Floor Statements

Mr. President, the arrest of Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky by Russian security agents last weekend is of grave consequence to U.S.-Russia relations. It caps a chilling and aggressive turn toward authoritarianism in Vladimir Putin's Russia. It is past time for all friends of Russia, and all who support strong U.S.-Russia relations, to speak out about the ascendant role of the Russian security services in the Kremlin, President Putin's suppression of free media, the government's politicized prosecutions of its opponents, continuing and grievous human rights violations at the hands of the Russian army in Chechnya, and increased Russian meddling, intimidation, and harassment of its sovereign neighbors. American policy must change dramatically as a result of these developments, which have been in evidence for several years, for there can be no stability in U.S.- Russian relations, to say nothing of any strategic partnership, as long as Russia is moving away from the values of freedom and democratic progress so many Russians celebrated when the Soviet Union fell 12 years ago. I will have more to say on this matter, but for the moment I wish to draw my colleagues' attention to an incisive opinion article by Bruce Jackson entitled ``The Failure of Putin's Russia,'' published today

in the Washington Post, and an accompanying Post editorial entitled ``Pedaling Backward.''

I ask unanimous consent that these articles be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I request unanimous consent to add the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Fitzgerald, as a cosponsor of S. 877, the CAN SPAM Act of 2003.

Mr. President, I have concerns regarding this bill, the Transportation, Treasury, and general government appropriations bill for fiscal year 2004, as reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee. While the bill appears to contain fewer earmarks than in previous years, it still contains far too many earmarks and provisions to change current policies.

The need for efficient and safe transportation in America has never been greater. Today, we as a Nation transport more people and goods than ever before. As our Nation's dependence on international trade grows, so does our Nation's dependence on a transportation system that can keep goods moving not only at our borders, but across the Nation. On top of our commercial needs, Americans in general are more mobile than ever before. Due to this reality, the safety and security of our highways, airways, railways, and waterways must be a national priority. And as legislators, it is our duty to ensure that important transportation programs are fully funded. The measure before the Senate takes important steps towards achieving that goal.

At the same time, however, I am troubled by many provisions in H.R. 2989, the fiscal year 2004 Transportation, Treasury, and general government appropriations bill as amended by Senate text in S. 1589. Once again, I find myself in familiar territory, rising in opposition to another appropriations bill that needlessly earmarks the hard-earned money of American taxpayers. While the bill in total is $300 million below the President's budget request, the transportation title of the bill alone contains over $7.5 billion in objectionable funding provisions that are either above the President's request for specific programs, locality-specific earmarks by appropriators, or both.

The bill earmarks all intelligent transportation funds ($125 million) for 54 specific projects, including an intelligent transportation system for the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and a Weather Research Institute in North Dakota. The administration did not request any of the projects earmarked.

The bill further would provide $1.3 billion for new fixed guideway systems. Under this funding, the bill alters the President's request by increasing or decreasing funding for 14 projects with full funding grant agreements already in place and earmarks funding for an additional 25 projects. The changes in funding levels for projects with grants agreements will have a significant impact on those projects, causing construction delays and cost overruns. The additional earmarks may very well affect the ability of other projects to receive full funding grant agreements in the future, because the earmarks are outside of the Federal Transit Administration's FTA review process and fund projects that are not ready or do not meet FTA's standards.

The bill provides $18.4 million for the disposal of obsolete vessels in the National Defense Reserve Fleet of the Maritime Administration, $7 million above the President's request. While there is no question that these federally owned obsolete vessels pose serious environmental risks to the waters in which they are now moored, I cannot support funding above the President's request. The ship disposal program developed by the administration has taken into account not only the need to expedite disposal of these vessels, but also the limitations of the disposal market and other conditions for disposal. I do not believe the same can be said for the appropriators.

Further, the bill as reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee, in what I have been told is a drafting error, increases the administrative ``take-down'' authorized in the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act to finance motor carrier safety programs and motor carrier safety research from .45 percent to 2.55 percent and decreases the administrative ``take-down'' authorized in TEA-21 to administer Federal highway programs from 2.65 to 1.05 percent. As I understand it, the Committee intended to increase both ``take-downs'' in order to make additional funds available for earmarks. Not only is this authorizing language in an appropriations bill, such a change was not requested by the administration.

