Floor Statements

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the economic stimulus

package we are discussing in the Senate. I certainly appreciate the concern the President and all of us have in the House and Senate about our economy and wanting to do everything we can to make sure we avoid an economic slowdown or recession that creates so much hardship through the loss of jobs and, in many cases, a loss of homes. It is something we definitely need to address. It is equally important, as we look at our economic situation, to make sure we allow economic growth and prosperity to work for more people. It is not just about our economic situation as a whole growing but making sure everyone can share in that prosperity.

It is important, as we look at the best way to stimulate the economy and keep it going, to remember that good jobs and a good economy depend on successful companies making good profits. In order for that to happen, we have to create a good business environment. Our goal as a Congress should be to make sure America is the best place in the world to do business. Unless we do that, we will continue to lose ground to countries all over the world. It is going to be increasingly difficult to sustain long-term economic growth. The world is becoming increasingly competitive. We hear it every day. We hear from Asia and India which are actually courting businesses with incentives to encourage companies to locate in their countries, creating a good business environment with less regulation and less taxes so that people will bring their manufacturing plants, their people, and their capital to their countries. It is working. Even stodgy old Europe that we imagine to be a high-tax and highly regulated network of countries is changing to be more competitive in the world economy. They have lowered their corporate tax rate to an average of about 25 percent. Some of their countries such as Ireland have gone down close to 10 percent and have seen remarkable economic growth as they have lowered their tax rate.

Why is this country not responding in the same way? It hasn't been too long since I have been in the private sector working with businesses. I continue to hear the same sentiment. If we are going to do business in America today, before we get to the equipment and the people actually making the products or providing services, a medium- sized American company today is likely to have a large tax department. It could spend millions on dealing with our Tax Code. We have the most complex tax system in the world and probably the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Some will say it is second. Some say it is first. But we are definitely near the top at around 35 percent. So they start with a large tax department.

Then most of our companies also have large legal departments because we are the most litigious society in the world. The most liability for any country is to do business in America. It is not unusual to talk to successful, well-known American companies that are dealing with hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits at the same time. So they keep a full-time fleet of lawyers and law firms on retainer dealing with the lawsuits and the legal situations.

These same companies also have large human resource and compliance departments to deal with all of our regulations--some of them good, many unnecessary. A lot of regulations related to capital and reporting, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, are costing companies millions of dollars unnecessarily because Congress is unwilling to fix those things we know are wrong. So there is a large tax department, a large legal department, a large human resource compliance and regulatory department, before we get to manufacturing and actually making things. We are making it very difficult for our companies to compete.

Add to that the cost of energy which is one of the highest in the world. That goes back to bad policy as well. For years we have known we have large oil and natural gas reserves. We have known we could develop more nuclear generation of electricity. Yet we have not allowed nuclear plants to be developed. We have large reserves of oil in Alaska, which we have consistently voted down in the Congress, and natural gas we don't go after. Therefore, we are not only spending hundreds more for every family for gasoline for cars or oil to heat homes or more for electricity, we are sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year out of this country that could support our economy yet is supporting the Middle East and other economies around the world. Yet we will not change the policy. We will not develop our own energy resources. Instead, we are making it harder to produce automobiles in this country, putting the burden on them consistently.

Now, instead of trying to fix some of the systemic policy problems, we are talking about an economic stimulus plan which I have yet to hear, at least on the Republican side in our private meetings, one Republican defend as good policy. Maybe some will come out here and do so. But everyone on both sides is talking about good politics. We are doing nothing for long-term growth. We are doing nothing to create a simpler, more predictable Tax Code or reducing our regulation or litigation. What we are going to do in time for the election is to get a check in the hands of as many people as we can, and we are borrowing it from the future. The debt is growing. We are going to borrow the money to send checks home to Americans.

In 10 years on the present course, bonds for the American Government will be rated as junk bonds in the world because we continue to look at the next election rather than the future of the country.

It is obvious what we could do to develop a long-term, sustained economic growth pattern. If we made the current tax rates permanent, the ones we know have stimulated our economy, that would allow companies to plan past 3 years to build new plants, to buy new capital equipment, to hire new people. Right now American companies trying to do business in this country do not know what their tax rates are going to be after 2010. In fact, if we do nothing in Congress, they know they will experience the highest tax increase in history. Yet we are not even willing to talk about it. All of us know we need to lower our corporate tax rate to at least be comparable to Europe at 25 percent. Yet we are not doing it. So more of our capital, more of our jobs, more businesses will continue to move offshore. Sending people a few hundred dollars to pay down their credit cards is not going to help grow our economy.

There are other things we know we can do. We know we can bring capital from overseas back home for investment and growth if we lower the corporate tax rate as we did a few years ago, what we call repatriating those dollars. Even temporarily lowering that rate would bring capital home and encourage growth.

The one part of the stimulus package that does make sense is to allow companies to expense or to speed up depreciation of capital they buy so it will encourage them to grow and make decisions now because the people who make that equipment have jobs, and those who operate that equipment have jobs. So it would provide some stimulus. But it is most important that we have a predictable, permanent system where people can do business and be competitive around the world. It is unfortunate in all this debate that we are not even willing to talk about it.

I appreciate the time to express my concerns. I am thankful everyone is concerned about the economy and those who have lost their jobs and may lose them in the future. But what we are doing as a Congress is talking about doing something that we are not really doing: we are not stimulating the economy. This is not an economic stimulus package. It is a political stimulus package that is designed to help folks in November.

I know every American needs a check and probably none will turn it down. But, unfortunately, we are making false promises that will not carry into long-term economic growth.

I yield the floor.

I object.

Will the Senator yield? I think there are a few of us who would like to make comments on the omnibus, but I don't think we are going to use all of our time.

That is my preference, to make some comments.

Mr. President, hopefully, we can cut the time short. We insist on some comments about this bill because it is probably the largest bill that has ever passed in the Senate. It is sitting in front of me tonight. It amazes me we are willing to take this lightly. This is the bill we are getting ready to vote on, probably the biggest spending bill that has ever passed in the Senate. It was received yesterday. Normally it is a courtesy in the Senate that the bills we are debating are placed on every Senator's desk so that we can at least have the pretense that we have looked at them. But you will notice that this bill is not on any desk in the Chamber because there is not one single Senator here tonight who can say they have read this bill.

No, sir, I am going to make my statement. I know we are all tired and ready to go home. I do appreciate the work of my colleagues. I wish them all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful time with their families. But this is the last bill of the year. It is not just any bill. We began the year, all of us, very hopeful. Oftentimes a change is helpful as we rethink how we do things. In fact, I began this year introducing one of Speaker Pelosi's bills that provided more transparency to earmarks that I thought was better than ours. I introduced it on the Senate side. But, unfortunately, as we have gone through the year, we haven't been able to get our work done.

We like to say we are the world's greatest deliberative body. I have to ask my colleagues tonight, on the largest bill we have ever considered, the most expensive bill we have ever considered, what deliberation?

We don't even know what is in this bill. We haven't had any real debate. We are going to try to cut it off in an hour or so. This is a couple of times bigger than the Bible. It is bigger than Webster's Dictionary. It has some of the most important provisions to direct our country over the next year that we could possibly consider. We don't even have a desk copy.

I would like to make a few things clear about this bill. This does not include the Iraq and Afghanistan money. We voted on that separately. It is done. It is going to go back to the House. A vote against this bill is not a vote against our troops, but it is a vote against how this has been done and the mismanagement that has occurred. To bring this much spending and this many provisions, 3,400 pages plus in 24 hours, and ask us to vote on it is irresponsible.

There should be no confusion tonight. We are not going to vote on the Iraq funding, which we passed. I am here to encourage my colleagues to consider for many reasons voting against this omnibus spending bill. I am afraid it is indicative of the way we have run this year, as we look at this big bill sitting in front of us.

I am afraid the new majority has attempted to cater to so many special interests with so many diverse interests that we have really become dysfunctional and have not been able to get our work done. They cannot really support the funding of the troops or they will irritate the antiwar left. They cannot vote for fiscal responsibility or they will irritate the special interest lobbyists who need a lot of the special projects and earmarks in this bill.

So instead, we have come up with this arcane procedural process. This is not really a bill; it is some form of message. And we are going to pass it separately so that we can have it both ways and no one can be blamed for the mismanagement. But there should be no mistake. Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid is the Senate majority leader. The Democrats are in charge of Congress. This is their process. It is their bill. And I am afraid, my colleagues, it is a disgrace.

This is the bill. As I have said, it might be the largest bill in the Nation's history. It is the most expensive bill in America's history-- 3,400 pages-plus; 24 hours to consider its contents. It took over 6 hours just to print this out. There is one copy in the cloakroom on both sides. We have not even read it. It contains over 9,000 earmarks. If we can see this chart over this large stack of legislation: 9,100 earmarks, plus the 2,100 that have already been passed.

If you remember, a lot of the culture of corruption we talked about at the beginning of this year was attributed to the earmarks--trading earmarks for bribes and earmarks for campaign contributions. The new majority promised the American people, with my support, that we would reduce the number of earmarks significantly.

One of the last acts of the Republican majority was to stop the big omnibus last year and to force a continuing resolution where the result was only 2,600 earmarks.

Those who say this large number of earmarks has always been a part of the Senate do not know our history. All you have to do is go back to 1995: 1,400 earmarks. If you go back past then, there were fewer than that.

This is not a constitutional function. It has not been part of the history of the Senate. This growth in earmarks is a perversion of the purpose of this Congress, where we have changed our focus from national interests, the future of this country, to parochial, special interests that we work on every year and hardly even talk about those issues that challenge our Nation--such as a Tax Code that is sending jobs overseas; entitlement programs, where we do not have a clue how we are going to pay for them; health care, when people cannot receive it in our country. We are fighting over bike paths and museums and little special projects all year long.

