Floor Statements

Mr. President, it is quite an honor to speak while the Presiding Officer is in the Chair. I think I have not seen him there before, so I will have to give a good speech. I will probably have to give a little longer speech simply by virtue of his presence.

I think most people who choose a career in public life do so because they have a genuine, huge feeling in their heart that they want to help people. It is kind of simple. I know I have spent the better part of my career in West Virginia and in Congress looking for any way I possibly could--succeeding in some cases, failing in some cases--in trying always to make life better for West Virginians and for the American people as a whole. Perhaps it is a simple idea, but I can say with some pride that over the years we have made a lot of strides.

It is popular, these days, I know, to beat up on the government. It always has been. That goes back to George Washington's time. But the truth is, the government does an incredible amount to help people in their lives every single day. The benefits of government are not always visible. They do not usually make the evening news, but they are enormously important and specific and make a large difference.

This government looks after veterans; otherwise, they wouldn't be looked after. The private sector wouldn't do it. The private sector is sometimes very reluctant, actually, to participate in helping them. But when they come home from battle, the government is there with an expanded Veterans' Administration system and superb medical health care to take care of them.

The government takes care of seniors with Medicare and our Social Security programs. We also have Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, which is vastly important in a State such as my own or anybody's State because it provides comprehensive health coverage to our most vulnerable populations, including children. We passed this because it is morally right. It is the right thing to do and in the best interest of our Nation to be sure children get a decent start in life--in health care, maybe even before education, because the health care part starts very early with early tests.

The government builds the roads, the bridges, and other infrastructure that connects small towns and communities and helps make us a larger community. It is the fabric that links families and businesses all across this country.

Federal agencies also make sure the food we eat is safe and the water we drink is clean. They help communities pay for public safety and all kinds of law enforcement to help keep our streets safe.

People don't generally know where money comes from. That is pretty understandable. They just need to know, if they are sitting out in the evening on a summer's night, that the streets they live on are being patrolled or being watched, et cetera. I could go on and on. There are literally thousands of things government has done over the years to improve the quality of life for every single man, woman, and child in this country. It is indisputable, and there is a glorious tale in all that.

But in recent weeks, we have seen the discussion about the role and the purpose of government take what seems to be a very nasty turn. Some of my colleagues on the other side have lately taken up the call to arms to do whatever it takes to slash, to close or to shut down the government. We are faced with that, and we may get that. They want to hold the American people

hostage with a ransom note that keeps getting higher and higher every time negotiations go on.

There is no question we must get our growing deficit under control, and Democrats have taken responsible steps to do that. In fact, in the larger scheme of things, we have gone 75 to 80 percent toward the Republican position. But at every turn, Republicans have blocked reasonable attempts to rein in government spending. They say they want it to happen, but if there are reasonable attempts to do that, they stop it. Instead, they make unreasonable demands and they change the goalposts on a repeated basis.

Last December, Democrats produced an Omnibus appropriations bill to fund the government for 2011 that would have reduced spending by $20 billion, a level endorsed by a bipartisan group of Senators. Incoming Speaker John Boehner, however, launched a campaign to oppose that bill. Republicans ramped up their opposition to the bill and, instead, all we were able to pass was a short-term extension of funding to 2011, which was very frustrating.

In February, Republicans offered a long-term proposal to fund the government through the end of fiscal year 2011 with $32 billion in cuts. But tea party Republicans, who are in control, rejected the $32 billion and, instead, insisted on deeper cuts of $61 billion that Republicans knew and openly admitted were both dangerous to the economy and totally unlikely to pass the Senate.

In the meantime, Democrats have fought to keep our government operating. We have passed $10 billion in cuts since March. It is harder for Democrats to make cuts than Republicans because we believe in doing things that help people directly, that keep them safe--such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Who knows about that? Senator Boxer does and I do. They make sure our toys and other products people use are safe. Somebody has to always be watching over what goes on.

We have passed $10 billion in cuts since March and offered another $20 billion in cuts to the Republicans so we can end this standoff and not shut down government. Just when we thought we had finally reached an agreement on $33 billion in additional cuts below the 2010 enacted levels--which is $73 billion below the President's 2011 budget proposal--not interesting, all these statistics but profoundly important in the function and the possibilities of government. So this was at the end of March. But Republicans then changed the rules again. They demanded $40 billion in cuts to appease the far right--the tea partiers.

Some of my colleagues on the other side have lately taken up a call to arms to do whatever it takes to close the government. Despite a previous commitment from the Speaker, middle-ground funding cuts of $33 billion are no longer good enough.

Then, as the final bomb, they passed the seventh short-term spending measure that is loaded with $12 billion in spending cuts--which, by the way, is six times more than the agreed-upon rate of $2 billion a week, which includes the Department of Defense appropriations bill and all those 66 riders that have absolutely no place on any appropriations bill.

What is required is less concern about the tea party messaging and total attention to the well-being of the American people and the health of our Nation. The tea party cry--delivered in gleeful shouts and rants on the floor of the House, in the Senate, and frequently in rallies outside these buildings--is nothing like I have ever seen before. I have been here 25 years--something like that--and I have never seen anything like it. But they want to close the government down, and they love the theater of it.

Recently, we watched as an extremist crowd, standing on the lawn outside, waved flags with snakes on them and shouted: Shut it down, shut it down, shut it down, as if this is a sporting event--you know, the Roman Coliseum. Let the gladiators compete, the heck with the people. Let the Roman Senate take care of that. Even the leadership on the other side has joined in--with one Republican Member telling the crowds and people everywhere, therefore, because it was televised, that he wants to see the government shut down. He flatout said that.

I believe they want that. I believe they want that. So really? You have such disdain for our constitutional government, you so disrespect our fellow citizens--the people who sent us and who count on us to help and protect them--that you want a government shutdown? That is the deal, I guess.

Has anyone else noticed that in many parts of the world today there are protests in the streets about basic freedoms? Here, where we are privileged already to enjoy these freedoms, we are stuck in the middle of a political debate with extreme positions and Members of Congress who seem not to care what happens as long as they win or score points for the next election--a cynical thing to say, but it happens to be true.

Frankly, this cynical posturing from the other side has not only brought us to the brink of a government shutdown--only a few hours from now, perhaps, though I hope not--it has taken us to a point where we are forgetting what it is we are arguing about in the first place. What should be a serious, thoughtful debate about finding reasonable ways to cut the budget and scale back our deficit has, for some, instead, turned into a game. I say that because what we are hearing from the other side is that they want mostly to move in an extreme agenda. They care about that. They have their markers. They have to meet those markers; no matter the effect on the people, they have to meet the markers.

They ran, some of them without any intention--many of them without any intention of running again so they can't be held accountable, so they can work on shutting down government which they do not like for various reasons. So it is no longer on agreeing on a dollar figure to cuts from the budget. It is about turning the government into a boogeyman and closing its doors.

Let me tell you why I think that is unacceptable. It is because this is not a game at all, this is real life and the decisions we make here have real world implications for the people of West Virginia and every other State and all over the world.

Let's consider what would happen if the extremist wing of the Republican party gets its way and the government does in fact shut down. Soldiers would not get their paychecks if there is a shutdown, if we cannot pass something. That is right, the service men and women who risk their lives so we may live in freedom might not get paid. You can talk, maybe someday they will be repaid, but in the meantime they are living week to week, and their families are, and they don't get paid. That doesn't sound like a sane policy.

In my State of West Virginia there are more than 6,500 people serving in the National Guard. Nationally, about half of the young men and women in the military are 25 years old or younger, and about 40 percent of them have children. Many of the families are on one income and some are living paycheck to paycheck. They don't know what they are going to do. That is one more thing they should not be thinking about. They should be thinking about surviving and carrying out their mission.

The chair has indicated that I have gone on a little bit too long so I am going to beg for 1\1/2\ more pages. That being granted, I will proceed.

There is so much more on the chopping block if the extremists in Congress get their way. The Federal Housing Administration wouldn't be able to process mortgage loans. Social Security claims would freeze. I am not sure that Medicare could take in any new members, several thousand people every day who qualify for Medicare. I am not sure they could be taken in.

We remember that during the 4 days of the 1995 shutdown, 112,000 claims for Social Security retirement and disability benefits were not taken, they were not received, they were not processed, they were not dealt with, and 800,000 callers were denied service on the Social Security Administration's phone.

I am going to stop with that. I think you get the drift of my feeling, and what I feel. But I do not consider it a game if the IRS could, would, stop refund checks. More than 235,000 West Virginians will file their taxes using paper forms this year. Computers are not all the rage in all parts of West Virginia. So they will wait longer for their returns to be completed.

I could go on with small business and the National Institutes of Health and all the rest of it. Federal mine safety inspection will shut down. The mines will continue to run but there will be no Federal inspectors. I respect the State inspectors but I have a lot more respect for Federal inspectors. Mines operating with nobody inspecting? It is a horrifying thought.

I hope somehow this will come out to be a good result. There are reasons why it could be, and there are reasons both to be pessimistic and to be a little bit optimistic. I cannot at this time call it either way.

