Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the bipartisan Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2008. I introduce this bill with Senators Warner, Clinton, Kerry, Schumer, Mikulski, Sanders, and Durbin.

This bill has a simple and yet important requirement: that Federal employees be granted 4 weeks of paid paternity and maternity leave.

The Federal Government is the country's largest employer, with more than 2.7 million employees. My state of Virginia is home to more than 100,000 Federal employees. As the Nation's largest employer, the Federal Government should be the leader in workplace policy. The Federal Government should provide benefits that are equal to what we call best practices in the private sector.

Furthermore, according to the Office of Personnel Management, more than half of the Federal Government's employees will become eligible for retirement within the next 10 years. The Federal workforce is aging faster than the private workforce. The benefits desired by younger workers are offered by private sector employers, but not by the Federal Government. Although the Federal Government cannot compete with private sector salaries, we should be offering comparable benefits.

The current parental leave law for Federal employees is in need of an update. The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act provides that, of the 12 weeks of unpaid leave guaranteed by the Family and Medical Leave Act, federal employees will be allowed to substitute 4 weeks of paid leave, as well as any accrued annual or sick leave for the birth or adoption of a child.

This requirement mirrors a recent provision put forward by the Senate Armed Services Committee in the National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow 21 days of paid paternity leave for our military personnel.

The legislation we are introducing today is also an issue of fairness for the working family. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that more than 70 percent of women with children over the age of 1 are in the workforce and that both parents work in most families.

Additionally, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families, in today's highly competitive jobs environment, there is little workforce flexibility to help working

women and men care for their families and still succeed at their jobs. This is particularly true for those Americans whose economic security is most at risk.

It is important to note the parental leave practices of non-Federal employers. Research by the Joint Economic Committee has found that Fortune 100 firms offer paid leave typically lasting 6 to 8 weeks. Additionally, most of America's economic rivals provide paid parental leave, as do many other nations. The European Union requires that member countries offer 14 weeks of paid leave and most offer more than the required amount.

By contrast, our Nation's current laws force healthy, long-term federal employees to save up their sick days and vacation time so they can use this paid time off to care for their newborn or newly adopted child. Asking employees to cobble together accrued leave makes it difficult for relatively new employees or those who experience health problems to save up enough time for parental leave. We owe our civil servants a more thoughtful, worker-friendly policy.

I note that the House of Representatives recently reported a similar bill out of the appropriate House committee by a strong bipartisan vote. I hope the Senate begins similar action on this bill.

I urge my colleagues to support this pro-family, pro-Federal worker legislation.

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the bipartisan Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2008. I introduce this bill with Senators Warner, Clinton, Kerry, Schumer, Mikulski, Sanders, and Durbin.

This bill has a simple and yet important requirement: that Federal employees be granted 4 weeks of paid paternity and maternity leave.

The Federal Government is the country's largest employer, with more than 2.7 million employees. My state of Virginia is home to more than 100,000 Federal employees. As the Nation's largest employer, the Federal Government should be the leader in workplace policy. The Federal Government should provide benefits that are equal to what we call best practices in the private sector.

Furthermore, according to the Office of Personnel Management, more than half of the Federal Government's employees will become eligible for retirement within the next 10 years. The Federal workforce is aging faster than the private workforce. The benefits desired by younger workers are offered by private sector employers, but not by the Federal Government. Although the Federal Government cannot compete with private sector salaries, we should be offering comparable benefits.

The current parental leave law for Federal employees is in need of an update. The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act provides that, of the 12 weeks of unpaid leave guaranteed by the Family and Medical Leave Act, federal employees will be allowed to substitute 4 weeks of paid leave, as well as any accrued annual or sick leave for the birth or adoption of a child.

This requirement mirrors a recent provision put forward by the Senate Armed Services Committee in the National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow 21 days of paid paternity leave for our military personnel.

The legislation we are introducing today is also an issue of fairness for the working family. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that more than 70 percent of women with children over the age of 1 are in the workforce and that both parents work in most families.

Additionally, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families, in today's highly competitive jobs environment, there is little workforce flexibility to help working

women and men care for their families and still succeed at their jobs. This is particularly true for those Americans whose economic security is most at risk.

It is important to note the parental leave practices of non-Federal employers. Research by the Joint Economic Committee has found that Fortune 100 firms offer paid leave typically lasting 6 to 8 weeks. Additionally, most of America's economic rivals provide paid parental leave, as do many other nations. The European Union requires that member countries offer 14 weeks of paid leave and most offer more than the required amount.

