Floor Statements

Madam President, being an eternal optimist, I rise to express my hope that once the process of voting over the next 2 days is completed, we can find a way to move forward with our colleagues across the aisle to fix other provisions in this legislation and make it truly the kind of bill they say they wish to see as well. I will support this reconciliation bill. At the same time, as my colleagues on this side of the aisle know well, I worked very hard to narrow and improve this legislation as it was passed last December, including voting, as I recall, eight different times with my Republican colleagues, which didn't make my chairman very happy, on a few occasions to make changes in the bill. In the end I voted in favor of this legislation despite serious misgivings with portions of it, because it does represent a true step forward in terms of quality, accessibility, and affordability of health care for most Americans.

The important point for us to remember today and tomorrow, as we go through the process, is that the bill is now law. The question before us now is how best to implement that law so that the benefits can be put into place and the many detriments I was worried about can be addressed. There are a number of strong points in this bill. Many of my colleagues have laid them out. As we know, insurance companies will be prohibited from denying health care coverage to children with preexisting conditions. Young adults will be able to stay on their parents' insurance plans until they are 26. Uninsured Americans with preexisting conditions will have access to affordable insurance options. Insurance companies won't be able to drop people from coverage when they get sick, and they will be banned from implementing lifetime caps on coverage. Seniors who hit the Medicare Part D doughnut hole gap in coverage will get a $250 check to help with the cost of prescriptions and the doughnut hole will be completely closed by 2020.

Access to insurance over the next couple years will be expanded to 95 percent of Americans. It will implement reforms designed to slow skyrocketing health care costs. Working families will not have to worry about losing health insurance or facing bankruptcy because of a job loss or because of illness. Insurance companies will be required to spend the majority of their money on patient care.

The law will also provide tax credits to help make health insurance available for individuals, expand access to Medicaid, create a regulated marketplace where people can shop for the health insurance plan that best meets their needs, and will prohibit insurance companies from refusing to sell or renew policies due to an individual's health status. These are just some of the positive points of the law.

In fairness--and I understand and appreciate some of the frustration on the other side--there are serious problems in this bill. I don't like the dramatic cuts in Medicare this law proposes. In fact, I voted against them. I share the concerns by my Democratic colleague, Congressman Rick Boucher of southwest Virginia, regarding the potential negative impact these cuts could have on rural areas, particularly the population of southwest Virginia. This legislation proposes to cut approximately $450 billion from Medicare spending over the next 10 years at a time when Medicare is already mired in debt and, as we know, a bow wave of baby boomers is going to start hitting the Medicare system immediately. Medicare Advantage, which provides better benefits than traditional Medicare, is a valuable tool in rural and underserved areas, and that may decrease. This law does little to address the historic disparity in Medicare funding between urban and rural areas.

I am also concerned about the cost and spending projections of this legislation. There is a great deal of debate going on right now about the real cost of this bill. Former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin estimated, in an article in the New York Times recently, that the bill may increase the Federal deficit by $562 billion over 10 years because of some of these areas I discussed. The official score maintains that the bill would lower the deficit by $143 billion over that same period, but it includes a number of unlikely assumptions, Medicare being one of them. The system for reimbursing Medicare doctors, called the sustainable growth rate, is widely agreed to be broken, but we have not tried to fix it. That is a $250 billion ticket. Many, including myself, believe the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, the CLASS Act, is structurally unsound. I voted against that as we were considering the bill.

In addition, as my colleague Congressman Glenn Nye from the Norfolk- Virginia Beach area pointed out, there is a great deal of concern among families and small businesses regarding the impact of this bill.

Again, the point is, the bill is now law. The question is how to make the law a better law. The process that got us here has been ugly. It has diminished the trust and respect some citizens hold for our own government. We need to restore that trust through a genuine and transparent effort on both sides of the aisle to fix the problems in the law. We also need to start working together again across the aisle, on this and other issues that confront us, in a bipartisan sense and a sense of shared responsibility about the many problems facing the country. We are now preparing to begin a series of votes through the reconciliation process that ultimately, quite frankly, is going to mean little or nothing in terms of the outcome of this legislation. They are not going to seriously address the problems in it. I understand the concerns on the other side. I respect them. These votes in many cases are politically necessary for the other side. But I call on my Republican friends to begin to work with some of us over here on this side to address the inequities that we are concerned about, to implement cost controls, to work together for the good of the country once this next couple of days is done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would suggest to my colleague from North Carolina and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that if we want to fix this problem, we can fix it right now and we should fix it right now.

We should not allow things to be tied up in the separate melodrama of the moment. I introduced a bill on Monday which passed the House unanimously on Saturday to fix the TRICARE part of this. The chairman of the Veterans' Committee introduced a bill today to fix the spina bifida problem.

I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3148, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code to provide for the treatment of Department of Defense health coverage as minimal essential coverage, sponsored by myself; further, that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration en bloc, along with the bill introduced earlier today by Senator Akaka, S. 3162, a bill to clarify the health care provided by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs that constitutes minimum essential coverage; that all Democratic Senators be added as cosponsors to this measure; that the bills be read a third time and passed en bloc, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate.

Let the American people understand, the Republicans objected to a matter that could have been fixed by law tomorrow.

I thank the Senator for inquiring. I wish to speak for up to 10 minutes about the Ensign amendment.

Mr. President, it was my understanding that the Ensign amendment was going to be called up at 4:30.

Would that not be the proper topic of discussion on the floor? I have been waiting since 4:15 when I was slated to speak.

May I ask for a courtesy from the Senator from Texas and the Senator from Louisiana? I have a commitment I cannot break back in my office that was supposed to begin at this moment. Would you feel it appropriate if I were to ask that my statement be printed in the Record at this point with respect to the Ensign amendment, once you called it up?

I appreciate that courtesy. If there is opportunity for me to come back later, I will try.

I also wish to thank the Senator from Louisiana for yielding for this exchange.

Amendment No. 3476, As Modified

Mr. President, I want to thank Senate leadership for bringing this bill to the floor. Our Nation's air traffic control systems are in serious need of modernization, and this bill is the right step forward in addressing those challenges. Improved safety, a reduction in flight delays and more efficient routes resulting in less fuel burned are all possible with a modern, 21st century air traffic control system. I commend Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Hutchison and the Senate Commerce Committee for their commitment in addressing these issues.

I want to take a few moments today to talk about an issue that is important to me, the communities near Washington Reagan National Airport and those communities throughout America who currently have reliable service to the Nation's Capital. I am deeply concerned with any attempts to modify the current agreement on the perimeter and slot rules that currently apply to Reagan National Airport.

In 1987, Congress created the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority 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 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 Reagan National, Dulles International, and Baltimore-Washington International airports. And they break the commitment made to our surrounding communities.

The amendment that the Senator from Nevada has offered seeks essentially to do away with the existing 1,250 mile perimeter rule that governs flights into and out of Reagan National Airport. The Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, has argued that this will have a limited impact on existing flights at DCA. On the contrary, if this amendment passes, up to 75 existing flights that currently fly from DCA to other large cities within the perimeter could be lost. Shifting these flights would not only have a direct impact on the cities that stand to lose the routes they currently have, but it would also have follow-on effects to flights in smaller markets, as well as flights that now service Dulles and BWI.

Furthermore, the flights that would be added at Reagan National would be long-haul flights, which means bigger planes and more passengers. That in turn means more congestion around and inside the airport: worse traffic, longer lines at security, more difficulty parking large planes at already crowded gates.

There are basic physical constraints at Reagan National Airport that cannot be ignored, and the original slots and perimeter rules were carefully crafted to take that into consideration. If you have ever tried to fly out of Reagan National Airport during peak hours, you know that parking can be impossible, ticket counters can be incredibly congested and the number of gates for jets to park is limited.

More than 10 years ago, the Airports Authority rebuilt much of Reagan National Airport, 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. It did so with the slot and perimeter restrictions in mind. Any significant change in those rules will overburden critical airport facilities and infrastructure, causing serious disruptions. New flights will create more demand for parking where none is available. At the same time, gate access at Reagan National Airport is limited, as airlines are currently sharing gates in some areas. Flights coming and going would be delayed, an important issue we happen to be addressing in this bill. We have laid out policies to reduce the inconvenience of delays and sitting in grounded aircraft because of air traffic congestion in this very bill.