We would turn the lights off on the NIH--and tell scientists working on developing life-saving treatments or finding a cure for cancer, that their work will have to wait. And they will have to turn away patients whose best or only hope is to join a clinical trial for new treatments or medicines.

We would shutter the agency responsible for regular Federal mine safety and health inspections--should I remind my colleagues here that this month marks 1 year since the worst mining accident in recent history at Upper Big Branch?

Inspections of stock brokers and routine oversight of financial markets by Federal agencies would cease. Enforcement actions would be postponed. Do we need to review where that might get us?

West Virginia is set to receive $416,590 in Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program--LIHEAP. But that stops in a shutdown.

Some of the FEMA flood mitigation and flood insurance operations would stop. Have we forgotten the lessons of Katrina so quickly? In West Virginia, spring storms often brings torrential and devastating floods that can wipe out entire communities.

Most veterans' benefits services would stop; we know the last time that extremists on the other side closed the government more than 400,000 veterans saw their disability, pension or educational benefits delayed.

I could go on.

What is more ridiculous is that even the leaders on the other side have conceded that the vast ``shutdown'' movement is not even sound fiscal policy.

The Speaker of the House, who is not as extreme as others in his party, said recently that if you shut the government down, it will end up costing more than you will save.

A new study from Goldman Sachs said that a Federal shutdown would cost $8 billion a week. And the economist Mark Zandi predicted that a shutdown would have a detrimental impact on our recovery.

Why? Because many of the contracts and other services that are interrupted do not go away--they just get delayed. So you often end up paying more in the long run.

It is tempting to wonder if the other side is interested in anything more than finding clever new ways to attack the White House and score political points. We started this debate earlier in the year with a mutual agreement that we need to find ways to pay down the deficit and make some cuts and somewhere along the way we went off the rails.

During the last couple of weeks, as extremists on the other side have prevented us from arriving at a deal, Congress has resorted to short stop-gap funding measures that cut billions of dollars from Federal programs as part of a deal to buy more time.

Instead of just tossing out a claim that we must cut $33 billion more from the budget without any distinction on what is valuable, wouldn't we be better off having a conversation about reforming the Tax Code to end the disgraceful tax breaks for the rich at the expense of the middle class?

I have tried for years to work towards a tax policy that would do less for corporate America and more for Main Street America; less for offshore operations and more for seniors and families; and less for big oil companies and more for investment, infrastructure and innovation.

Does the other side realize that at a certain point we are mocking the American people, we are mocking the legislative process and we are mocking the entire Congress by turning this issue into a game of chicken where the other side just doesn't care about consequences?

To the cynics who recklessly argue that the government should ``shut down'' I ask: Do you realize the impact of your words? Do you see what would happen to the people of West Virginia or any other State in this great Nation, if we just tell everyone that the government can't function right now?

I want to make a point here. The other side likes to go on and on about how important it is for us to get the economy back on track and keep the recovery going.

Have any of them who keep crying that we should ``shut it down'' stopped and thought about the economic impact on families of sending home thousands of hard working Americans without a pay check?

During the two government shutdowns in 1995-1996, about 800,000 Federal employees were unable to work. Is cheering for a repeat a good path towards prosperity?

Is the best way to curb spending really to just tell people go home and sit? To tell them that they may have a job at some point but for now we are closing programs, parks, grants, inspectors and everything else they can think of?

With workers facing frozen wages struggling to pay their mortgages, coping with trade deficits, and closed factories--is this really the best we can do for them?

Shutting down the government is a simple and easy way to pander to the tea party and the extremist elements of the far right. By insisting on their way or no way, the tea partiers are squandering precious time and resources. The best part of what we do here is working together. Finding the best ideas and working until we have a solution.

This squabble should be settled by a reasoned discussion and a thoughtful exchange of ideas between Democrats and Republicans.

I call upon the other side to show some leadership and bring us back from the brink.

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

Mr. President, we are going to be voting this afternoon on a number of EPA amendments, one of which is mine, which calls for a short 2-year waiting period but does not shut down in any way the EPA, particularly on CAFE standards.

So I have two messages: One is that I hope but doubt--but nevertheless hope--people will vote for my amendment. As of last December, I would have gotten every Republican vote, but when they broke away from the omnibus reconciliation agreement those votes all went out the window. I think they will all vote for the McConnell amendment, which I think is a mistake. So let me explain.

First of all, I am very opposed to the McConnell amendment. I think it is foolish. It overreaches. It is briefly satisfying and devastating on a long-term basis. A case in point: It undermines the ability-- because it obliterates the EPA--to set CAFE standards. Too few people in this body understand that 31 percent of all carbon emissions come out of the rear end of trucks and cars and other vehicles and that the right and the power and the science to set CAFE standards is an incredibly--incredibly--important mission of the EPA.

Under the McConnell amendment, that, along with everything else EPA does, is out the window on a permanent basis. It is goodbye EPA forever. That strikes me as not a mature approach to legislation.

I understand the frustration. We have that in West Virginia. The EPA does not understand necessarily the nuances of economic situations, that there is a more exacting way to present legislation. So I call for a 2-year timeout period, but I do not abolish EPA. I just say for a period of 2 years they should not do regulations on power stations, manufacturing plants, or oil refineries. That strikes me as not being fatal; it strikes me as something that could become law.

The most important point I can say about the McConnell amendment--I just pray this sinks in; it will not, but I pray that it will--there is not one chance in 10 trillion that the McConnell amendment will become law. It will not happen. He shuts the EPA down permanently, in all respects, forever. It will never happen. I doubt it will pass the Senate. It will certainly not pass at any other level where it counts.

So why do they do that? They do that because it does not solve the problem; it makes a point. It makes people feel good because they are mad, but, in fact, it does great destruction to our future. It does not solve a problem, and I am here to solve problems.

What I think we do need is a timeout just to stop the imposition of EPA regulations that do not allow for development of clean technologies--and that would hurt the economy at a very critical point in our still slowly moving recovery--but to do it in a way that keeps us all focused and working on a long-term energy policy.

Yes, we have had problems with the EPA in West Virginia, but the answer is not to get rid of the agency forever. It is just incomprehensible to me that mature people could actually be for that, vote for that, espouse that, but they have.

As of last December, when we were doing the Omnibus appropriations bill, every Republican had agreed more or less to vote for my bill-- just a 2-year timeout which should not affect CAFE standards. Then all of a sudden nine Republicans defected. The election had already been held. The House was about to go into Republican hands. Once they defected, then everything crashed down. All of the votes I would have gotten from the Republican Party are now gone. I doubt I will get any votes from the Republican Party and not many from my own party, which I regret but I understand.

I believe in clean coal. People say ``coal.'' I much like it better if they say ``clean coal'' because if it is just coal the way it is in the ground, we are not going anywhere, and natural gas will overtake coal, put them out of business. I have said this to the coal operators quite frequently. They do not believe me, but I think it is true.

It has happened in North Carolina in 12 powerplants. It is happening in Ohio. It is happening in lots of places. I have nothing against natural gas. We have a lot of natural gas. Natural gas, however, has one-half of the carbon that coal does. It has one-half. They call themselves a clean fuel, and in relation to coal in the ground, they are, but 50 percent is a long way from what we are already doing in West Virginia, which is taking 90 percent of the carbon out of coal as it comes out of the ground.

It goes to a powerplant, where there is Dow Chemical Company on the one hand, and American Electric Power on the other, and they have already--and I have been to see their plants, and I have seen their results, and I went with Secretary Chu--they are taking 90 percent of the carbon out of coal. That is not bad. You can call that clean coal.

We have a gigantic energy problem. We need everything we can get. I was even prepared to be for nuclear, which is about 20 percent of our current power structure. I am not sure where I am right now. I have to think more deeply about that. I am worried because our powerplants are old, also, as the Japanese ones are.

So all I can say is, I am for keeping our eye on the ball. I am not for making us sort of feel good on a very temporary basis. Everybody gets mad at the EPA. It is just sort of like an opening day in American baseball. You just do it and people cheer. But if you do it the way it is done in this amendment, by abolishing the agency, that is a long season, and it is a bad win-lose record.

So I hope my amendment will get sufficient votes. I am not sure. I do not think it will because I think the folks on the other side of the aisle have completely deserted it because they feel a great solidarity, want to show their power, and along comes an elimination bill. I just could not be for that. Morally I could not be for that.

I am strongly for West Virginia coal miners. I just came back last night from the first anniversary of the 29 coal miners who died. It was not an anniversary; it was a memorial. It is a powerful, powerful life being a coal miner. It is unknown to most people what it is like, what the dangers are, but they do it and they are strong. But what they produce could be cleaned up. The technology is there. That is what my amendment would do: give a 2-year timeout to let us work the technology, try to be convincing to Wall Street, and then we could be on our way to have not only natural gas but every single alternative energy that you and I could possibly think of--perhaps minus ethanol, but that is a different story--and we would be on our way.

In any event, it is a clear choice. Clean coal has to play a role in meeting our energy needs. It is abundant. It can be clean. The technology is there. More is on the way. So I hope people will vote for my amendment, and I hope very strongly they will vote against the McConnell amendment.

