust account, and we make determinations as to how it should be allocated in accordance with the needs of the States, taking into consideration things such as highway deaths and things such as road miles and lane miles, and then make those allocations. Frankly, it works very well.

This is almost the same process, except these are water projects. Several people have talked about how it is overdue. Actually, this bill is 6 years overdue. We had the last one in the year 2000. We tried in 2001, 2002, 2003, and last year we came--we passed the bill on this floor, standing right here I can remember, and we thought it would be history by now, but the clock caught up with us and we didn't have time to get it out of conference and passed into law.

Now, I think if we look at this--I am going to make a statement a lot of people would not understand, but I am making this statement for my conservative friends. If you take away the authorization process from the way we do business down here, then it has to be done by appropriators. What we are talking about today doesn't spend a dime. You have heard people say it, and I felt the President, in his message, was a little misleading to imply that

this somehow is going to end up in more spending. It doesn't end up in more spending. It wouldn't matter what the amount of the bill is because what this does in this particular bill is it takes 751 projects, and it gives a maximum that can be spent on any project. If you go over the maximum, then you have what we call a 60-vote point of order which I will--I commit to standing up and invoking so we can't spend more money.

Now, it doesn't mean--if the total amount that you would add up in this bill is $23 billion, it doesn't mean it is going to end up costing $23 billion. That money has to be appropriated, and historically it has averaged out to about 70 percent of the projects. I have already said there are--what is the total number of projects in this bill--751 projects. Only 70 percent of those would get any funding, and then many of the rest of them will get funding at an amount far less than we are authorizing. We are saying you can go up to that amount.

Now, to understand this, I would like to kind of walk us through. It appears I will have time to do this because we don't have any more on our side who are planning to come down and speak. So the significant difference between authorizing and appropriating in the Senate is a long history, and it goes back to 1816. Let's start with the charts back there.

The responsibility of authorizing versus appropriating has been a debate that has been ongoing for a long time. What happened is, when they first created some 11 permanent standing committees, that happened in 1816 to handle legislative proposals.

At that time, they weren't really sure about authorizing and appropriating because the problem hadn't really come up yet--until 1867. In 1867, the Senate created the Appropriations Committee. It was the first step of the Senate to separate authorization and appropriations, saying that we should go through the process of authorizing before we appropriate.

In 1899, the Senate adopted a change to rule XVI to remove most of the appropriations bills from its jurisdiction because the Appropriations Committee was enacting policy on how Federal agencies internally operated. There is the difference right there. The first time that happened was in 1899. So the rule XVI, as we know it today, which gave birth at that time, said we should segregate the authorizing process from the appropriations process. Some Senators argued that the Appropriations Committee was legislating on appropriations bills, and the Senate directed that certain authorizing committees would handle appropriations legislation for the issues within their jurisdiction. And this diminished the role of the Appropriations Committee that had been established.

In 1922, the Senate changed course again and adopted another change to rule XVI. It is now rule XVI as we know it today. Rule XVI says that if you appropriate money that is not authorized, it takes a supermajority 60 votes--instead of 51 votes. That may not sound like a big difference to a lot of people, but I assure it is a huge difference in passing legislation. So that restored the general appropriations back to the Appropriations Committee. However, they had the authorization committees to take care of the problems.

I will give you an example. The Armed Services Committee, on which I am honored to sit, is an authorization committee. I could use any number of examples. For example, I could talk about our F-22 vehicle coming up, and there are going to be people who don't really know that we need to have the F-22 because the F-15s and F-16s are inferior to some of the things Russia is making in their SU-30 and SU-35 vehicles. These are technical things that most of the Senators, if they are not sitting on the Armed Services Committee, would not know. Someone who didn't have the advantage of knowing why we should authorize different vehicles to defend America would have no way of doing it if they are just appropriators. So the example I use is a good one.