These are significant issues that the Senate must consider before making any changes to the perimeter rule. When members consider this issue in the context of additional flights for them to get back to their constituents, keep in mind there is a significant risk of greater delays and, for many Senators here, a possible reduction in services to their communities. With a change in the current structure at Reagan National Airport, there will be potential impact for communities inside the perimeter who could see their access reduced or eliminated. Flights to cities like Miami, FL; Chicago, IL; New York City; and Boston, MA could lose many of the flights they now have. Communities like Charleston, WV; Des Moines, IA; Jackson, MI; Lexington, KY; Madison, WI; Manchester, NH; or Omaha, NE; could eventually lose their access as well, as airlines backfill their flights to more profitable routes.

It strikes me that the desire to change the slot and perimeter rules at Reagan National Airport is not being driven by market demand, but rather by a few airlines seeking a competitive advantage over others. Allowing airlines to swap flights from hub airports inside the perimeter to hub airports outside of the perimeter could be seen as a special interest earmark for a select group of carriers, as the pool of beneficiaries is identifiable and limited. By allowing existing rules to be altered for a select class, Congress will be allocating this scarce resource for the convenience of a few rather than the larger community need. This is fundamentally anticompetitive behavior and we need to end this periodic and detrimental practice.

Congress added 24 new slots in 2000 and another 22 slots in 2003. If we get rid of the perimeter rule, or modify it in such a way that causes loss of service or diminished service to communities inside the perimeter, the affected communities will be back before Congress seeking more slots to make up for lost service. The communities of Northern Virginia should not have to continually suffer for the convenience of a relative few. We have seen examples of service in other congested airspaces where reasonable slots restrictions have controlled or reduced growing delays in flight times.

The convenience of Reagan National comes at a heavy price for many airport neighbors in the form of aircraft noise and airport related traffic in Arlington, Alexandria and southern Fairfax County. Changing current law only

further breaks the bond that was created with the neighbors of the airports and unfairly burdens them for the sake of the convenience of others. With some foresight in this body, we can avoid any greater congestion whether in the air, on the tarmac or on our roads. The position that the Senators from Maryland, Mr. Warner, and I hold is consistent with local communities groups of Northern Virginia and that of many previous Governors of the Commonwealth.

With regard to the perimeter rule, its value is evident in the development taking place at Dulles Airport today. Because Dulles is better situated to handle the demands of long-haul flying, Congress wisely established the perimeter rule to move long-haul traffic to Dulles where the space exists to handle the necessary parking and infrastructure expansion. The multibillion-dollar Dulles Development program, and the investments in rail service to Dulles, are all predicated upon Congress keeping its word on the perimeter rule. Eliminating or changing the perimeter rule will not only overburden capacity at Reagan National Airport by overwhelming the facilities but would significantly change the infrastructure improvements needed at Dulles International Airport, many of which are already under construction. Sizable business interests have located their operations in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties based on their proximity to Dulles and on assumptions about the stability of the slot and perimeter rules.

Service will suffer, infrastructure will be strained and the communities surrounding the airport will face more noise and more traffic. That is the last thing we need for Northern Virginia, or the Nation's Capital.

I have laid out only the most significant arguments against changes to the slot and perimeter rules. But here is one more: it is not appropriate for Congress to meddle and manipulate the airports in my home State. Congress no longer maintains this kind of silent hand in the operations at any airports in my colleagues' home states. Let us let the Airports Authority run Washington's airports as Congress agreed to. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Ensign amendment and reject changes to the perimeter rules at Reagan National Airport.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a March 17, 2010, letter to me from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

Mr. President, today I introduced a bill that speaks directly to the welfare of our military service members and their families. TRICARE, TRICARE for Life, and the nonappropriated fund health plans are the programs that provide health care for our men and women in uniform, their families, retirees, and other eligible individuals. These programs, as well as today's military veterans health care system, exceed the minimum essential coverage for individual health insurance required by the health care reform bill passed yesterday by the House of Representatives.

I am pleased to offer a companion bill to one introduced last week by my good friend, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, that explicitly protects TRICARE and NAF health plans. Representative Skelton's bill, which passed Saturday by a vote of 403 to 0, makes it perfectly clear that no TRICARE or NAF health plan beneficiary will be required to purchase additional coverage beyond what they already have.

My companion legislation to Chairman Skelton's provides a similar reassurance to our servicemembers and their families. It will amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in a way that stipulates that Department of Defense TRICARE health-care coverage will be treated as minimal essential coverage under the health care reform bill when it is signed into law by the President.

There has been a great deal of confusion over the past year surrounding the future of TRICARE and other military health care programs. False allegations have been raised, for example, that the administration planned changes to TRICARE for Life that would jeopardize its future or substantially raise its cost for beneficiaries. It is important to set the record straight.

In my capacity as the chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, I am committed to protecting the health care coverage programs in place for the military today.

Supporting this bill will reassure our service members that the coverage provided by TRICARE and nonppropriated health plans is properly protected in law as meeting the requirements for individual health insurance mandated by the new health care reform bill. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. President, today I introduced a bill that speaks directly to the welfare of our military service members and their families. TRICARE, TRICARE for Life, and the nonappropriated fund health plans are the programs that provide health care for our men and women in uniform, their families, retirees, and other eligible individuals. These programs, as well as today's military veterans health care system, exceed the minimum essential coverage for individual health insurance required by the health care reform bill passed yesterday by the House of Representatives.

I am pleased to offer a companion bill to one introduced last week by my good friend, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, that explicitly protects TRICARE and NAF health plans. Representative Skelton's bill, which passed Saturday by a vote of 403 to 0, makes it perfectly clear that no TRICARE or NAF health plan beneficiary will be required to purchase additional coverage beyond what they already have.

My companion legislation to Chairman Skelton's provides a similar reassurance to our servicemembers and their families. It will amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in a way that stipulates that Department of Defense TRICARE health-care coverage will be treated as minimal essential coverage under the health care reform bill when it is signed into law by the President.

There has been a great deal of confusion over the past year surrounding the future of TRICARE and other military health care programs. False allegations have been raised, for example, that the administration planned changes to TRICARE for Life that would jeopardize its future or substantially raise its cost for beneficiaries. It is important to set the record straight.

In my capacity as the chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, I am committed to protecting the health care coverage programs in place for the military today.

Supporting this bill will reassure our service members that the coverage provided by TRICARE and nonppropriated health plans is properly protected in law as meeting the requirements for individual health insurance mandated by the new health care reform bill. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak about amendment No. 3342 which I have offered with respect to the legislation in question. There has been some confusion among my colleagues about what exactly is contained in this amendment which I introduced with Senator Boxer as an individual stand-alone bill previously and introduced in similar format here on this legislation.

I emphasize to my colleagues that this is a carefully drafted, one- shot amendment designed to give the American taxpayers a place on the upside of the recovery of the financial system that they, quite frankly, enabled. This amendment would provide a one-time 50-percent tax on bonuses that are above $400,000 of any initial bonus paid to executives of financial institutions that received a minimum of $5 billion in the TARP program. It is only for income that was generated through work in 2009 and compensated in 2010. This is a one-shot matter of fairness to balance out the rewards these financial institutions received which were enabled by the contributions of the American

taxpayer in the TARP program. We have had estimates that this amendment will recover for our economic system somewhere between $3.5 and $10 billion. I again emphasize that the American taxpayers did not create this economic crisis. They were required to bail out those people who did create it. They deserve to share in the upside, in the rewards they themselves enabled.

Paul Krugman, who is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, wrote in July of 2008 about his concern at the very inception of this economic crisis that we were moving toward a tendency in this country to socialize risk and individualize reward. In other words, whenever we create a situation where there is an economic challenge, the American taxpayers at large are expected to absorb the risk. But then when the reward comes in, only the executives, the people who were managing the financial system, are able to actually get the rewards.

This particular reward in this one-shot tax proposal has come about largely as the result of government intervention, as the result of working people having to put their money forward in order to bail out a financial system that had gone wrong. As a result, I believe, as a matter of equity, the reward should be shared with taxpayers who made it possible.