By contrast, our Nation's current laws force healthy, long-term federal employees to save up their sick days and vacation time so they can use this paid time off to care for their newborn or newly adopted child. Asking employees to cobble together accrued leave makes it difficult for relatively new employees or those who experience health problems to save up enough time for parental leave. We owe our civil servants a more thoughtful, worker-friendly policy.

I note that the House of Representatives recently reported a similar bill out of the appropriate House committee by a strong bipartisan vote. I hope the Senate begins similar action on this bill.

I urge my colleagues to support this pro-family, pro-Federal worker legislation.

Mr. President, today it is my distinct pleasure to offer my support along with my colleague Senator Warner for the nomination of Judge Mark Davis to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The career of this nominee is impressive. Judge Davis is regarded as a patient, thoughtful individual who exhibits the highest degree of ethical conduct and professionalism. After graduating law school, Judge Davis began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge John A. MacKenzie who served as judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 1988-1989. In 1989, Judge Davis joined McGuire Woods, LLP, where he worked as a partner from 1996 until 1998. Judge Davis has also worked as partner at Carr & Porter LLC, 1998-2003. Since 2003, Judge Davis has served on the Third Judicial Circuit of Virginia, and has been the chief judge since 2006.

The Virginia Bar Association rated Judge Davis as ``highly qualified.'' Judge Davis's written opinions reflect his keen intellect, and the extent to which he values communicating his reasoning to counsel and litigants. Further, Judge Davis is active in myriad community and civic organizations. Judge Davis received his B.A. in government from the University of Virginia in 1984, and his J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1988.

The Constitution assigns a critically important role to the Senate in the advice and consent process related to

nominations for the Federal judiciary. These judgeships are lifetime appointments, and Virginians expect me and Senator Warner to take very seriously our constitutional duties. It is essential that the nominee be respectful of the Constitution, impartial, and balanced toward those appearing before him or her.

In light of these criteria, Senator Warner and I undertook a careful and deliberative process to find the most qualified judicial nominees. Our collaboration involved a thorough records review and rigorous interviews. We are of the opinion that Judge Davis meets these high standards. He was on the joint list of recommended judicial nominees submitted to President Bush last year. We are pleased that President Bush has chosen to respect our diligent bipartisan work.

I want to thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to make these remarks about this outstanding Virginian. In particular, I want to express my gratitude for the expeditious way the Senate has moved the nomination of Judge Davis through the process during the 110th Congress. Again, it is with pride that I join Senator Warner in commending Judge Mark Davis to each of my colleagues in the Senate; and I ask my fellow Senators to vote to confirm his nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Mr. President, I very quickly wish to associate myself with the remarks of the senior Senator from Virginia and to emphasize that we jointly examined a whole array of nominees for this position. This individual, perhaps because of and perhaps in spite of the fact he worked for the senior Senator from Virginia, is considered highly qualified by Members on this side of the aisle.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to engage in a colloquy with the senior Senator from Nebraska and the senior Senator from Virginia.

Mr. President, I would like to join two of my three principal cosponsors on S. 22 in speaking about how important this piece of legislation

is, and how appropriate it is to have it be placed on the supplemental appropriations measure. The senior Senator from Virginia has an amendment we are going to offer. Hopefully, in the spirit of what the Senator from Mississippi just said, we will try to lay some of these arguments by the wayside and get a bill that will truly provide the right kind of readjustment benefits to those who have been performing such exemplary service since 9/11.

S. 22 was introduced on the first day of this Congress. From that point we have had strong bipartisan and bicameral support. We now have 58 cosponsors in the Senate, including 11 Republicans. Among those Republicans is the senior Senator from Virginia, the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and the senior Senator from Nebraska, the only Member of this body to have served in a high-ranking position in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Just last week in the House, in spite of some of the debates that went into pay-for provisions and tax provisions, we saw a strong vote. We had 300 sponsors of this provision in the House, including more than 90 Republicans. Even on what was largely viewed as a partisan vote in other areas, we had 33 Republicans vote for this bill.

This bill is supported by the current chairman of the Armed Services Committee; as I mentioned, Senator Warner, the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the former Secretary of the Navy; the serving chairman of the Veterans' Committee, Senator Akaka, who was just in the chair; the former chairman of the Veterans' Committee, Senator Specter. It has the strong support of all of our leading veterans organizations, including the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Iraq-Afghanistan Veterans. The Disabled American Veterans have taken a firm position, as have many more.

We have, I would say, at least 15 of the top veterans organizations having participated in the modification of this bill and strongly supporting it. Many major higher educational institutions and associations have endorsed this bill, including the American Council on Education, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and the National Association of State and Land Grant Colleges.