This year, with the new majority, we are back up to the second highest level in history of the number of earmarks, special project earmarks, that we are supporting in this bill right here, and we do not even know everything that is in it as yet. It contains at least $20 billion in budget gimmicks and so-called emergency spending. I could go down the list. It would put a lot of people to sleep. There are a number of ridiculous provisions that we are just finding.

The serious debate over immigration came down to at least one starting solution: that we are going to secure our borders. We voted the money to build fence and barriers on our borders. But this bill changes what we have already passed. It allows for only a single-layer fence and takes out the requirement for the location of the fence in States, that the money cannot be released until 15 new requirements authored by the Appropriations Committee are satisfied. It is just designed to delay what the American people made clear to us earlier in the year. They want us to have a country with secure borders. This bill changes that. It also provides $10 million to pay for lawyers for illegal aliens.

The English requirement. The Senate passed language earlier in the year to ensure that employers are not subjected to Government-funded lawsuits if they require English in the workplace. This bill takes that protection away from employers and exposes them to lawsuits because they need English spoken in the workplace.

Sanctuary cities. The prohibition against sanctuary cities was taken out.

There are special earmarks for the AFL-CIO, a number of others.

We could go down the list. Again, we are just starting to find out what is in the bill. I know very few Senators here tonight know what is really in it.

The organizations that are watching this Congress to try to identify waste are going to be key voting this tonight. I think my colleagues know they consider that a very serious issue. The Citizens Against Government Waste are saying vote no. The Club for Growth says vote no. The American Conservative Union says vote no. The Americans for Prosperity: No. Americans for Tax Reform: No. National Taxpayers Union. We can continue to go down the list. All the organizations that downloaded this off the Web last night and began looking through it within an hour or two found things that made it unacceptable.

It is an unacceptable bill, and it should not be part of the world's greatest deliberative body tonight. But I think we agreed--I think the American people asked the new majority to end business as usual. I hope we can do that tonight. I hope we can give the American taxpayers a real Christmas present and stop wasting their money, stop breaking the promises. While we are making all the new promises in here, we are not making provisions to keep the promises we make.

I know most of my colleagues believe this is not the way we should be running the Senate and that they would like for there to be a better way. We do not have to vote against the troops to vote against this bill. I would encourage my Democratic colleagues, many of them who have stood with us this year on earmark reform, that is one reason alone to vote against this bill: the policy changes, the moving more money to Planned Parenthood, the compromising of our border security. The list is getting longer and longer, and we are not even a quarter of the way down the bill yet.

I encourage my colleagues to join the American people and help us stop wasteful spending. This is the last bill of the year. It is the last vote. It is going to say a lot about this Congress and what we have accomplished. This is our chance to at least say: No more business as usual. We are not going to do business this way, where we pile 3,400-plus pages on a desk, in 24 hours, and ask the Senators of this country to vote for it without even knowing what is in it. It is not the way to run a Senate. It is not the way to run a country.

I plead with my colleagues, let's leave this year on a positive note. Vote against this omnibus and give Americans a real Christmas present.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield back.

Has the Senator read the bill? Have you read the bill?

Mr. President, I think we came into this year very hopeful in a lot of ways. The Republicans lost the majority, and in some ways I think that is a good thing. We lost our discipline on spending, and for many years our Democratic colleagues were more than happy to help us and even try to one-up us during the period we were in the majority.

Our last act as the majority, though, was a good one. We were able to stop last year's omnibus bill and force Congress to move ahead under a continuing resolution that only had about 2,000 earmarks--wasteful earmarks. This year, the majority unfortunately has expanded that back to about 6,000, which is disappointing because we entered the year with a lot of promises from the new majority, a lot of hopes about things that would change. Our Democratic colleagues ran on cleaning up the culture of corruption and getting rid of a lot of wasteful earmarks.

I, for one, wanted to help. In fact, one of the first things I did this year was introduce Nancy Pelosi's, Speaker Pelosi's, earmark transparency bill in the Senate. Unfortunately, the new majority decided it wasn't right the way they did it and filled it full of loopholes, and we have been fighting all year to try to continue to disclose a lot of this wasteful spending.

Now, as I said, as we end the year, instead of the 2,000 earmarks we were at last year, we are going to 6,000 plus. We are also way over budget. The amount we have over budget this year will translate over the next 10 years to about $300 billion in additional spending. That is a lot of money for anyone to even conceive of, but just so Americans will know, that amount would allow us to continue the tax relief we have had for the last several years for another 10 years without spending any additional money as a government. That tax relief affects every American. Instead, because we haven't acted, because we haven't kept our promises, next year millions of Americans, middle-class Americans will experience a new tax that they have never experienced before, and a lot of them don't know it is coming.

The disappointment, I guess, as we end this year is there are so many needs as a nation that we haven't acted on. Instead, we have spent the year with 40 resolutions on Iraq. We have tried to expand Government health care, holding children hostage to moving to more Government- controlled health care. The 40 Iraq resolutions were all done holding our troops hostage and the funding for our troops and the weapons and the armament they need to succeed. We spent the year on things such as trying to eliminate the secret ballot for workers when folks are trying to unionize them. Workers have always had the freedom to vote secretly and not be coerced or intimidated, but we have held workers hostage this year.

We have all of these new wasteful earmarks. Americans have heard about them, whether it is a hippie museum or monuments to different Members of Congress, billion-dollar parks at the expense of our veterans funds. We have balled that all up as we go into the end of the year $300 billion over budget for the next 10 years with wasteful earmarks, including monuments to ourselves. I think we have done something even worse than the wasteful spending because we have tied to this wasteful spending ball at the end of the year the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society. We have tied the children to it. We have said they need more health care. We have tied our troops to it, and we are holding them hostage. Instead of giving them the money they need over the next several months, we are tying them up and holding them hostage.

Our veterans, we filled the Veterans bill with wasteful earmarks, and we are holding our veterans hostage. We have basically made human shields out of the most vulnerable Americans, and we are challenging Members of the Senate and Members of the House: Vote for this bill that is billions over budget, that contains billions of wasteful earmarks. You either vote for this bill or you are voting against children and veterans and seniors and voting against our troops. This is no way to run the most important Government in the world.

So we end the year with a lot of broken promises. We have not helped Americans buy health insurance; in fact, we have made it harder. We haven't cut spending; we have raised it. We have increased the number of earmarks from last year. All we have done is talk. While our troops are succeeding in Iraq, we are trying to cut their funding. Instead of broken promises, we need to focus on the promises we need to keep.

We have promised Americans since the beginning of our Constitution that we are going to protect them. That is our main purpose. We need to keep our promises to seniors because we have taken their money all their lives and promised them Social Security and Medicare will be there. We need to keep those promises. We need to keep the promise of making freedom work for everyone and not to use the problems in our society as an excuse to replace freedom with more Government, which is what we are in the process of doing at every turn in Washington.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I hope we can end the year in a more bipartisan fashion and work on reducing the amount of spending, the wasteful earmarks, and try to focus our efforts on the real priorities of this country that affect real Americans and not to hold our people hostage to this wasteful spending. We have just another month or so to finish our business, and I hope we finish it with some honor and dignity in a way that the American people would regain some trust in this Senate and in this Congress.

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

Mr. President, I thank the Senators.

Amendment No. 3467

I would like to discuss amendment No. 3467. Before I discuss the amendment specifically, I would like to talk a little bit about rail passenger service in America and Amtrak specifically.

I think one of the best infrastructure visions we could have as a country today would be to create high-speed passenger rail service that moves people economically and efficiently around the country. The irony is, as long as we continue to pour our Federal resources into the Amtrak model, we will never get to that vision of an efficient passenger rail service in this country.

It is clear from years of working with Amtrak and the model of using freight rails and Government subsidies to support an Amtrak system, we will never have a world-class passenger rail service through the Amtrak model. So I hope we as a Congress, as a Senate, particularly, can come to terms with the fact that if we continue to throw money at Amtrak, we will never have efficient passenger rail service.

Certainly, there are a couple of lines of rail service of Amtrak, particularly in the Northeast, that work well for a number of people. But the fact is, many Americans are contributing to the few passengers who are using Amtrak today. Taxpayers all over the country are putting their money into these few lines that work, even though very few Americans actually ever use these rail services.

As we discuss this final bill, it is important we remember that in the last year the Federal Government gave Amtrak $1.3 billion in subsidies, even though they carry less than 1 percent of the Nation's intercity passengers.

Amtrak is the most heavily subsidized mode of transportation in the country. In fact, every ticket people purchase from Amtrak has an average subsidy of over $210 per passenger per 1,000 miles traveled. We even have some lines where the subsidy reaches as high as $500.

My amendment does not change this. But it tells America the truth about the subsidies for each of these tickets people buy.

My amendment requires Amtrak to put on every ticket for the line they

are using the amount of subsidy the taxpayers are putting into the cost of each of these tickets. By doing this, we will force Amtrak to do what all businesses have to do, which is to track the real cost of every product they sell.

Right now, it is very difficult to determine actually how much Amtrak spends on each of its lines of service. But by requiring they put the cost of the subsidy on every ticket, they will have to calculate the cost--which is the revenue and the losses--for each line in this country.

Every business should have to do it. Amtrak should as well.

It is the only way we can get a handle on actually how much we are spending for each line and hopefully determining, after a while, which lines make sense to continue and which lines should be eliminated.

So I encourage all my colleagues to vote for this amendment. It does not do anything to reduce funding for Amtrak or put any additional restrictions on them. But it does require them to show America what the real subsidy is for every ticket they sell.