The Senate bill also contains a provision to direct the Secretary of Transportation to enter into an agreement with the State of Nevada and the State of Arizona or both to provide a method of funding for construction of a Hoover Dam bypass bridge from funds allocated for the Federal Lands Highway Program. While this clearly is authorizing language in an appropriations bill, what is really odd, is the language is already law, as it was contained in the Consolidated Appropriations Resolution for fiscal year 2003.

The bill would appropriate over $1.3 billion for Amtrak, $446 million above the President's request and nearly $300 million above Amtrak's fiscal year 2003 appropriation. Repayment of Amtrak's $105 million loan from DOT, made in 2001 to avoid Amtrak's threatened shut-down, would be postponed for a second year. The appropriations bill also renews conditions on Amtrak's funding adopted last year, conditions I believe are the reason Amtrak has a $200 million carry-over from fiscal year 2003 for next year.

While I commend David Gunn, Amtrak's president, for his efforts to get Amtrak's costs under better control and exposing the costly mistakes made by his predecessor, I cannot support an appropriation for Amtrak above the President's request without real reform. Mr. Gunn refuses to make any changes to Amtrak's routes, many of which lose $200, $300, or even $400 for every passenger they carry. And while Amtrak is touting record ridership for fiscal year 2003, my colleagues need to realize that Amtrak still accounts for less than 1 percent of intercity travel. Amtrak's record ridership amounted to an increase of 276,632 passengers--about 15 percent of daily airline boardings. And the harsh reality is that to attract this small number of additional riders, Amtrak slashed fares; and through July 2003, revenues were down $85 million compared to 2002. If Amtrak thought it would make up price cuts with the fares received from additional riders, it seriously miscalculated.

The report that accompanies the bill earmarks $1 million for the city of Crowley, LA's Historic Parkerson Avenue Redevelopment project. This is in

addition to $500,000 given to the project 2 years ago. I'm sure that Crowley is a lovely community. But there are thousands of small towns just like Crowley that are equally deserving of redevelopment. What makes Crowley more deserving of a Federal grant than every other small town in America?

The report also contains a provision earmarking $250,000 for a towboat display in Oklahoma. A retired towboat will be sandblasted, cleaned, painted and refurbished with a classroom area. Do you really think taxpayers would want their hard-earned dollars spent on this display? Is next year's appropriations bill going to contain funding to promote tourism so taxpayers all across America will know that they can come see a new towboat display in Oklahoma? While I say that sarcastically, one has to wonder how taxpayers are going to know that they have paid for and should visit such a display in Oklahoma.

The report sets an all-time record for the amount of airport specific earmarks for the Airport Improvement Program by listing 241 airports. In the final appropriations bill for fiscal year 2003 there were 164, in fiscal year 2002 there were 101, and in fiscal year 2001 there were 158.

There is also an unauthorized transfer of $100 million from the FAA's modernization account to the Airport Improvement Program. This transfer of $100 million is then set aside for--surprise, surprise-- discretionary grants that can be used to fund projects at the 241 airports that are listed. So we are taking money from the program that funds air traffic control modernization--such as newer and better radars--to fund the 241 airport earmarks.

The bill appropriates $52 million for the airport and airway trust fund for the essential air service program. This is not authorized and was not requested by the President. The trust fund was specifically established to fund the capital and operating expenses of the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, not to subsidize airline service.

In addition to the Transportation funding, the bill contains appropriations for Treasury and general government. I do want to acknowledge that the appropriators seem to have kept parochial spending to a minimum in the Treasury and general government appropriations titles of the bill. However, I have identified approximately $283 million in locality-specific earmarks in these titles.

While the amounts associated with each individual earmark may not seem extravagant, taken together, they represent a serious diversion of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars at the expense of numerous programs that have undergone the appropriate merit-based selection process. It is my view that the officials who run these programs should be the ones who decide how best to spend the appropriated funds. After all, they know what their most pressing needs are.

