Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to express my congratulations and best wishes to the people of South Boston, MA, as they honor their community's long tradition of service to country on the 30th anniversary of the South Boston Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Thirty years ago, on September 13, 1981, the people of South Boston, led by their own citizens who had served in the Vietnam war, became one of the first communities in the United States to build and dedicate a permanent memorial in honor of those who had given their lives in Vietnam. I was privileged to be a speaker at the original dedication of the memorial, and I am honored to be returning to South Boston this year in order to once again pay tribute to those who served.

It is difficult for many of the generation that followed us to understand how bitterly our country had been divided by that war and how long it took to overcome if not resolve the divisions, often along class lines, that were left in its wake. I do not seek to reopen those wounds today, but it should not be forgotten that 25 young men from this solidly working-class community gave their lives in Vietnam, while Harvard College, located nearby on the far banks of the River Charles, lost a total of 12 out of the 11 classes from 1962 to 1972.

In building this memorial, the people of South Boston took it upon themselves to honor their own, and in so doing they reignited the spirit of service to country, not only here in Boston but elsewhere across our country. It was built through the dedication of friends and neighbors, acting together to honor and remember the service and sacrifice of those they knew and loved.

Many veterans from this community took strong roles in bringing the memorial to fruition, but I would like to extend a special recognition to Tommy Lyons, a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, who not only provided spirited and determined leadership on this Memorial but also went on to found the Semper Fidelis Society in Boston, which every November brings together more than 1,000 marines of all ages and wars for the most well-attended veterans' lunch in America.

Mr. President, 25 names are engraved on the South Boston memorial-- all of them ``Southie Boys,'' 15 of them marines, 9 soldiers, 1 airman. One of them was a lieutenant; the other 24 were enlisted men. All of them represent the best of citizen service, the willingness to put one's life on the line on behalf of our country.

In closing, I ask that the names of those inscribed on the memorial be printed below:

Joseph J. Agri, USMC

Charles A. Bazzinotti, USA

Richard J. Borovick, USA

John C. Calhoun, USMC

John H. Cole, USMC

Paul M. Daley, USA

Ronald L. Delverde, USMC

Joseph F. Desmond, USMC

Joseph W. Dunn, USMC

Devon M. Enman, USA

Gene D. Grover, USMC

Frank C. Hubicsak, USA

Douglas J. Itri, USA

John P. Jacobs, USMC

John G. Joyce, USA

Edward W. Milan, USAF

James E. O'Toole, USA

Burton W. Peterson, USMC

Paul H. Sheehan, USMC

James J. Stewart, USMC

Edward T. Stone, USMC

Edward M. Sullivan, USMC

Joseph E. Thomas, USMC

Donald J. Turner, USMC

James K. Wheeler, USA

Mr. President, as the Senate votes on H.J. Res. 66, a joint resolution to renew the sanctions in the 2003 Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, it is important to acknowledge that over the past year Burma has undergone a series of changes that may have the potential to point toward a new direction for the country, after years of isolation and repression. On November 7, 2010, Burma held its first election in 20 years. With limited international observation, most will argue that the election was neither free nor fair. Yet it cannot be denied that the election process initiated a new political dialogue in the country, with candidates participating from more than 37 political parties.

The election resulted in a new governmental system and opportunities for engagement. Burma is now in the midst of a key transitional period that has yielded greater opportunities for interaction with government leaders and civil society, and restructuring of government and military institutions. The release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest after the election has also been an important benchmark in this process. Her repeated interactions with government leaders are a significant step forward in encouraging a democratic process and reconciliation within the country.

There are clear indications of a new openness from the government, and the United States should be prepared to adjust our policy toward Burma accordingly. In reauthorizing this legislation, it should be noted that the 2003 Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act gives the President the authority to waive the prohibitions on any or all imports from Burma if doing so is in the national interest of the United States. I am hopeful that there will be opportunities to closely examine any substantive improvements in our relations during this transitional period, and to take advantage of all of the tools at our disposal to facilitate Burmese economic development, political reconciliation, and ultimately greater progress toward democratic governance.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of calendar No. 109, H.R. 2553; the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I would like to express my support for the majority leader's plan to raise the debt ceiling and reduce the deficit. Our Nation, as we all know, faces a looming crisis.

The markets have already warned us. Businesses are already postponing investments. We know the consequences of inaction. They are predictable. Borrowing costs for businesses and individuals will escalate. Interest payments on the debt will grow. Already anemic job growth will decline. Our Nation will run the risk of another financial catastrophe and possibly a return to recession. As Chairman Bernanke recently stated, the outcome would be ``calamitous.''

Many Americans are struggling. Far too many remain out of work. They cannot be asked to absorb the shock waves of yet another failure to act. It is time, as the Senator from Texas just pointed out--and others have--for both sides and both Chambers to find common ground.

Reasonable and responsible editorials from across the country have endorsed the majority leader's proposal. Well-meaning people on all sides have a genuine concern and have shown genuine concerns. We all-- most all of us--share those concerns about the implications of not acting.

There are in the other party some individuals who view themselves as revolutionaries in the best sense of the word. They appear less concerned with the here and now than with where they want to take the country in the future. We all understand the two are connected and that looking to the future is vital to the country. The question, though, is the harm that might be caused by precipitous action.

Columnist George Will wrote a column a few days ago likening the tea party movement of today to the beginning of the Goldwater-Reagan conservative era; that the Goldwater movement of 1964, even though it did not bring Senator Goldwater to the Presidency, was the first step toward the conservative revolution that culminated in Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.

I am going to quote a couple of sentences Mr. Will wrote:

The tea party, [which in his view is] the most welcome . .

. development since the Goldwater insurgency in 1964, lacks

only the patience necessary when America lacks the consensus

required to propel fundamental change. . . .

Mr. Will goes on to say:

If Washington's trajectory could be turned as quickly as

tea partyers wish . . . their movement would not be as

necessary as it is.

Those are Mr. Will's words. That is Mr. Will's considered opinion. That may be so, and it may not be so. But the first rule of good governance is to do no harm. That does not mean we should not make cuts. That does not mean we should not look toward some of the directions this debate has taken us. But it means be careful when you are dealing with a fragility of national policy at a time like this.

Some things sound better in a speech to a room full of activists than they actually are in the reality of how to govern and the practicality of how to actually bring about change, where change is needed.

Senator Goldwater did not attempt to torpedo the economy in order to get his way. Ronald Reagan, in whose administration I proudly served, by the way, raised the national debt 18 times--more than any other President.

I fought in Vietnam as an infantry marine. I am very proud of that. Those of us who did fight in Vietnam all remember the regretful quote of one infantry officer who lamented that during one battle he had to call in heavy artillery and airstrikes on a populated village; that he had to destroy a village in order to save it.