This bill is carefully crafted. It has been substantially improved by the participation of all of the groups that I just mentioned plus many of our Members. It is appropriate on this legislation as a cost of war.

There are people who discuss this in terms of cost. This is a bill that closely resembles the benefits that we gave to our returning veterans in World War II--a series of educational benefits which leveled the playing field in America and allowed those who served a first-class opportunity to move into the future. We owe these young men and women who have been serving since 9/11 no less. We owe them no less. This is emphatically a cost of war.

When we can spend $600 billion and, by some estimates, $3 trillion in a life cycle as a result of this war, the least we can do is spend the money in this bill to allow these people the best opportunity they have to succeed in their lives.

There has been some resistance from some of the Members of this body--some of the Republican Members of this body--and also from the administration to this bill. Some have said it is too generous. I just discussed that. We worked very hard to make it fair and relevant to the priorities we should be having. Some have said it would be difficult to administer. We have worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs and with the Department of Defense on areas where they had concerns, and we addressed those concerns. It is interesting to point out, for those who talk about the potential difficulty of administering a bill such as this, that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was able to administer a very similar bill after World War II in a day where we didn't have computers, and they were able to do it for 8 million people. We are not talking anywhere near that number, so I believe we have addressed all of those concerns.

The last issue that has been discussed, and it has come up again and again, is the concern that provisions such as are contained in this bill would affect retention in the Active-Duty military. As someone who has spent 5 years in the Pentagon, 1 as a marine and 4 as a defense executive working on manpower issues--and I am sure Senator Warner who spent more time in the Pentagon than I have would share this commentary--I believe the provisions of this bill actually will dramatically increase recruitment and that the manpower model would benefit from it.

With respect to retention itself, the discussion has been made that a bill like this should have, as a part of it, a concept called transferability, which would allow Active-Duty military people to transfer this educational benefit to family members.

I want to make a clarification as to where the main target of this bill is, then I want to speak very briefly about transferability, and then I would like to recognize my colleague from Nebraska.

I believe there is a misperception in this country that because we have an all-volunteer system, we actually have an all-career military. We do not. A lot of people come to the military in the United States because they love their country, because they have a family tradition, because they want to soldier for a while and then move on to other things. Frankly, these are the people who have not been properly taken care of in the years since 9/11, and they are the principal target of our legislation.

The U.S. military has done a very good job taking care of its career force. When you hear arguments about entitlement to transferability, again, they are talking about managing the career force. But these are the actual numbers that have been given to us by the manpower chiefs in the Department of Defense.

In the U.S. Army, by the time a cohort group has finished its first enlistment, 75.5 percent of them have left or will leave the U.S. Army at the end of a first enlistment. In the Marine Corps, 70 percent of the people who enlist will leave by the end of their first enlistment, either through attrition or deciding not to reenlist. For approximately 50 percent of the Air Force and the Navy it is the same.

If you look at the Active-Duty military on the enlisted side, an overwhelming majority of them leave the military by the end of their first enlistment. These are the people who have had readjustment difficulties that we have talked about. These are the people who deserve to have a first-class education in order to move them into the future.

This group over here, about a quarter of the Army, about 30 percent of the Marine Corps, and about half of the Air Force and the Navy, are the people who reenlist at least for one term. This is the group that has received so much of the argument of this administration on issues of retention. We need to take care of this group. We are prepared today to discuss a way to address this transferability issue with this smaller but very important group.

I point out with the issue of transferability that Senator Warner had introduced a provision that was enacted into law about 6 years ago that allowed the Service Secretaries to provide transferability to military people at the discretion of the Service Secretaries as a retention device. This has been in the law for 6 years with respect to the Montgomery GI bill, the bill we are going to replace. It has almost never been used.

On the one hand, we hear all this talk from the Department of Defense about how important this is and how they hear about it every day when they go out to their meetings and their townhall meetings, but the Service Secretaries have almost never used this benefit that has already been on the books. So I am concerned about how widely this benefit would actually be used.

At the same time, I believe it is important, and our principal sponsors believe it is important, that we continue the existing law with some modification to give the U.S. Department of Defense the opportunity to test it again, to put it in this bill, continue it as law with some tweaks on it. As the Senator from Mississippi had said earlier, I hope with this gesture that we can get full support for this legislation and get it into law. The clock ticks for young people after they leave the military in terms of how they are going to readjust to the rest of their lives. The clock has

been ticking for a lot of people since 9/11, and it is our duty to do something about it this year.