In the final analysis, I guess if they do not, and they vote for the McConnell amendment, they are going to lose anyway because it is never going to get anywhere. It is a guaranteed loser in the legislative process. I think mine could be helpful.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Madam President, my plan would put EPA on hold for 2 years and no more, but not on hold from many of its other duties, for example, CAFE standards.

Many of our colleagues do not realize--and certainly the ones who are going to support the McConnell amendment do not realize--that 31 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in this country come from the backs of trucks and cars. I do not stop them from going ahead and doing that. But I want breathing space so we can take 2 years--yes, there is a lot of frustration in my State about EPA and permits, and I understand that very well. But I want to take 2 years so we can think as a body and actually come up with an energy policy. I am ready for that.

I am not the same person I was 2 or 3 years ago on this subject. But we need that time. I ask my colleagues respectfully to support my amendment. It stops at the end of 2 years, which continues the use of CAFE standards, allowing EPA to set those standards. I ask my colleagues to vote against the McConnell amendment, which I think is truly a stunning aberration.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, all of my colleagues, I think, know by now, after all of these months, almost years, how deeply I feel about the need to stop EPA regulation for a period of time so Congress can have the time we need to develop a smart energy policy, which we have not. It is enormously important to the people of West Virginia.

Having said that--and I will say quite a lot more--I cannot tell you how strongly opposed I am to the McConnell-Inhofe amendment, not only because it goes too far, not only because it eviscerates EPA from some fundamental responsibilities it has--for example, CAFE standards--but it has absolutely no chance whatsoever of becoming law--none. Mine does. Theirs does not.

Do we think we are going to pass, and the President is going to sign, something that eliminates EPA forever? Oh, they will say: Well, we can always change that in a couple years. No, it is not that. It is a theological decision to pick out a campaign issue for 2012, and that is fine because that is the way things go. But to destroy the EPA permanently is an act I have not seen since I came here. There will be people in many States, including my own, who think that is a wonderful idea, but I would ask them to think more deeply.

The McConnell-Inhofe amendment makes a point, but it doesn't solve a problem. I am here to solve problems. So is the Presiding Officer. The amendment would take away EPA's ability to address greenhouse gas emissions forever. It doesn't make any difference what happens 5 years, 10 years from now--all the nuances that have to be made in policy or in regulation; if the air starts cleaning up, maybe things can lighten up a little bit; if it doesn't clean up, maybe we have to do something. But they want to take away and put out of business forever the EPA, which looks out for the health and the safety of everyone who lives here, and it would be permanently banned from doing its job. Is this an adult amendment? It can't be.

People must only be looking at the next election, or they must be afraid. To be afraid of voters is not a good thing. That is a quick way to lose. Telling the voters the truth--the Presiding Officer is pretty good at this--is what is more important in public policy. So they burn EPA forever. They can't do anything, no matter what we know or what we learn in the future about greenhouse emissions. They want the total elimination of EPA's role, with no other structure in place. Having nothing in place is irresponsible, unrealistic, and immature.

What we need is a timeout to stop the imposition of EPA regulations-- regulations that don't allow for the development of clean technologies, and that would hurt the economy at a critical time in our recovery, but to do it in a way that keeps us all focused and working on a long-term energy policy which doesn't say close down. We should have a pause here, the pause that hopefully refreshes our ability to do clean energy policy. My bill would be effective from the date of its passage, were it to pass, so it would be 2 years. That is plenty of time to be able to come up with an energy policy. We have avoided doing that for so long now, and I think a lot of that is politics, and it is very sad.

The Environmental Protection Agency, I have to say, including to my own constituents, is not a frivolous agency. It is the object of much scorn in my State and a lot of States that produce coal and probably in the minds of a lot of Senators. It was created to regulate pollution. We think back to wartime London where people couldn't see 5 feet in front of their faces. I think back to when I was a student in Japan for 3 years at the end of the 1950s, and we couldn't see 3 feet in front of our faces. Now all of a sudden we can see for thousands of miles, so to speak, because the air is clean.

Again, the Environmental Protection Agency is not a frivolous agency. It was created to regulate pollution. That is its job. Does that make it uncomfortable? Yes. Does that make me want to pass my amendment? Yes, to have a stop for a period of 2 years where they cannot go to stationary sources and others and say that you can't do anything. It is a pause, but at the end of the pause, it doesn't put EPA out of business--that would be crazy.

It is Congress's job to legislate, and that includes energy policy-- granted, stipulated. I think the Presiding Officer would say that is lawyer's speak: It is stipulated. It makes it a fact. Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970 and has updated it in the decades that followed. Is the Clean Air Act perfect? Certainly not. Certainly not. Very few laws ever are, which is why we are always open to making them better. But eviscerating the EPA's ability to do its job forever is nonsense. It is childlike: I will take my football and I am going home. It feels good.

Some folks will get up and cheer, standing up for coal. We know what this does. This is standing up for natural gas. We have a lot of natural gas in West Virginia. Natural gas has 50 percent of the carbon dioxide that coal does. So people think that by doing this, people are going to go ahead and burn coal in powerplants and other places. They are not. North Carolina already has 12 powerplants which are being switched from coal to natural gas--probably more by now. That was about a year ago. Ohio is doing some of the same. Other States are doing some of the same. Natural gas is abundantly plentiful. I like natural gas. It is a terrific thing. It is 50 percent as dirty as coal, but it is less dirty and it is cheaper. So powerplants are going to that.

I am trying to figure out in my mind, How does that help West Virginians? How does that help West Virginia coal operators or, more importantly to me, coal miners? If people are suddenly making up their mind that they are going--and I have had the president of American Electric Power tell me this directly: Of course we will switch to natural gas. He put it more succinctly. He said: I would use banana peels if they could produce heat. They don't stay with coal out of loyalty. They have to deal with certainty. Here we create permanent punting about what the landscape is going to be for energy use and the making of electric power in our country.

Again, may I please bring up once again that this bill has no chance of becoming law--the McConnell-Inhofe bill has no chance of becoming law. So why do they do it? They have to know that. I don't think it will pass here. It certainly isn't going to pass at the White House. In politics you can say, Oh, I wish there were a Republican President in the White House. There isn't. There is a Democratic one. He is not going to let this happen. He is not going to have an executive agency with an enormous amount to do with CAFE standards and all kinds of regulations obliterated, eviscerated, eliminated. He won't do that. He will veto it if it should ever get that far.

So what is going on in their minds? What do they think they are doing? Are they trying to impress their constituents, holding high a banner saying, Look, I am courageous; I will get rid of this whole EPA thing and we can all celebrate together? Pretty shortsighted, I would say. Pretty shortsighted. Feel good? Yes. Do good? No.

I think it is well known in West Virginia we have very serious disagreements with EPA. I say all kinds of things about the EPA constantly in all kinds of situations, but people do care about clean air. They do care about clean water also. It is not a sin. Sometimes in America you can get the best of both worlds. We want a strong future for clean coal and we want a national energy policy that protects and promotes clean coal.

Let me make a point. When I say the words ``clean coal,'' the only hearing of that is ``coal.'' People don't hear the word ``clean.'' So I have to make a

point here. Don't blame coal miners for this. Coal miners go into the mines every day in these unbelievably difficult situations and they mine the coal that is there. It has been there for a billion years that God put there. That is their job. Maybe it is high ash; maybe it is low ash. Maybe it is high sulfur; maybe it is low sulfur. They mine what is there, and then that gets shipped to a powerplant or to other countries for steel-making purposes.

One of the ironies about all of this is some of the loudest anti my amendment--my little 2-year amendment that stops at the end of 2 years--comes from coal operators who actually don't ship much coal to powerplants. They ship most of their coal, because it is low sulfur, overseas to the growing market in South Korea and China and a lot of other places, including Japan. So what difference does it make to them? None. But they want to be in the chorus so they join the chorus about let's get rid of EPA. They are not affected. They are mainlining it right overseas and making tons of money because it is very low sulfur coal and very good for making steel.

We know if coal is frozen in time the way Senators McConnell and Inhofe are proposing, it will be rapidly eclipsed by other energy sources. Oh, yes, most especially natural gas. We have so much natural gas in West Virginia that you could swim in it if you could get about 10, 15 feet underground. I like natural gas. It is a great asset to have it in Marcellus Shale. The problems of fracking can be solved, and will be through technology. But that is what is going to happen. Then our coal miners are going to look at some of their representatives on both sides of the aisle here and in the House and they are going to say, Now wait a second. I thought you were protecting me. How come I am not mining coal? How come some of these powerplants have now switched to natural gas, in the majority, let's say, a few years from now?

So McConnell-Inhofe as an amendment codifies the vicious uncertainty that is threatening coal today. Electric utilities are right now making, as I have indicated, investment decisions based upon that uncertainty. It is a bad place from which to make a decision. And with very few exceptions, logically--that means they are not building or rebuilding coal-fired plants--natural gas will overtake coal. West Virginia wins in either case because we have so much coal, we have so much natural gas. But in this particular amendment, I am trying to protect coal miners and their jobs by having carbon capture and sequestration, by having a policy, and there are others that are out there. We already have two in West Virginia which are taking more than 90 percent of the carbon out of coal. They are at work. American Electric Power Company, Dow Chemical Company, they are both doing that, both making money out of it, and yes, the government helps. But they are taking more than 90 percent of the carbon out of coal. Doesn't that turn coal into clean coal? Isn't clean coal what we want? Isn't that what we have to have?