I do not think the Republicans who are using this issue as a lever to bring about their view of radical change want to look back at a fractured economic recovery, a downgraded credit rating for the world's No. 1 economy, a citizenry that has become more angry and less capable of predicting its own financial future, and then say, as if all of this were not predictable, that they destroyed the American economy in order to save it.

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

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

Mr. President, I wish to begin by expressing my appreciation for the remarks of the Senator from South Dakota about the need to help our veterans, particularly those who have been serving in these recent endeavors. I wish to express my personal appreciation once again for the service his own son has given our country during this period, and to the service of the Senator from Illinois, the ranking Republican on this bill, as well as to my own son for having served as an enlisted marine and infantryman in Ramadi, Iraq, through some of the worst fighting of that war.

I rise today to discuss two amendments Senator Warner and I have filed to this particular bill. Each relates to the Navy's proposal to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport in Florida by 2019.

One amendment would eliminate funding of nearly $15 million for a Navy

military construction project--a four-lane divided highway on the naval station. The Navy describes it as the first in a series of what will be increasingly expensive projects required to enable the Navy to create a second homeport for aircraft carriers on the east coast.

The second amendment would eliminate approximately $15 million for architectural planning and design services for a number of follow-on military construction projects at Mayport tied, again, to carrier homeporting.

This is a slippery slope. The Navy says it will cost more than $\1/2\ billion in one-time costs to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Mayport. Other recurring costs will push the expense much higher. In fact, there are estimates these costs could achieve more than $1 billion by the end of this decade.

The reason for filing these amendments is straightforward. We owe it to the American taxpayers, as well as to the integrity of our DOD budget process. The Department of Defense has been directed to achieve reductions in defense spending totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. No part of that budget should be off-limits, especially a duplicative, redundant project such as the Navy's carrier homeporting plan for Mayport.

I wish to make it clear at the outset that this is not a Virginia v. Florida issue, although there are strong political implications in both Virginia and in Florida for this move. I have been involved in one way or another with naval service since I was 17 years old, and I will continue to be involved in one way or another long after I am involved as a Senator in the Senate.

I support the Navy's requirement to sustain the naval station at Mayport in some fashion, but speaking as a former Secretary of the Navy, I wish to point out there are other ways to get there. I question the fiscal responsibility and the strategic necessity to homeport an aircraft carrier in Mayport when less expensive homeporting alternatives do exist.

These amendments are directed toward necessary congressional oversight. The GAO has initiated an independent analysis of alternatives. Its assessment will be completed next spring. Before we commit to a plan to build expensive, redundant, nuclear-supported infrastructure on the east coast with long-term spending implications, our views on the Navy's proposal should be informed by this GAO study.

Let me explain my hesitations about this project. First, the Navy is proposing to expand a facility at the same time the size of its fleet has radically declined. This chart shows the size of the U.S. Navy active ship force vessels levels from 1970 until today. In 1970, the U.S. Navy had 743 active ships. Today they have 284 deployable battle force ships. It is rather ironic as I stand here today because when I was Secretary of the Navy in the late 1980s, the Navy had exactly twice as many combatants as it does today--568 combatants. It is only logical that the Navy's shore footprint should reflect this reality. The Navy's plan to build a large duplicative facility for aircraft carriers in Mayport contradicts this logic.

In 1970, with 19 aircraft carriers, which is this line showing the historical trend on aircraft carriers, the Navy homeported carriers at 6 locations. As the number of aircraft carriers has declined from 19 to 11 today, the number of their homeports has held fairly constant. There are now 5. So when we had 19 aircraft carriers in the Navy, they homeported them at 6 locations.

Today, with 11 aircraft carriers and 1, quite frankly, at risk, which I will speak to in a minute, we have 5. The Navy has upgraded its facilities and home ports on the west coast and in Japan, as well as our east coast home port in Norfolk to accommodate today's all-nuclear carrier fleet. With a fleet less than half the size of what it was in 1970--almost one-third of the size of what it was in 1970--it is only logical that we do not require the same number of shore facilities to support it.

Quite frankly, if I had $1 billion to spend, I think I would buy a couple of ships with it and try to get the Navy up to its stated goal, which I support, of 313 combatants. These are issues of fiscal responsibility--where the Navy puts its money.

Over the past 5 years, the Navy has had validated unfunded requirements--validated unfunded requirements--of more than $50 billion across its operations, military construction, modernization and acquisition programs. I believe it is more fiscally responsible for the Navy to reduce these unfunded requirements than it would be for them to build a redundant facility.

From fiscal year 2008 through 2012, the Navy reported unfunded priorities totaling $11.8 billion. These are priorities totaling $11.8 billion. They cover shipbuilding, aircraft procurement, aviation and ship maintenance, military construction, and other programs--all for future readiness needs.

The Navy's backlog in critical modernization repair projects at the four naval shipyards increased to $3.5 billion in fiscal year 2010 as a result of inadequate investment. The Navy acknowledges that the growing risk for shipyard operations is a major concern. Overall, the Navy's shorewide modernization backlog grew to $39.2 billion last year--up nearly $3 billion from the previous year. Simply stated, the Navy needs to do a better job of managing its existing facilities.

So I ask my colleagues: How can we be sympathetic to the Navy's request for additional funding to cover such shortfalls when it wants to invest up to $1 billion in an ill-advised, duplicative carrier homeporting project in Mayport?

There has been much discussion about the strategic justification and ramifications of only having one nuclear aircraft homeport on the east coast. Let me talk about that. First, the Navy says the new homeport is needed to mitigate the risk of a terrorist attack, accident, or natural disaster at the homeporting facility in Norfolk. However, every Navy risk assessment states there is a low risk of such events occurring in the Hampton Roads region. Alternate maintenance facilities for a carrier exist at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and the private shipyard in Newport News. Last year, I supported projects at Mayport to cover this possibility as well--to dredge its channel and modernize a pier so that a carrier could make a routine port visit there in the unlikely event that operations in Norfolk were interrupted so that a carrier could use Mayport in an emergency.

There has been some talk about the need for strategic dispersal. I recognize that concept. There have been photographs of Pearl Harbor with battleship row, with the ships bunched together, showing how the Japanese aircraft were able to knock them out in 1941. There was justification for the Navy's concept of dispersal during the Cold War. But even then many critics from GAO were faulting the Navy at a time when I was at the Pentagon for its lack of a focused threat assessment to justify what some people were calling ``strategic home-porking''-- putting ships in too many different locations.

Today's threats are entirely different, and I would make the rather ironic note that dispersal in many ways has occurred through reduction. I will say this again: The U.S. Navy today is one-half the size it was when I was Secretary of the Navy, when we had 568 combatants. A certain amount of dispersal has occurred by the dwindling size of the Navy.