Right now, in the bill we are considering today, which is in conference--the Senate armed services reauthorization bill--with the House, it addresses the problem with a ballistic missile defense system. A lot of people aren't aware of it unless they sit on the committee, but there are three phases: the midcourse phase, the boost phase, and the terminal phase. There are two vehicles on the boost phase that are still in R&D. We don't have them yet. We are naked in order to try to knock down something in a boost phase. We have two ways of knocking down missiles in the midcourse phase, and we are working on two in the terminal phase.

I don't think there is anybody out there, after 9/11, who would not agree that we need to have this defense for America. That technology is there. If you are just an appropriator and not an authorizer, you would look at that and say: Wait a minute, we have six systems to knock down an incoming missile. So they may say we only need two; we can save X billions of dollars by only having two. But the problem is, as we all know, in the midcourse phase we don't know whether it is going to be within the range of a ground-based missile or where you can use an AEGIS missile fired off a ship. These are six technical systems that are necessary to defend America from an incoming missile. That comes from an authorization committee, not an appropriations committee. A lot of people, who don't have this information, are trying to knock down some of the money we are spending on missile defense. So I think that is probably the best example to use.

The same principle is true on my other committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee. It applies to the bill today, the WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act bill. We review all projects and requests, and we make sure that every project of these 751 projects goes through a lot of scrutiny, and it has certain criteria that have to be met and an engineer's report from the Corps of Engineers.

I remember one time I cast a very unpopular vote--it was the right vote--several years ago when we had the Everglades Restoration Act, which passed 99 to 1. That one was me because it didn't meet the criteria. It didn't have the engineer's report and all that. A lot of people voted for it because they were afraid they could not explain their vote back home. I never had that problem.

We have all these projects that have gone through scrutiny, and when we finally pass the bill--which we have already passed and the President vetoed, and we are going to override the veto tomorrow--it will be reality tomorrow.

Here is what will happen after that. None of these projects we are talking about--sure, a lot of them are in Oklahoma, and a lot are in Colorado, and the Senator from Missouri talked about his, and the Senator from California will talk about things authorized in California. These have all met certain criteria. Very likely, when they come up--a lot of them--for appropriations, I will come down to the floor and oppose them. It doesn't mean I agree with everything we have authorized. We are just saying that thought has gone into it, they have looked at it professionally, it met the criteria, it has engineering reports, and we ought to authorize it and let the appropriators come in, and we can look at it closely to see if maybe we authorized too much or maybe we disagree with it. Right now, I can tell you that I was opposing appropriations to many things we authorized.

I can state it a different way. The only discipline we have in spending, I say to all these people who talk about earmarks, is the authorization process because if we take away the authorization process, we have no way of knowing, when the Appropriations Committee comes with a bill to the floor and says: We want to fund this, whether it meets the criteria.

So what we are doing with the bill we have passed and the veto that will be overridden tomorrow--so it will become law--is we are saying that we are putting in a maximum of 751 projects so that they cannot go over that amount. If they do--I make this commitment on the floor of the Senate tonight--I will be the first one down here to stand up and say I am going to invoke rule XVI to require a 60-vote point of order so that we will have discipline, and the appropriators are not going to spend more money than has been authorized.

That is a quick course. I don't expect that anybody will really understand it or believe it. I know in my heart that it is right and we have to have this

process. This fight that has been taking place between the appropriators and authorizers since 1816 is something that is necessary, and we have to protect authorization.

Let me bring up one more thing. If the President had never vetoed this bill--it doesn't make any difference because we are going to override the veto, and everybody has to know that. So this is kind of an exercise in futility. We have the bill; it is going to be reality. In the event that we are unable to override the veto tomorrow morning, that would mean we would not have an authorization bill. That means that any appropriator could come down here, or anybody else, and say we need to have this, and they could be swapping deals and meet no criteria whatsoever, and that is not the way we want to do it. So I see this as the only discipline we have for spending.

I have mentioned that I have the rating of being the most conservative Member in the Senate, and I do. But I also realize I am a big spender in some areas. One is national defense, and one is infrastructure. That is what we are supposed to do in this body. If you don't think there is a crisis out there in transportation--our roads, highways, and waterways--not very many people realize that in Oklahoma, we are actually navigable. We have a navigation way that comes all the way to my hometown of Tulsa, OK, the Port of Catoosa, where they can come up through Louisiana and up the Arkansas River, and right now we have a problem with that. We have a 12-foot channel, except for one small area that is 9 feet. That is a choke point. That limits what we can do.