This is all part of a drive for an energy future for West Virginia coal miners and others, other people around the country, for a clean energy future. In effect, my amendment is a timeout. It is the timeout we need. It is the only option on the table that can pass. It can pass. It is fine to bring an amendment here which makes us feel good-- muscular, antigovernment, let's make government smaller; let's get rid of government--and swell your chest and feel good and put out a great press release, but then it ends up not passing the Senate or it ends up getting vetoed. One of the two is going to happen. So it is a nonstarter.

I think a lot of those on the other side of the aisle are going to throw the vote for political purposes, as I indicated. If we can remember back to the Omnibus Act in December of last year, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the coal association, all Republicans had agreed to vote for my 2-year amendment.

It was a timeout amendment. All of them. The papers calculated who it was, how we would get the 60 votes, and we got there. And then what happened--and this is a little bit in the weeds, and I apologize for that--but all of a sudden, nine Republicans withdrew from that omnibus agreement, so there was no way for it to come up. Why? I don't know. Was that the beginning of a massive plan of thinking that we are going to make this an issue for the next 2 years so we can wipe out more Democratic seats? It certainly doesn't have anything to do with energy policy.

As I say, my amendment said that for a period of 2 years, the EPA will not have the power to enforce greenhouse gas rules on stationary sources, including powerplants, manufacturers, and refineries. So they cannot do anything for a period of 2 years--regulatory--about powerplants, manufacturing companies, or refineries--for 2 years. The moratorium would last for 2 years, and then it would stop. Why? Because 2 years is, in fact, enough time, if we can get ourselves together around here, for serious people to come up with a serious energy policy that includes clean coal and everything else on the face of the Earth that works to get our country off of foreign oil.

Two years is enough time to develop a plan to build the carbon capture and sequestration technologies and get them accepted by Wall Street, which will fund them endlessly once they are convinced they are working on a sufficient scale. As I say, this is being demonstrated by the American Electric Power Company and the Dow Chemical Company in West Virginia right now. I will repeat that they are taking 90 percent of the carbon out of coal. It sounds like a good deal, to me. Natural gas has 50 percent carbon. Clean coal would have 10 percent carbon. Which is a better deal? I think the second one is. My amendment would lead to that.

I would say 2 years is enough time to get past this pointless debate about whether climate science is real and find common ground and find solutions that create jobs, protect the air we breath, and make us energy independent.

Two years is enough time to take the big decisions about greenhouse gases out of the hands of the regulators at EPA and put them back in the hands of Congress. Greenhouse gas emissions are an enormously important issue, but they are not the only problem we face, and they cannot be allowed to take precedence over every other matter that affects our people. We really can find ways to solve this problem, protect our core industries, and lessen the costs.

The joint CAFE rule--it is a big deal--between the EPA and the Department of Transportation is a case in point and relevant to the debate today because it is also undermined by the McConnell-Inhofe amendment. The CAFE rule saves Americans billions of gallons of gasoline and reduces our dependence on foreign oil. It does it very explicitly. It keeps going up. The air gets cleaner. I think the figure is that transportation overall is something like 50, 60--maybe a little more--percent of our air pollution problems. CAFE standards become very important.

Most of us believe strongly that we need to make our cars more efficient, not just for the environment but also because of the high cost of gasoline and its impact on every American family, not to mention our national security. But under the McConnell-Inhofe amendment, EPA could never again work on fuel-efficiency standards. The recent progress we have made, which is so widely supported by industry and the American people, could be undermined. This is not a solution; it is a permanent punt--or maybe a stunt. I will not support that.

Last year, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle overwhelmingly declared their support for my amendment, as I said. The daily newspapers had come out on the Hill and calculated the 60 votes that I had to overcome a filibuster. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was all for it.

Suddenly, some seem to want to have a fight more than a policy, and they want to have a fight for the next election more than a policy, more than they want to work together to solve the problem. Suddenly, they say: Stopping the EPA for 2 years isn't good enough; we can stop them permanently. Folks back home would love that. They say they would rather stand by and do nothing if they can't stop the EPA forever. In effect, that is correct. They think the American people will not see through that.

My amendment has been around for over a year now. People know what it does. So to call this a cover vote is disingenuous at best.

EPA's regulations that came into effect this year say that if a company wants to retrofit an existing one or build a new powerplant or factory, they now have to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Because of these new rules, companies won't build that new factory, that new powerplant, or employ some of the millions of Americans who are out of work. That is why I believe these regulations need to be suspended. That is in my amendment.

Senator Inhofe has repeatedly argued that Congress needs to make these decisions. I agree with that. My bill would give Congress the time it needs to discuss the options, and my approach creates a reasonable timeout. Doing away with EPA authority doesn't give clarity; it indefinitely kicks the can down the road. My amendment, which unfortunately will come whenever it comes, no doubt won't do particularly well because all of the folks on the other side and some, unfortunately, on this side will vote for that because they think it sounds kind of neat. It probably won't do very well, but that doesn't mean it is not right.

Let's have real solutions, such as clean coal that must play a role in meeting our energy needs, and let's be sensible and bipartisan about it. West Virginia is ready to provide that coal, and so are a lot of other States.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and quickly turn to a discussion about our Nation's energy future.

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

Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to a West Virginian who was an exacting and thoughtful judge, a committed father, and a treasured friend. Blane Michael, a Federal judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, passed away over the weekend.

There are some people whose lives transcend biographies and are so richly varied and important that trying to capture their essence in a few brief remarks is impossible. Blane Michael was that kind of person. And although I am unlikely to do his life justice with these short remarks, I felt it was important for the Senate to hear about this great individual.

Honest and humble to his core, Blane committed himself to public service. Born February 17, 1943, in Charleston, SC, he grew up on a pastoral farm in Grant County, WV--a quiet spot tucked away in the mountains of the State that he left for the first time when he went to law school.

A 1965 graduate of West Virginia University and a 1968 graduate of New York University School of Law, Blane worked for a time at a New York law firm, and then as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. But like many young people who have left our State to pursue education, employment or other opportunities, he heard the call to return home and give back to his State, and the people who helped form his foundation for public service.

In 1972, he returned to West Virginia with his glorious wife Mary Anne, who grew up in Shinnston, WV. After working as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia and later opening a private practice, his path first crossed mine--and my life is forever better because of it.

From 1977 to 1980, Blane served as special counsel during my first term as Governor of West Virginia. He was a young lawyer at the time, in his early thirties, but he was intelligent, ethical, and extraordinarily hardworking. Most importantly, he understood the importance of using his legal skills in service to, and for the betterment of, his fellow citizens. During those years, I came to know quickly that his sight was transfixed on the common good--and for that reason, his judgment and wisdom were something I valued immensely and sought out often, well beyond my years as Governor.

In 1981, Blane returned to private practice where he continued to solidify his reputation as a skilled lawyer and a person of intellectual and moral depth. I was fortunate during that time that he was willing to serve as manager for two of my campaigns for United States Senate. Always true to his work ethic, he continued to maintain a full-time legal practice while performing campaign duties during his lunch breaks and on the weekends.

He was nominated by President Bill Clinton for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on August 6, 1993, and was confirmed by the Senate on September 30, 1993. As an appeals court judge, he later said that he was lucky to have the one job he had wanted from the time he was a young attorney.

During his 17 years on the Federal bench, he was a formidable presence whose record of service speaks to who he was as a person-- tough when he had to be, and always fair and honest. With a moral and intellectual compass set hard for justice, Blane was a brilliant judge who never took for granted the power and the responsibility of deciding the cases that impacted people's lives. Time and again, he spoke for those without a voice and protected the rights that we as Americans hold so dear.

He artfully interwove the complexity of the law with the practical results of his decisions always taking cases at their face value. And, when the issue required it, Blane acted as a counterweight to some of the most conservative judges in the country--judges who also would come to respect and admire him and, on certain cases that called for righting serious wrongs, join him.

Blane Michael's death is a tremendous loss to our Nation, our State, and anyone whose life he touched. For me, his was the kind of deep, easy companionship that helps sustain you and remains with you always.

His contributions were immense, his dedication to justice and doing what is right was unmatched, and for that, he will be sorely missed. My prayers are

with his wife Mary Anne and their daughter Cora; and my lasting thoughts are with my dearest and closely held friend.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to extend the Section 45G short line freight railroad tax credit.

Section 45G creates an incentive for short lines to invest in track rehabilitation by providing a tax credit of 50 cents for every dollar spent on track improvements. If this credit is allowed to expire at the end of the year, private-sector investments in infrastructure in our communities will fall by hundreds of millions of dollars.

``Short line'' railroads are small freight rail companies responsible for bringing goods to communities that are not directly served by large railroads. Supporting small railroads allows the communities surrounding them to attract and maintain businesses and create jobs. The evidence of the success of this credit can be found in communities across America.