The second point is a conventional Pearl Harbor-type attack is very unlikely. Secretary of Defense Panetta mentioned this during his Senate confirmation hearing in June:

The next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a

cyber attack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our

security systems, our financial systems, and our governmental

systems.

I do not minimize the need to protect our fleet from any sort of attack. We have done an extraordinarily good job of that in the Norfolk area with high-tech defensive systems. This is not the same type of situation that people have talked about in terms of what happened at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Another point is that less expensive homeporting options do exist. Our Navy's own studies identify other less-expensive options to sustain the facility at Mayport, and I do believe Mayport as a Navy town is very important to the interests of our country and to that region. It is an important naval base. But we have a clear responsibility to find more cost-effective, more strategically responsible ways to do that.

Again, if I had $1 billion I would put it into ships. If I were looking for the

right kind of ship to go to Florida, I would look for amphibious and smaller ships so we don't have to build these highly expensive, nuclear-capable facilities that, again, are redundant.

I must also note that pressures to reduce the Navy budget are getting worse. Last week, Marine Corps GEN James Cartwright, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, highlighted this challenge, saying that the Defense Department is ``looking at all options'' to reduce its budget by $400 billion over the next 10 years. General Cartwright then confirmed that the Navy was considering such options as delaying the construction of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier or possibly cancelling a future aircraft carrier acquisition.

The effects of these budget pressures are manifested in the fleet today. The Navy's readiness for aviation squadrons and its surface ships has continued to decline since 2007, owing to inadequate funding for maintenance, deferred availabilities, and the fleet's high operational tempo. In their testimony on Navy readiness to the Readiness Subcommittee on the House side just last week, the Navy witnesses said, ``This is unsustainable over the long term.''

So do we want to spend $1 billion on a redundant homeport at the expense of building ships and maintaining our fleet? I would encourage my colleagues to consider a commonsense approach and to take a year's time out before embarking on a duplicative enterprise that the Navy simply cannot afford. The service has far too many higher priorities, unfunded requirements, and readiness problems on its plate.

The GAO study will be comprehensive, it will be rigorous, and it will give us the information we need to make informed judgments next year regarding the Navy's homeporting plan for Mayport. There is no cause to rush to judgment now. There is $30 million that could be saved presently.

As I said, this is a slippery slope that could take us down the road to $1 billion. We don't need it. We need the money in other areas in the Navy budget.

Mr. NELSON of Florida, Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the strategic dispersal of our naval fleet, and how this is vital to our national security. Why is strategic dispersal important? Well, we only have to look back a few decades to December 7, 1941, to see why all of our eggs should not be in one basket.

In the Pacific fleet, our Navy has had the forethought to station our most priceless assets at four different homeports--San Diego, Bremerton, Everett, and Japan. The Navy has been slow, however, to accomplish the same thing with our Atlantic fleet. When the last conventionally powered aircraft carrier, the John F. Kennedy, was decommissioned in 2007, we had a problem. All five nuclear carriers were now in one homeport Norfolk, VA. So since 2007 this has heightened the national security threat.

The threat could be an asymmetric one like the USS Cole bombing or the sinking of a freighter in the 15-mile-long channel at Norfolk, which would bottle up the carriers in port.

If we have learned anything, it should be this--we are not invulnerable to attacks or to the whims of Mother Nature, nor are we very good at anticipating when and where the next catastrophe will occur. Mayport, unlike Norfolk's carrier berths, is at the mouth of the river, adjacent to the ocean, with a protected harbor from the commercial ship channel.

The President's budget request supports the infrastructure improvements needed in order to homeport a carrier in Mayport, FL, in 2019. Why? The Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Gary Roughead, said that ``Moving a carrier to Mayport is needed regardless of cost.'' The Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, said ``We have to disperse our carrier fleet, from a naval standpoint; it's something we have to do.''

The cost to homeport a CVN at Mayport is much less, almost half, of what the Navy anticipated. The Government Accountability Office estimates that the total cost of remaining projects will be from $258 million to $356 million, instead of $537 million. Indeed, this is cheap insurance when you consider the costs of replacing a carrier at $11.5 billion.

The military decision to disperse the fleet has been studied and restudied. Admiral after admiral, Secretary after Secretary have all testified keeping a second Atlantic homeport is essential to national security. The U.S. Congress has supported this decision for years.

The Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee both have recommended the full funding of the President's budget request for Mayport improvements in 2012. The carrier move enjoys broad, bipartisan support in this Chamber.

With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we spend probably the majority of the time when we discuss foreign policy on this floor talking about the crises in places such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan. If we talk about East Asia at all, we generally are discussing the economic situation as it portends to the future, especially with China.

But I would like to make a strong point here today; that is, if we don't get it right with our relations in East Asia, we are in very serious trouble as a nation. It is vitally important for the United States to continue to invigorate our relations with all the countries with East and Southeast Asia on economic, security, and cultural levels.

Today, I would like to talk about a few of these issues that are affecting our relations in that part of the world. This weekend, there will be a regional forum for the Asian countries in Bali. Our Secretary of State will be there.

This forum is coming at a pivotal moment with respect to our relations in Southeast Asia and the rest of East Asia. The recent military provocations by China against the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea, which this body passed a resolution deploring, affect the mood of the entire region at this moment. There also have been political transitions in Thailand and in Burma and there are consistent ecological threats in the Mekong River, with hydropower dams up river beginning in China and now also being proposed in Laos.

All of these issues underscore the need for vigorous multilateral engagement in this part of the world and the development of new strategic relationships and the continuity of balance the United States has been bringing to this vital region since the end of World War II.

We are going to be reauthorizing a piece of legislation called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in this session of Congress. I have an amendment to this act. I think it is an extremely important amendment in terms of our relationship with friends and allies, particularly in East Asia, and with representatives of highly developed governmental systems that have a lot of problems with the way we have implemented this act in the past.

I, similar to everyone in the Senate, fully support the intentions of this legislation and the intentions of the State Department to prevent human trafficking and to assist trafficking victims. But under our present policy, we have a great deal of confusion and, quite frankly, resentment from many of these more developed governmental systems. This present policy requires that a country be ranked against the progress it has made in the past year. In other words, a country is ranked against itself over a period of yearly behavior. This practice doesn't provide countries with a consistent standard by which they might truly measure their efforts against human trafficking versus other countries around the world, and it creates a lot of misunderstandings.

The criteria used to judge a country's efforts are difficult to estimate with any precision. They are often very subjective. For example by placing prosecutions for trafficking as a part of this evaluation over actual successes in areas such as the protection of victims and the prevention of acts in the first place, we get a total misreading of the success that many of these governmental systems actually have been able to bring about.