If there is anything we need in this country--and all you have to do is drive on the highways and you see the cars and trucks going by and see how much worse the traffic is today than it was in the past. One of the great ways to relieve that traffic is to be able to utilize to a greater extent our navigation ways. I don't have the statistics with me, but you can carry three trainloads of stuff on a barge and move it actually cheaper, in many respects, into places. So in order to do the things the Senator from Missouri talked about in increasing the capacity to use these navigation ways, and even to my State of Oklahoma, it is something that is going to have a profound impact on the future of transportation in this country.

I don't think there is anybody who is so naive not to understand that we have a crisis in our transportation system. The traffic is worse every day, and I am sure each one of us--the 100 Senators who serve in this Chamber--gets hundreds of letters every day asking what are we going to do about the transportation system--not realizing that our action tonight will be a great relief to that problem.

I believe in building the infrastructure of this country, and I believe in the authorization process. I believe it offers our only discipline on spending. I am sorry that a lot of conservatives don't understand this, and they believe this is a spending bill, when it is not. So as much as I hate to do this, I urge my colleagues on the Republican side to join me in overriding the President's veto of this very significant bill that each State in America needs.

Again, I know we are going to be seeing the chairman of the committee, Senator Boxer, soon. It is interesting that the committee called the Environment and Public Works Committee had the largest jurisdiction of any of the committees. Up until the last election and the new majority came in in January, I was chairman. Now Senator Boxer is chairman, and I am ranking member. We have worked together on this bill, and this is not something we have spent just a few hours or days on; we spent 6 years on it. We spent a lot of time looking at last year's bill to see what is relevant today.

Some of the detractors will say: Wait a minute, you have already authorized a lot of things that have not been appropriated. To that, I say you made my point. A lot of the things we are authorizing will not be appropriated. That fortifies the point that this should not be measured as a bill that is a $23 billion bill or something that indicates we are going to spend all this money. This is a bill that is necessary in the process to offer discipline to our spending, and that is what we intend to do.

With that, I will retain the remainder of our time, in the event one of our Members wants more time.

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

Mr. President, the leadership targeted November 16 for adjournment of this session of Congress, although I think we all believe that is a little overly optimistic. Regardless, I am concerned that as of yet, we have not considered an annual tax-extender package containing an extension of a number of very beneficial tax provisions. I am pleased to join with my colleagues to discuss the need to address many beneficial tax-extender provisions.

I wish to highlight two tax provisions of particular interest to me that Congress has annually extended, one ever since 1991 and one since 1993, and they particularly benefit oil and gas development from marginal wells and depreciation. Specifically, these two tax provisions are the suspension of the net income limitation on percentage depletion allowance for marginal oil and gas proceedings and accelerated depreciation for assets in Indian Country.

The United States has approximately 457,000 marginal wells. That is a huge number. A marginal well is one that produces 15 barrels or less a day. A lot of these wells are located in my State of Oklahoma. They collectively produce about 1.2 million barrels per day of annual production. These wells account for nearly 20 percent of the total oil production in the United States, about the amount we are importing from Saudi Arabia.

People do not understand the significance of marginal wells. They cost a lot more to produce--marginal wells. These are shallow wells. They are not profitable like the deep wells in some parts of the country. But when you add them all up, it means this production equals as much as we are currently importing from Saudi Arabia. So it is very significant.

In my State of Oklahoma, it is the small independents--basically the mom-and-pop operators--that are producing the majority of oil and natural gas, with 85 percent of Oklahoma's oil coming from marginal wells--again, that is 15 barrels or less a day. Because marginal wells supply such a significant amount of our oil and gas, it is vital we keep them in operation. However, according to the Department of Energy, between 1994 and 2003 the United States lost 110 million barrels of crude oil due to the plugging of marginal wells.