With that, Mr. President, I yield to my colleague from Nebraska, my longtime friend, Vietnam combat veteran, and former official in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Will the Senator yield?

My understanding of the program is that would be $18 billion.

Mr. President, I rise today to thank my colleague from North Dakota for his work on media ownership issues and to engage him in a colloquy to clarify one point about the resolution of disapproval. I note that Senator Dorgan has long been a champion of media localism and diversity, issues that are quite important to me as well.

Because I believe that the Federal Communications Commission ignored Congress's repeated admonitions about following appropriate processes in reaching the agency's new cross-ownership rules, I support this bipartisan resolution.

Yet I believe that if the Senate adopts this resolution, the existing waivers contemplated under the FCC cross-ownership rule should be protected. This means that those waivers would not be a part of this resolution.

I have significant concerns that if these waivers are not protected, this legislation could harm some media markets and constituents' access to news and information in my State of Virginia.

I would like to confirm that this resolution, while it would nullify the revised version of the FCC's newspaper cross-ownership ban, would not undo or in any manner change the FCC's decision to grant permanent waivers to five existing newspaper-broadcast combinations, and thus grandfather them, as set forth in paragraphs 77 and 158 of the FCC's December 18, 2007 Report and Order. It is my understanding that this resolution will not affect these five specific waivers, and I would like to clarify this understanding

Senator Dorgan, is it your goal and understanding that the waivers that the FCC granted in conjunction with the cross-ownership rule be protected?

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to engage in a colloquy with the senior Senator from Virginia and the senior Senator from Nebraska.

Madam President, I wish to speak for a few minutes about our bill that the senior Senator from Virginia, the Senator from Nebraska, and 58 Members of this body in total have cosponsored because I regret this vote that has just occurred.

I personally did not think it was appropriate that the amendment of the Senator from South Carolina be placed into this particular legislation, particularly at a time when there had been a good bit of discussion about how any suggestions that were viewed as appropriate to our legislation were welcome. They have been welcome for 16 months.

So I don't want the Members of this body, or other people in our country, to think that in any way our GI bill legislation is a partisan measure or a piece of legislation that simply is being driven by the majority party. In fact, as I said, we have 58 sponsors in the Senate-- 11 of them Republicans--including the senior Senator from Virginia, who, other than myself, is the only person who has served in a policy position in the Pentagon and who is a former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and including the former chairman of the veterans committee, a Republican, and also including the current chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the chairman of the veterans committee.

This is a strongly bipartisan bill. It is an attempt to give those people who serve and have served since 9/11 equitable opportunities for the future on a level of the people whom we have come to call the ``greatest generation,'' the World War II veterans. That is all this is. I hope the other Members of this body will come together with us to pass this legislation.

With respect to amendments to this legislation, I wish to say a couple things. One, we have worked with all the major veterans groups over a period of 16 months. We have worked with other Members of this body over a period of 16 months--Democrats and Republicans. We have incorporated many different suggestions. This is a bill that I believe will be dramatically helpful to those who have served, and it will be something of which the American people can be proud.

In that regard, I say, first of all, on the House side, we have 295 sponsors of this identical legislation, including 91 Republicans. So let's all get together and let's set partisan bickering aside and do something affirmative that will allow the people who have been serving in these arduous times to have a true first-class shot in the future.

With that, I yield to the senior Senator from Virginia, whose advice and counsel on this bill has been greatly appreciated and whose support I also appreciate.

Madam President, first of all, I say to the senior Senator from Virginia, I have raised this piece of existing law a number of times when the individuals who introduced the measure that was just tabled talked about the need for transferability. This option is available to service Secretaries at their discretion under the existing law that the senior Senator from Virginia introduced more than 6 years ago. It would be, I believe, logical and proper to extend that law to the new GI bill.

We would be happy to discuss that as soon as we can meet.

Madam President, the Senator from Nebraska is getting ready to speak. I will point out a couple things. One is that he has served our country with great distinction as an infantry sergeant in Vietnam and was wounded. He has been a great friend for many years, 30 years. He and I came up together working on veterans laws years ago.

Just as importantly, when I mentioned the senior Senator from Virginia and myself were the only ones who served in policy positions in the Pentagon, I believe Senator Hagel is probably the only Member of this body who has served in a senior policy position in the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

If anyone is looking at the sense of fiduciary responsibility and the wisdom that has gone into our bill, I hope they will consider those sets of experiences.

With that, I yield to the senior Senator from Nebraska.