This is an excerpt from a press release that came out of Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on June 28 of this year, talking about their ranking under this Trafficking in Persons Report, the TIP Report.

They say: We note that the United States has again unabashedly awarded itself a tier 1 ranking. Yet the New York Times observed--this is from their press statement--that teenage girls coerced into prostitution in the United States are treated not as trafficking victims but as miscreants who are arrested and prosecuted. This is directly opposite to Singapore's approach. The United States also suffers from serious problems with illegal immigrants, many of whom are trafficked by well-organized criminal gangs which seem to operate with impunity.

Singapore, our friend, our ally, and an advanced governmental system by any determination, then says:

On any objective criteria, the United States has a more

serious TIP problem compared with Singapore.

Why are they angry? Why do they feel they have not been fairly evaluated? Because they are evaluated against themselves by standards that may not apply. They are not alone, by the way. Singapore is not alone.

The last year's reporting showed Nigeria got a tier 1 rating. Japan, another highly advanced governmental system and culture, got a tier 2 rating. Singapore got a tier 2 watch list rating, which means that they could be in danger of losing a lot of the governmental interactions between our two countries if this continued. How would they rate a tier 2 if we had a standard where we were evaluating all country systems against one another, rather than this approach we are now using?

Here is a good objective way to see if we cannot answer that question. These are the worldwide ratings from an organization called Transparency International. This is called the Corruption Perception Index, from the same year. From the country rankings for corruption perception, internationally, Singapore is tied for first as the most transparent governmental system. The United States is down here at No. 22--again, below Japan. I mention Japan because under this TIP system, Japan got a tier 2 rating. Nigeria is over here tied for 134th. This is not meant to be critical of the attempts of the Nigerian governmental system to fix their problems, but clearly, if we were evaluating these countries among each other rather than by this very confusing standard, you would not be seeing Singapore with a tier 2 watch list category and Nigeria as a tier 1.

I will have a simple but I think very important amendment to the legislation when it comes forward. It basically will require the State Department to categorize countries, first of all, as either in compliance or not with our legislation and then rank countries on a single scale rather than by year-to-year progress against themselves and to eliminate the special watch list category. It maintains all the other existing criteria we have used in terms of examining whether trafficking in persons is being addressed in these different countries; the extent to which a country is a country of origin, transit, or destination; the extent of noncompliance by the governments, including government officials; and what measures are reasonable to bring the government into compliance. This may seem a small matter on the floor of the Senate, but I can assure you this is not a small matter to countries that have been our friends and allies and have advanced governmental systems and believe they are being wrongly categorized for the rest of the world to see.

I would like to raise one other point today with respect to this part of the world--it goes back to what I said when I first began speaking-- regarding

issues of sovereignty and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and recent activities which could quickly reach a level of volatility that we would not like to see and to emphasize again that our country is the No. 1 reason we have had the kind of stability that has existed for the most part in this very volatile region since the end of World War II.

The red lines on this map are the areas in which China claims sovereignty in the South China Sea. As you can see from these lines, it goes all the way past the coast of the Philippines, down into Borneo and Malaysia, up the coast of Vietnam, back into China.

Over the last 10 years, we have seen incidents that people in the United States, including military officials, too often seem to recognize or deal with as tactical challenges rather than strategic data points in terms of the ongoing issues of who actually controls these areas.

These areas are claimed by many different countries. They are the most highly trafficked sealanes, in terms of trade, in the world. Just in the last 1\1/2\ years, we have seen an incident off the coast of Okinawa, with a dispute between the Japanese and the Chinese Governments. We have seen a military incident, a provocation by the Chinese off the coast of the Philippines, which was protested by the Philippines. We have seen two incidents off the coast of Vietnam, one in May and one in June. If you look at where these incidents have occurred, they mark the boundaries of the sovereignty claims that have been made by the Chinese.

This body unanimously passed a resolution condemning this use of military actions in disputes that should be resolved in a multilateral way. I am very hopeful that Secretary Clinton will reinforce our concerns in this area.

When I was on ``Meet The Press'' a couple of weeks ago, I said we could be approaching a Munich moment in this region. That comment has been widely circulated. Let me explain what I mean by that. That doesn't mean I see a Hitler out there; that doesn't mean I see a Neville Chamberlain here. What this means is when you have an expansionist power that is making claims that it owns land in disputed areas and is provoking these other countries through the use of military force, you are reaching the edge of a country unilaterally claiming sovereignty over areas that require multilateral solutions. That is not healthy. It is not healthy internationally.

This region historically has been a very volatile region, and the United States is the most important ingredient in making sure these issues are resolved multilaterally and without the use of force. Again, I strongly hope our Secretary of State will reinforce the comments she made last year to the effect that the United States does have a vital interest in resolving these issues in a multilateral way, just as we do, by the way, in resolving the issues with respect to the Mekong River. Rather than having a strong, powerful country insisting only on bilateral adjustments with countries that it totally overpowers. We are the essential ingredient. No one wants to see this issue go the wrong way.

We have the potential of resolving this with China and resolving our relationships with the Chinese Government in a positive way, looking into the future, but it is going to require clear, consistent comments and a credible approach by the U.S. Government.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I am pleased to come to the Senate floor, along with my colleague, Senator Corker, a fellow member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to speak about a joint resolution we are introducing today that deals with the situation in Libya.

This is introduced as a joint resolution rather than as an amendment on the current legislation because I believe this matter is serious enough that our body should actually consider this as a stand-alone piece of legislation and coordinate it with the House and get this passed with due speed.

This resolution, first of all, contains a statement of policy that American Armed Forces should be used exclusively to defend and advance our national security interests.

Second, it prohibits the deployment, establishment, or maintenance of ground troops in Libya, with two notable exceptions. The first would be for the purpose of the immediate personal defense of American Government officials, including diplomatic representatives, which I believe would be an important exclusion once and if we decide to conduct negotiations or reestablish our Embassy inside Libya. The other exception would be for the purpose of rescuing members of our Armed Forces who would be in Libya and would be under imminent danger.

It also prohibits the awarding of a contract to private security contractors to conduct, establish, or maintain any activities on the ground in Libya.

This language in section 2 is similar to language that passed the House last week with a vote of 416 to 5.

Section 3 includes a sense of Congress that the President should request congressional authorization for the continuation of American involvement in

ongoing activities in Libya, and that the Congress, in its constitutional role, should debate and consider this matter expeditiously.

Sections 4 and 5 require the transmission of information to the Congress on a wide variety of information that, to this point, we have not been properly included on. That language, in some form, passed the House last Friday with a vote of 268 to 145.

Again, I appreciate very much Senator Corker joining me as the principal cosponsor of this joint resolution.

I would like to explain why I believe it is important we take this measure as a body, as a Congress, in response to the actions the President took in Libya nearly 3 months ago.