So I say to you, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the remainder of my time and look forward to your comments. Hopefully, we will have your support on this amendment.

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

Mr. President, I understand at 4 o'clock we have a vote on DeMint amendment No. 3467. I would summarize again the purpose of this amendment and what it entails. We have talked about the importance of disclosure, in letting the American people know how Government operates and actually what it costs them.

When it comes to Amtrak, we are all very aware that there are heavy subsidies for Amtrak. This works out to an average of over $210 a ticket across the country. In some parts of the country Amtrak is working very well and in other parts of the country, the Federal Government is subsidizing over $500 a ticket to keep this going.

That is fine. I will take a couple more minutes.

My amendment requests full disclosure of the costs of subsidies for each ticket. This would allow passengers and all Americans to know that when they buy a ticket, how much tax dollars go in, in addition to what they pay, to subsidize the price of their ticket.

This will do a number of things, I think, that are important. It will not only let the American people know how much they are spending to keep Amtrak going, it will force Amtrak to actually calculate the real costs of operating their lines throughout the country.

In order for us as a Congress to make good decisions about Amtrak and allow them to make good decisions about which lines should be discontinued, which ones should be continued, it is important for them to calculate the cost. Right now the way they calculate costs does not allow them to determine the real costs for their lines. I want to make clear we are not trying to cut any funding in this amendment from Amtrak. We are not asking to do anything but what a normal business would do; that is, to calculate the real cost of operating each of their lines.

It is the same as asking a business to determine the cost of all of their product lines so they can determine which are profitable, which are not. In this case, we will determine not only which ones are not profitable, and how much in subsidies there is, but what the real costs are for each line.

I encourage my colleagues to support this as a measure of disclosure for Amtrak, not in any way to harm Amtrak or their operations. I think it is a way to help them be more efficient in the future.

With that, I yield back the remainder of my time.

I appreciate the motives of those who sponsored the bill. It is true that by us not enforcing our laws over many years we have created a lot of tragic circumstances. But the solution is not to reward lawbreaking and create incentives for more illegal immigration in the future.

America has asked us to secure our borders, create a worker ID system, and an immigration system that works. If we do this, if we build that foundation, then the possibility of comprehensive reform becomes a reality.

I would encourage my colleagues not to chip away in the way of trying to provide compassion through amnesty, but let's fix the system like we promised and revisit this next year. Then, hopefully, we can achieve the comprehensive reforms that my colleagues have talked about. I urge my colleagues to vote against proceeding to this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 3387 be called up for immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I do want to make sure we have called up amendment No. 3387. I appreciate the chairman agreeing to this slight change in the purpose statement, not the legislative language.

This amendment is part of an effort to clear up what a lot of us have called the culture of corruption over the last several years. A lot of this has come from Americans connecting the dots between the earmarks that we give to our favorite causes back home and many of the campaign contributions and political support that we get back here in Congress. While motivations are generally good, at best the appearance of what is going on here has alarmed the American people.

My earmark amendment today addresses two specific earmarks in the appropriations bill that is in front of us. One of the earmarks provides $1.5 million for the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute and $2.2 million for the AFL-CIO Appalachian Council. These funds come in the form of what are referred to as noncompetitive grants, according to the text of the bill and the committee report--which means no one else can compete to deliver the services that are intended by the bill, that these are a specific earmark to divisions of the AFL-CIO.

These earmarks are problematic because they fund two organizations that are not competitive. They provide funds that could be better spent to achieve the mission of the Department of Labor set out by Congress in the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. Rather than continuing to give these groups handouts without any competition, we should force them to compete with other organizations so Americans get the most value for their tax dollars. That is exactly what my amendment will do. It replaces these two earmarks that total $3.7 million with competitive grants.

Let me be clear. I am not taking the money out of the bill. The money is still there for the purposes for which it is intended, but it allows organizations to compete to deliver these services so that the taxpayers get the most for their money.

Let me say a few things about the performance of the AFL-CIO organization so my colleagues understand why there is such concern. The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute originally received grants under the Workforce Investment Act. The grants were given to national organizations for the purpose of providing technical assistance in setting up systems of local and State workforce investment boards for the purpose of helping unemployed workers get the training and the jobs they need.

After 3 years, these capacity-building services were no longer needed, and the grants were terminated. However, the Working for America Institute failed to complete its mission in 3 years, so the Department gave it a fourth year of funding. After the fourth year, the Department terminated its contract with the Working for America Institute and explained:

It is difficult to make the case that the AFL-CIO should

receive yet a fifth year of funding for organizational

purposes when the other national organizations were able to

achieve their goals in 3 years. Additionally, given that

there are so many workers seeking training or retraining

opportunities, we believe the Department of Labor's emphasis

is rightly placed on promoting employment and reemployment

projects having measurable outcomes.

The Department believes the technical assistance given by the institute is duplicative and less effective than a similar program already funded in their Employment and Training Administration. It said:

We should focus limited financial resources on programs

that deliver actual training services to workers, rather than

pour additional funds into organizational infrastructure.

After 4 years, the AFL-CIO should have developed sufficient

ability to participate effectively in the Workforce

Investment Act system.

Despite these failures, Congress overrode the Department and earmarked funds for $1.5 million in fiscal year 2005 in the appropriations bill in that year, and it continued the project through June of this year. Now this appropriations bill is trying to do the same thing again. This is a clear example of Congress interfering with agency decisions because of parochial or political interests. Congress should not fund a program that is duplicative and not a critical priority for an agency. It should have to compete for funds like every other organization.

Let me address the second earmark in this bill. The AFL-CIO Appalachian Council had a longstanding sole-source

contract with the Department of Labor that spanned several decades. The purpose of the contract was to provide career technical training and career transition services at job placement centers in Pittsburgh, PA, Charleston, WV, and Batesville, MS. It is important to note that the council does not manage or run these three centers. It simply provides the training, placement, and transition services.

The Department of Labor reviewed the council's performance in 2004 in light of the new requirements of the Workforce Investment Act. The review resulted in the Department terminating the council's sole-source contract because it was no longer the only and unique provider of career transition services and because it experienced a steady decline in program performance over a 5-year period.

Despite these failures, Congress stepped in and earmarked $2.2 million for the council in fiscal year 2005, forcing the Department to continue the contract. Following this, the Department canceled the contract again, but Congress reversed the agency's decision a second time with another $2.2 million earmark in 2006.

After the second year came to a close, the Department reviewed the performance outcomes of the council. In 2006, the council placed 265 graduates in apprenticeship programs and 71 graduates in jobs matching their vocational training. With the earmark funded at $2.2 million, the cost of each of these graduates was $6,547. Each of the council's 21 staff members placed less than 2 students per month in a registered apprenticeship program. Despite being given a second chance by Congress, the Department terminated the contract again this year.

Unfortunately, the appropriations bill we are considering gives another earmark to the council to continue the services and designates it a noncompeting earmark, which means no one else can compete to do the service right. Here we have two examples of earmarks that circumvent the normal competitive process and abuse the American taxpayer.

The AFL-CIO has plenty of funds to continue these programs. In 2006, the AFL-CIO reported $96 million in assets and $157.2 million in receipts. Their top five executive officers made from $179,000 to $291,000 a year, with 204 employees making more than $75,000 a year. Of their disbursements, about $30 million, or nearly 40 percent of their total receipts, went for political activities and lobbying.

The AFL-CIO should either fund the program itself or help the institute develop a competitive grant proposal, but these organizations should not get a handout. My amendment, as I said before, does not eliminate the funds, but it does require the AFL-CIO to compete based on real criteria and accountability to deliver the services for the American taxpayer.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to turn these noncompetitive grants into competitive grants so we accomplish the purpose in an accountable way. I ask my colleagues to vote for my amendment later on this morning. I appreciate their support.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I agree with all the purposes the Senator stated, all of the ideas of getting teenagers to work in Philadelphia. All of those things are good. I am not taking argument with any of them. If the AFL-CIO is the best source to deliver these services, there should not be any problem with this at all. All we are asking is to make this a competitive grant so that we can have criteria and accountability in a system so that what we want to accomplish will actually get accomplished. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I appreciate my colleagues' attention. I would first like to ask unanimous consent to add Senator Enzi as a cosponsor of my amendment.

Mr. President, I want to make clear to my colleagues that my amendment does not remove any money from this bill for its intended purpose. In fact, the amendment addresses the Workforce Investment Act, money that goes to training and job

placement in several places in the country. My amendment only changes the language from a sole-source noncompetitive grant, which we would refer to as a direct earmark, to a competitive grant.

We have all seen that the competitive grant system is a better way to deliver Federal money to specific causes that we support as a Senate because there are criteria, there are standards, and there is accountability. So we are not excluding the AFL-CIO as a provider of the services that we intend, but it opens it for competitive bids. And it is important to realize that the Department of Labor, after judging the performance of the AFL-CIO, has found the performance lacking and has discontinued the contracts.

So please open this for competitive bidding. Please vote no on the motion to table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 3338.

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

Mr. President, I actually wanted to bring up another amendment to speak on briefly. If there is no objection, I would like to call up amendment No. 3340 at the same time. I will speak to both of them.

Mr. President, amendment No. 3340 is one we have already seen. It is a simple amendment that we all agree on. Both sides accepted it unanimously last week on the last appropriations bill that we considered.

This is an amendment that prohibits Members of Congress from pressuring Federal agencies to designate funds, what we call ``phone marks'' to special projects back home.

All of us have worked real hard to create more transparency and disclosure of earmarks. Last week we added to the last appropriations bill this amendment that would prohibit Members of Congress from going around the earmark disclosure process and pressuring Federal agencies to designate funds.