For those who had to vote on the TARP program on October 1, 2008, it was a very difficult vote and a defining moment in the Senate. We need to remind ourselves of what was going on at that point. We were called on a mass conference call in the Senate by the Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman Bernanke telling us that if we did not move $700 billion forward without a hearing, on an emergency basis, the world's economic systems were going to go into cataclysmic free fall.

I, like a lot of Members, struggled with that vote. I talked with as many people as I could across the philosophical spectrum of how the economy should work. I finally decided in favor of moving that money forward. At the same time, I laid down a set of principles. One is that we should look at executive compensation. Another is that we should look at reregulating the financial sector, on which Chairman Baucus has taken the lead. Another is that it would be vital, in terms of fairness, that we include the American taxpayer on the upside of any recovery. In other words, if the taxpayers were going to have to put money in when these troubled assets or toxic assets--whichever term people would like to use--couldn't find a value and were clogging up our economic system, clogging up our liquidity, once that situation was cleared and a value was placed on these amounts and the economy started to recover, a portion of that benefit should go to the taxpayers who had to put the money out.

There has been some talk about how with these companies--and we are only talking about 13 companies that got $5 billion or more--TARP money has been paid back. In some cases, a good bit of this money has been paid back. But I wish to make two points.

The first is, any moneys that were paid back were received at the earliest in midyear last year, 2009, meaning that taxpayer assistance to these companies was very much in effect. Quite frankly, among the 13 companies included in our amendment, most of the money has not been paid back.

I have had some questions here on the floor about whether this amendment discriminates against New York. Quite frankly, two of the largest companies with respect to bailout commitments are based in DC and in my own State of Virginia. This has nothing to do with regional disagreements or class envy of any sort. It is just a matter of how we ought to deal fairly with the way our taxpayers, our working people, had to step forward.

A second point in terms of the TARP money being paid back is that the extent of our government's obligation to these bailout companies is astronomical. It is beyond the $700 billion. This goes to Paul Krugman's point which he has made consistently since 2008 about continually socializing risk that is enabling these rewards and not giving a benefit to the people who largely took the risk.

The billions of dollars in bonuses being paid out are a direct result not only of the TARP bailout but also of generous Federal Reserve policies over the last year. We have seen near-zero interest rates, a discount window, and we have had the toxic assets bought by taxpayers. At the same time, these firms were able to borrow cheaply, to lend at a higher rate, to charge fees, and to leverage their bets into purely financial transactions.

If you examined a quarterly report to the Congress that came out in July of last year, they indicated that the true potential amount of support the Federal Reserve was providing these programs was in the neighborhood of $6.8 trillion. So these risk takers, these people who were managing at the top level in these companies did so at a time that they had enormous backup from the American taxpayer.

Andrew Cuomo, attorney general of New York, wrote a letter in January of this year to TARP recipients. In this letter, he made a couple of very important points that go to the intent of our legislation.

I ask unanimous consent to have the letter printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.

He writes:

. . . the Office of the New York Attorney General has been

conducting an inquiry into various aspects of executive

compensation at many of our nation's largest financial

institutions . . . [including] a review of compensation

practices at the 2008 TARP-recipient banks.

He makes a very valid point at the end of his letter. And here, he is writing to a company that had paid back the initial TARP money.

He writes:

. . . when you received TARP funding, your firm took on a

new responsibility to taxpayers. While your firm has now paid

the TARP money back----

Again, not all have; most of the money has not been paid back----

it is not clear that your firm would have been in the same

position now had you not received that TARP money.

We have all struggled with this issue. There have been many different approaches. In fact, Chairman Baucus has been out front on this issue in a number of different ways. I have in front of me the Compensation Fairness Act of 2009, which Chairman Baucus introduced last March, which was one attempt to address this issue of windfall profits bonuses. This legislation was sponsored by Senators Grassley, Schumer, Menendez, and others. Our bill is much narrower than this bill. This bill would tax bonuses of more than $50,000. Our bill taxes bonuses of more than $400,000. This bill would have taxed institutions that received more than $1 million. Ours requires $5 billion. This bill was retroactive and recurring in terms of the taxes. Ours is a one-shot, just on this 2009 amount of money that came in as a result or the benefits that came in as a result of our taxpayers stepping forward and putting $700 billion into the TARP program. Senator Brown of Ohio has introduced legislation that would put a windfall profits tax on any bonus higher than $25,000.

Our amendment was inspired and designed based on a couple of previous writings and pieces of legislation, the first being the Baucus legislation, which was the starting point for it. The other was, I think, a very powerful article written in the Financial Times--one of the most conservative economic newspapers in the world--last November, by Martin Wolf. I am going to read some excerpts from this article. First, he said:

Windfall taxes are a ghastly idea. . . . So why do I now

find the idea of a windfall tax on banks so appealing? Well,

this time, it does look different.

First, all the institutions making exceptional profits do

so because they are beneficiaries of unlimited state

insurance for themselves and their counterparts. . . .

Second, the profits being made today are in large part the

fruit of the free money provided by the central bank, an arm

of the state. . . .

Third, the case for generous subventions is to restore the

financial system--and so the economy--to health. It is not to

enrich bankers. . . .

Fourth, ordinary people can accept that risk takers receive

huge rewards. But such rewards for those who have been

rescued by the state and bear substantial responsibility for

the crisis are surely intolerable. . . .

Fifth. . . .``Windfall'' support should be matched by

windfall taxes.

His proposal, which inspired the specifics of our amendment, was that there could be a ``one-off windfall tax on bonuses,'' a one-time windfall tax

on bonuses to equal the playing field in terms of this unique situation our country found itself in.

I wish to say to my fellow Members and to other people who are doing the hard work of keeping our economy strong, I respect what it takes to take on risk and get a reward. I respect the entrepreneurship that has strengthened our country throughout its history. But we also need to remember the working people in this country strongly and rightly believe they have borne the brunt of this economic crisis, and they just as strongly and rightly believe they are becoming the last to be rewarded, as we begin to recover from it.

Our taxpayers, our working people, rescued a financial system that was on the verge of collapse because of massive acts of bad judgment by the very companies that are now reaping huge bonuses from the government's intervention. It is not too much to ask those who have been fully compensated, and who have received in excess of a $400,000 bonus on top of their compensation, that they pay a one-time tax and share that excess on top of their $400,000 bonus in order to help make their rescuers a little more secure.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

State of New York,

Office of the Attorney General,

New York, NY, Jan. 11, 2010.

Re executive compensation investigation.

Bank of America Corp.,

New York, NY.

Dear Mr. Liman: As you know, the Office of the New York

Attorney General has been conducting an inquiry into various

aspects of executive compensation at many of our nation's

largest financial institutions. Our inquiry has included a

review of compensation practices at the original 2008 TARP-

recipient banks.

Last year, this Office conducted a review of bonuses to

allow the public, and the industry, an opportunity to review

all relevant information concerning compensation practices.

This year, both the amount of bonus packages and the

construction of such packages is relevant information to our

inquiry.

Pursuant to our ongoing inquiry, please provide this Office

with a detailed accounting regarding executive compensation

at your firm for 2009. In particular. it is vital that you

immediately provide us with any and all information

concerning your firm's bonus pool and distribution

information for the 2009 year.

In particular, please provide this Office with the

following information:

1. A description of all bonus pools for 2009, including a

description of the process by which the pools were or will be

established.

2. A description of your bonus program to include cash,

stock and other incentive breakdowns, vesting periods,

clawback provisions, and any other provisions to tie

compensation to performance and/or the long-term health of

your firm, as well as a description of how the 2009 bonus

structures differ from 2008.

3. A description of the process by which the bonus pools

were or will be allocated and distributed, including any

documents reflecting discussion of the allocation and

distribution process and the justification thereof.

4. A description of how, if at all, the calculation and

plans for allocation of the bonus pools have changed as a

result of your firm's receipt of TARP funds and/or your

firm's repayment of TARP funds.