This credit has a real impact for the people of my state. West Virginia is the second biggest producer of railroad ties in the country. Since the credit first was enacted, approximately 750,000 railroad ties have been purchased above what would have otherwise been purchased with no incentive. Those railroad ties translate directly into jobs. This credit does not create just West Virginia jobs, it benefits manufacturers of ties, spikes, and rail all across America.

Over 12,000 rail customers across America depend on short lines. This credit creates a strong incentive for short lines to invest private sector dollars on private-sector freight railroad track rehabilitation and improvements. Shippers rely on the high quality service these railroads provide to get their goods to market. Unfortunately, this credit is scheduled to expire at the end of 2011.

This bill would extend the 45G credit through 2017 and provide the important long-term planning certainty necessary to maximize private- sector transportation infrastructure investment. 54 Members of this body sponsored legislation that extended this credit last Congress and I hope there will be similar support again this year.

I thank the Chair and ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation that will benefit small businesses throughout the country.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to extend the Section 45G short line freight railroad tax credit.

Section 45G creates an incentive for short lines to invest in track rehabilitation by providing a tax credit of 50 cents for every dollar spent on track improvements. If this credit is allowed to expire at the end of the year, private-sector investments in infrastructure in our communities will fall by hundreds of millions of dollars.

``Short line'' railroads are small freight rail companies responsible for bringing goods to communities that are not directly served by large railroads. Supporting small railroads allows the communities surrounding them to attract and maintain businesses and create jobs. The evidence of the success of this credit can be found in communities across America.

This credit has a real impact for the people of my state. West Virginia is the second biggest producer of railroad ties in the country. Since the credit first was enacted, approximately 750,000 railroad ties have been purchased above what would have otherwise been purchased with no incentive. Those railroad ties translate directly into jobs. This credit does not create just West Virginia jobs, it benefits manufacturers of ties, spikes, and rail all across America.

Over 12,000 rail customers across America depend on short lines. This credit creates a strong incentive for short lines to invest private sector dollars on private-sector freight railroad track rehabilitation and improvements. Shippers rely on the high quality service these railroads provide to get their goods to market. Unfortunately, this credit is scheduled to expire at the end of 2011.

This bill would extend the 45G credit through 2017 and provide the important long-term planning certainty necessary to maximize private- sector transportation infrastructure investment. 54 Members of this body sponsored legislation that extended this credit last Congress and I hope there will be similar support again this year.

I thank the Chair and ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation that will benefit small businesses throughout the country.

Madam President, I was honored to participate in the events at Arlington National Cemetery to pay tribute to Frank Woodruff Buckles, the last surviving American World War I veteran and the representative of the lost generation of our ``Doughboys.'' It was a moving afternoon standing with so many on the knoll and seeing Frank Buckles buried in section 34, in sight of General Pershing's grave and among many other World War I veterans. I also thought about the American flags at half mast in our embassies in the countries of our World War I allies.

Honestly though, the way I want to remember Frank Buckles is in his study, surrounded by books and telling amazing stories about the adventures of his life. Frank Buckles' rich and colorful life is now part of our national history, our national consciousness and our national effort to pay tribute to the men and women who died in the most significant wars of the last century.

Frank's effort to join the Army was a deliberate commitment to join military service and he was eager to get to Europe. He loved the Army and his service in World War I as an ambulance driver which exposed him to some of the worst horrors of that conflict.

After his military service, Frank Buckles continued his efforts to engage the world. His life, a long sweeping arc across the last century, included an exciting and varied life where he traveled the world, working abroad and experiencing things that most of us can only read about. As if he hadn't endured enough suffering in the First World

War, he would later spend 3 years as a civilian POW in World War II.

When his days of being an active participant in two World Wars ended, he eventually settled into a quiet existence in Charles Town where his tractor, his farm, as well as his friends and family were enough to sustain him.

As I got to know him, I learned that his deep appreciation for books and culture was an important part of who he was. He spoke multiple languages, enjoyed talking about culture more than he did war, and was thoughtful and interested to the end.

To most of us though, Frank in the end amounted to so much more than just a man who had lived a life that was as interesting as it was unpredictable.

Frank became a symbol for the entire war for the nearly 4.5 million U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who defeated the Central Powers in the first Great War.

As the last living connection to the First World War, his importance in our collective psyche grew with each passing year. He seemed impossibly stubborn and tough and his long and wonderful life made him all the more special.

Towards the end of his life, more and more people understood just how privileged we all were to keep company with the last surviving Doughboy.

He was a link to a long ago war, not forgotten but so far in the past that the pictures that we think of when we conjure up images are all grainy and tattered.

It made it all the more amazing that Frank was the only man who could honestly look any of us in the eye and say ``this is what the war was like.''

More than 116,000 Americans died in World War I. Frank was an adamant proponent of remembering these heroes by establishing a National World War I Memorial on the National Mall.

I agree and support him on that effort which is why I am the proud sponsor of the bipartisan bill to truly honor our World War I veterans. The bill would create a commission to plan for the upcoming centennial, and it would rededicate the DC memorial as the DC and National World War I memorial. It would also dedicate the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, MO. I agree with Frank Buckles on the importance of remembering our veterans and want to say again here today: I am more determined than ever to make this happen and will not give up until we get that bill passed.

Finally, I want to extend my sympathies again to Frank's daughter, Susannah Buckles Flanagan. She has lovingly looked after Frank and helped make sure his last years were lived with dignity and care.

Frank, you will be missed.

Mr. President, I have comments I wish to make on 1099 which are at odds with the distinguished Senator from Nebraska, but I will hold that for another moment.

Amendment No. 183

I think it is well known that in West Virginia we have had our problems with EPA, and I have an amendment which would say for a period of 2 years they would not have the power to enforce their laws on stationary sources, i.e., powerplants. But it lasts for 2 years and then it stops.

What is my reason for doing that? I will offer this amendment. My reason for doing that is, I wish to give us the time to come up with a good carbon sequestration bill and also give us the time to come up with an energy policy, since, if my amendment were to pass--since it is 2 years from the date of passage--that does give us the time, if it is the will of the Congress, to have an energy policy. If it is not, then that, of course, is quite a different matter.

But I simply cannot support and will not support the McConnell amendment, which calls for a complete emasculation of EPA forever. I do not understand this type of thinking. I understand we are in a very sort of difficult position in a postelection period, where people have very strong ideas: Let's get rid of government, and let's size everything down and get rid of all these people who have been giving us trouble.

I think we have to be mature in the way we approach these problems. I do not think by saying EPA, created by President Nixon in 1972, shall virtually cease to exist with respect to any effect on greenhouse gases at all, forever--the concept of doing something forever is, to me, a very risky thing on its face. It does not usually make any sense, whether it is health care or energy policy or any other kind of policy, to make a law which has to do with regulation and then say: You cannot regulate forever.

What if you did that to the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission? We have discovered that for children the little models they use for crash tests are not, in fact, big enough. They were created a number of years ago, and kids are much bigger now. So we have to change, and the Commerce Committee is working on this. We have to change the size of the little dummies they put in these seats to crash test them to see what happens to them because kids are larger. So if you made

a rule that this was to last forever, under original circumstance, obviously, that would hurt our children and create discomfort and sadness.

The Environmental Protection Agency is not a frivolous agency. It is created, yes, to regulate pollution. I have been saying to the West Virginia Coal Association, which for the most part does not believe in climate science--they do not believe there is a climate problem, and I have been saying to them for a number of years that is wrong. In my judgment, the science is true, the science is unequivocally true, and there is a price to carbon in their future. I said this a couple months ago. There is a price to carbon in their future. You cannot simply carry on business the way you are doing it now and avoiding any sense of responsibility and be called a mature corporation or a mature person in this country or a mature public servant.

I understand the fervor of the Senator from Oklahoma, the Senator from Kentucky, and others who put up this amendment for a permanent ban on any regulation of carbon dioxide or any other of these areas. But in the process, of course, what they say they are for is that the EPA can no longer regulate CAFE standards; that is, how many miles per gallon your car gets. If you look at the private sector, there is a drive and a competition now to increase and raise the level of corporate average fuel economy standards, lowering emissions. That is as it should be. That is a natural product of free enterprise competition.

But to say that the EPA--what if there were to be a backslide? What if the Big Three and a number of others decided: Well, this isn't worth our while. There is nobody regulating us, so we don't have to do anything about it, and they slipped backward and then created a much more emission-charged climate?

I cannot abide by that. I cannot believe that is sensible government. I cannot believe that in the theological drive to make government small, to make government disappear, to make health care disappear, to make all kinds of things disappear--so we can all be happy again, as we were in the 1910s and 1950s, I guess--life does not work like that and legislation should not work like that.

We should approach it thoughtfully, with a long view as well as a short view. The short view says: Oh, I have to be mad at EPA--and I am because they have done things in West Virginia which I think are wrong and should be changed--but I would never, for a moment, consider saying they should forever be banned from having anything to do with climate change policies or CAFE standards. It does not make any sense.