For example, the Treasury and general government titles include the following earmarks or special treatment: Language urging the IRS to make no staffing reductions at the Martinsburg National Computing Center and the programmed level at the Administrative Services Center in Beckley, WV; $350,000 to continue the Upper Great Plains Native American Telehealth Program at the University of North Dakota; $2.025 million to acquire land in Anchorage, AK, to build a new regional archives and records facility for the National Archives and Records Administration; $500,000 for the Ruffner Mountain Educational Facility in Alabama; $500,000 for the Saenger Theatre Restoration Project in Alabama; $500,000 for the State of Alaska to assist in preparation for its statehood celebration; and $500,000 for the State of Hawaii to assist in preparation for its statehood celebration. There are more projects on the list that I have compiled, which will be available on my Senate Web site.

In closing, I am encouraged that the appropriators have begun to curb their appetite for earmarking in this bill, however there are still hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary earmarks that severely restrict the authority granted the agencies charged with carrying out the policy goals established by Congress. In addition, there are numerous statutory provisions that infringe on the jurisdiction of the authorizing committees, and circumvent the authorizing process. Both the authorizing committees and appropriations committee must renew their commitment to work through the long established legislative process of authorizing programs and then appropriating funds accordingly. We can and must do better in providing oversight and establishing policies that grant the administration the funding and flexibility it needs to move our nation forward.

Mr. President, the Senate is not in order.

Mr. President, I apologize, but the Senate is still not in order.

Mr. President, I yield 1 of my 3 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. President, I thank my two leaders in the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner and Senator Levin, who have worked so hard on this issue. I appreciate everything they have done.

I also thank both Senators from Washington. I know this has been a very difficult process for them.

Mr. President, there are a number of lessons to be learned from this exercise. One of the lessons is--and I see the chairman of the Appropriations Committee here on the floor--we should not start this kind of process with a line on an appropriations bill. It should have gone through the authorizing committee. There should have been hearings and ventilation of a $20 to $30 billion acquisition. None of this problems would have arisen if we had gone through the proper authorizing committee rather than the Appropriations Committee assuming responsibilities which are not theirs.

I appreciate very much my two colleagues for asserting the authority of the authorizing committee where it belongs. I believe this is a good compromise. I would like to see better.

Obviously, I thank my colleagues again, especially the Senators from Washington, as well as the chairman and ranking member of the authorizing committee, for their hard work on this effort.

I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. President, for the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Records on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to

save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 209, S. 877; provided further that the committee amendment be agreed to and be considered original text for the purpose of further amendment.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, this bill was introduced in April by Senators Burns and Wyden, and the substitute version was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee on June 19.

Also, we have had intensive negotiations with the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, who is now on the floor, concerning a ``do not spam'' aspect of this legislation.

First of all, I wish to thank, of course, Senator Hollings, the ranking member of the committee, for all of his effort, but I particularly acknowledge my two colleagues who are on the floor, Senators Burns and Wyden. Around here, we have a tendency to take credit for a lot of things that may not necessarily be true, although I am not sure that is true in my case, but the fact is, Senator Burns and Senator Wyden have worked for, I believe, 3 years on this issue. It is complex. It is difficult. It has a lot to do with technology. The issues are very technical in nature in some respects. They have responded to what I think is a major concern of every young American and every American who uses a computer, and that is this issue of unwanted spam.

I again tell my colleagues that without the efforts Senator Burns and Senator Wyden have made on this bill, we would not be here today, and I am very grateful for their participation.

I believe the ranking member, Senator Hollings, wishes to make an opening comment, and then I would like to be recognized after Senator Hollings.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I will mention Senator Schumer's amendment which we have agreed to, which as soon as opening statements are completed we will propose, and I believe it will be without objection. It does do several things. I will mention it now because Senator Schumer has worked so hard on this amendment.