First, we know, and we are reminded every day, that our economy is going through a terrible crisis, even as we are expending hundreds of billions of dollars every year on wars in the most vitriolic and contentious parts of the world.

Second, our military has been engaged in continuous combat operations for nearly 10 years. We still have 45,000 military members in Iraq despite a stated commitment for a full withdrawal by the end of this year. We have about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, and the prospect for a meaningful withdrawal in the short term does not look good.

When we examine the conditions under which the President ordered our military into action in Libya, we are faced, in my view, with the prospect of a very troubling, if not downright odd, historical precedent that has the potential to haunt us for decades.

The issue in play is not simply whether the President should ask the Congress for a declaration of war, nor is it wholly about whether the President has violated the edicts of the War Powers Act, which, in my view, he clearly has. The issue for us to consider is whether a President--any President--can unilaterally begin, and continue, a military campaign for reasons that he alone defines as meeting the demanding standards of a vital national interest worthy of risking American lives and expending billions of dollars of our taxpayers' money.

What was the standard in this case? The initial justification was that a dictator might retaliate against people who rebelled against him. I do not make light of the potential tragedy involved in such a possibility, although it should be pointed out that there are a lot of dictators in this world and very few democracies in this particular region, which gives this standard a pretty broad base if a President decides to use it again. Then, predictably, once military operations began in Libya, the stated goal became regime change, with combat now having dragged on for nearly 3 months.

So in a world filled with cruelty, the question becomes whether a President--any President--should be able to pick and choose when and where to use military force using such a vague standard. Actually that is the most important question. Given our system of government, who should decide? Even if a President should unilaterally decide on the basis of overwhelming, vital national interests that requires immediate action, how long should that decision be honored, and to what lengths should our military go before the matter is able to come under the proper scrutiny and boundaries of our Congress?

Let's review the bidding. What did it look like when our President ordered our military into action in Libya, and what has happened since? Was our country under attack or under the threat of an imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere as we did in the 1986 raids in Libya when I was in the Pentagon, after American soldiers had been killed in a disco in Berlin? Were we rescuing Americans in distress as we did in Grenada in 1983? No, we were not.

The President followed no clear historical standard when he unilaterally decided to use force in Libya. Once this action continued beyond his original definition of ``days, not weeks,'' he did not seek the approval of Congress. While he has discussed this matter with some Members of Congress, he has not formally conferred with the legislative branch.

I believe it is appropriate to question on whose behalf this continuing action is being taken, and, most importantly at this point, what is going to be asked of our military in the coming months, assuming the Qadhafi regime does fall? This is not even a civil war.

As Secretary of Defense Gates commented to me when I asked him that question during a hearing on the Armed Services Committee recently: You don't have a civil war when there is no clearly formed opposition movement. It has been a random rebellion. We can empathize with the frustrations of this rebellion, but looking into the future, the only thing the opponents of the present regime all seem to agree on is that Qadhafi should go.

As I have said repeatedly over the past few months, this matters greatly when one considers what the aftermath of this action could entail for the international community.

An additional curiosity is that we still recognize this regime even as we have been participating for nearly 3 months in actions designed to destroy it. I have raised this matter repeatedly with our State Department. We have not severed relations with this regime, nor have we recognized a successor regime. We have merely suspended our relations. So we are looking at something of a historical anomaly. We are participating in attacks on a regime that we recognize, on behalf of rebel forces that are so amorphous that we don't, and we really do not know what is going to replace the regime that we recognize once it is gone.

Obviously, I am not raising these points out of any lasting love for Mr. Qadhafi or any hopes that he continues in his present position. But let's be very clear. This is a region rife with tribalism, fierce loyalties, and brutal retaliation. In this part of the world the lust for revenge upon those who try to destroy you is not a characteristic that is unique to Mr. Qadhafi. Whether Qadhafi stays or falls, that is very likely going to be the future at some level in Libya, and this is not a place for American troops to be sent in order to sort out this mess. If other nations decide to do so, I certainly have no objection. But our military is stretched too thin, our economy is too fragile, and the reasons for us to continue in this effort are too ill-defined.

So it is important for the Congress to step in and to clearly define the boundaries of our involvement. We should be saying without hesitation that no American ground personnel should be introduced into Libya, now or in the future. We should also be insisting on fair and open communication from this administration to the Congress rather than the stonewalling that has characterized the past 3 months.

This is not a political issue for me. Rather, it is an issue of how our government is structured. I would submit that this issue has historical consequences. Our three branches of government were carefully designed by the Founding Fathers to guard against hasty decisions or judgments that would not be fully in our national interest. For centuries, the English monarchs had been able to wage wars of choice, with the only restriction being whether Parliament would raise enough taxes to fund their adventurous armies. Our Founding Fathers said no. The Framers of the Constitution deliberately gave the Congress the specific power to rein in such conduct and to protect our people from unwise choices by insisting on a democratic consensus.

The structure of international relations has become much more complex since then, but the principle is still vital, and it still must hold.

Over the past 10 years, in pursuit of a workable formula with which to defend our Nation against legitimate threats, we have allowed the balance of power in our constitutional system to tilt far too heavily to the executive branch. There could be no clearer example of why the Congress must finally say ``enough is enough'' than the situation we now face in Libya. We must clearly say, as a governing body, that there are boundaries on the conduct of a President--any President--when it comes to his or her unilateral decision to use military force. We should be clear that American military forces--in uniform or not--do not belong on the ground in Libya.

We should make it clear that we will not be deterred in requests for information that allow us to perform our responsibilities. To do less than that would bring us back in time, to a system of government our forefathers risked their lives to improve upon. We are not the Parliament of King Charles. I believe my fellow Members would agree that our role as a legislative body is more than that of collecting taxes so that the President--any President--can raise armies and fight wars of his own choosing. And that is why I am asking every Senator to support this legislation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased to come to the Senate floor, along with my colleague, Senator Corker, a fellow member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to speak about a joint resolution we are introducing today that deals with the situation in Libya.

This is introduced as a joint resolution rather than as an amendment on the current legislation because I believe this matter is serious enough that our body should actually consider this as a stand-alone piece of legislation and coordinate it with the House and get this passed with due speed.

This resolution, first of all, contains a statement of policy that American Armed Forces should be used exclusively to defend and advance our national security interests.

Second, it prohibits the deployment, establishment, or maintenance of ground troops in Libya, with two notable exceptions. The first would be for the purpose of the immediate personal defense of American Government officials, including diplomatic representatives, which I believe would be an important exclusion once and if we decide to conduct negotiations or reestablish our Embassy inside Libya. The other exception would be for the purpose of rescuing members of our Armed Forces who would be in Libya and would be under imminent danger.