It is embarrassing. It is embarrassing. That is not a favor to the people of West Virginia. What that means is the companies--coal companies, power companies--that are looking at all of this, they will just start walking away from coal very quickly. This would also be true in Pennsylvania, the home of the Presiding Officer. Natural gas is beginning to take over large parts of our electric power industry. That has happened in North Carolina and in Ohio and probably a little bit in Pennsylvania and, yes, a little bit in West Virginia. The Marcellus Shale is an unbounded, endless pool of natural gas, and it lies up and down the Appalachian spine. Companies are beginning to switch away from coal to natural gas.

Now, if one doesn't care about coal miners and one doesn't care about coal companies--but, particularly, coal miners. They are not responsible for any of this. They just dig the coal God put in the Earth 1 billion years ago. They dig it, and then it is shipped by truck or by rail or in some fashion, perhaps by barge, off to a power company. The power companies are the ones that have to make the decision how are they going to burn it. Are they going to burn it cleaner?

Two companies in West Virginia, one being American Electric Power, has conducted an experiment in New Haven, which is the large powerplant in the state. They have picked out 18 percent of all their emissions, and they have applied carbon-capturing sequestration to that 18 percent. That 18 percent of the flue gas emissions have gone from whatever carbon content down to about 10 percent carbon content. That is called clean coal.

When we talk about coal on this floor, everybody assumes coal is always dirty. Well, coal is dirty when it is taken out of the ground and nothing happens to it. But with all of the science and technology we have available, carbon-capturing sequestration is not only working to make that clean coal, therefore, highly competitive--much more competitive than natural gas, which is 50 percent carbon dioxide--it makes it only 10 percent when we use these technologies. That is what my amendment--the 2-year amendment, and then only 2 years, that is what is meant to give us the time. Sensibly, that is what we ought to be doing if people cared about having an energy policy.

Then there is another facility, operated by Dow Chemical. Dow Chemical is not usually associated with these things. But they are running exactly the same kind of a burning of coal focus and demonstration using a slightly different technology, but also getting about 90 percent of the carbon out of the coal, and they use the power from that. They use that. So don't tell me it can't be done. Just tell me we don't have the technology to do it broadly enough. But if we are talking about a nation with a couple hundred years' of coal left, don't--I don't want to hear about dirty coal because that is not going to get anywhere. But clean coal, that can do a lot better than natural gas and do a lot better than a lot of other alternative energies.

What is going on in Japan right now, I shy away from the idea of saying: Oh, well, then we have to stop from ever building any nuclear powerplant forever. I am not a big fan of nuclear power, but I don't think we make decisions because of that. We don't make them out of emotion. We don't make them because of a catastrophe in another country. Maybe there is and maybe there isn't; I haven't checked the news in 4 or 5 hours. But that is 20 percent of all of the power in this country. So before we make the decision, let's be thoughtful about it.

I think we ought to be thoughtful about this amendment, the McConnell amendment, which says that forever and ever the EPA will be completely stripped away of its authority for carbon monoxide, climate problems, plus anything else that creates carbon--it could be factories; all kinds of things. They will be completely free of any kind of regulation. I think that is wrong.

I think the regulation has to be put in place which is reasonable, which would be the purpose of my amendment for 2 years. Then that would be it. Then we would see where we are. But to do a permanent, complete emasculation of the EPA isn't what a mature body of legislators does, in my judgment. I, therefore, will vote against this amendment and will wait to see the result and then offer my amendment which I think is much more sensible.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, tomorrow is March 11. For most of us, this date carries no particular significance. It does, however, reflect exactly 6 months before September 11. That date we do remember and will not forget. It is 6 months from the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack ever and a day that we as a nation can never forget. It is 6 months from the date we will honor the memory of those whose lives came to an end and the way we came together, at least for a short period of time, as a nation.

With that historic date approaching, I think it important that we honor the tremendous bravery of all public safety officials. I believe this is one of the most important issues facing the country, and it is one we can do something about very quickly and reduce the budget deficit by doing so.

Our police, our firefighters, our emergency medical technicians, and the countless others who fought that day to keep us safe and who work every day to protect us from harm--we have essentially forgotten about them.

The 9/11 Commission specifically said that you have to have a system that connected all law enforcement across this Nation in an interoperable wireless system. Obviously, therefore, that is a way of saying that the best and simplest way to honor them is to give them the tools they need to be successful, to be safe, and to do their job in a way that does not expose them to needless dangers. Right now, we are not doing that.

Much as in the first gulf war, when the Army and the Navy and the Marines and the Air Force could not communicate with each other because they were all on different systems of communications--and we all kind of laughed at that as being kind of pathetic. They have solved that, sort of, but we have not solved this one at all, involving every single American and every single firefighter, policeman, and law enforcement officer, deputies, sheriffs, all across America. When it comes to public safety communications, these everyday heroes do not have the networks that they could so easily have and that they so desperately need because we have not acted. It is the 10-year anniversary coming up 6 months from now--we have not acted.

Too often, first responders lack that interoperable network that is essential to providing an effective response in emergencies, all kinds of emergencies--a lot of them very desperate, not all of them catastrophic, but there is always that potential. They don't have the ability to communicate with one another. They don't have the ability to communicate with other agencies. They don't have the ability to communicate with other cities and States across State lines. They cannot do that. It is kind of pathetic in the age of the Internet. We have chosen to do nothing. Instructed by the 9/11 Commission to do something a long time ago, we have done nothing. This hampers our ability to respond to a crisis, this lack of equipment. Whether that crisis is a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, it puts lives in unnecessary peril.

I believe it is time to do something about it. In the Commerce Committee, we happen to take that approach. That is why I introduced S. 28, the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act. This legislation does two things. First, it sets aside the 10 megahertz of spectrum known as the D-block. I don't know why it is called the D- Block, but it is the D-Block. Its 10 megahertz adds on to the 10 megahertz they already had, making 20, which means they could do the whole thing, completely connect with each other, every sheriff, police person, law enforcement, Federal, State, county, municipal. They would all be on one system and talk to each other from a common communications base and a common database. It is an interoperable wireless broadband network that we have to have, and it is that which we do not have. We do not have it because we have not made the effort.

Secondly, it gives the Federal Communications Commission the authority to do something very interesting: to hold incentive auctions based on the voluntary return of spectrum which is not necessarily being used by a whole variety of people who just want to hold on to it. It is better to hold on to something than to give it, but we give them an incentive on a voluntary basis--crucial word in this legislation--on a voluntary basis to return that spectrum. In turn, these auctions will provide the funding to support the construction and maintenance of the public safety network which they need and which I have been speaking about, and they free up additional spectrum for innovative commercial uses.

In short, this bill marries resources for the first responders with good commercial spectrum policy. It can keep us safe and help our economy grow. That is why the legislation has the support of absolutely every major public safety organization across this country, obviously including those of my State. That is why this bill also has strong support from all Governors and all mayors across this country. They have to deal with this. We do not; they do. That is why we now have the support of the administration.

I urge my colleagues to support the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act. To those who say we cannot afford to do this now, obviously I would say we cannot afford not to. The role of intelligence reveals all kinds of things going on not only outside the country but inside the country, implying there is a target, or many of them, within this country.

But if this is not compelling enough, I think it is important for people to know this. This legislation pays for itself, plus does not cost a dime. According to the White House and even the industry itself, the telecommunications industry, incentive auctions will bring in revenue so much above what funding public safety requires, it will leave billions over that amount for, for example, deficit reduction. I am talking a whole lot of deficit reduction. Billions and billions. So it is a win-win-win.

I close. Let me say we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide our public safety officials with the spectrum they need to communicate when tragedy strikes. We have chosen not to do that. Now there is this sort of malicious pressure of the 9/11 Commission's directive to us to do our duty as a country to the people who keep us safe.

More than that, we do need to keep this country safe, and it is not always going to be safe. We do not know when the next attack will come. So we have the incentive auctions, which are voluntary, but they will work. They can be sold for lots of money, and we will have, therefore, lots of money over and above what it costs to build this interoperable wireless broadband system across the entire country, connecting every law enforcement official to every other one.

To my colleagues I say, let's seize this moment. This is not Republican, this is not Democrat, it is simply the right thing to do. I ask people to think back to those images of 9/11, of that day, not just the 9/11 Commission report that emanated from that, why we could not stop that, but to think of the images of that day, of what those people absorbed in their lungs, the natural instinct for firefighters to come from all over the country, policemen to come from all over the country, ambulance people to come from all over the country, to New York City, a city which they do not start out loving generally out there in the hinterlands. But they knew this was a crisis, they reacted, they saved lives, they imperiled their own, and many of them lost their lives.

Let's do something historic, and let's do it together, and let's do it here in this Congress. And, certainly, let us get this all done before the 10th anniversary of September 11.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I pay tribute to a dedicated professional who has worked at the West Virginia Library Commission for 40 years, including 9 years as its executive director, Mr. JD Waggoner.

JD Waggoner is a true leader and effective advocate for libraries. I have been extraordinarily proud to work closely with him over many years, and I understand and appreciate the special role that libraries play in communities across our State. In addition to his leadership at the commission, JD also has been a volunteer fireman which is another sign of his community service.