This amendment says that not later than 6 months after the date of enactment of the act, the Commission will transmit to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and to the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce a report that sets forth a plan and timetable for establishing a nationwide market Do Not E-mail Registry. It includes an explanation of any practical, technical, security, privacy, enforceability, or other concerns the Commission has regarding such a registry and includes an explanation of how the registry would be applied with respect to children with e-mail accounts.

Finally, it says the Commission may establish and implement the plan, but not earlier than 9 months after the date of enactment of this act.

I say to my friend, Senator Schumer, that I will do everything in my power to make sure that this is enacted and this plan, not earlier than 9 months, should be implemented. I hope that is satisfactory.

Again, I thank Senator Schumer. If we can implement a Do Not Spam provision which is clearly modeled after the Do Not Call list, I think it will have enormous benefit to all Americans.

I will make a few comments about the bill and then yield to my colleagues and to Senator Schumer for their remarks.

If passed into law by Congress and signed by the President, the CAN- SPAM Act would be the first Federal law to regulate senders of commercial e-mail.

The bill would prohibit senders of commercial e-mail from falsifying or disguising the following: their identity; the return address or routing information of an e-mail; and the subject matters of their messages. Violations of these provisions would result in both criminal and civil penalties.

The bill would also require senders of commercial e-mail to give their recipients an opportunity to opt out of receiving future messages and to honor those requests. Except for e-mail that is transactional in nature, such as purchase receipts or airlines ticket confirmations, every commercial e-mail sent over the Internet to American consumers would be required to provide this valid, working opt-out or unsubscribe mechanism. These rules represent current industry best practices regarding commercial e-mail messages.

For unsolicited commercial e-mail, however, the bill would require more disclosures from the sender of the message, such as providing recipients with instructions on how to operate the opt-out mechanism, a valid physical address of the sender, and a clear notice in the body of the message that it is an advertisement or solicitation.

In an amendment I offered in committee, this bill would also prohibit businesses from knowingly promoting or permitting the promotion of their business through e-mail transmitted with false or misleading identity or routing information. Those that benefit the most from sending fraudulent spam, the companies advertised in those messages, should be held accountable, and they will.

As my colleagues, Senators Burns and Wyden, will explain in more detail, the bill would also target many of the insidious mechanisms used by today's spammers, including e-mail harvesting, dictionary attacks, and the hijacking of consumer e-mail accounts in order to send spam.

In addition to setting strict rules of the road for senders of commercial e-mail, the CAN-SPAM Act would provide tough criminal and civil penalties for offenders, and a multilayered approach to enforcement. This bill provides for enforcement actions by the FTC, State attorneys general, Internet service providers, and if Senator

Hatch's proposed criminal amendment is passed which I assume it will, the Department of Justice.

I strongly support this bill and I urge my colleagues to join me, Senators Burns, Wyden, Hollings, Hatch, and others, in passing this bill as a first step toward giving consumers back some control of their e-mail in-boxes.

I would like to make a few general observations about this issue that I have come to learn over the years that the Commerce Committee has examined it.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, approximately 140 million Americans, nearly half of all U.S. citizens and 63 percent of full-time or part-time workers regularly use e-mail. E-mail messaging has fundamentally changed the way we communicate with family, friends, coworkers and business partners; the way consumers communicate with businesses that provide goods and services; and the way that businesses may legitimately market products to consumers. The growing affliction of spam, however, may threaten all of this.

We must keep in mind the tremendous promise that the Internet and more specifically e-mail, holds for consumers and businesses alike. We must recognize that the word ``spam'' means different things to different people.

The Federal Trade Commission defines spam generally as ``unsolicited commercial e-mail.'' and some Americans do not want any of it. Other consumers like to receive unsolicited offers by e-mail; to these consumers, spam means only the unwanted fraudulent or pornographic e- mail that also floods their inbox.

Many American businesses view e-mail over the Internet as a new medium through which to market or communicate more efficiently with consumers. To them, this type of communication is not spam, but commercial speech protected by the first amendment. The Direct Marketing Association reports that 37 percent of consumers it surveyed have bought something as a result of receiving unsolicited e-mail from marketers.