5. For the years 2007, 2008, and 2009, a description of the

bonuses awarded to employees receiving more than $250,000 in

compensation. For this request, please include the allocation

between cash and non-cash compensation and please provide a

listing by amount of the 200 top bonuses awarded by your

firm.

6. For 2009, the total value of bonuses awarded;

7. A description of how your bonus pool would have been

impacted had you not received TARP funding in 2008 and/or

2009.

8. A chart and description of your institution's rate and/

or magnitude of lending over the last 3 years--2007, 2008,

and 2009. Please also include the relevant sizes of the

businesses to which there has been lending.

9. For 2009, the number of employees who received any bonus

with a value equal to or greater than (i) $1 million, (ii) $2

million and (iii) $3 million. ``Bonus'' includes cash,

deferred cash, equity, options, restricted stock, performance

or time vesting stock and performance priced options,

restricted stock units, restricted stock award, stock

appreciation right or any similar type of grant or award.

Please include for each bonus the cash and non-cash

allocation.

10. Identify all compensation consultants retained as part

of the 2009 compensation process.

11. The number of employees employed at your firm on

December 31, 2009.

We have copied the Board of Directors on this letter

because we believe they should be involved in the response to

our requests as the firm's top management likely has a

significant interest in the compensation issues raised by our

requests.

As we informed your firm last year, when you received TARP

funding, your firm took on a new responsibility to taxpayers.

While your firm has now paid the TARP money back, it is not

clear that your firm would have been in the same position now

had you not received that TARP money. Accordingly, we also

ask that the Board inform us of the policies, procedures, and

protections the Board has instituted that will ensure Board

review of all such company expenditures going forward.

As recent government actions have created new issues of

public accountability and as private sector financial

institutions are grappling with the consequences of these

actions, we believe the need for full disclosure and

transparency are essential and this reporting will assist in

that effort.

We ask that you provide the requested information by

February 8, 2010.

Very truly yours,

Andrew M. Cuomo,

Attorney General of the State of New York.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2010, at 4:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, at 10 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2010, at 10 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2010, at 10 a.m. in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The 2010 Trade Agenda.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2010, at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Chemical Security: Assessing Progress and Charting a Path Forward.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2010, at 2:15 p.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Encouraging Innovative and Cost-Effective Crime Reduction Strategies.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2010. The Committee will meet in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight Challenges In The Medicare Prescription Drug Program.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere,

Fisheries, and Coast Guard of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 3, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I will offer an amendment to the pending legislation, amendment No. 3342. It is my intention to call up that amendment after the votes on the pending amendments this afternoon, but I would like to take a few minutes to explain to my colleagues the nature of this amendment and why I believe it is important.

This amendment basically says if you are an executive at one of the companies that received more than $5 billion in the TARP bailout, the financial bailout that occurred when we began our economic crisis, and if you receive in addition to your compensation a bonus in excess of $400,000, then that amount above $400,000--which is the approximate compensation of our President--will be taxed at 50 percent, and the amount it is taxed will be returned to the American taxpayers for deficit reduction.

It is a very simple amendment. It is a one-time amendment based on a unique situation in this country when the American taxpayers had to bail out our major companies in order to stabilize our economy.

This is not class warfare. It is not a continuing windfall profits tax. But I believe it is very proper for us to institute this on a one- time basis. Estimates we have had, when I offered this amendment as independent legislation a short while ago, along with Senator Boxer, were that you could recoup in the neighborhood of $10 billion back into our economy by this very fair tax assessment.

I want to go back to two opinion pieces that have been written over the last couple of years from people with great standing in the financial community and great philosophical differences. Then I want to remind my colleagues the process we had to enter into when the TARP legislation was first voted on.

On July 14, 2008, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, wrote a piece in the New York Times. I came to the floor at that time and quoted from his piece. He was talking about the beginning of what became our crisis, and he made the point:

It's the belief of investors--

He was talking at this point about the situation with Fannie and Freddie, to quote from his article.

It's the belief of investors if they fail, the federal

government will come to their rescue.

Then he wrote:

The implicit guarantee means that profits are privatized

while losses are socialized.

What he meant by that and what we actually have seen play out as our economy, thankfully, has begun to recover is, with the situation we entered into with TARP, risk was socialized. That means the average worker in this country--the person out there driving a truck, the nurse working in a hospital, the people doing the day-to-day work--had to put their tax dollars in to stabilize these banking systems, but the reward from the stabilization has become personalized to the executives who were running these companies, who then have benefited through these large bonus systems once our economy began to stabilize.

It is my strong belief, as someone who is a supporter of people who are willing to take risks and create the right kind of environment for growth in our economy, that they should be happy once they have reached a point where they have been compensated and they have had a $400,000 bonus. They should be happy to take the money beyond that $400,000 bonus and divide it up with the average worker out here who may not even own stock who had to put their tax dollars in to stabilize the economy.

The second article I would like to quote from is from the Financial Times which, as all of my colleagues will recognize, is one of the most conservative newspapers in the world when it comes to capitalist enterprise, risk taking, rewarding the people who get out and lead in our business sector.

Martin Wolf wrote an editorial on November 19, 2009, not that long ago. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the entire article after my remarks.

Mr. President, Martin Wolf said this:

Windfall taxes are a ghastly idea. . . . No sensible person

should support them. So why do I now find the idea of a

windfall tax on banks so appealing? Well, this time, it

really does look different.

Mr. Wolf goes on to point out:

Ordinary people can accept that risk takers receive huge

rewards. But such rewards for those who have been rescued by

the state and bear substantial responsibility for the crisis

are surely intolerable. . . . The public finances will be

devastated for decades: taxes will be higher and public

spending lower. Meanwhile, bankers are about to reap huge

rewards. This damages the legitimacy of the market economy.

Mr. Wolf went on to support the very concept I am putting on the table today; that is, a one-time windfall profits tax on moneys that were earned in 2009 when this American taxpayer rescue of our financial system occurred, when earnings that occurred through work in 2009, which are paid in 2010--this is not a retroactive tax; one shot, balance the playing field and reward the people who stepped forward to help save our economy.

Sometimes it is hard for us to remember the circumstances that took place when we were asked to vote for TARP back in September of 2008 because so much has happened to our economy and to the debate in this country since then. But we should remember that in September of 2008, Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke put us all on a conference call. They told us if we did not put $700 billion of taxpayer money into a program to assist our major Federal financial institutions that the world as we knew it economically was going to fall into cataclysm. We voted in support of this $700 billion--I voted for it--in order to help these financial institutions solve the problems, undo their systems of bad assets--which had taken place, quite frankly, through a lot of bad judgment in their leadership--free up our economic system and get credit going again. And we did it with the explicit understanding that it was the American taxpayers who were putting the money in and who, when the system righted itself, would get their money back. So this one-shot deal is designed to help do that.

It is fair to all parties. It allows the executives in these 13 companies that received more than $5 billion each of taxpayer money to still reward their executives and at the same time share these profits, or these benefits that go beyond a $400,000 bonus, with the people who basically pulled their fat out of the fire.

I hope we can get a vote on this amendment. I trust my colleagues will understand the care with which it was designed and the equity we are trying to deal with.

I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

[From the Financial Times, Nov. 19, 2009]

Tax the Windfall Banking Bonuses

(By Martin Wolf)

Windfall taxes are a ghastly idea. They are a sop to

prejudice, a burden on risk-taking and a form of arbitrary

confiscation. No sensible person should support them. So why

do I now find the idea of a windfall tax on banks so

appealing? Well, this time, it really does look different.

First, all the institutions making exceptional profits do

so because they are beneficiaries of unlimited state

insurance for themselves and their counterparties. As Andrew

Haldane of the Bank of England argues, the state has ``become

the last resort financier of the banks''. In the UK, total

support amounted to a staggering 74 per cent of gross

domestic product. These must be the largest business

subsidies ever.

Second, the profits being made today are in large part the

fruit of the free money provided by the central bank, an arm

of the state. The state is giving the surviving banks a

licence to print money.

Third, the case for generous subventions is to restore the

financial system--and so the economy--to health. It is not to

enrich bankers, particularly not those engaged in the sorts

of trading activities that destroyed the financial system in

the first place.