This is an amendment that I also want to add to this appropriations bill. I understand both sides will be willing to accept this again.

Amendment No. 3338

I would like to address my second amendment at this point as well. This is a very difficult amendment to talk about because when we start talking about earmarks in the House or the Senate, all of those earmarks are something that have been designated by individual Members of Congress. So it is often taken quite personally when we challenge these amendments and make it public, particularly amendments that do not sound good to taxpaying Americans.

I want to assure my colleagues that my point is not to focus on Members of Congress but to focus on wrong ideas; in fact, wrong ideas about earmarking and spending taxpayer dollars that have discredited this body with the American people.

We know only 11 percent of the American people have any kind of favorable perspective of Congress at this point. A lot of it is because of the publicity of how we spend their money.

I was made aware by ``CBS News'' of a particular earmark that the House has put in their version of the Labor-HHS bill. CBS is not known for being supportive of conservative causes. They were pointing out a particular attachment to the House appropriations bill, which will be in the final bill if we do not disallow it in the Senate.

It is an earmark for $2 million that was put in this bill by Congressman Rangel, chairman of Ways and Means. This $2 million earmark goes to a new Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York. This center does not yet exist. It is one that money is being raised for at this time.

Frankly, the college does not need this duplication of an educational service which already exists on the campus, but the description of this building includes not only an educational program--that is, a duplication of the Colin Powell Center which is already there--but it also creates a library for the personal archives of Congressman Rangel and a well-furnished office for his personal use.

CBS made the point, and they actually called this ``Monument to Me.'' And not just about Congressman Rangel but about all of us who, through the earmarking process each year, are given a personal slush fund to send taxpayer dollars to our favorite causes back in our home States and districts.

Increasingly, Members of Congress are doing things such as giving money to colleges and other organizations that are naming buildings and programs after us so that it will attract more earmarks. It has become a vicious circle that Americans are on to.

CBS made the point of this waste of money. To me, it, frankly, looks very bad. It reflects poorly on all of us, and it discredits a lot of the good things we do. Again, my point is not to identify a particular Member of Congress to embarrass them but, hopefully, to embarrass us all; that we are all involved with a very bad approach to spending taxpayer dollars.

The idea of each Member of Congress--we all have papers, we all give them to colleges. Does this mean we will all get taxpayer money to send to these colleges to build some type of Presidential-like library to archive our papers and give us personal offices? I assume it is permanent.

The hard-working people in South Carolina who are paying taxes should not be building a center for Congressman Rangel in New York. If we had plenty of extra money, maybe we could talk about it. But the fact is, we are borrowing this money from future generations to build monuments to ourselves all around the country.

My amendment would disallow the use of funds in this bill for this particular project, hopefully making a point to all of us that this is not what

America expects when they send us to Congress. Our job is to do what is best for this country in our future, not to create slush funds for ourselves so we can win popularity back home by taking money back home, particularly when we get involved with this back and forth of, they named something after us, so we give money to them. It does not look good, it does not sound good, and it is not good. It is not good for our country and our future.

I encourage every Member of this Senate to vote for this amendment that would disallow funds for this project and hopefully send a message here and all around America that we are going to reform ourselves, and we are no longer going to be embarrassed by CBS and other media. Every time they point out what we are doing, we cannot hide from the fact that it is shameful. I do not want my tax dollars spent this way. I know the people in South Carolina do not. I bet if we had a chance to ask every American, not one would say this is how they expect their tax dollars to be spent.

I encourage my colleagues to vote for this amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3340 be pending at this time.

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

I ask for the yeas and nays on amendment No. 3338.

Mr. President, we do have two amendments I have offered. My understanding was that there would be a voice vote on 3340, and I have asked for the yeas and nays on 3338, if I may correct my request.

That is correct.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on amendment No. 3338.

Will the Senator yield?

I appreciate the concerns. Again, it is difficult when names of Members of Congress are involved. The college already has an education center specifically for the purpose listed for the Charles Rangel Center. It is called the Colin Powell Center. They perhaps added some bells and whistles, archived the papers as well as the personal office we talked about.

To the chairman's objection about this not being in our bill, in this body we regularly disallow funds for various agencies that are not listed in our bill but that as a body we decide it is not the appropriate way for money to be spent.

We should honor Congressman Rangel and others who have served with distinction as he has. CBS brought out that the college had not made the decision or at least would not make the decision as to how to name the center. So there were a lot of questionable things that came up in this report, questions enough that CBS decided to make it news.

My point is, if we get into the practice as Members of Congress while we are still serving of responding to centers being named after us by getting taxpayer dollars back to them and getting personal offices in buildings around the country, this is clearly not our purpose, and it is not one that will be respected by the American people.

I look forward to further debate. I appreciate all the time.

Mr. President, if the Senator will continue to yield, I appreciate the give-and-take. We have made the point many times. We did it with judges. We created a law that would not allow us to name courthouses after active judges, but once they retire, we look at it differently. The same is true for Members. Senator Baker and Senator Dole are not in positions now to direct money to different places because they are named after them, but we are. There is a serious question here, and we should make a distinction between what we do while we are serving and what we do after we have retired.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have been in the Senate about 3 years, and I have become increasingly concerned that many of my colleagues and good friends, whom I deeply respect, now believe it is our purpose here in the Senate to take tax dollars from the American people and then give them to our favorite causes back in our States. There are many wonderful causes back in South Carolina. I could spend a whole national treasury on them if I could get my hands on it, but that is not what I am here for. Americans expect us to work for the good of the country, of everyone and our future as a whole, not to create slush funds for ourselves and give them to our favorite causes back home.

My amendment addresses a particular cause, and my purpose is not to

embarrass a Member of Congress but to point out that it is particularly egregious if we, as Members of Congress, take taxpayer money and give it to some project that has been named after us, and in this case Mr. Rangel has gotten $1 million or $2 million.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for another 30 seconds since no one else is speaking.

My amendment strips this out. Some have said it is not in the Senate bill, so we don't need to do it. We do that all the time; we disallow the use of funds for particular reasons because that is not what a bill is intended for.

Some have said we name things after Senators all the time. But it has only been after they have retired that we have done that. We do it for judges after they retire.

We have to stop this insidious problem of becoming a favor factory where we are giving away taxpayer money for things we are not supposed to do, despite how worthy they might be. Please support my amendment to strike this egregious provision.

Will the Senator yield?

We have done this before. We did it with spinach a while back. It is not unusual for us to disallow the use of funds for things not in our bill. It is important we do it as a Senate; otherwise, it will end up in the final bill.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for leading the national dialog on health care. I think Americans expect us to address this issue and not just fight about it, as the Senator from Texas has said.

This national discussion is bringing us to some agreement, at least. I think all of us have decided in Congress--or at least most of us-- that every American should have access to a health insurance policy they can afford and own and keep. Where we disagree is how we get to that point. I think the disagreement in this body goes to how we do that. Do we do it more like Canada did, where we say, OK, everybody needs to have insurance, so let's let the Government take it over; let's have Government-run health care?

Some are saying the Canadian system works fine, until you talk to doctors and patients from Canada and find out that every year the waiting lines get longer, every year the program gets more expensive, and every year the health care is of less quality. So now the people in Canada who have the means come to the United States to get health care.

The reason we have had such good health care in the United States for most of our history is that it has been done by private doctors working with patients, hospitals that are independent of Government; our free enterprise system has worked to a great degree.

Government programs, such as Medicare and the program we are talking about today, such as the children's health plan, have helped those in need to buy health insurance and have access to health care. But for the most part, Americans have resisted Government-run health care.

We do know in the early nineties there was an attempt to move totally to Government health care. When that failed, we were able to see that the advocates of Government-run health care believed the best way to get to Government health care was to do it one step at a time with the children first because it is very hard to vote against expanding health care for children.

Certainly, all children should have health care. They should have health insurance. But the fact is, every American should have health insurance, and it is not good enough just to expand a Government program from covering poor kids to covering middle-class kids.

We do not need to mistake the fact that this is moving us toward Government health care. If my Democratic colleagues get their way on this children's health bill, over 70 percent of the children in this country are going to have Government health care. What happens to them once they become adults we have not discussed. We need to help every American own a health insurance policy.

What Republicans want to do is continue this children's health plan, to add additional funding to cover inflation and additional children. We have some good proposals. One of them, by Senator Martinez, would continue the program as it is but also offer tax credits to children and families who are 200 and 300 percent of poverty so they can buy their own insurance, believing that the best thing we can do for families in this country is to help them have insurance they can afford, own, and keep.

There are other Republican proposals that we will be talking about that include tax credits for every family who buys their own insurance. It would also allow employers to give money to individuals to help buy their insurance. We do not do that now. Employers are not allowed to contribute to an individual's health plan.

We also have proposals that would allow individuals to shop for health insurance all over the country. A lot of folks don't know that we don't allow that now. You can only shop in your own State.

There is a proposal that would allow people who put tax-free money in a health savings account to use that money to buy their own health insurance plan. It is pretty amazing that as a Congress, we will not allow people to use their own health savings account to pay for health insurance premiums. And there are proposals to allow small businesses to come together to buy health insurance that is less expensive than when they buy it individually.

There is a lot we can do as a Congress that does not cost taxpayers any money but would make it easier for individuals to have health insurance they can afford, own, and keep.

I hope this debate will continue to open this issue in a way that Americans can really understand. The goal is that everyone has affordable health insurance, good health insurance. The goal is not to turn more and more of our health care and health insurance over to the Government because we know that won't work, we know it is not efficient, and we know the children we are trying to help are eventually going to have to pay the debt we put on their heads by paying for something we cannot afford.