Internet service provider are the businesses caught in the middle, forced every day to draw distinctions between what they perceive as legitimate e-mail and what is spam. In this environment, the risk of ISPs blocking legitimate mail that consumers depend on, such as purchase receipts or healthcare communications, is as much a concern as the prospect of failing to block as much spam as possible in the face of consumer demand. Often, the filters used by ISPs fail to meet their subscribers' expectations on both accounts, failing to block the spam and sometimes blocking legitimate e-mail from coming through, leaving consumers, legitimate businesses and the ISPs themselves frustrated.

I think Senator Burns and Senator Wyden remember, as well as I do, a professional spammer who came and testified before our committee. I mentioned in passing that it took him approximately 4 hours to break through a filter that had recently been in place, and he immediately began his work again of spamming millions of people every day. He was a man who was proud of his work, by the way. He was a very interesting witness and, I might say in an otherwise dull hearing, a very entertaining one.

We must be mindful that in our quest to stop spam, we may impose e- mail restrictions that go too far and actually prohibit or effectively prevent e-mail that customers want to receive and that legitimate businesses depend on to service their customers.

I believe this bill strikes the proper balance, thanks to the efforts of Senator Wyden, Senator Burns, Senator Schumer, and others, by carefully targeting the spam that consumers reject while preserving the fundamental benefits of e-mail to all Americans.

Regardless of whether we call all solicited commercial e-mail spam, one fact is clear: Spam is rapidly on the rise. Its sheer volume is significantly affecting how consumers and businesses use e-mail. Less than 2 years ago, spam made up only 8 percent of all e-mail. In a hearing before the Commerce Committee in May, my colleagues and I learned that spam accounted for more than 45 percent of all global e- mail traffic and, worse, it would probably exceed the 50 percent mark by year's end.

In the committee's hearing, America Online--our Nation's largest Internet service provider with roughly 30 million subscribers-- testified that it blocks 80 percent of all its inbound e-mail--nearly 2.4 billion out of 3 billion messages it receives each day. Not surprisingly, this number of blocked messages was nearly 2.5 times larger than the 1 billion messages AOL blocked per day only 2 months prior to that hearing, and nearly 5 times larger than the 500 million messages it blocked per day in December 2002.

It's not just AOL. Our Nation's second and third largest e-mail providers, Microsoft and Earthlink, have also reported a tremendous surge in spam. Microsoft, the provider of MSN mail and the free Hotmail service, reported in May that both services combined block up to 2.4 billion spam messages each day. Earthlink, the third largest ISP in the United States, also reported a 500 percent increase in its inbound spam over the past 18 months.

I realize that these numbers may not mean as much to those who do not follow e-commerce closely, so let me put it in perspective to what nearly all Americans are familiar with--junk mail. The USA Today recently reported that more than 2 trillion spam messages are expected to be sent over the Internet this year, or 100 times the amount of direct mail advertising pieces delivered by U.S. mail last year.

Managing this influx adds real monetary costs to consumers and businesses.

A 2001 European Union study found that spam cost Internet subscribers wouldwide $9.4 billion each year, and USA Today reported in April that research organizations estimate fighting spam adds an average of $2 per month to an individual's Internet bill.

Costs to businesses are also on the rise. Ferris Research currently estimates that costs to U.S. businesses from spam in lost productivity, network system upgrades, unrecoverable data, and increased personnel costs, combined will top $10 billion in 2003. Of that total, Ferris estimates that employee productivity losses from sifting through and deleting spam account for nearly 40 percent of that--or $4 billion alone.

There are other costs to our society besides monetary costs. All of us are deeply concerned about the risks to our children who use e-mail and may be victimized by the nearly 20 percent of spam that contains pornographic material, including graphic sexual images.

Parents encourage their children to use the Internet to play and do schoolwork, and to use e-mail to reach distant relatives. Yet, parents today spend more and more of their time worrying that their children may open up an e-mail, disguised to look like it's from a friend or loved one, only to find pornography.

This greatly concerns me as a parent, as a legislator and as an American citizen. First and foremost, parents should not have to think twice before encouraging their children to use the computer at home.