Fourth, ordinary people can accept that risk takers receive

huge rewards. But such rewards for those who have been

rescued by the state and bear substantial responsibility for

the crisis are surely intolerable. What makes them yet more

so is that the crisis has devastated the prospects of tens,

if not hundreds, of millions of innocents all over

the globe. The public finances will be devastated for

decades: taxes will be higher and public spending lower.

Meanwhile, bankers are about to reap huge rewards. This

damages the legitimacy of the market economy.

Fifth, it is hard to argue in favour of exceptional

interventions to bail out the financial sector at times of

crisis, and also against exceptional interventions to recoup

costs when the crisis is past. ``Windfall'' support should be

matched by windfall taxes.

Finally, these are genuine windfalls. They are, as George

Soros has said, ``hidden gifts'' from the state. What the

state gives, the state is entitled to take back, if it is not

used for the state's purposes.

So the question, in my mind, is not whether a windfall tax

can be justified but whether it can be designed successfully.

All taxes have unintended consequences. One must be

particularly careful with this one.

Since the aim of policy is to recapitalise the banks, the

tax should not reduce their ability to do so. It would be far

better then to impose a tax on contributions made to the

bonus pool. There is no public interest in such payments.

Since it would be a one-off event, it should not affect

incentives (unless banks plan to create systemic crises every

few years). If the tax applied to all banks operating within

a given jurisdiction, it would not affect competitiveness

among them. The case seems strong--even more so if the tax

could be implemented across major jurisdictions,

simultaneously.

Yet windfall taxes cannot contain financial excess,

precisely because their goal is not to affect incentives. So

what is to be done?

As Mr. Haldane notes, we have seen ``a progressive rise in

banking risk and an accompanying widening and deepening of

the state safety net''. As the liabilities of the banks have

become ever more socialised and so equity cushions have

become increasingly redundant, the incentive for both limited

liability shareholders and employees to game the taxpayer has

risen greatly. It is rational for banks to choose risky

strategies because they take the upside and taxpayers much of

the downside.

Over the past half century, UK bank capital has remained at

between 3 per cent and 5 per cent of assets, these assets

have risen tenfold, relative to GDP, and returns on equity

have averaged 20 per cent. Such high returns, in an

established industry, must mean either high barriers to entry

or excessive risk-taking. The former are undesirable and the

latter terrifying, particularly in view of the huge rise in

the state's exposure to the risks.

We will never have a better opportunity than now to redress

the deteriorating terms of trade between the banks and the

state. A big part of the solution must be to shift

incentives. The more credible are the pre-announced limits on

support from government, the more effective will be the

changes in incentives inside banks, and vice versa. The less

we are able to shift these incentives, the more important it

will be to impose heavy regulation. The combination of

today's incentives with today's safety nets and yesterday's

``light touch'' regulation was devastating.

Yet, regardless of the success of reforms of incentives

in--and regulation of--the financial sector, it is reasonable

to recoup not only the direct fiscal costs of saving banks

but even some of the wider fiscal costs of the crisis. The

time has come for some carefully judged populism. A one-off

windfall tax on bonuses would make the pain ahead for society

so very much more bearable. Try it: millions will love it.

Mr. President, may I ask what is the pending business before the Senate?

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

Mr. President, I would like to speak for a few minutes on behalf of Justice Barbara M. Kennan, who is the nominee to serve on the Fourth Circuit Court. I respectfully request, in the name of good governance and the proper functioning of our constitutional system, that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle allow a prompt vote on her nomination.

Justice Kennan was voted out of committee in October of last year by a unanimous voice vote. Her nomination is noncontroversial. She has been a dedicated public servant, a fair and balanced jurist, and her nomination has had broad bipartisan support. I believe it is critical that we move forward as quickly as possible to confirm her nomination.

There are currently four vacancies on the Fourth Circuit, more than any other circuit. The seat that Justice Kennan would fill has been vacant for more than 2 years. Justice Kennan is an extraordinary choice to fill this vacancy. She has been a State supreme court justice since 1991. She has been a trailblazer for women in the law throughout her career. At the age of 29, she was the first female general district court judge in Virginia when she was selected for the Fairfax County bench. That was in 1980. She became the first female circuit court judge when she was promoted to that court in 1982.

In 1985, she was 1 of 10 judges named to the First Virginia Court of Appeals and the only woman when that court was created. She was selected for the State Supreme Court, the second female justice ever to serve there, in 1991. She was, in fact, the first judge to have served on all four levels of Virginia's courts.

I also would like to point out when Governor McDonnell was recently sworn into his office, he specifically requested that Justice Kennan deliver him the oath of office. There is a wide bipartisan consensus inside Virginia about the quality of this nominee, and I am very hopeful we can move forward in an expeditious way.

I am mindful of the Senate's constitutional role in confirming executive nominations. It is vitally important, and a robust vetting process and debate is appropriate. We have conducted, inside Virginia in our delegation, that kind of vetting process which resulted in Justice Kennan's name being moved forward.

In the spirit of pragmatic bipartisanship and good governance, I believe it is time to move past these procedural delays that seem to infect us and get on with the business of governing.

I would like to point out that out of 876 Federal judgeships, there are now 100 vacancies. These delays affect the administration of justice. These vacancies delay the resolution of disputes and they diminish our citizens' rights to a speedy trial. It is my understanding that Justice Kennan has broad support in this body. The vote in the Judiciary Committee is evidence of that. In fact, I will be very surprised if any Senator were to vote against her confirmation. Again, I am asking my colleagues on the other side of the aisle if they might allow this nomination to advance in a timely way.

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

Mr. President, I would like to speak quickly in opposition to this amendment.

It has been my strong belief--

That is correct. It has been my strong belief that individuals who were charged with international terrorism should be classified as enemy combatants, and I stated many times I do not believe they belong in our country. They don't belong in our courts. They don't belong in our prisons. At the same time, I recognize that the President retains the constitutional authority to bring charges against these individuals in article III courts. The Graham amendment did resolve that issue in terms of their transfer to U.S. soil.

This amendment, unfortunately, would not address that issue. It prohibits appropriation of funds to modify facilities in the United States in order to hold such individuals. I believe that would prevent law enforcement officials from taking the steps that are necessary to improve security in our local communities and that it would put our security at risk. It is for this reason I oppose the amendment and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be cosponsoring this legislation with the senior Senator from Tennessee. This is a strong attempt by both of us to go toward the area of problem solving rather than political rhetoric that surrounds a lot of this issue when we examine the pieces of legislation that are before us that are making an attempt at solving climate change issues. They are, in some cases, in contradiction to what our energy needs are at large.

On the one hand we stopped building nuclear powerplants 30 years ago because of widespread fears among people who were in the political process about the technology that was involved. On another level we stopped drilling for oil offshore after some incidents, now 40 years ago. Then on another level, we heard repeatedly that coal was too dirty.

At the same time we consume more and more energy, rightfully so, given the productivity of the country and the state of our economy. But we are in contradiction in terms of what we need versus what we fear. I believe the time has come for us to focus on those areas in terms of energy production that we know are achievable, that we know are safe, where we know we are good and which also can contribute positively in the area of climate change.

We have an enormously complex climate change bill that was passed in the House. We have another enormously complex climate change bill that may be before the Senate. We can't predict whether those bills will pass. If they do pass, we know there are some detriments. What Senator Alexander and I are trying to do on a bipartisan basis, hopefully, with the support of our colleagues, is to put a simple piece of legislation forward that will address the areas that are achievable, that can give us an end result and get this legislation passed, while all of these other issues continue to be examined.

Senator Alexander outlined the major points of this legislation. I would like to emphasize a couple. One is that we will be able to provide $100 billion in loan guarantees, but that is not $100 billion in money. That is $100 billion in guarantees. It depends on the success rate. The basic projection on this is that it will be between 1 and 10 percent of that $100 billion that our taxpayers actually would be required to pay. So we are going to be able to bring at least a dozen nuclear powerplants online.

When I say ``nuclear powerplants,'' I mean the electrical generation capability of a traditional nuclear powerplant. We may have more than those given the miniaturization of nuclear power that is now underway.