It also prohibits the awarding of a contract to private security contractors to conduct, establish, or maintain any activities on the ground in Libya.

This language in section 2 is similar to language that passed the House last week with a vote of 416 to 5.

Section 3 includes a sense of Congress that the President should request congressional authorization for the continuation of American involvement in

ongoing activities in Libya, and that the Congress, in its constitutional role, should debate and consider this matter expeditiously.

Sections 4 and 5 require the transmission of information to the Congress on a wide variety of information that, to this point, we have not been properly included on. That language, in some form, passed the House last Friday with a vote of 268 to 145.

Again, I appreciate very much Senator Corker joining me as the principal cosponsor of this joint resolution.

I would like to explain why I believe it is important we take this measure as a body, as a Congress, in response to the actions the President took in Libya nearly 3 months ago.

First, we know, and we are reminded every day, that our economy is going through a terrible crisis, even as we are expending hundreds of billions of dollars every year on wars in the most vitriolic and contentious parts of the world.

Second, our military has been engaged in continuous combat operations for nearly 10 years. We still have 45,000 military members in Iraq despite a stated commitment for a full withdrawal by the end of this year. We have about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, and the prospect for a meaningful withdrawal in the short term does not look good.

When we examine the conditions under which the President ordered our military into action in Libya, we are faced, in my view, with the prospect of a very troubling, if not downright odd, historical precedent that has the potential to haunt us for decades.

The issue in play is not simply whether the President should ask the Congress for a declaration of war, nor is it wholly about whether the President has violated the edicts of the War Powers Act, which, in my view, he clearly has. The issue for us to consider is whether a President--any President--can unilaterally begin, and continue, a military campaign for reasons that he alone defines as meeting the demanding standards of a vital national interest worthy of risking American lives and expending billions of dollars of our taxpayers' money.

What was the standard in this case? The initial justification was that a dictator might retaliate against people who rebelled against him. I do not make light of the potential tragedy involved in such a possibility, although it should be pointed out that there are a lot of dictators in this world and very few democracies in this particular region, which gives this standard a pretty broad base if a President decides to use it again. Then, predictably, once military operations began in Libya, the stated goal became regime change, with combat now having dragged on for nearly 3 months.

So in a world filled with cruelty, the question becomes whether a President--any President--should be able to pick and choose when and where to use military force using such a vague standard. Actually that is the most important question. Given our system of government, who should decide? Even if a President should unilaterally decide on the basis of overwhelming, vital national interests that requires immediate action, how long should that decision be honored, and to what lengths should our military go before the matter is able to come under the proper scrutiny and boundaries of our Congress?

Let's review the bidding. What did it look like when our President ordered our military into action in Libya, and what has happened since? Was our country under attack or under the threat of an imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere as we did in the 1986 raids in Libya when I was in the Pentagon, after American soldiers had been killed in a disco in Berlin? Were we rescuing Americans in distress as we did in Grenada in 1983? No, we were not.

The President followed no clear historical standard when he unilaterally decided to use force in Libya. Once this action continued beyond his original definition of ``days, not weeks,'' he did not seek the approval of Congress. While he has discussed this matter with some Members of Congress, he has not formally conferred with the legislative branch.

I believe it is appropriate to question on whose behalf this continuing action is being taken, and, most importantly at this point, what is going to be asked of our military in the coming months, assuming the Qadhafi regime does fall? This is not even a civil war.

As Secretary of Defense Gates commented to me when I asked him that question during a hearing on the Armed Services Committee recently: You don't have a civil war when there is no clearly formed opposition movement. It has been a random rebellion. We can empathize with the frustrations of this rebellion, but looking into the future, the only thing the opponents of the present regime all seem to agree on is that Qadhafi should go.

As I have said repeatedly over the past few months, this matters greatly when one considers what the aftermath of this action could entail for the international community.

An additional curiosity is that we still recognize this regime even as we have been participating for nearly 3 months in actions designed to destroy it. I have raised this matter repeatedly with our State Department. We have not severed relations with this regime, nor have we recognized a successor regime. We have merely suspended our relations. So we are looking at something of a historical anomaly. We are participating in attacks on a regime that we recognize, on behalf of rebel forces that are so amorphous that we don't, and we really do not know what is going to replace the regime that we recognize once it is gone.

Obviously, I am not raising these points out of any lasting love for Mr. Qadhafi or any hopes that he continues in his present position. But let's be very clear. This is a region rife with tribalism, fierce loyalties, and brutal retaliation. In this part of the world the lust for revenge upon those who try to destroy you is not a characteristic that is unique to Mr. Qadhafi. Whether Qadhafi stays or falls, that is very likely going to be the future at some level in Libya, and this is not a place for American troops to be sent in order to sort out this mess. If other nations decide to do so, I certainly have no objection. But our military is stretched too thin, our economy is too fragile, and the reasons for us to continue in this effort are too ill-defined.

So it is important for the Congress to step in and to clearly define the boundaries of our involvement. We should be saying without hesitation that no American ground personnel should be introduced into Libya, now or in the future. We should also be insisting on fair and open communication from this administration to the Congress rather than the stonewalling that has characterized the past 3 months.

This is not a political issue for me. Rather, it is an issue of how our government is structured. I would submit that this issue has historical consequences. Our three branches of government were carefully designed by the Founding Fathers to guard against hasty decisions or judgments that would not be fully in our national interest. For centuries, the English monarchs had been able to wage wars of choice, with the only restriction being whether Parliament would raise enough taxes to fund their adventurous armies. Our Founding Fathers said no. The Framers of the Constitution deliberately gave the Congress the specific power to rein in such conduct and to protect our people from unwise choices by insisting on a democratic consensus.

The structure of international relations has become much more complex since then, but the principle is still vital, and it still must hold.

Over the past 10 years, in pursuit of a workable formula with which to defend our Nation against legitimate threats, we have allowed the balance of power in our constitutional system to tilt far too heavily to the executive branch. There could be no clearer example of why the Congress must finally say ``enough is enough'' than the situation we now face in Libya. We must clearly say, as a governing body, that there are boundaries on the conduct of a President--any President--when it comes to his or her unilateral decision to use military force. We should be clear that American military forces--in uniform or not--do not belong on the ground in Libya.