Madam President, I say to the senior Senator that I have read the existing law, and the understanding I have of it is, at the discretion of a Service Secretary for military occupational specialities, that as they determine with a reenlistment, that transferability in increments would be allowed. That is in keeping with the statements of concern by the Senator from South Carolina about wanting to use transferability as a retention incentive. It is in existing law. It has not really been used extensively by the Service Secretaries. But I agree with the senior Senator that we should look for a way to continue that in our legislation as well.

I thank both Senators. I yield the floor, Madam President.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. President, today is the 33rd anniversary of the fall of South Vietnam, where the North Vietnamese offensive that had begun in the aftermath of a vote in this Congress to cut off supplemental funding to the Government of South Vietnam. This was combined with a massive refurbishment of the North Vietnamese Army that allowed an invasion to kick off at a time when our South Vietnamese allies were attempting to reorganize their positions in order to adapt to the reality that they were going to get markedly less funding from the United States in their effort to grow their incipient democracy.

I think it is important for us to look back on that event and to give credit where credit is due, and also to talk a little bit about the future of relations between our country and the present Government in Vietnam.

Too often in today's school systems and in the discussions that examine the Vietnam war, we are overwhelmed by mythology. In many cases, we tend to assume this was a war between the United States and Vietnam. Nothing could be further from the truth. This was an attempt by the United States to assist a government in the south that had been formed with the idea that it would evolve into a properly functioning democracy, in the same way that we assisted South Korea when it was divided from North Korea, in the same way that we very successfully assisted West Germany when the demarcation line at the end of World War II divided Germany between the Communist east and the free society in the west. We were not successful in that endeavor in Vietnam for a number of reasons. But it would be wrong to assume that this was an action by our country against the country of Vietnam. It was an attempt to actually assist that country.

There is a lot of talk about the domino theory and the heightened and unjustified warnings about what was going on in the rest of the region with respect to different efforts that were backed by the Soviet Union and Communist China at that point. But these were actually valid concerns at the time. Indonesia had suffered an attempted coup that was sponsored by the Chinese. We had a hot war in South Korea when North Korea invaded. This was a region in a great deal of turmoil, when you look back at the European powers that had colonies throughout Southeast Asia, which had largely pulled back after World War II because of the enormous costs of that war. It had shrunk back into their own national perimeters. The Japanese had colonized a good part of Southeast Asia, and after World War II they had withdrawn their forces. There was a good deal of turbulence, and there was a great deal of strategic justification for what we attempted to do.

The bottom line is 58,000 Americans were killed in action or died of hostile causes during the Vietnam war. We should remember them with the validity that their effort deserves. Mr. President, 245,000 South Vietnamese soldiers fought alongside us and perished; 1.4 million Communist soldiers died in that endeavor.

The events following the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, have never really been given the proper attention in terms of how we evaluate the history of what we attempted to do. One million of the cream of South Vietnam's leaders were sent into reeducation camps, and 240,000 of them remained in those camps for 4 years or longer; 56,000 of them died in the reeducation camps. This was the cream of South Vietnam's leadership--almost as many as we lost in the entire war. Two million Vietnamese were displaced, a million of them hitting the ocean, risking their

lives in order to try to reach a better life that would not be under the oppression of a government that had succeeded in conquering the south. Many of them came to the United States.

Many of the families whose fathers and, in some cases, mothers had been in reeducation camps were able to relocate here and begin a different life. A Stalinist system took over in the north. When I started going back to Vietnam in 1991, that system was very much in place.

We should look to the future. I believe there are two important things for us to keep in mind at this point in the evolution of our relations with Vietnam. First is that over a pretty rocky period of time, the Communist Government of Vietnam has made adjustments and positive contributions. This is not to say that we are in a perfectly beneficial relationship, but I have been pleased, since 1991, to participate in many of these endeavors to bring a more moderate society inside Vietnam and to assist in bringing in American businesses.

Vietnam and Thailand, in my view, are two of the most important countries in terms of how the United States should be looking at East Asia and Southeast Asia with the emergence of China, the emergence of India, and the evolution of Muslim fundamentalism that spills over in Southeast Asia into countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and the south Philippines. Vietnam and Thailand are very important to us, and the relationships evolving between Vietnam and the United States are healthy and in the long term are going to be successful.

The second thing we should remember is that there are many Vietnamese Americans in this country who suffered not only during the war, but after 1975. We tend to forget that with the reorganization of the society that occurred under Communist rule. I have spent a good bit of my life working to assist this refugee community in the United States. I also have been working to build a bridge between the overseas Vietnamese community and the ruling Government in Vietnam today. Through that bridge, we are going to have a much healthier society here and also a much more productive society in Vietnam.