We are going to be able to develop a nuclear workforce. Let me stay on this point for a minute. Senator Alexander was a former Secretary of Education. I have spent all of my life, since I was 18 years old, in and around the naval service from which our nuclear power programs first began. One of the great benefits of the nuclear power program in the United States has been quality individuals whose talents are unmatched around the world.

I first watched this when I was at the Naval Academy many years ago, where among the brightest people at the Naval Academy, many were selected for the nuclear power program. They went through intensive training. But also among the enlisted sailors, the quality of the training was unsurpassed. We would like to see this take place in terms of workforce development in the United States.

We want to put $100 million a year in over a 10-year period to develop superb craftsmen as well as nuclear engineers.

We are looking at many mini-Manhattan Projects for alternate energy. This doesn't simply narrow the focus to nuclear energy. But we do know right now, even though we haven't built a new nuclear powerplant in the United States for 30 years, that 70 percent of the carbon-free electrical power in the United States comes from nuclear energy.

This is a good match for what people are trying to do in the area of climate change. I believe the way we have designed this legislation is focused. I am comfortable with the fact that the expansion of nuclear power as an alternate energy is doable. It is reasonable in scope and in cost. It will go a long way toward our eventual goal of dramatically reducing carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, this is legislation that will be beneficial to our economy, to our national health, to our position around the world.

I hope colleagues will join us in moving this legislation forward. We can do it in a timely manner, and we know the results are there.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be cosponsoring this legislation with the senior Senator from Tennessee. This is a strong attempt by both of us to go toward the area of problem solving rather than political rhetoric that surrounds a lot of this issue when we examine the pieces of legislation that are before us that are making an attempt at solving climate change issues. They are, in some cases, in contradiction to what our energy needs are at large.

On the one hand we stopped building nuclear powerplants 30 years ago because of widespread fears among people who were in the political process about the technology that was involved. On another level we stopped drilling for oil offshore after some incidents, now 40 years ago. Then on another level, we heard repeatedly that coal was too dirty.

At the same time we consume more and more energy, rightfully so, given the productivity of the country and the state of our economy. But we are in contradiction in terms of what we need versus what we fear. I believe the time has come for us to focus on those areas in terms of energy production that we know are achievable, that we know are safe, where we know we are good and which also can contribute positively in the area of climate change.

We have an enormously complex climate change bill that was passed in the House. We have another enormously complex climate change bill that may be before the Senate. We can't predict whether those bills will pass. If they do pass, we know there are some detriments. What Senator Alexander and I are trying to do on a bipartisan basis, hopefully, with the support of our colleagues, is to put a simple piece of legislation forward that will address the areas that are achievable, that can give us an end result and get this legislation passed, while all of these other issues continue to be examined.

Senator Alexander outlined the major points of this legislation. I would like to emphasize a couple. One is that we will be able to provide $100 billion in loan guarantees, but that is not $100 billion in money. That is $100 billion in guarantees. It depends on the success rate. The basic projection on this is that it will be between 1 and 10 percent of that $100 billion that our taxpayers actually would be required to pay. So we are going to be able to bring at least a dozen nuclear powerplants online.

When I say ``nuclear powerplants,'' I mean the electrical generation capability of a traditional nuclear powerplant. We may have more than those given the miniaturization of nuclear power that is now underway.

We are going to be able to develop a nuclear workforce. Let me stay on this point for a minute. Senator Alexander was a former Secretary of Education. I have spent all of my life, since I was 18 years old, in and around the naval service from which our nuclear power programs first began. One of the great benefits of the nuclear power program in the United States has been quality individuals whose talents are unmatched around the world.

I first watched this when I was at the Naval Academy many years ago, where among the brightest people at the Naval Academy, many were selected for the nuclear power program. They went through intensive training. But also among the enlisted sailors, the quality of the training was unsurpassed. We would like to see this take place in terms of workforce development in the United States.

We want to put $100 million a year in over a 10-year period to develop superb craftsmen as well as nuclear engineers.

We are looking at many mini-Manhattan Projects for alternate energy. This doesn't simply narrow the focus to nuclear energy. But we do know right now, even though we haven't built a new nuclear powerplant in the United States for 30 years, that 70 percent of the carbon-free electrical power in the United States comes from nuclear energy.

This is a good match for what people are trying to do in the area of climate change. I believe the way we have designed this legislation is focused. I am comfortable with the fact that the expansion of nuclear power as an alternate energy is doable. It is reasonable in scope and in cost. It will go a long way toward our eventual goal of dramatically reducing carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, this is legislation that will be beneficial to our economy, to our national health, to our position around the world.

I hope colleagues will join us in moving this legislation forward. We can do it in a timely manner, and we know the results are there.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, may I ask the Chair, are we in morning business?

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

Mr. President, I actually came to the floor to join with Senator Thune and to congratulate him on the effort he has undertaken to rededicate a site in Washington, DC, to become the National World War I Memorial. I am an original cosponsor on that legislation, and apparently he is tied up in some sort of meeting right now, so I will just precede him and give my thoughts and my support for the legislation he has introduced.

Marine Corps 234th Birthday

Before I do that, Mr. President, I would like to point out that this is November 10, and marines around the world stop on this day every year--no matter where they are, no matter what they are doing--to commemorate what we call the Marine Corps birthday, which is the celebration of the initial recruitment and organization of the Marine Corps, at a place called Tun Tavern in Philadelphia in 1775.

This is the 234th anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps. As one who has proudly served in the U.S. Marines, who has a brother who was a marine, a son who is a marine, and a son-in-law--three of us infantry combat veterans--I would like to extend my congratulations to all of those who served in the Marine Corps in the past and to those who are doing such a fine and difficult job today all around the world. This is the finest fighting organization in the world, and I am very proud to have been a part of it at one point in my life.

We all wish success and the best to our marines.

Frank Buckles World War I Memorial Act

Mr. President, tomorrow is Veterans Day, where we will stop as a nation with a national holiday to commemorate the service of all of those who have served our country throughout our history and to thank the 23.4 million veterans in this country for the service they have given in war and in peace, extending all the way back, in terms of living veterans, to World War I, which I am going to talk about in a minute. I think we have one surviving veteran from World War I still alive. We have some 2.6 million World War II veterans who are still with us. And we want to, as so many people have pointed out today, do our best to take care of those who have served our country, to honor that service.

With respect to the legislation Senator Thune put together and on which I am an original cosponsor, we should stop today and think about those who served in World War I. I think the memorial he is proposing has three important benefits to our country. The first is that it will help us remember a war that I think is not really appropriately remembered in our own history--the importance of it, the incredible carnage that took place, the way it changed the face of the civilized world. The second is to think about our own World War I veterans and the struggles they went through and in terms of putting together the right sort of care and benefits for those who followed them. The third is to talk about the site itself that Senator Thune has done such a fine job in discovering and proposing.

We in this country did not get involved in World War I until the very

end of the war. I think that is one of the reasons, perhaps, we do not consider in enough detail how much of an impact that war had on the civilized world as it was then known, on the relationships particularly among the European powers, and also the place of the United States in world affairs.

These numbers are rough, but they are fairly close; I think they are accurate enough that I can use them today: In World War I, the German Army lost 1.8 million soldiers, dead; the French lost 1.7 million soldiers, dead; the British Empire lost nearly a million soldiers, dead. The impact on those cultures and on the economy and the health of the communities was enormous. We came in at the end of the war. The United States lost 55,000 soldiers on the battlefield in less than a year. We lost another 55,000 to the Asian flu epidemic that swept through the world and had a very strong impact on those who were serving in the military. We lost 110,000 people in uniform during that war.

The impact it had on the relationships among European countries was enormous, and it is much more fully understood in other countries than it is here in the United States. The Russian Revolution occurred during World War I. The way we negotiated the settlement after World War I brought about, within a short period of time, the rise of fascism and, eventually, of nazism in Germany. The British Empire began to spend itself down in a way that finally had a fairly conclusive impact after the additional carnage of World War II.

All of those things impacted this country in a way that pushed us to the forefront in many ways in terms of our place in the world because of the exhaustion that had happened in these other societies.