Thanks to the leadership of JD and others, our libraries are connected to the Internet and provide quality services to West Virginians. We worked together on the program I helped to create in the 1996 Telecommunications Act known as the E-Rate. This discount program provides $2.25 billion in discounts for telecommunications, Internet access and internal connections to libraries and schools nationwide. In West Virginia, it provides over $10 million each year to libraries and schools. JD Waggoner and his team have done an amazing job in managing this program and helping the smaller, rural libraries deal with the paperwork and challenges. Thanks to this access, our libraries now provide access to thousands of current publications for patrons to enjoy and learn.

The Library Commission also has a special initiative known as Learning Express. This program provides access to practice tests on a wide range of programs from the GED, ACT and SAT, and other professional licenses. This means that individuals can visit their libraries and, for free, take practice online exams to prepare for the real tests rather than pay expensive fees. This is a truly wonderful opportunity to help West Virginians advance their education. The director and the Library Commission are the support network for our libraries and the services range from Internet access to story hours and literacy efforts to hosting community groups and special events include movies or presentations. Libraries are hubs of activity and recent studies indicate people looking for work are more comfortable looking for work online at the library rather than an employment office.

Our West Virginia libraries are true treasures because of the dedication and leadership of JD Waggoner, his team and local librarians across our states. While JD Waggoner will be deeply missed, he most certainly deserves that chance to relax and enjoy his retirement. I wish him the very best and wanted to share his history with my Senate colleagues.

Mr. President, I rise today to express my dismay at some of the irresponsible cuts in H.R. 1, particularly the elimination of a program of personal importance, The Corporation for National and Community Service which is home to the AmeriCorps and Volunteers in Service to America--VISTA--programs. I stand by a commitment to reduce the deficit, but we cannot be irresponsible in cuts to such essential programs that help the people of West Virginia and the rest of the United States.

As you may know, I came to West Virginia in 1964 as a VISTA worker which is now a part of the Corporation along with other public service organizations. My decision to join VISTA was one of the most important decisions of my life. While my goal was to help the people of Emmons, WV, that community came to help me much, much more. It gave me a new focus of public service which has led me into a fulfilling and meaningful career. Sargent Shriver was the shining light and soul of VISTA and many other public service initiatives. Through these programs, he inspired me to find my true home in West Virginia, and I have no doubt that he profoundly impacted the lives of many other volunteers. VISTA, AmeriCorps and all the public service programs under the Corporation provide opportunity for everyone from young people to seniors. As a young man, it changed the direction of my

life. It provides service opportunities which can provide educational vouchers and jobs skills.

There were over a thousand applicants in 2010 to the West Virginia branch of AmeriCorps. I cannot support the continuing resolution from the House which eliminates this program and says ``no thanks'' to them. Since 1994, over 9,300 West Virginians have served over 14 million hours in efforts to better communities across the state. Over 7,600 disadvantaged children and youth in West Virginia will be left without a tutor or mentor, directly impeding their ability to achieve the academic gains needed to succeed. This not only damages communities today but also damages our future workforce; we cannot rob young people of a better future.

By eliminating AmeriCorps and VISTA, we are missing an opportunity to develop lifelong public servants and leaders--the public servants and leaders our country needs now more than ever before. Nationally, through the elimination of AmeriCorps and VISTA, we would lose the volunteer service of nearly 75,000 people. Across the country, elimination of AmeriCorps and VISTA would have a devastating impact.

I was told of the story of Elvin Campbell, an AmeriCorps member and military veteran, serving in Charleston, WV. Elvin works with homeless individuals, providing them with life skills, helping them prepare a resume, search for a job and successfully budget their finances.

Last year, Elvin helped 127 people go from being unemployed to self- sufficient, contributing members of society. Without Elvin, there are 127 people who would otherwise be unemployed, an investment in AmeriCorps is an investment in jobs across this country. Elvin is one of 10 veterans doing work like this throughout the Charleston area. Through AmeriCorps, these military heroes help grow our economy and move my State, and our Nation forward.

We talk quite a bit about jobs around here. Elvin's example shows us that dedicated public servants can give our citizens the necessary skills to attain jobs throughout West Virginia. H.R. 1 eliminates AmeriCorps which was organized under President Clinton and expanded more than 50 percent by President Bush. Democratic and Republican administrations alike have realized it is a great investment, leading to over 60 million volunteer hours last year. In West Virginia alone, AmeriCorps volunteers have served over a million hours last year, improving West Virginia communities across the State.

Without AmeriCorps, West Virginia would lose 800 AmeriCorps servicemembers and 115 year-long VISTA slots, translating into over 691,000 service hours, combined. The loss of the VISTA slots is estimated to result in the loss of 18,720 volunteers providing over 397,000 hours of service to West Virginia communities. Each state would face similar cuts and be faced with the consequences.

I urge my colleagues not to support these cuts in H.R. 1. Of course, this program is just one of many the continuing resolution approved by the House proposes for elimination. I am willing to work together with my colleagues to identify real savings, but I cannot support H.R. 1 or the reckless cuts it proposes.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce an important piece of legislation, the Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2011--an important bill that is needed to address the rapid increase in deaths and overdoses from methadone and other opioid prescription drugs in the United States. These deaths have hit my home state of West Virginia particularly hard, but I know that every State is struggling with this serious problem.

In the 111th Congress, Senator Corker and I, along with our colleague, the late Senator Kennedy, introduced the Methadone Treatment and Protection Act of 2009 a similar piece of legislation that stemmed from a disturbing rise in deaths due to methadone, a synthetic opioid prescription drug that had been increasingly used for pain management. Before 1990, it was used primarily to treat opioid addiction. Because of its high efficacy and low cost, methadone is frequently used for pain management. However, if not used correctly, methadone can be a powerful and deadly drug because it works differently than other painkillers. Methadone stays in a person's body for a longer period of time than the pain relief lasts so a person who does not know better might take far too much of the drug, possibly leading to respiratory distress, cardiac arrhythmia and even death.

Methadone prescriptions for pain management grew from about 531,000 in 1998 to about 4.1 million in 2006--nearly eightfold. During that time, poisoning deaths involving methadone increased nearly sevenfold, from almost 790 in 1999 to 5,420 in 2006. Deaths from other opioids have also skyrocketed in the last decade. And, these deaths may actually be underreported, because there is no comprehensive reporting system for opioid-related deaths in the United States.

Overdoses from methadone are part of a larger disturbing trend of overdoses and deaths from prescription painkillers, or opioid drugs--a trend driven by a knowledge gap about how to treat serious pain in a safe and effective manner, by misperceptions about the safety of prescription drugs, and by the diversion of prescription drugs for illicit uses. In 2009, there were nearly 4.6 million drug-related emergency department, ED, visits of which nearly \1/2\, 45.1 percent, or 2.1 million, were attributed to prescription drug misuse or abuse, according to data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network, DAWN. And, emergency department visits involving misuse or abuse of pharmaceuticals nearly doubled between 2004 and 2009, to over 1.2 million visits.

This bill begins to address these problems. First, with respect to the knowledge gap about safe pain management, the bill for the first time includes a training requirement for health care professionals to be licensed to prescribe these powerful drugs. Currently, the Controlled Substances Act requires that every person who dispenses or who proposes to dispense controlled narcotics, including methadone, whether for pain management or opioid treatment, obtain a registration from the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA. Unfortunately there is no requirement as a condition of receiving the registration that these practitioners receive any education on the use of these controlled narcotics, including methadone. Physicians struggle every day with determining who has a real need for pain treatment, and who is addicted or at risk. And yes, they struggle with our failure to provide adequate treatment facilities for those who are addicted. This bill will help physicians get the information they need to prescribe safely and better recognize the signs of addiction in their patients.

Second, this bill addresses the knowledge gap among consumers--with a competitive grant program to states to distribute culturally sensitive educational materials about proper use of methadone and other opioids, and how to prevent opioid abuse, such as through safe disposal of prescription drugs. Preference will be given to states with a high incidence of overdoses and deaths.

Third, this bill creates a Controlled Substances Clinical Standards Commission to establish patient education guidelines, appropriate and safe dosing standards for all forms of methadone and other opioids, benchmark guidelines for the reduction of methadone abuse, appropriate conversion factors for transition patients from one opioid to another, and guidelines for the initiation of methadone and other opioids for pain management. A standards commission will provide much-needed evidence-based information to improve guidance for the safe and effective use of these powerful and dangerous controlled substances.

Fourth, this bill provides crucial support to state prescription drug monitoring programs. As of 2008, 38 states had enacted legislation requiring prescription drug monitoring programs

and many states were able to fund these initiatives in part from grants available through the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. A second program created in 2005 through the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act, NASPER, would provide even more assistance, and requires interoperability between states to reduce doctor shopping across state lines and diversion. Unfortunately, NASPER has only recently been funded with $2 million in the fiscal year 2009 Omnibus legislation and $2 million in fiscal year 2010.