Today, I wanted to do my small part in making sure we in this country remember not only a struggle that had a great deal of validity to it-- even though it did not turn out the way many of us wanted it to--but also the positive aspects of our relations with Vietnam looking into the future.

With, I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. President, I wish to take some time today to address a certain portion of H.R. 2881. Before I begin those remarks, I also wish to mention that there are a number of communities in Virginia that experienced some pretty devastating weather effects yesterday as a result of high winds and tornadoes. I want the people in those communities to know we have been in continuous contact from my office with the Governor's office and we have people from our office down in these communities, and we are committed to ensuring that appropriate governmental assistance be made available and remain available until the effects of this unfortunate weather occurrence are remedied.

I wish to thank the chairman for bringing this bill to the floor, and in general, I support the bill. Our Nation's air traffic control systems are in serious need of modernization. We all know that. This bill in most ways is the right step in addressing those challenges. But I would like to take a few minutes today to talk about an issue that is vitally important to a lot of communities in and around Reagan National Airport in northern Virginia.

I am deeply troubled by a provision in this bill that would add 20 additional slots at Reagan National, including several potential amendments that could further harm that airport as well as Dulles International Airport and their neighboring communities.

We should recall that in 1987, Congress created the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority in order to run Reagan National and Washington Dulles International Airports. The creation of the Airports Authority established a professional organization to operate the airports efficiently and represented a commitment to the surrounding communities regarding aircraft noise and traffic. I think that

bears repeating. Congress made a commitment to the residents of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax County on the operation of Reagan National Airport when it transferred authority on these issues over to the Airports Authority. Those commitments were codified by Congress in the so-called perimeter and slot rules. Changes to these rules threaten to seriously degrade service to the airports, and they break the promises that were made to these surrounding communities.

In an ideal world, it sounds appealing to have more flights to Reagan National Airport, but the fact is that there are basic physical constraints to that airport that simply cannot be ignored. If anyone has ever tried to fly out of Reagan National during peak hours, they know that parking can be extraordinarily difficult, that ticket counters can be incredibly congested, and that the number of gates that park the jets is limited. I am told that an increase of just four airplane slots, for example, could result in an additional 400 to 500 passengers going through this airport an hour.

Nearly 10 years ago, the Airports Authority rebuilt much of Reagan National, transforming it into one of the most efficient airports in the Nation, as the facilities constructed were matched to the number of flights established by law. Any increase in the number of flights will overburden critical airport facilities and infrastructure, causing serious disruptions. New flights, obviously, would create greater demand for parking at a time when parking is difficult, affect gate access, and all these other areas I mentioned before.

When the Airports Authority upgraded their facilities in the 1990s, it did so with these slot and perimeter restrictions in mind. These were carefully crafted rules that work in harmony to manage this airport's capacity. Adding more flights would quickly exceed the physical capacity of the airport.

Importantly, the slot rules created an airport in balance with its surrounding neighborhoods. Because Reagan National is convenient to many air passengers, it is appreciated and well used. But this convenience comes at a heavy price for many of the airport neighbors in the form of aircraft noise and related traffic situations on the roads in these areas. Adding flights beyond what was agreed to in this legislation breaks the bond that was created with the neighbors of the airports. It unfairly burdens them for the sake of the convenience of others.

I note that the city of Alexandria, Arlington County, the McLean Citizens Association, the Mount Vernon Citizens Association, the Washington Council of Governments, and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine all oppose these changes.

I am particularly concerned that there is a tipping point with these matters. We have to be concerned about quality of life in these communities as we measure them against the convenience of using the airport.

It strikes me that the desire to change the slot and perimeter rules at Reagan National is not being driven by market demand but rather by a few airlines seeking a competitive advantage over others. By allowing existing rules to be altered further for a select class of airlines, Congress would be allocating this scarce resource for the convenience of a few and, again, in contradiction to the larger community need.

The bottom line question is, How many more additional aircraft and how much more noise should local citizenry have to endure before we have crossed this important threshold?

Congress added 24 new slots in 2000 and another 22 slots in 2003. If we continue to allow more flights this year, how many more are we going to have to continue to allow the next time this bill comes up?

The communities of Northern Virginia should not have to continually suffer for the convenience of a relative few.

I close by saying that the Congress made a commitment to these Virginia communities when it ceded control to the Airports Authority. It should honor those commitments. Let's allow the Airports Authority to run Washington's airports. I urge my colleagues to reject any changes to the slot and perimeter rules at Reagan National.