The fact is, we can get better health insurance, better health care for less money, if we do it with private health insurance just by helping individuals buy health insurance they can afford, own, and keep.

We started the national discussion on health care. I hope as we look at this debate, specifically children's health care, that we will see it as part of a larger issue and decide today that it is not good enough just to get a few more children insured.

Every American needs a health insurance policy, and we can do it, first of all, by taking down the barriers that Congress has put in front of individuals when they are trying to buy their own insurance, but we can also look at those in need. Whether it is tax credits or tax deductions, we can help every American have a health insurance policy they can afford, that they can keep from job to job and throughout their life. We can have better health care, and it is better for our future.

I thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to speak. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 3286.

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

Mr. President, I actually have two amendments this morning. I will speak briefly on both of them.

I believe both sides have agreed these are good ideas, and I believe one will be accepted, and the other we are going to have a vote at 12, as I understand it.

But the first amendment relates to earmarking and the wasteful earmarks we have talked about often on the Senate floor. Much has been done to make earmarks more transparent, to have more earmarks disclosed.

I think as we do that, we are probably getting a better focus as a Federal Government of how we should be spending our money. But old habits die very hard. It has been very difficult for a number of Members of the House and the Senate to give up this practice of being able to send money wherever they want back in their own State or anywhere in the country.

As we have made it harder to do earmarks in the open, we have found that a number of Members of Congress or their staffs have been calling agencies to request that earmarks be done without Congress's approval at all. This type of ``phone marking'' has created a new loophole.

This amendment we are offering would disallow any use of funds for that type of earmarking. If I can read the amendment it is very simple. Again, I believe both sides agree on it.

It says:

None of the funds made available under this Act may be used

to circumvent any statutory or administrative formula-driven

competitive awarding process to award funds to a project in

response to a request from a Member of Congress (or any

employee of a Member or committee of Congress), unless the

specific project has been disclosed in accordance with the

rules of the Senate or House of Representatives, as

applicable.

That is all there is to this amendment, is to disallow this whole idea of picking up the phone and deciding where taxpayer money should go. I understand the other side is prepared to accept or have a voice vote on this amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the

pending amendment and call up amendment No. 3289.

Mr. President, this is another simple amendment designed to get more accountability in Federal agencies. The Government Accountability Office recently published a report that has been in the media all over the country, pointing out that millions of taxpayer dollars are being wasted as employees of the Federal Government are flying all over the world in premium business class or first class, when the rules of these agencies specifically say that should not be done.

My amendment does not change any rules of the Federal agencies; it says the rules have to be complied with or the money that is in this bill cannot be used.

I will read this amendment as well:

None of the funds made available under this Act may be used

to purchase first class or premium airline travel that would

not be consistent [with the number of sections that are

listed] of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Again, we are not changing any regulation. We are demanding that the Federal agencies comply with their own rules and save the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

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

Mr. President, I neglected to add a cosponsor of this amendment. Senator McCaskill would like to be our lead cosponsor on this amendment. I appreciate her support as well as the chairman's.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I am encouraged that the Senate is taking up the whole issue of health care in America. We know this is one of the most important issues to the American people. We know a number of Americans don't have access to health care, and it is very important that we debate this as a Senate, not just children but the American goal of how do we get every American insured. How do we make sure every American has access to good health care throughout their life and their children do as well? We can agree on that goal. It is not just about children, it is about health care in America and figuring out as a Congress how do we make sure every American has access to good health care.

The question today and the question we need to continue to debate is: Do we want the Government to provide that health care or do we want to figure out how to make sure that individuals have access to a health insurance policy that they can own and keep? Because we know the best and most efficient delivery of health care is going to come through individually owned policies that people don't lose when they change jobs, they don't lose when they retire. I hope our focus will turn from Government health care to helping individuals have a policy that they own and can keep. We should all question, do we want the Government that ran the Katrina cleanup or runs the Post Office or spends $1,000 for a hammer at the Pentagon and wastes billions, literally hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse every year, do we want that Government to take care of our children, to take care of our seniors, and to run the health care system today?

We are talking about health insurance for children. A number of people are saying individuals cannot afford to buy it. Before we consider that, we need to realize this Congress has made it very hard, if not virtually impossible, for individual Americans to have a health insurance policy they can own and keep. We need to be reminded that this Congress has created a Tax Code that gives tax breaks to businesses who provide health insurance but not to individuals who want to buy it. That means the cost of individual insurance is higher and many times unaffordable. We have proposed in Congress--unfortunately, my Democratic colleagues have fought back--to allow small businesses to come together and pool their resources so they can buy health insurance and make it available to their employees when they cannot afford it as individual companies. But this Senate killed that idea. It would have made it more affordable for individuals. Yet we complain about the uninsured.

We know a number of States have added so many mandates onto their insurance policies, it is too expensive for citizens to buy it. Yet this Congress will not allow Americans to buy health insurance anywhere they want in the country. We have allowed individual States to create monopolies, where someone in South Carolina can't buy a policy from New Mexico unless it is certified in South Carolina. We know we could create a national market and make individual policies much less expensive, but this Congress would not do it.

The fact is, this Congress has made individual health insurance unaffordable and unaccessible to Americans and now, today, we are going to ride in on our white horse and save the day with Government health insurance.

Children should have health insurance. This whole plan of children's health insurance started for poor children whose families make too much for Medicaid but were still under 200 percent of poverty. Today we are proposing not just to reauthorize and continue this program for poor children but to raise it so children and families with incomes up to $82,000 are going to get free Government health care. When this plan is fully implemented, about 75 percent of the children who live in America today will be on Government health insurance, which means we as a Congress have made a decision that we want America to have Government health plans and not to have individual plans they can own and keep. Because if 75 percent of the children are on Government plans and our seniors are on Government plans and many of our military are on Government plans, there is no more room for private market health insurance policies to work. In effect, what we are doing is deciding today that we want national health care in America when we vote for this.

I have heard this bill talked about as a compromise and that we can split the difference. But colleagues, you can't split the difference between freedom and socialism. You can't split the difference between Government health care and individuals owning their own health plans. We are talking about something that doesn't exist. What we have split the difference between is spending $80 or $90 billion more than we need for poor children, and we have brought that down a little bit. We have funded it with some bogus funding, and we think we are doing something to help America.

This bill is not for children. This bill is selling out the future for every child in America because we are turning this country into a socialistic style of government, taking away people's freedom. We are here, once again, pretending we are doing something we are not. We are not taking care of children. We are selling their freedom away under the pretense of children. We have learned in this body that all we have to do is do it for the children and come down and say it applies to children, and we dare anyone to vote against it. I am going to vote against it because this is not for our children, and it is not for our country.

We are selling out our future. If we would focus ourselves on helping individuals access private policies, we could get every American insured. If we made our Tax Code fair for everyone, if we allowed States to partner with us, we could have every American with a health insurance policy without the Government running this. We should not even pretend we expect this Government to run the health care system in an efficient way.

Colleagues, I appreciate the debate on health care. We need to have it. We need to have an American goal that every citizen is going to have access to good health care and health insurance. This is not the way to do it. This is a decision to become more like socialized Europe, to sell out our freedoms, and to give Government control of our health care.

I encourage all of my colleagues to rethink this decision to vote for this bill, and to vote against it.

I yield back.

Mr. President, I rise to express my concerns and disappointment about a number of provisions that have been added to this bill, the Water Resources Development Act, the bill we refer to as WRDA, that were not part of the bill we passed in the Senate or not part of the bill that was passed in the House.

These provisions are earmarks because they direct spending directly at the request of a Member to a specific entity in their home State or district. Unfortunately, these earmarks were not passed by either body in an open or transparent way. Instead, they were added behind closed doors in the dark of night, as we sometimes say here. As a result, these earmarks cannot easily be debated, amended, or removed from the bill.

I am very disappointed these provisions were added in secret. That is not how we should do things here, and it is a direct violation of a stated goal of the ethics bill that was recently passed and signed by the President 10 days ago.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle came down to the floor one by one and praised the new ethics bill because they said it would stop earmarks from being added in the dark of night. I questioned the effectiveness of these provisions at that time because they had been watered down behind closed doors. Yet my colleagues on the other side said it was the most sweeping ethics reform in decades. They said there would be no more secret earmarks added to our bills in conference.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, this WRDA conference report contains numerous earmarks that were not part of either the House or the Senate bill. Unfortunately, anytime we talk about earmarks, it seems very personal because it usually has a Member's name on it, so I will start with South Carolina because one of the earmarks added in conference was for South Carolina. Obviously, I would like to do everything I can to help my own State, but this was not the time or the way to do it. There are a number of items for $10 million, $11 million, but, unfortunately, there is one item in here for $1.8 billion. That earmark alone is more than 10 percent of the total cost of the original bill. This was added in conference. It was not debated or voted on. Now it is coming back and it is unamendable.

All of these projects that were added have added to the cost of this bill, and actually the cost has exploded. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the projects contained in this bill totalled some $14 billion when it left the Senate, but then it was taken to conference. Behind closed doors, amounts were raised, new projects were added, reforms were dropped, and the bill now costs $23.2 billion. That is right. The

price of this bill has increased 66 percent since it left the floor of the Senate.

I know my colleagues, the Senator from California and the Senator from Oklahoma, have worked very hard on this bill, and I believe there are some good things in it. I was very pleased to work with the Senator from California on some reforms that will help us deauthorize projects that have not been funded in 5 years or more and are currently inactive. As my colleagues know, the long list of backlogged projects makes it very difficult for the Corps of Engineers to focus on real priorities. I am looking forward to working with the Senator from California to get a good list of the inactive projects from the administration so the committee can deauthorize them in the next WRDA bill. The Senator has told me she will deauthorize these projects, but if for some reason we are not able to get that done, this bill provides an automatic mechanism to deauthorize by the end of the fiscal year, following the fiscal year in which the projects appear on the inactive list. This reform is more important than ever because the bill we are passing now or bringing back up now increases the backlog of projects from $58 billion to approximately $80 billion. So while this bill takes one step forward, unfortunately, it takes two steps back.