Our World War I veterans had a very difficult time in a transitional period in terms of how we define veterans' benefits themselves. Previous to World War I, when soldiers left the military, they got what was called mustering-out pay, and when they reached a certain age, no matter what their service was in terms of disability or those sorts of things, they got a pension, an automatic pension, all the way through our history until World War I. World War I veterans didn't get either of those.

Some of us who are fond of looking at American history in the 1930s will remember the Veterans Bonus March, where World War I veterans literally camped out here in our Nation's Capital, saying they needed to get the same kind of bonuses that those who had preceded them received. They didn't receive that bonus. They did fight hard and long and were able to bring about the creation of the VA medical system, but they didn't get a GI bill; they didn't get so many things the other veterans who followed them received. Yet when I was much younger and working as a committee counsel in the House on veterans issues, we were still seeing the World War I veterans. They felt a stewardship to those who served in World War II. They helped push through the GI bill. They helped push through compensation packages that were unheard of before. We owe our World War I veterans a great deal, not simply for what they did on the battlefield but for how they helped transform veterans law into today.

The site Senator Thune proposed--and with which I agree--for a World War I memorial, I believe, is perfectly placed. We are all very sensitive in terms of putting additional memorials and monuments on The National Mall. I was involved in the formulation stages of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on The Mall. That was one of the big push-backs in Congress, as well as from the National Capital Planning Commission and other entities; that we don't want to put so many memorials on The Mall that you impact the free flow of tourists and people visiting that area.

Right now, here is what we have on The Mall. I wish I had a diagram, but we have the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, just down from the Lincoln Memorial, and to its south we have the Korean War Memorial and further to the east, toward the Washington Monument, we have the World War II Memorial. Almost in a diagrammatic diamond there is an area presently where the District of Columbia was allowed to place a memorial to those who had served in World War I and were residents of the District of Columbia.

What Senator Thune has proposed, and what I strongly also support, is to take this existing memorial, which is in some disrepair at the moment, quite frankly--I have been by there a number of times--and to upgrade it so it would become the National World War I Memorial, so we would have on The Mall, in a very tasteful way, four sites dedicated to the four major wars our country was involved in, in the 20th century. I can't think of a better way right now for us to recommend and remember the service of those who served in World War I and for the rest of the people in this country also to be encouraged to remember the impact that war had and the sacrifices the people who served in that war made.

So I rise, as I mentioned earlier, to commend the Senator from South Dakota for his recommendation, as well as, as I said, to remember the Marine Corps today and to remember our veterans tomorrow.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the administration's fiscal year 2010 defense budget request included authorization of an appropriation of $46.3 million for the dredging of the channel and turning basin at Naval Station Mayport, FL. The Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Navy confirmed that this dredging project is not associated with the Navy's proposal to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, CVN, in Mayport. However, advocates for the Navy's homeporting proposal continue to assert that the dredging project is the ``first step'' in having a carrier homeported in Mayport. It is time to set the record straight.

There is no cause-and-effect linkage between the Navy's homeporting proposal with the authorization and appropriation of fiscal year 2010 military construction funds to dredge the channel at Mayport. The Navy's homeporting scheme is being reviewed separately as part of the Department of Defense's Quadrennial Defense Review. Dredging Mayport's channel will have no influence on its evaluation.

Last April, when Secretary of Defense Gates announced key decisions associated with the President's fiscal year 2010 defense budget request, the Navy called me to confirm that its request for funds for dredging and pier improvement projects at Naval Station Mayport was not associated with its homeporting proposal. The Navy said its military requirement for dredging is to permit safer routine and emergency port visits by an aircraft carrier by lessening the current severe restrictions associated with the existing water depth in Mayport's channel and basin. The Navy acknowledged that the Quadrennial Defense Review would consider its carrier homeporting proposal separately.

In August, Deputy Secretary of Defense Lynn wrote me to reconfirm this point. He said:

Secretary Gates has taken the prudent step of seeking

funding for the dredging of the Mayport channel within the

fiscal year 2010 budget to provide an alternative port to

dock East Coast carriers in the event of a disaster. As you

know, the Secretary decided that the larger issue of whether

Mayport will be upgraded to enable it to serve as a homeport

for CVNs should be objectively evaluated during the

Department's Quadrennial

Defense Review (QDR). We continue to believe that the QDR

will provide the best forum to asses the costs and benefits

associated with a strategic move of this scale.

Also in August, the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps wrote the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services regarding conference action on the Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. Their letter specifically addressed the reasons why it was necessary to dredge Mayport's channel and basin. They stated the military construction project was necessary regardless of a final decision on aircraft carrier homeporting at Mayport.

The three senior leaders of the sea services stated dredging was needed for the following reasons:

Mayport is currently used as a transient dock for nuclear

aircraft carriers, and the current Mayport Channel and

turning basin depths impose undesirable restrictions on the

safe navigation of an aircraft carrier. Operational readiness

is degraded because a nuclear aircraft carrier cannot enter

the port with the embarked air wing and full stores and only

during certain high-tide conditions. It is prudent to remove

these operational limitations. The dredging provided in this

project is therefore required irrespective of the final

decision on aircraft carrier homeporting at Mayport.

Conferees for the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill from the House of Representatives and Senate Armed Services Committees met in September and October to reconcile differences between each Chamber's bill. During their consideration of military construction projects, the conferees recognized that confusion could exist regarding the dredging project owing to the erroneous assertions that it would pave the way for homeporting a carrier in Mayport.

As a result, a manager's statement accompanied the Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act signed into law by President Obama last month. It states, in part, that the conferees authorized funding for the project based on assurances provided by the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations that the dredging is needed for current operational considerations irrespective of a final decision on carrier homeporting at Mayport. Of note, the manager's statement says:

The conferees emphasize that the inclusion of an

authorization for dredging at NS Mayport is not an indication

of conferee support for the establishment of an additional

homeport for nuclear aircraft carriers on the East Coast, or

intended to influence the ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review,

which may include a recommendation on the establishment of a

second East Coast homeport for nuclear aircraft carriers.

Furthermore, the conferees note that this funding is provided

solely to permit use of Mayport as a transient port, and that

any potential designation of Mayport as a nuclear carrier

homeport will require future authorizations from the

Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of

Representatives.

Last year, the Navy said that the risk of a catastrophic event closing Hampton Roads is ``small.'' Dredging Mayport's channel and turning basin so that it can accommodate a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier for an unlikely emergency port visit clearly obviates the need to invest up to $1 billion to build duplicative nuclear-support infrastructure for carrier homeporting. During the Department of the Navy's budget testimony last June, Admiral Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations, stated: ``Future shore readiness . . . is at risk.'' In fact, the Navy's shore readiness is at risk today. In January, the Navy acknowledged it had a $28 billion backlog in shore facility restoration and modernization.

The need to sustain Naval Station Mayport is clear. Before investing what could be up to $1 billion to support a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, however, the Navy should first properly maintain its existing shore facilities. As the Navy's own studies reveal, there are other more fiscally responsible and strategically sound homeporting options for Mayport, including the assignment of a large-deck amphibious ship or Littoral Combat Ship, LCS, surface combatants.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, last night this body voted by a margin of 55 to 45 against an amendment I cosponsored, which had been offered by Senator Graham, the purpose of which would be to prohibit the use of funds from the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill to transfer individuals from Guantanamo and conduct trials of the alleged 9/11 perpetrators in the United States domestic court system.

The key argument in favor of tabling that amendment was that the President should be allowed discretion between using article III Federal courts and the military commissions that had been set up in Guantanamo.

First, I was clear to the President, and to others, that I recognize his constitutional authority to use article III courts in that type of situation. But, again, I want to express my deep concern that, as we proceed forward with examining the cases of those detainees who are at Guantanamo, this issue is actually going to get more complicated, and we should hope that the discretion the President uses is very narrowly applied.

The amendment Senator Graham offered addresses only the six alleged perpetrators in the 9/11 situation. A number of my colleagues came up to me and said: If you have an individual who is conducting an act of terror on American soil, shouldn't the President be authorized the discretion to try them in a Federal court?