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

Mr. President, I rise to talk about two issues with respect to our veterans community. First, I express my strong support for S. 1315, as reported by the committee, and my thanks, as a member of the veterans committee, to Chairman Akaka for all the work that went into this legislation.

I wish to spend a little time talking about the provision of the bill that is in question. As someone who began working on veterans law as a committee counsel in the late 1970s, I understand the concerns of the Senator from North Carolina about the provision with respect to Filipino veterans who are living in the Philippines who would receive pension benefits from this bill. I emphasize that I believe the chairman has done a great job in trying to balance a list of powerful competing considerations that go to the aspect of basic fairness to those who served.

This issue has been around a long time. People have struggled with a way to resolve it. The fairness aspect cuts both ways. As Senator Inouye and others have been so clear in pointing out, the question of assisting Filipino veterans for their service in World War II is complicated by the notion of the political status of the Philippine Islands at the time. They were, in fact, a territory of the United States politically, and they served under the command, in many cases, of American commanders and not simply in affiliated allied status as, for instance, the veterans of the South Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam war.

This situation is unique. It is complex, and it does create a series of obligations by our Government toward these people.

There is precedent of sorts for this activity. I go back to 1976, when President Ford signed into law a provision that gave limited veterans' status to Polish and Czechoslovakian freedom fighters who served during World War II, not with the United States military at all but had migrated to the United States. The logic was given at the time that since Poland and Czechoslovakia had fallen under Communist rule, they had lost the government that would have been able to give them veterans' benefits, and our Government did provide limited veterans' benefits to those people.

What we are talking about in this bill is the notion of according veterans pension rights to Filipino veterans of World War II living in the Philippines. It is important to emphasize to my colleagues that under veterans law, pension is not a gratis benefit such as, for instance, a Social Security pension that is given no matter one's economic status. In veterans law, pension is given based on need. This has been the focus of the debate for more than 30 years, as to how do you define, under American law, the cutoff in terms of standards of living inside the Philippines.

This is where Chairman Akaka and his staff have worked so assiduously to come up with something that is fair. In order to apply for a veterans pension, you have to be in financial need. And the amount you receive is basically to get you to a certain level that gets you above the poverty level. So the average annual pension in the United States for an American veteran is just under $10,000 a year. You can get up to nearly $15,000 a year in the United States in your veterans pension program, and under some extremely unusual cases, you can get up to $18,000. What we are talking about, the way the committee staff has worked this out in terms of equity, is giving the Filipino veterans living in the Philippines a $3,600-a-year pension based on need, once they go into the U.S. formula. It is not a perfect solution, but I do believe it is an equitable solution. I intend to support it.

The second issue I would like to discuss relates to a piece of legislation that was introduced a couple days ago by Senator Burr, with Senators Graham and McCain as cosponsors. It is apparently designed to be an alternative to S. 22, the comprehensive GI

bill I introduced nearly 16 months ago, which was recently modified and reintroduced to reflect the collective view of a wide range of experts, both inside Government and in the veterans community. S. 22, the bill I originally introduced, now enjoys strong bipartisan support. We have 57 cosponsors in the Senate. That includes 11 Republicans. Among the cosponsors on this bill are the Senator from Missouri; Senator Warner, former chairman of the Armed Services Committee; and many others, Senator Hagel, who, along with myself, is the only ground combat veteran from the Vietnam war. A majority of the House is cosponsoring the exact version of S. 22 that we reintroduced. Most, if not all, of our leading veterans organizations have endorsed S. 22. In fact, it is important to note that the major pieces in this legislation were specifically endorsed in the recent Independent Budget submitted by a consortium of our top veterans organizations.

The proponents of this newly introduced legislation, Senators Burr, McCain, and Graham, maintain S. 22 would be too generous to today's veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, would be too difficult to administer, and would unduly harm the retention of our active duty military people. I emphasize that these assertions are incorrect. I would say to all those Senators, whom I deeply respect--and I enjoy a long friendship with Senator McCain that goes back 30 years--we have a lot of issues to debate in this Senate. We have a lot of issues to debate in the campaign this year. But this should not be one of them.

S. 22 is hardly too generous, unless people are prepared to say that the World War II GI bill was too generous. To the contrary, we have taken 15 months, with daily cooperation with all the major veterans groups and with many Members of the Congress. We have listened to them. We have refined this legislation in many important ways, and it is our best collective, bipartisan effort to mirror the types of benefits that were given to those who served in World War II.