Here is just one example of why NASPER funding matters: recently, the governor of Florida announced a budget that would not fund a planned prescription monitoring program in his state, due to state budget difficulties. This directly affects states in Appalachia because of the rampant drug trafficking between the two regions. In fact, the road from West Virginia to Florida is so well-travelled by drug traffickers and people seeking pain medication that it has been renamed the ``OxyContin Highway,'' and flights from Huntington to Florida have been nicknamed ``the Oxy Express.'' It is crucial to finally give NASPER the funding it needs, and this legislation would do so, with $25 million a year to establish interoperable prescription drug monitoring programs within each state.

Finally, this bill would help solve the data gap when it comes to opioid-related deaths. Right now there is no comprehensive national database of drug-related deaths in the United States, nor is there a standard form for medical examiners to fill out with regard to opioid- related deaths. Since there is no comprehensive database of methadone- related deaths, the number of deaths may actually be underreported. In order to truly reduce the number of methadone-related deaths, quality data must be collected and made available. This bill would create a National Opioid Death Registry to track all opioid-related deaths and related information, and establish a standard form for medical examiners to fill out which would include information for the National Opioid Death Registry.

Today we have an opportunity to change the harrowing statistics and stem the rising tide of deaths from methadone and other opioids by supporting the Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2011. This legislation provides a multifaceted approach to preventing tragic overdoses and deaths from methadone and other opioids. This is exactly what we need to improve the coordination of efforts and resources at the local, state, and federal level.

I urge my colleagues to support this timely and important piece of legislation. In doing so, we will be on our way to saving lives and reducing the needless deaths that otherwise will continue to cause so much suffering among the people of this country.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce an important piece of legislation, the Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2011--an important bill that is needed to address the rapid increase in deaths and overdoses from methadone and other opioid prescription drugs in the United States. These deaths have hit my home state of West Virginia particularly hard, but I know that every State is struggling with this serious problem.

In the 111th Congress, Senator Corker and I, along with our colleague, the late Senator Kennedy, introduced the Methadone Treatment and Protection Act of 2009 a similar piece of legislation that stemmed from a disturbing rise in deaths due to methadone, a synthetic opioid prescription drug that had been increasingly used for pain management. Before 1990, it was used primarily to treat opioid addiction. Because of its high efficacy and low cost, methadone is frequently used for pain management. However, if not used correctly, methadone can be a powerful and deadly drug because it works differently than other painkillers. Methadone stays in a person's body for a longer period of time than the pain relief lasts so a person who does not know better might take far too much of the drug, possibly leading to respiratory distress, cardiac arrhythmia and even death.

Methadone prescriptions for pain management grew from about 531,000 in 1998 to about 4.1 million in 2006--nearly eightfold. During that time, poisoning deaths involving methadone increased nearly sevenfold, from almost 790 in 1999 to 5,420 in 2006. Deaths from other opioids have also skyrocketed in the last decade. And, these deaths may actually be underreported, because there is no comprehensive reporting system for opioid-related deaths in the United States.

Overdoses from methadone are part of a larger disturbing trend of overdoses and deaths from prescription painkillers, or opioid drugs--a trend driven by a knowledge gap about how to treat serious pain in a safe and effective manner, by misperceptions about the safety of prescription drugs, and by the diversion of prescription drugs for illicit uses. In 2009, there were nearly 4.6 million drug-related emergency department, ED, visits of which nearly \1/2\, 45.1 percent, or 2.1 million, were attributed to prescription drug misuse or abuse, according to data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network, DAWN. And, emergency department visits involving misuse or abuse of pharmaceuticals nearly doubled between 2004 and 2009, to over 1.2 million visits.

This bill begins to address these problems. First, with respect to the knowledge gap about safe pain management, the bill for the first time includes a training requirement for health care professionals to be licensed to prescribe these powerful drugs. Currently, the Controlled Substances Act requires that every person who dispenses or who proposes to dispense controlled narcotics, including methadone, whether for pain management or opioid treatment, obtain a registration from the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA. Unfortunately there is no requirement as a condition of receiving the registration that these practitioners receive any education on the use of these controlled narcotics, including methadone. Physicians struggle every day with determining who has a real need for pain treatment, and who is addicted or at risk. And yes, they struggle with our failure to provide adequate treatment facilities for those who are addicted. This bill will help physicians get the information they need to prescribe safely and better recognize the signs of addiction in their patients.

Second, this bill addresses the knowledge gap among consumers--with a competitive grant program to states to distribute culturally sensitive educational materials about proper use of methadone and other opioids, and how to prevent opioid abuse, such as through safe disposal of prescription drugs. Preference will be given to states with a high incidence of overdoses and deaths.

Third, this bill creates a Controlled Substances Clinical Standards Commission to establish patient education guidelines, appropriate and safe dosing standards for all forms of methadone and other opioids, benchmark guidelines for the reduction of methadone abuse, appropriate conversion factors for transition patients from one opioid to another, and guidelines for the initiation of methadone and other opioids for pain management. A standards commission will provide much-needed evidence-based information to improve guidance for the safe and effective use of these powerful and dangerous controlled substances.

Fourth, this bill provides crucial support to state prescription drug monitoring programs. As of 2008, 38 states had enacted legislation requiring prescription drug monitoring programs

and many states were able to fund these initiatives in part from grants available through the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. A second program created in 2005 through the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act, NASPER, would provide even more assistance, and requires interoperability between states to reduce doctor shopping across state lines and diversion. Unfortunately, NASPER has only recently been funded with $2 million in the fiscal year 2009 Omnibus legislation and $2 million in fiscal year 2010.

Here is just one example of why NASPER funding matters: recently, the governor of Florida announced a budget that would not fund a planned prescription monitoring program in his state, due to state budget difficulties. This directly affects states in Appalachia because of the rampant drug trafficking between the two regions. In fact, the road from West Virginia to Florida is so well-travelled by drug traffickers and people seeking pain medication that it has been renamed the ``OxyContin Highway,'' and flights from Huntington to Florida have been nicknamed ``the Oxy Express.'' It is crucial to finally give NASPER the funding it needs, and this legislation would do so, with $25 million a year to establish interoperable prescription drug monitoring programs within each state.

Finally, this bill would help solve the data gap when it comes to opioid-related deaths. Right now there is no comprehensive national database of drug-related deaths in the United States, nor is there a standard form for medical examiners to fill out with regard to opioid- related deaths. Since there is no comprehensive database of methadone- related deaths, the number of deaths may actually be underreported. In order to truly reduce the number of methadone-related deaths, quality data must be collected and made available. This bill would create a National Opioid Death Registry to track all opioid-related deaths and related information, and establish a standard form for medical examiners to fill out which would include information for the National Opioid Death Registry.

Today we have an opportunity to change the harrowing statistics and stem the rising tide of deaths from methadone and other opioids by supporting the Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2011. This legislation provides a multifaceted approach to preventing tragic overdoses and deaths from methadone and other opioids. This is exactly what we need to improve the coordination of efforts and resources at the local, state, and federal level.

I urge my colleagues to support this timely and important piece of legislation. In doing so, we will be on our way to saving lives and reducing the needless deaths that otherwise will continue to cause so much suffering among the people of this country.

Mr. President, today I recognize and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of West Virginia University at Parkersburg. For five decades now, West Virginia University at Parkersburg has provided affordable and accessible higher education opportunities to the citizens of the Mid-Ohio Valley and the State of West Virginia.

West Virginia University at Parkersburg began with humble roots. In 1961, the college opened in an abandoned elementary school as the Parkersburg Branch of West Virginia University. One hundred and four students enrolled that fall.

West Virginians believed in the ability of West Virginia University at Parkersburg to grow and succeed. In 1965, the citizens of Wood County passed a bond levy to build the college's campus at its present location, making it the only state-supported school to be funded by a local initiative. Truly, West Virginia University at Parkersburg is a college built by its community.

In 1971, it became one of the State's first freestanding community colleges. It developed a solid reputation--which continues today for-- its quality technical programs and transfer degrees. In 1989, when the State legislature restructured higher education in West Virginia, it was reestablished as a regional campus of West Virginia University.

Today, West Virginia University at Parkersburg is a WVU-affiliated institution, and is the only community college in West Virginia accredited to offer bachelor's degrees. Growing from its modest beginnings with 104 students, the commuter campus now has more than 4,500 area residents enrolled in classes, making it the fourth-largest public college in West Virginia.

Its students are a blend of traditional and nontraditional students pursuing more than 40 programs of study. Most are the first in their family to attend college. Many juggle classes, work, and often families as well. They may ``stop out,'' and later return. Throughout the campus, you can see pride in pursuing the dream and the reality of completing a college degree.

And, throughout its growth and many changes, the college has stayed true to its mission and reinvented itself to serve changing educational needs and deliver workforce-ready graduates prepared to excel in a global economy. As it marks its 50th anniversary, West Virginia University at Parkersburg remains committed to serving the Mid-Ohio Valley region as an accessible, student-centered learning community that is recognized as an exceptional place to learn.

Thousands of West Virginians have started or resumed their college educations at West Virginia University at Parkersburg. It truly is ``the community's college.'' I salute Dr. Marie Gnage and the past presidents at West Virginia University at Parkersburg for a half century of excellence in education, training, and community engagement.