The pricetag of this bill is too high, and it violates an important principle we need to honor. It includes new provisions that were not in the bills we passed, and that has to stop. That is why I offered an amendment, along with Senator Ensign and Senator McCain, to the ethics bill earlier this year that would clarify that earmarks added in conference were subject to rule XXVIII of the standing rules of the Senate, which prohibits what we call out-of-scope matter from being added to our bills in conference and which can only be waived by 67 votes. Further, the amendment we offered would have created a 60-vote point of order against earmarks added in conference. If this point of order was sustained, the provisions would be taken out of the bill.

Even the liberal Los Angeles Times editorial board this weekend made their support for such a rule known. In a weekend editorial entitled ``The Value of Congressional Pork,'' the L.A. Times said such a rule was a worthy proposal that would make it harder for lawmakers to insert last-minute goodies during reconciliation of Senate and House bills. This is just plain good Government.

Unfortunately, the clarification to rule XXVIII was eliminated from the final bill, even though it was unanimously accepted here on the floor in January. Even worse, the majority leader is now saying the 60- vote point of order against what we call airdropped earmarks should only apply to appropriations bills. This is very disappointing. There is absolutely no reason why we should restrict authorization earmarks. They can be as wasteful, as misguided and, I am afraid, as corrupting as appropriations earmarks. Authorization earmarks can be traded for bribes as easily as appropriations earmarks.

After checking with the Senate Parliamentarian, I understand there is some confusion over the definition of earmarks for this particular rule. The rule says it applies to provisions that provide a level of funding to a specific project. What could be clearer? All the projects I read about earlier fit that definition, regardless of whether they are appropriations or authorizations. If people want to parse these terms and say authorizations are not actual funding, then I am afraid we are not being completely honest.

We all know how the Corps of Engineers works. We pass WRDA bills that tell the Corps what projects to do, and then their annual appropriations bills provide money to complete these projects. But without an authorization in WRDA, the projects will not go forward. Authorizations are important, and we should be as open and as transparent about them as we are for appropriations.

I intended to raise a point of order today against these new provisions under rule XLIV which was part of the ethics bill, but I understand the unanimous consent agreement we are operating under prohibits me from doing so. In a minute I am going to ask for unanimous consent to be allowed to make this point of order against the provision, and if I am allowed to do that and the Chair rules that the point of order is acceptable under the rule, then, of course, I would urge my colleagues to sustain this point of order so we can take these provisions out. But before I do this, I would like to ask how much time I have remaining of my 20 minutes.

I would like to reserve the remainder of my time but yield 5 minutes to my colleague, Senator McCaskill.

Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my colleague. I would like to confirm what she has said. I take no issue with the authority of the Senate to designate spending, particularly in authorization bills. While this practice has certainly been abused, particularly in our appropriations bills over the years, my point

today is not to suggest that our committee and the floor of the Senate do not have the right to authorize money for particular projects, but I believe, as Senator McCaskill has said and made clear, that in the debate on the Senate floor, it seemed we unanimously agreed these projects should be brought to the floor of the Senate and that if someone wanted to question them, we could have those amendments, and we could ultimately vote on the whole package. But it seemed clear we all agreed that new earmarks should not be added in conference and then for that conference bill to come back without any chance of amending it. That is not the type of business we talked about in the whole ethics debate. So my issue is not with our ability to earmark or even the practice of authorization bills designating spending but that they are added in conference when we all agreed that if it was not added in either the Senate or the House bill, it could not be added in conference.

For that reason, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to raise a point of order under rule XLIV.

Mr. President, I would like to suggest that one of the reasons New Orleans was not prepared for Katrina is we have so many problems with our infrastructure in the way we politically meddle with the priorities of States, particularly with the Corps of Engineers that has a backlog of billions of dollars over many years. We refuse to clear out those backlogs so the Corps can focus on that which needs to be done, such as the levees in New Orleans. Instead, year after year, we add one earmark after another, until the Corps has no focus at all on what they are doing, and we are trying to direct from Washington what our water projects should be.

The fact that we have plussed this bill up from $14 billion to over $23 billion, a 66-percent increase since this bill left the Senate floor, says we have to have some shame. We have to have some honor in this body. If we are going to do this, let's do it in a way that we all said we would, and that is to bring these to the floor so we can debate and vote on them instead of adding them in and trying to slip them by in a conference bill.

I am very disappointed in this body, particularly after all the grand debate about ethics reform, the disclosure of earmarks, the fact that none would be added in secret. Over the last few weeks, we have pretty much backtracked on everything we have talked about, to the point where even liberal publications across the country are talking about the pork we are producing in the Senate. Instead of doing the Nation's business and delegating authority to States, we are in effect weakening our ability to have a national infrastructure that is safe and works for all Americans. I am very disappointed not only that this has been done but that a Member of the Senate is not even allowed to raise a point of order against the fact that it has been done.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2844.

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

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to speak on my amendment. I do have an amendment to the Transportation bill that I would like to talk about for a few minutes this morning.

I have listened to a lot of the debate this week. Obviously, transportation is a key issue for this country, and it has become clear that because of the tragedy in Minnesota, many of us are concerned about bridges and those that are deficient. We have talked a lot about how to fund those, and I am afraid, as Congress often does, we ignore a serious problem until it is too late, and then we decide we want to throw a lot of money at it and we come riding in on white horses to fix the problem.

I think we do need to look at the problem and what we can do at the Federal level, and I have an amendment that I think will make the dollars we spend go a lot further that I would like to present to Members this morning. But, first, I think we need to review a little of the situation we are in.

I think we have all heard in the debate that America has many bridges we have deemed structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. My amendment addresses these particular bridges. There are over 150,000 bridges in the country today--or over 20 percent of our total bridges-- that fall under the classification of structurally deficient and functionally obsolete.

Every day in this country, right now, people are going to work and filling up their gas tanks. Over 18 cents of every gallon they put in their tanks is a Federal tax that comes to us. That tax was actually started many years ago when we wanted to build the Interstate Highway System in this country. It started at a much lower level. I think most of us know the Interstate Highway System is basically complete. Yet we have continued to take that tax and raise it over the years. So what we are doing is taking money from the States and bringing it to Washington. The problem is that very little of that actually gets back for the maintenance of bridges in our States.

To start off with, a lot of States, the majority of States in this country, don't get back what they send. We call them donor States. South Carolina is one of the donor States. We will send our tax to Washington and, for years, we have gotten back less than 90 cents on a dollar. This clearly hurts our State. But what does come back comes back with a lot of red tape and regulations that prevent the dollars from going as far as they could.

What has happened in South Carolina and many other States is that in order to get those Federal dollars back, we have had to match them with our State dollars. For years, we have taken money out of our maintenance funds for roads and bridges and used it to match the Federal dollars. But the Federal dollars have to be used in particular ways that are not necessarily for the maintenance of roads and bridges. Even more important are all of the earmarks we put in the Transportation bill, earmarks for bridges to nowhere or a Big Dig in Boston, and these earmarks usually have to be matched at a higher level to get those dollars, and they have to then be used in the way the earmark prescribes.

We have looked through a lot of past bills and found very few earmarks that are to maintain and improve bridges. They are for new projects and things on which we can do press releases. But the bottom line is this: Less than 40 cents on a dollar that we send to Washington actually ends up helping to maintain roads and bridges. That is a problem.

Now, there are a lot of things we can do, and I have identified one I would like us to focus on today. It is the old law called the Davis- Bacon provision. It actually started during the Depression, when many companies were hungry to get business, and so they sharpened their pencils and gave lower bids to cities, and the larger companies didn't like that. So they created the Davis-Bacon law, which actually allows the Federal Government to set the wages of companies when they are doing Federal work.

What happens in most parts of the country, such as South Carolina, when a small company--perhaps a minority-owned company--may be trying to compete with a large company, they will come in with a lower bid, but then they have to allow the Federal Government to set the wages. We call it prevailing wages, but it may not be the prevailing wage in South Carolina. The American Association of Builders and Contractors has estimated that the Davis-Bacon provision raises the cost of construction from 5 percent to 38 percent. Just think of that. Think of that money and how it could be multiplied if that provision was not part of the equation for maintaining and getting these obsolete and structurally deficient bridges in better order.

That is what this amendment is about. It is not an unprecedented idea. President Bush realized during Katrina that we had to do a lot of work and get a lot of firms in action--small firms. All these firms have already worked out the salaries with their employees. Some may be revenue sharing and not related to salary. But as long as Davis-Bacon is in order, those firms have to wait for the Federal Government to tell them what to pay their employees so they can then bid a job. It slows the whole process. So during Katrina, the President waived it, and during Hurricane Andrew, after that we waived the Davis-Bacon provision so that the money could go further and the rebuilding could take place quicker.

My amendment is very simple in that it focuses particularly on bridges that have already been designated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. For 1 year only, we waive this Davis-Bacon provision so that the States and municipalities around this country can take the Federal money that is provided and make it go further to fix these bridges--to build new ones in some cases--and to allow them to move quicker and not wait for some Federal bureaucrat to tell them what to pay their employees in order to get a job from the city.