A lot of people not familiar with the industry think you can always unplug a well. You can't unplug a well. Once you plug it, it is gone. Thus, when we lose marginal well production, we become more dependent upon foreign sources of energy and more dependent at a time when I think almost all of us in here agree that U.S. policy should encourage reliance upon domestic sources. Furthermore, we lose domestic jobs to foreign nations.

If the current suspension of the net income limitation on percentage depletion allowance expires, U.S. production from our marginal wells would be severely hampered. Percentage depletion is a form of cost recovery for mineral and leasehold acquisition costs. The percentage depletion rate for oil and gas is 15 percent of the taxpayer's gross income from a producing property. It used to be closer to 30 percent. It should be higher than 15 percent, but that is where it is today. Only independent producers and royalty owners are able to utilize percentage depletion.

Under the net income limitation, percentage depletion is limited to 100 percent of the net income from an individual producing property. In the case of marginal wells, where total deductions and expenses often exceed gross income, this limitation discourages producers from investing in the continued production for marginal wells with high operating costs and low production yields.

Without the full utilization of the percentage depletion allowance, the net income limitation actually encourages producers to plug and abandon production of marginal wells. Then, of course, as I said before, you have lost them forever.

Congress has, on a temporary basis, suspended the net income limitation since 1997. The current suspension expires at the end of this year. The extension of the suspension of the net income limitation will allow independents the necessary capital to continue to produce from these existing marginal wells, which is critical to the Nation's overall energy security.

Now, additionally, Congress made a special economic incentive available to benefit Indian Country under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. It provides for special accelerated depreciation for new and used assets acquired after December of 1993 on Indian reservations and former Indian reservations in Oklahoma and elsewhere. This depreciation incentive provides an approximately 40 percent shorter recovery period for most commercial property. This accelerated depreciation schedule has been successful in encouraging capital-intensive businesses to locate and expand in Indian Country in Oklahoma and throughout the Nation.

Both of these important provisions expire at the end of this year, and it is crucial that Congress act this year to extend each one.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2184, a bill to allow penalty-free withdrawals from retirement plans for individuals called to active duty, and that the bill be read a third time and passed. I further ask that the bill then be held at the desk until the House companion arrives and that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

No. I would respond to the Senator by saying, if I had a chance to get and look at the Baucus bill and look at all the provisions, I might consider doing it. As it is right now, this is my unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2185, a bill to permanently extend the current marginal tax rates, and that the bill be read a third time and passed. I further ask that the bill then be held at the desk until the House companion bill arrives and that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read for a third time and passed.

This is the same legislation extension that I just described.

No, I will not at this time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2233, a bill to provide a permanent deduction for State and local general sales taxes, and that the bill be read a third time and passed. I further ask that the bill then be held at the desk until the House companion bill arrives and that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate- passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

Not at the present time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2216, a bill to extend the Indian Employment Credit Depreciation Rules for property within an Indian reservation, and that the bill be read a third time and passed. I further ask that the bill then be held at the desk until the House companion arrives and that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

Again, this is one of those I just referred to on the floor of this body.

No. Same problem.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2217, a bill to extend the taxable income limit on percentage depletion allowance for oil and natural gas produced from marginal properties, and that the bill be read a third time and passed. I further ask that the bill then be held at the desk until the House companion arrives and that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

Same response.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2247, a bill to make permanent the depreciation of motorsports entertainment complexes, and that the bill be read a third time and passed. I further ask that the bill then be held at the desk until the House companion arrives and that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate- passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2234, a bill to extend the deduction for qualified tuition and related expenses and that the bill be read a third time and passed. I further ask that the bill then be held at the desk until the House companion arrives and that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read for a third time and passed.

Finally, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2264, a bill to extend the tax-free distributions from individual retirement plans for charitable purposes, and that the bill be read a third time and passed. I further ask that the bill then be held at the desk until the House companion arrives and that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Thank you, Madam President. It is my understanding--I would ask for clarification--I am entitled to 30 minutes.

Thank you very much.