Nor would this bill be too difficult to administer. There was a list of concerns about our bill when they introduced this other version, which is the reason that compels me to explain this. We worked closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs and with committee staff on the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. We have addressed every major concern. For these reasons, Chairman Akaka of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and Chairman Levin of the Armed Services Committee have cosponsored this bill.

Finally, there is no indication this bill would unduly harm active duty retention. Recent statistics from the Army and Marine Corps show that 70 to 75 percent of soldiers and marines who enlist return to civilian life at, or before, the end of their first enlistment. This is the pool that is having readjustment difficulties, and this is the pool we are trying to assist with this legislation. The military is already doing a very good job of managing its career force. It is not doing a very good job of assisting this large group of people as they attempt to readjust to civilian life, and this is the primary focus of S. 22. With respect to active duty retention, a good GI bill will increase the pool of people interested in serving, lower first-term attrition, and would have a negligible impact on retention itself.

I see my time is about to be called by the Presiding Officer.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 5 minutes.

I thank the Chair.

Madam President, as we approach the anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy, I am introducing legislation to implement one of the key recommendations from the Virginia Tech Review Panel that was formed by Gov. Tim Kaine to examine some of the issues that arose following the shooting.

It is exactly 1 year this week when a disturbed young man took the lives of 32 students and faculty and wounded several others on the campus of Virginia Tech. I commend the Virginia Tech community for pulling through such a difficult time and for the tremendous amount of courage they displayed. I also wish to extend my continuing sympathy to the families of the students and faculty who were directly impacted by these shootings.

On April 19, 2007, 3 days after the Virginia Tech shooting, Governor Kaine announced the formation of the Virginia Tech Review Panel to perform a review of the events of April 16. This panel included individuals with the expertise and autonomy necessary to conduct a comprehensive review. These nationally recognized individuals brought expertise in many areas, including law enforcement, security, governmental management, mental health, emergency care, victims' services, the Virginia court system, and higher education.

The genesis for the legislation I am introducing is the report prepared by this panel and released to the public in August 2007. A similar report was prepared for President Bush by the Attorney General and the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Education in follow-up to meetings with

various experts across the country. Both reports documented serious concerns from individuals in various communities throughout Virginia and the Nation regarding the treatment of student medical records.

One main theme that kept resonating in various communities was concern with the appropriate balance between providing for the safety of our communities while at the same time protecting privacy rights. Too many college administrators are unsure how to balance the right to privacy against public safety, and Federal law and regulations are of little help.

This bill simply attempts to clear up any ambiguity that currently exists within the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, known as FERPA, which allows for the sharing of student educational records in order to protect the health or safety of a student or the general public.

FERPA, written in 1974, was created at a time when schools did not provide the health care services they do today. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14. Schools today, whether they are K-12 or a post-secondary institution, have critical student health records in their hands.

It is important for Congress to ensure that we provide our school officials, administrators, and counselors clear Federal guidelines to protect the privacy and to ensure the safety of our students. My bill attempts to address the concerns raised by school officials, administrators, and institutions in interpreting FERPA.

If one looks back at the recommendations of the Virginia Tech Review Panel, one notices that a key resounding issue is the misinterpretation of Federal and State privacy laws. My bill does three things to amend FERPA so that tragic situations such as the one at Virginia Tech are less likely to occur. First, it adds an explicit ``safe harbor'' provision to make clear that no violation of FERPA occurs if a school official discloses information in a good-faith belief that it is necessary to protect the health or safety of a student or the general public. Second, it clarifies how FERPA applies to student treatment records held for treatment purposes. Third, it clarifies the emergency exception in FERPA to emphasize that in an emergency, information- sharing is allowed if done in a good-faith belief that doing so will protect against a possible threat to the health or safety of a student or the general public.

This is a straightforward attempt to address several recommendations that were made by the Virginia Tech Review Panel in clarifying the widespread perception that information privacy laws make it difficult to respond effectively to troubled students. It is important for school officials to use their best professional judgment in deciding when to disclose or not to disclose information without fear of violating Federal educational privacy laws.

There is widespread agreement that existing law is in need of clarification. In this regard, I note that the Department of Education proposed a rule on March 24 of this year, which is an attempt to clarify and give guidance to university administration on what they can and cannot do in handling treatment records. I believe this bill is a more direct and effective way to achieve that desired clarity.

Together with the passage of the Mental Health Parity Act in both the House and Senate and other measures to ensure access to mental health services, my bill will be a good step in addressing this growing issue of mental disorders that is all too common in many communities. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate for quick passage of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act Amendments of 2008.

Madam President, I yield the floor, I thank the Chair, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.