Anyone in business, particularly in the construction-related business, knows that it sometimes is feast or famine; you either have too much work or you don't have any. Many times, a municipal government or State government can get a lot lower bid and get work done much quicker if they are allowed to take those low bids. Unfortunately, the way we have it set up with Davis-Bacon, we force such a bureaucracy, we force these particular salaries on these companies that may have different arrangements with their employees, and it slows the whole process. Just think--we are talking about a 38-percent increase in cost, in some cases, just because of Davis-Bacon.

So I would encourage my colleagues to consider this amendment. We are not talking about getting rid of Davis-Bacon forever, although I think that is something we should perhaps consider. But this is just a 1-year waiving of Davis-Bacon specifically for the repair and maintenance of structurally deficient and functionally obsolete bridges. If we do this, I think the public will get a lot more for their tax dollars, we will get this work done a lot quicker, and it makes a whole lot more sense than raising the Federal gas tax. That is kind of the way Congress does things--we have a problem, so let's just raise taxes and spend more money. In this case, we have about $4 for every $10 we spend that doesn't go to what we say it does. If we can do a few things, like waive Davis-Bacon, the money we take from the public can go a whole lot further.

I encourage Members to vote for this amendment this morning. I hope the majority will not table it, because we have seen in Katrina and other tragedies that our money goes a lot further, the work gets done faster, and our goals as a Congress are met a lot sooner.

Mr. President, I thank the chairwoman for the time, and I yield the floor.

How much time do I have remaining?

I appreciate the debate. I think it is important to have. Davis-Bacon does not make sites safer. It does not have anything to do with skilled workers. What it does is forces particularly small companies to revamp how they bid projects, to change how they pay their people. The cost of that administration as well as waiting for the Federal Government--you can't just go to the Internet. The Federal Government is going to have to approve what the prevailing wage is. It has been deemed not functional, what is taking place. What we are talking about is not a suspension of Davis-Bacon forever, but a recognition in the next years we want a lot more dollars to be applied to bridge maintenance, and by waiving Davis-Bacon for 1 year our dollars will go further and the work will be done quicker.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I think I needed to ask for the yeas and nays, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Could we hold for a moment to discuss this?

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

Mr. President, I have an amendment I would like of offer, but since I do not see a manager here, I will explain the amendment first and then ask that the amendment be brought up as soon as I finish my comments.

The amendment I will offer will strike an earmark from this bill that takes $4 billion intended for America's veterans and transfers it to the well-to-do citizens of Beverly Hills, CA. It is remarkable that we are even considering a veterans bill that contains an earmark for a facility on Wilshire Boulevard--the main street through Beverly Hills-- a site barely 3 miles from the ritzy shops of Rodeo Drive.

This earmark prevents the Veterans' Administration from taking highly valuable land in one of America's most lucrative real estate markets and putting it to work for our veterans. It would require that 200-plus acres in the middle of Beverly Hills that could be better used to generate revenue to care for America's veterans to sit empty.

The earmark completely undermines the results of over 3 years of study performed by nonpartisan, independent experts. It also undermines the authority of the Veterans' Administration to best help veterans around the country, not just those in the Beverly Hills area. The language on page 44 of the Senate substitute prohibits the Veterans' Administration from taking any action to:

exchange, trade, auction, transfer, or otherwise dispose

of, or reduce the acreage of, Federal land and improvements

at the Department of Veterans Affairs West Los Angeles

Medical Center, California, encompassing approximately 388

acres on the north and south sides of Wilshire Boulevard and

west of the 405 Freeway.

The Veterans' Administration estimates that reuse of this land would result in approximately $4 billion in savings--that is $450 per square foot for 205 acres--that would go directly to the Veterans' Administration for future construction since the receipts are deposited into Veterans' Administration accounts under its enhanced-use lease authority. We should note that the Veterans' Administration's enhanced- use lease authority specifically allows the Veterans' Administration to lease land and retain receipts from the lease.

In addition, the Veterans' Administration can place an option to buy in the lease, whereby the property can be sold shortly after commencement of the lease, allowing the Veterans' Administration to retain the sale proceeds. This process was used in 2005 to sell property in downtown Chicago and the Veterans' Administration realized $50 million in proceeds. All can be used to better the health care of veterans.

As important, this prohibition that is written into this earmark would result in voiding the Capital Assessment Realignment for Enhanced Services process, known as CARES, which has been agreed to by Congress and the administration. Much like BRAC, one exception could undermine the entire process that was based on veterans' needs and not on earmarked interests.

CARES is a systemwide process to put the Veterans' Administration's infrastructure to the best use for the current and future health care needs of veterans. This process was completed in May of 2004, and approved on a bipartisan basis by Congress and the administration. All medical construction budget requests since the completion of the study have complied with CARES recommendations and passed by Congress; that is, until today, if this bill passes.

The study identified 18 sites which called for downsizing or disposal but which were naturally very controversial. Consequently, it was decided each of these sites needed ``further study and analysis.'' Some of these studies have been completed, and realignment has begun, but the West Los Angeles study is still in process.

The White House recently weighed in against this earmark, saying in its Statement of Administration Policy:

The Administration strongly opposes the earmark provision

that prohibits the disposal or transfer of property at the

388-acre West Los Angeles Medical Center. This language

circumvents the recommendations in VA's nationwide

infrastructure study, the Capital Asset Realignment for

Enhanced Services (CARES). The original decision on this

property would have allowed VA to designate a portion of the

campus for disposal or leasing . . . it is likely that the

restrictive Senate language would eliminate more than $4

billion of revenue, which would be used to improve facilities

around the country for our Nation's veterans.

The central concerns of those opposed to the reuse of portions of the 388-acre facility seems to be that it will result in large commercial development. However, in the statement of work for the West L.A. project, the Veterans' Administration has included the following:

Because of a commitment made by a previous Secretary of

Veterans Affairs, certain reuses of the property for

commercial purposes were not considered in this study. In

this context, the term ``commercial'' [includes] . . . uses

such as shopping malls, movie theaters, convenience stores,

fast food outlets, industrial/manufacturing activities, and

other like operations. . . .

So the Veterans' Administration is listening to the community and is considering their concerns.

In August of 2005, the Veterans' Administration issued an interim report, describing several options available for reuse of the land, but a final decision is still pending, and there is not yet a timetable as to when a decision will be made.

Two public hearings--in May and September of 2005--have taken place, and one is taking place tomorrow night at the VA Center in West L.A. We should let the process we put in place run its course and not overrule the recommendations of independent experts and the Department of Veterans Affairs who are looking out for the needs of America's veterans.

If every Member of this body were to begin blocking modernization of the VA system every time a well-connected constituent in their State complains, America's veterans would be saddled with outdated infrastructure and their health care needs would not be met.

I wish to put this earmark in perspective because it would be the most wasteful and questionable earmark we have seen since the infamous ``bridge to nowhere.'' The ``bridge to nowhere'' was extremely troubling, but at its heart was only an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars. This earmark, sadly, is much worse. It takes money--$4 billion of money--which would be used to care for the brave men and women who fought for our country and turns it over to build a park for Beverly Hills.

We should all be able to agree that a community with an average household income of $125,000 a year has a sufficient tax base to build a park and does not need a $4 billion handout from the Federal Government. The men and women who wore America's uniform need the money a lot more than the men and women who live in this part of L.A.

In fact, the Los Angeles Times editorialized on this situation recently, citing ``the compelling demands for park space'' in Beverly Hills as the best use of $4 billion. I disagree with the L.A. Times, as I often do, that $4 billion that belongs to veterans should stay with the Veterans' Administration.

Let me repeat, according to the judgment of the L.A. Times, the best use of $4 billion is a public park between Beverly Hills and Sunset Beach. This defies common sense, and we should all disagree with it.

My amendment is very simple. It would strike this language from the bill and preserve the VA's ability to make changes at this property that could generate over $4 billion for our Nation's veterans, as well as create a better facility that better serves the health care needs of our veterans. It would also preserve the integrity of the VA's process for realigning its infrastructure to meet the current and future health care needs of veterans and ensure that decisions are made according to the needs of our veterans, instead of the local desires of America's most rich and famous citizens.

I encourage my colleagues to support my amendment.

Mr. President, I would like to move that we set aside the pending amendment and that my amendment be sent to the desk and called up.

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

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

Mr. President, I see we have 30 minutes before the vote. I was offered 10. I ask unanimous consent that I have up to 15 minutes to complete my remarks.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I rise to voice my opposition to the pretense of earmarks reform that is included in this so-called ethics bill and to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on cloture this morning so we can restore the earmark transparency rules we all voted on in January. If, as the majority contends, the differences between that bill and the one we bring to the floor today are minor, there should be no objection to making those rules the same.

Americans know how much Congress loves earmarks. These are the special interest spending items that fill most of our bills. Americans also know that these earmarks are at the center of most of the waste and corruption in Washington. They know money in the form of earmarks is the easiest favor a lawmaker can deliver to a special interest. They know the explosion of earmarks in the last decade has turned Congress into a giant favor factory that turns out favors for special interests, not for the American people.

The Associated Press ran a fascinating article this morning entitled ``Earmarks Prove Popular and Dangerous.'' The article talks about how earmarks have been at the center of corruption in this town, yet Members of Congress continue to embrace earmarks and will do whatever it takes to keep them in the shadows away from public scrutiny.

The article says:

Even the imprisonment of lobbyists Jack Abramoff and former

[Representative] Duke Cunningham . . . on corruption charges

that included earmark abuses has not dulled lawmakers'

appetite for pet projects. One recent study found that

earmarks in House legislation went from 3,000 in 1996 to

15,000 in 2005.

The article highlights that earmark disclosure is at the center of the debate on the so-called ethics bill before us today. It concludes by predicting there will not be enough Senators voting today to restore true earmark reform in this bill. That may be true, but I hope it is not the case.