My personal view is, it is perhaps constitutionally permissible but inappropriate, in the same sense as on December 7, 1941, when Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor. This was a foreign entity killing Americans, including American civilians, on American soil. It was not considered appropriate at that time, say, if we had a prisoner of war, if we shot a pilot down, that we would have brought them into the American court system and given them all due process rights, tried them for homicides, et cetera. They were combatants. They committed an act of war, and they should have been--and they were in the past--treated in that way.

My belief is, even with the 9/11 perpetrators conducting such acts on our soil, there should be a different way, a more proper way to address these situations that involve enemy combatants.

This issue is only going to get more complicated. We have a second increment of people who are at Guantanamo who are foreign nationals, not American citizens, who were apprehended on foreign soil-- Afghanistan being a classic example--for acts of war that were conducted not in this country but, again, on foreign soil. They are in Guantanamo. One would question the logic of whether they should be brought on American soil to be examined by an American court system and then apprehended in American prisons. I strongly believe this is not the appropriate way to deal with these individuals and particularly since, with the national Defense authorization bill that was just signed by the President, we have built in appropriate procedural protections in the Military Commissions Act.

Then we have a third increment of people who are in Guantanamo who, we are told, because of either tainted evidence or the lack of sufficient evidence, may never be tried at all, nor will they be released because they are considered to be threats to our future at a time when we have ongoing, basically, combat relations against the international forces of terrorism, of which they are a part.

This third increment which, as I said, will probably never be tried, is also being considered relevant to move into the United States. Here is the question we are going to have to answer: If you bring these people into the United States, our Constitution provides that individuals tried in article III courts should have a right--or an individual subject to article III courts should be tried in a speedy manner. We all have a right to a speedy trial if you are in the United States. We are not going to do that. So then the question is: What are we going to do with them?

If you read the Supreme Court cases--and, again, as I said yesterday during the debate, I read in detail the Hamdi case which deals in part with this situation--if this individual is deemed an enemy combatant, they can be held for the duration of what we call the hostilities, until hostilities cease. That is a huge conundrum in terms of dealing with people who are not going to be charged, who are not American citizens, who are apprehended for acts outside our country and yet are going to be put into our prison system potentially indefinitely. I don't think it is going to reduce the situation we have had in Guantanamo in terms of the way a lot of people have viewed the processes that were in place there. I think it is only going to transfer that concern into the United States because these people will be detained in U.S. prisons, and I don't think that is going to be mitigated if these U.S. prisons happen to be military prisons.

I wished to come to the floor to express my concern that the President, who has been given the discretion through the vote yesterday which tabled the Graham amendment, should be using it very narrowly, should not be in a rush to shut down the Guantanamo

facility in a manner that brings us the second and third increment of problems.

I ask that the Members of this body join me in expressing their concern about a proper way to address this very complicated situation.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise with some regret because I am in a contradiction with our President and with many members of my own caucus. I am a cosponsor of the Graham amendment. I have no regrets about cosponsoring the amendment. I do regret that I am in contradiction with a number of my colleagues on this side.

I believe this is an appropriate amendment. I believe it is the best way for us to move forward and bring a solution with respect to those who are detained in Guantanamo.

I would start by saying I have consistently argued that the appropriate venue for trying perpetrators of international terrorism who are, in fact, enemy combatants is a military tribunal. One of my primary focuses in my time in the Senate has been to work toward a fairer and more efficient criminal justice system in the United States.

As all my colleagues know, we have an enormous backlog in many court systems right now. Prisons are overcrowded. We have 2.3 million people in prison right now, 7 million people inside the criminal justice system. The process of trying enemy combatants in our already overburdened domestic courts, on the one hand, is not necessary and, on the other, would introduce major logjams and work against our goals of improving our criminal justice system.

As someone who served in the military, has spent 5 years in the Pentagon, and is privileged to serve in this body, I would like to say, in my view, the Guantanamo Bay detainee situation is challenging, it is complicated, it involves balancing an entire host of considerations, including national security, constitutional due process requirements, international law, procedural and practical considerations, and the responsibilities and authority of all three branches of government.

Given the complicated nature of this situation, I believe it is very important for us to move forward with a careful and considered approach. These are among the considerations we should be looking at: First, the Supreme Court has reviewed this issue a number of times and, in several cases, has given clear guidance on due process requirements.

Second, taking into consideration these Supreme Court's decisions, Congress enacted new procedures for military tribunals. These new pressures, which were included in the recently passed Defense authorization bill, contain safeguards that protect detainees' due process and habeas rights.

President Obama, as a Senator, took part in the creation of these new procedures. President Obama signed these new procedures into law. Additionally, the facilities for properly holding and trying dangerous detainees who are, in fact in many cases, enemy combatants, exist at the cost of approximately millions of dollars in Guantanamo.

The Guantanamo debate has, in my view, improperly focused on place versus process over the past couple of years. The most important factor has been to improve the process as we consider these different cases, not simply whether this was Guantanamo or anywhere else.

Removing our detainees from Guantanamo to the United States is not going to solve the problem. The improved processes we have put in place is one of the key factors in addressing the problem.

The people we are seeking to prosecute--I think it needs to be said again and again--are enemy combatants. They were apprehended during a time of war, while hostilities are still ongoing. Prosecuting these individuals in domestic courts gives rise to a host of problematic issues which are basically unnecessary because of the availability now of properly constituted military tribunals.

The problems with trying alleged detainees in domestic courts include: procedural, constitutional, and evidentiary rules in place to protect civilian criminal defendants in our country. These protections would require the production of classified materials. It could require military and intelligence officers to be called from other duties, in some cases from the battlefield, to testify.

This could lead to the exposure of sensitive material or, alternatively, to acquittal of enemy combatants who are guilty of these crimes. In the U.S. legal system, when a defendant is acquitted he goes free. In this complex scenario, it is unclear what will happen in our domestic judicial system if one of those enemy combatants is actually acquitted.

This mixing of the legal and military paradigms, I believe, would confuse our criminal justice system without a real upside. The burden of trying enemy combatants in a domestic court is overwhelming. Other people have mentioned this. There is an issue, of course, of maintaining security for the courtroom and for the jail facilities: the additional security burdens to the U.S. Marshals Service and to local police services, the security and procedural complexities would tie up our court system at a time when we need to move criminal cases forward.

I think it is very important for the understanding of this body, that while this amendment only applies to six detainees at Guantanamo Bay, it is long past time that we work to reach a consensus on how and where all these detainees are going to be tried and/or held. The administration has consistently talked about three different categories of detainees: Those who have been found not to be a threat to the United States and can be released and a number of them have; those who are a threat and can be prosecuted, which takes up most of our discussion, but, importantly, a third group is those who we have reason to believe will continue to be a threat to the United States, but we may not have sufficient admissible evidence to bring them to trial. That is the category that is the most troubling when we start talking about moving these detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States.

Every Member of this body should be concerned with the implications of confining such individuals indefinitely inside the United States without due process. I took the time, after a number of discussions, including a long discussion with the President about this, to read the Hamdi case, the Supreme Court case that deals with indefinite detention of detainees.

There is a conundrum here, if you think about the reality of what we are doing. If you bring these people into the United States and do not try them, you are going to put them in a civilian prison. There are only two possibilities here: either as legally here in the United States they have to be given a speedy trial or, as enemy combatants, we do not have to give them a speedy trial until the end of hostilities. How do we define the end of hostilities? We are simply going to be importing a problem, affecting about 50 people at Guantanamo, from Guantanamo into the United States.

Again, it is not the place, it is the process. Ten years from now, fifteen years from now we don't want to find ourselves saying: There is an individual in a super-max prison somewhere in Illinois who has never been charged with a crime.

Why do we need to bring that into our system? Why do we need to bring that into our country? We have to commit ourselves to examining that issue in detail and figure out a way to move forward. I am committed to working with the administration. I have said this to the President in the past and to Members of this body, we need to move forward and develop a final trial and detention plan.

But the bottom line is, we are a nation at war. The Supreme Court has outlined due process rights for detainees. Guantanamo Bay is the appropriate facility for holding the enemy belligerents, particularly since we just passed these improvements in the Military Commissions Act. I hope this body will think seriously about the implications of bringing large numbers of Guantanamo Bay detainees into the United States.

I yield the floor.