We should make it clear that we will not be deterred in requests for information that allow us to perform our responsibilities. To do less than that would bring us back in time, to a system of government our forefathers risked their lives to improve upon. We are not the Parliament of King Charles. I believe my fellow Members would agree that our role as a legislative body is more than that of collecting taxes so that the President--any President--can raise armies and fight wars of his own choosing. And that is why I am asking every Senator to support this legislation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to speak today on the pending nomination of Professor Goodwin Liu for a seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Regretfully, I will be voting against this nomination for reasons I will explain. At the same time, I wish to emphasize my profound respect for this institution and for my fellow Senators from both parties, and I believe it would be wrong to vote against a cloture motion whose intent is to proceed with debate on the merits of one who has been nominated to be a judge. I made this point loudly and clearly when the nomination of one of my Virginia constituents, Barbara Keenan, was filibustered. Philosophical consistency--and my admiration and respect for all the work Chairman Leahy has been doing in order to fill the many vacancies in our Federal court system--compel me to vote to proceed with the debate on Mr. Liu, but I do not, however, intend to vote in favor of his confirmation.

I have met with Mr. Liu. I have read many of his writings and most of the testimony from his two confirmation hearings. He is clearly talented and whatever he ends up doing, he is certain to have a long future in our country. He also has been blessed beyond words by the goodness of our society. Both his parents came to this country already as physicians. He attended our finest universities. He was a Rhodes scholar. He is a Yale Law School graduate, and he has spent almost his entire career as a talented, if somewhat controversial, professor of law. When I met with Mr. Liu I found him to be personable and clearly bright.

But intellect in and of itself does not always give a person wisdom, nor does it guarantee good judgment, and the root word of judgment is, of course, judge. This is our duty today: to decide whether Professor Liu's almost complete lack of practical legal experience, coupled with his history of intemperate, politically charged statements, allows us a measure of comfort and predictability as to whether he would be fair and balanced while sitting on one of the highest courts in the land. Mr. Liu's temperament and his frequently strident political views have been called into question by many well-intentioned observers, including my respected colleague, Senator Lindsey Graham, who, like myself, voted in favor of both Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. Senator Graham concluded that Professor Liu seems better fit for a life in politics rather than on the bench. My own concern is that we in the Senate have no real ability to know whether Mr. Liu would temporize these views or conduct himself in a different manner if he were to be given a seat in one of the highest judicial positions in our country.

The list is long, and time is short, but I would summarize my concerns through two observations.

The first involves Professor Liu's public comments regarding Supreme Court Justice Alito, which I know will be repeated by others. Mr. Liu's view was that:

Judge Alito's record envisions an America where police may

shoot and kill an unarmed boy to stop him from running away

with a stolen purse . . . where a black man may be sentenced

to death by an all-white jury for killing a white man . . . I

humbly submit that this is not . . . the America that we

aspire to be.

Obviously, I share the view of many others that whether one agrees or disagrees with Justice Alito's view of the Constitution, this is hardly a fair representation of his view of our society.

The second observation is more telling and it goes to the America we all should aspire to be: an America where every person, regardless of race, creed, national origin, or personal circumstances, has the same opportunities to succeed to the full extent of their potential. Let me make a point that a lot of people seem uncomfortable with in speeches on this floor. That means White people too. Economic disadvantage is not limited to one's race, ethnic background, or time of immigration to America. When it comes to policies that are designed to provide diversity in our society, we do ourselves an enormous injustice by turning a blind eye to the wide variance among White cultures as we discuss greater representation from different minority groups.

For all of his emphasis on diversity programs, I do not see anywhere that Mr. Liu understands this vital point. In fact, one tends to see the opposite. In 2004, Mr. Liu made a speech at an American Constitution Society Conference. In this speech he mentioned: ``The power of the courts to influence society, . . . the power of legal principle to ratify inequality.'' He then went on to comment:

If we work hard, if we stick to our values, if we build a

new moral consensus, then I think someday we will see

Millikan, Rodriquez, Adarand, be swept into the dustbin of

history.

So we know, first, that Mr. Liu wants to use the courts to influence society and to ratify his view of inequality. OK. How does that fit into Adarand being swept into the dustbin of history?

What was Adarand about? Well, it was about Randy Pech, one of five kids born to a welder and a mom, whose family had lost their farm in Iowa during the Great Depression. The mom then worked as a sales clerk in a department store. Neither of them had ever gone to college. Mr. Pech left college after 3 years and started a company that put up guardrails along highways. His startup was the money he would have used in his fourth year of college and his loan was accomplished by using his parents' retirement pensions as collateral. He made a bid as a subcontractor on a highway construction project in Colorado that was by far the lowest bid, but he lost to a minority-owned company because our own government was paying bonuses to contractors who made subcontracts with so-called ``disadvantaged businesses,'' and Mr. Pech happened to be White. The Supreme Court decided that this was wrong and decided in Mr. Pech's favor, although the Civil Rights Commission pointed out 10 years later that the Supreme Court's decision was still not being complied with by Federal agencies.

Mr. Liu offered an explanation for his comments during his confirmation process, but taken in the context of his other remarks, I find that statement unconvincing.

Last July I wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal saying that while I continue to support the original goal of affirmative action, which was to assist African Americans who still suffer the badges of discrimination and slavery, it is time for us to recognize that we harm ourselves any time we cut away any person or group from the opportunity to reach their full potential in our wonderful and unique society. As one can imagine, I got a few questions from some groups about this article, so let me answer those questions--and sum up my concerns about Mr. Liu--with an observation.

The same day my Wall Street Journal ran, July 23, a Remote Area Medical Clinic was held in the open air of the Wise County fairgrounds in the Appalachian mountains of southwest Virginia. These clinics bring medical professionals into underserved areas where medical care is hard to find. They are not that different from what we used to do out in the impoverished villages of Vietnam when I was a Marine infantry officer many years ago. Twelve of my staff members went down to Wise County to volunteer. Working in tents, mobile units, and horse stalls, over these 3 days the RAM clinic took care of 6,869 patient visits and pulled more than 4,000 teeth in the open air of the Wise County fairgrounds. In this part of Virginia, nearly half the population lives below 200 percent of poverty, almost a quarter of them have no insurance whatsoever. Age-adjusted mortality rates in some counties are as much as 70 percent higher than in the rest of Virginia. This Appalachian mountain region is, of course, predominantly White. Let me emphasize that these conditions come from cultural issues based on many generations of hardship and strife and not simply individual choice.

Back there in those mountains, there is no doubt somebody who is thinking that if he could put together a little money and maybe get somebody to believe in him, maybe he could start up a

construction company just like Randy Pech did and compete for government contracts on a completely fair playing field, which has always been the gift and the miracle of America. I want him to have that opportunity, just as I want every other American to have it. And I don't want a judge on a circuit court somewhere telling him that his own chance for a fair and prosperous future should be swept into the dustbin of history.

I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I was very gratified yesterday when the Senate unanimously voted to confirm Arenda Wright Allen as U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, and I am very glad to be here to speak in support of Virginia's nominee to the Western District of Virginia, Judge Michael Urbanski.