This bill as it is currently written is a fraud. It is business as usual dressed up like ethics reform. And it is a stunning disappointment and a huge missed opportunity. It completely guts earmark rules we all agreed to back in January and allows us to continue to add secret earmarks to our bills. Even worse, it allows Members of this body to steer millions of tax dollars to themselves and their families. Yet the bill has the title of ``ethics reform,'' so many are going to support it so they can have a sound bite during their election.

This is not really a big surprise. Even though the Democratic leadership campaigned on cleaning up the culture of corruption in Washington, it has never been committed to cleaning up the culture of earmarks. The first version of this bill which came to the floor in January was so inadequate in how it dealt with earmarks, it only covered 5 percent of all the earmarks. The authors of this bill thought they could get away with saying they were providing earmark transparency without actually doing it.

Fortunately, after a lot of public pressure was applied, we were able to come together in a bipartisan way to fix this problem and bring every earmark out into the light of day. The rule we all agreed to not only disclosed all earmarks, but it also gave every Senator the ability to hold the committees accountable if the American people do not get the transparency they deserve.

I thought the Democratic leadership had realized the importance of these reforms, so when the appropriations season began and earmarks started to be added to our bills, I sought consent from my colleagues to formally enact these rules so we could be true to our word and ensure honest, full earmark disclosure. But, as my colleagues know, the Democratic leadership objected to real earmark reform. In fact, they objected on March 29, April 17, June 28, July 9, and July 17--five times in over what has now been 196 days since these earmark rules were passed in January. When it comes to true earmark reform, we have heard nothing but excuses and seen nothing but obstruction.

The majority leader wanted to take this bill to conference with the House back in June so he could kill earmark reform behind closed doors and share the blame with Republicans. I asked him if he would pledge to preserve earmark rules we all agreed to, but he said he could not give me that assurance. He left me no choice but to object to conferencing this bill with the House.

Now the rule is back before us. It has been rewritten in secret by the majority leader and the Speaker of the House, and they did exactly what I was afraid of--they killed earmark reform, only this time they cannot blame this on anyone but themselves.

For some reason, the Democratic leadership does not understand the importance of this issue. They talk a lot about the culture of corruption, but when it comes to reining in the most corrupting practice in Washington,

which is earmarking, they only offer lip service.

My colleagues should remember that it was the practice of trading earmarks for bribes that has been at the heart of the corruption scandals here in Washington. Let me say that again because it is very important. We had and still have a process in place that allows Members of this body to trade the public trust for personal gain.

Former Congressman Duke Cunningham was the master at this. He knew the oversight of his activities was so lax that he kept his own earmark ``bribe menu.'' He knew the House and the Senate were not going to police his colleagues and that the earmark process would give them the ability to steer millions of dollars to his friends who were bribing him. The document that charged Duke Cunningham outlined very clearly what he was doing, and I quote:

Under the very seal of the United States Congress,

Cunningham placed this nation's governance up for sale to a

defense contractor--detailing the amount of bribes necessary

to obtain varying levels of defense appropriations.

Or earmarks.

In this ``broad menu,'' the left column represented the

millions in government contracts that could be ``ordered''

from Cunningham. The right column was the amount of the

bribes that the Congressman was demanding in exchange for the

contracts.

The bill we are considering does nothing to stop the earmark factory. This so-called ethics bill does not actually require the Senate to disclose every earmark. All it requires is the chairman of the relevant committee or the majority leader to tell us they have disclosed every earmark. It does nothing to guarantee that earmarks are actually disclosed, and it is therefore unenforceable.

The rule we all agreed to in January that put the Senate Parliamentarian in charge of enforcing this rule has been changed. The Parliamentarian is a nonpartisan referee who works for all Senators, but this bill puts him on the sidelines. It allows the chairman of the committee and the majority leader--two of the most ardent supporters of earmarks and the two people least likely to object to one of their own bills--in charge of enforcing earmark disclosure. This allows the fox to guard the henhouse, and it makes a joke of ethics reform.

This is clearly a sham, and it is a total shame. It has been confirmed by the Senate Parliamentarian and the Congressional Research Service. A memo prepared by CRS states:

If a point of order is raised under the new rule, it

appears that the Chair presumably would base his or her

ruling only on whether or not the certification has been

made, and not on the contents of the available lists or

charts, including the accuracy or completeness of this

information.

Mr. President, this has also been confirmed by the Senate Parliamentarian, who says he would not be able to ensure full earmark disclosure.

I hope my colleagues understand what is going on here. The lists of earmarks may only include the ones the Appropriations Committee thinks we should know about. If their certification is inadequate and leaves out 95 percent of the earmarks--like they wanted to do earlier this year--the new rule does not give Senators the ability to raise a point of order to require full earmark disclosure.

But this is not some theory of what could happen. We know without a doubt that secret earmarks will continue because this Democratic leader and Appropriations chairman are already hiding secret earmarks while claiming to be in full compliance with the rule. The nonpartisan Government watchdog group, Taxpayers for Commonsense, has already discovered $7.5 billion in undisclosed earmarks this year, while we are supposedly operating under this rule.

There are several other loopholes in this bill that allow secret earmarks. It allows Senators to trade earmarks for votes. It allows Senators to provide earmarks that financially benefit themselves or their families. It still allows Senators to drop earmarks into bills when they are in conference and cannot be fully debated or voted on. It allows Senators to get around disclosing earmarks on the Internet in a timely way. And it allows Senators to avoid having to put their no- conflict certification letter on the Internet in a timely way.

This so-called ethics bill is a fraud. The majority leader and some of the supporters of this bill want to tell the American people they have fixed the secret earmark problem when they have actually codified the status quo. This bill is actually worse than doing nothing because it preserves business as usual while trying to fool people into thinking everything has been fixed.

I also want to read something that was sent out by nationally syndicated columnist Robert Novak which explains why Republicans are not innocent either. He wrote:

Yet neither the prospect of several Republicans going to

prison nor the disastrous loss of the 2006 election has

weakened the party's embrace of the earmark model they ran

from while holding the majority, in which each congressman

provides for his district or state according to the New Deal

model of ``Tax, tax! Spend, spend! Elect, elect!''

Mr. President, Democrats wrote this shameful earmark rule, and they will have to take responsibility for that. But Republicans have a responsibility to stop it. Republicans need to learn their lesson from the last election and, at the very least, shine some light on the earmarking process.

I do not know if we will win the vote this morning, but I urge my colleagues to oppose cloture so we can restore the earmark transparency rules we all agreed to in January. This would be an easy fix. It could be done in a matter of minutes. This bill could be quickly sent back to the House for its approval and then on to the President for his signature.

Earmarks are where most of the corruption has come from. It is directing money in return for some favor. If we are not willing to honestly reform this process with this bill, then it will not solve the problem it claims to solve. It will make it worse.

I thank the Chair and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois, but I do have to clarify the facts because his representation of this bill has actually been an obvious misrepresentation. He has said if they certify that all the earmarks have been reported 48 hours in advance, and we have verified that family members have no interest in it, that we can challenge that if we don't believe it is true--but we can't challenge those facts.

I would like to ask the Parliamentarian at this point to confirm that because the way the sleight of hand is worked in this bill is, I can no longer object to the accuracy of the certification. I will just have to object to whether or not it has been certified.

I ask the Parliamentarian this specific question: If a point of order is raised under the earmark disclosure rule in this bill, would the Chair--through the Parliamentarian--be permitted to verify the completeness and accuracy of the disclosure, or would the Chair be required to only recognize whether a certification has been made by the chairman or majority leader?

Mr. President, I just want to explain to my colleagues that is the crux of this issue. If the accuracy makes no difference--as it hasn't this year when we have gotten certification of disclosure or verification there has been no conflict of interest--if all that has to happen to comply with this rule is the majority leader or the chairman of the committee to say it has been complied with, and if I contest it, that I have no standing because it has been certified, that the Parliamentarian has been sidelined on this issue and can no longer verify whether it is true or accurate, what we have done is created this sham of disclosure that can be covered up by one Member of the Senate. That is why I call it a fraud. That is why I call it a sham. We have put all the language in here, except we have allowed it all to be waived by one Member of the Senate. This is not ethics reform at all.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2506 and ask that it be adopted.

Mr. President, I would just like to advise my colleagues that the majority has just objected to adopting the DeMint amendment for earmark reform that has been gutted in this rule. This is all we have been asking for throughout the process, that we put in this ethics bill the exact same language we all voted on that was written by Speaker Pelosi, rewritten by Senator Durbin, and has been gutted in this process, and it is still being called earmark reform. The Parliamentarian has just confirmed for us and the world that the certification is a complete sham.

I thank the President, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for this good and open debate. I remind them that I supported this bill in the beginning and have asked unanimous consent a number of times that it go to conference. As many of us have pointed out, the earmark provision is a Senate rule that doesn't need to be conferenced with the House. The only reason to make it part of a conference bill is so it can be changed.

I offered all along that if there were changes the majority wanted to make, we were very open to that. We wanted to end up with some real earmark transparency that all of us have voted on. As we have pointed out this morning, it is not disclosed, and it is not transparent if the majority can simply say it is, without having to prove its accuracy. That has been the cause of so much corruption. I think it is certainly worth stopping and looking at what we have done.

This language is hardly minor, as far as the change that has taken place. If it were, the majority would not insist that their version rule today. I urge all my colleagues to vote against cloture--not to vote against ethics reform, which we all support, but to vote against this process that will not allow us to reinsert something we all voted for and we all said in public is the right way to handle earmark reform.

I thank the majority leader for all his work. I yield back the remainder of my time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.