As I did yesterday, I wish to express my appreciation to the leadership of both parties in the Senate for scheduling these important confirmation votes. Filling existing vacancies on our courts is important to Virginia, it is important to America, particularly in these cases where the nominees are noncontroversial to either party and, thus, are able to be brought forward for reasonably quick confirmation.

One of the bedrock principles in this country is access to justice, and it can clearly be said that vacancies on our courts create backlogs, bottlenecks and delays, and justice delayed is obviously justice denied.

Again, I wish to express my appreciation to the leadership for moving these two very highly qualified nominees, Arenda Wright Allen, who was confirmed yesterday, and Judge Michael Urbanski, who will be voted on shortly.

In that regard, I am proud of the work we have been able to do during my time in the Senate in finding dedicated, well-qualified jurists from Virginia to recommend to the President when vacancies do occur on the Federal bench. When I first arrived in the Senate, Senator John Warner and I developed a robust, collaborative selection process to review candidates. Senator Mark Warner and I have continued this thorough, deliberative process, and we were pleased to recommend Judge Michael Urbanski to President Obama in June of last year. President Obama first nominated Judge Urbanski for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia last December. He renominated Judge Urbanski earlier this year, and Judge Urbanski was reported out of the Judiciary Committee without opposition on March 10 of this year.

Senator Warner and I jointly reviewed a highly competitive field from the Western District of Virginia. Judge Urbanski stood out to me because of the resounding recommendations from the bar associations which he covers now as a magistrate judge. Those recommendations all noted Judge Urbanski's incredible work ethic. He has worked tirelessly as a magistrate judge to ensure the efficient administration of justice in the Western District of Virginia. He has served in this capacity since 2004. He also has an outstanding reputation for fairness and a good judicial temperament. He has contributed to the efficiency of the Western District of Virginia by being an effective mediator, resolving a substantial number of disputes without lengthy litigation. He also recently established a veterans court in the Western District. This court strives to utilize the many services available to our veterans in order to try to find alternatives to incarceration from nonviolent offenders and to break the cycle of recidivism.

I am very proud to say Judge Urbanski is a product of Virginia's public universities. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1981 and the Nation's oldest university, the College of William and Mary, in 1978.

Prior to becoming a Federal magistrate judge, Judge Urbanski earned a reputation as one of the top trial lawyers in western Virginia. He was the head of the law firm of Woods Rogers' litigation section and practiced in Roanoke from 1989 to 2004. I have met personally with Judge Urbanski. I am convinced he has the correct judicial temperament, intelligence, and dedication to make an excellent district court judge. I also had the pleasure of meeting with his family, many of his friends, law clerks, and colleagues. His dedication to his family and to his community is abundantly apparent.

Though I am proud Virginia has such an exemplary individual to put forward as a district judge nominee, the Judiciary Committee clearly shares this view, having voted out Judge Urbanski unanimously. I urge all my colleagues to support his confirmation.

Mr. President, I would like to express my appreciation to the leadership in the Senate of both parties for scheduling a vote today on Arenda Wright Allen's confirmation for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

All of us in this body know how important it is to fill the vacancies on our Federal bench, and particularly when we have highly qualified nominees who have no particular issues that need to be discussed in a political sense, and Virginia is no exception in this matter. The sheer volume of our Federal court workload demands we appoint dedicated, qualified jurists.

In that regard, Senator Mark Warner and myself were very pleased to have recommended Arenda L. Wright Allen to the President in June of last year for this position on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. President Obama nominated Arenda Wright Allen last December. She was renominated this year. She was reported out of the Judiciary Committee without opposition on March 10 of this year, and I believe the President has made an extraordinary choice in nominating Ms. Wright Allen.

Whenever a vacancy has occurred on the Virginia Federal bench, Senator Warner and I have very carefully conducted thorough and extensive reviews of candidates for the position. This review process includes interviews and recommendations by the bar associations and in- person interviews with

many of the candidates. I am proud to say the Virginia candidate pool from which we had to choose on this particular occasion was excellent. It was deep. It included judges, legal scholars, and skilled trial attorneys.

From this very competitive field, Senator Warner and I moved for the nomination of Ms. Wright Allen. She distinguished herself as the premier candidate in a very competitive field for this vacancy.

Ms. Wright Allen has displayed during her career the highest degree of integrity, competence, and commitment to the rule of law. She exemplifies the best of the Virginia Bar and, in fact, received the highest ranking from the Virginia State Bar.

As one who was privileged to serve as Secretary of the Navy and also as a combat marine, I personally understand the sacrifices that veterans have made to their country. Ms. Wright Allen is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. She served for 5 years as an Active-Duty JAG officer, and she continued her service as a Reserve JAG officer until her retirement from the Navy as a commander in 2005.

Her record of military service is excellent. Given the huge military presence in the Eastern District of Virginia, I believe this military experience will be valuable to her in her capacity as a Federal judge.

Ms. Wright Allen has dedicated her civilian career to serving her community, first as a Federal prosecutor and since 2005 as a Federal public defender. Unanimously, prosecutors and defenders who have worked with or have been on the opposing side to Ms. Wright Allen have attested to her talent, her dedication, and above all her exceptional character. Upon meeting her, it was clear to me she possesses the correct judicial temperament and dedication to make an excellent judge.

I have also had the pleasure of meeting her family and a number of her friends. Her dedication to her family, her church, and her community is clearly evident. I am proud Virginia has such an exemplary individual to put forward as a Federal district court judge nominee, and I urge all my colleagues to support Ms. Wright Allen today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about today's guest Chaplain, the Reverend Dr. Jeffrey Carter of Manassas Church of the Brethren, located in Manassas, VA. I am pleased to welcome Dr. Carter, his wife Kim, and their three young daughters--Anna, Grace, and Julie-- to the U.S. Senate today.

Dr. Carter is a 1992 graduate of Bridgewater College, located in Bridgewater, VA. He received his Master of Divinity from Bethany Theological Seminary in 1998, and his Doctor of Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2006. In 2003, at the age of 33, he was appointed senior pastor of Manassas Church of the Brethren. Since 2005, he has also served as lead chaplain for the Prince William County, VA, Fire and Rescue Squad. In addition to his duties with his home church, Dr. Carter also serves as the Church of the Brethren's representative to the World Council of Churches, and is a member of the board of directors for the Brethren Housing Corporation.

Manassas Church of the Brethren was established in 1895, and has served the greater Manassas community for the past 116 years. They offer a wide variety of fellowship opportunities and outreach ministries to their large congregation and residents of the Manassas community.

Through the dozens of missions and ministries at Manassas Church of the Brethren, Dr. Carter has made a profound impact on the lives of many members of my constituency. I am certain that he will continue to guide his congregation for many years to come, and I look forward to seeing the direction of Manassas Church of the Brethren under his leadership.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.