In addition to pornography, the FTC also tells us that two-thirds of all spam contains deceptive information, much of it peddling get-rich- quick schemes, dubious financial or healthcare offers, and questionable products and services.

Spam is a serious and rapidly growing problem that the Senate must act on, but we must also be mindful of the complexity of the problem we face. While I agree with my colleagues in the Senate who believe that passing legislation is a necessary step, I also believe that legislation alone will not solve the problem of spam.

Spammers today disregard our laws and are winning the technological arms race with Internet service providers who try to block the spam they send. The New York Times recently reported just one example of how unscrupulous spammers were using technology to stay one step ahead of the law--in this instance, by highjacking a local Virginia school's computers to send out untraceable spam.

I repeat: A local Virginia schools computers. The same day, in the Commerce Committee's hearing, Mr. Ronald Scelson--who is popularly known by his moniker ``The Cajun Spammer''--testified that it took him only 12 hours to ``crack'' the latest technology filter supplied by the company of another witness at the table. Not only did he hack into their filter and figure out how to defeat it, the

Cajun Spammer had distributed the keys to unlocking the filter to all of his fellow spammers so that they too could send spam past the filters to the ISP's subscribers.

Keeping up with resourceful spammers' latest technology is not the only challenge. Jurisdictional barriers also complicate enforcement, and as we heard in our hearing, nearly 90 percent of all spam is untraceable and may be passing through mail servers outside of the United States.

I mention these things only to emphasize the complexity of this problem and to remind my colleagues that the odds of us defeating spam by legislation alone are extremely low. The fact that there may be no silver bullet to the problem of spam, however, does not mean that we should stand idly by and do nothing at all about it.

The CAN-SPAM Act is a good first step, and one we should take today.

It is clear this Congress must act, but we should make no mistake-- unless we can effectively enforce the laws we write, those laws will have little meaning or deterrent effect on any would-be purveyor of spam.

At the Commerce Committee's executive session where we considered this bill, I introduced an amendment that would empower the FTC to take action against businesses that financially benefit from the sending of spam with deliberately falisifed sender information. This amendment passed unanimously and I would like to take a moment here to briefly comment on it because it goes to the heart of this enforcement matter.

In two hearings before the Commerce Committee this past spring, the chairman and Commissioners of the FTC testified to the Commission's tremendous difficulty in tracking and finding spammers who send out spam with fraudulent and often untraceable transmission information.

The chairman advised us, however, that their investigations are usually most effective when ``following the money'' to track down spammers. By this, they mean following the Web link or phone number in the spam message that consumers follow with their money to purchase the product or service promoted in the spam. From there, the FTC attempts to prove a connection between the business and a spammer who sent it out on their behalf. In essence, they spend significant time and effort attempting to follow the money trail all the way back to the spammer-- if they can find them.

As an alternative to the inefficient and often slow moving process, the amendment I proposed which is now section 6 of the bill was designed to help the FTC enforce the law against those businesses at the front end of the money trail that are promoted in the spam consumers receive. They need to go further, and here is why.

Many unremarkable businesses employ sophisticated spammers to send e- mail to consumers in large volumes with deliberately falsified identity and routing information in order to get past the ISP's spam filters. These businesses often escape liability because enforcement efforts are too often focused on catching the spammer rather than the unscrupulous businesses that hire them in the first place.

Section 6, however, would make it easier for the FTC to enforce the law against businesses knowingly complicit in the use of spam to promote their businesses with deliberately falsified routing information. I urge my colleagues to support this principle of holding businesses that benefit from spam messages accountable for the acts of those they knowingly hire to fraudulently send spam to consumers on their behalf.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a number of letters I have received in support of this provision.

Madam President, the House will adopt a similar provision in any House spam bill. I have received support for the provision from every sector involved in the spam debate--consumers' groups, e-mail providers, marketers, advertisers, online and offline retailers, technology companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

I urge my colleagues to join me in responding to the demands of millions of American consumers in doing all that we can to try to stop spam. I urge them to support passage of the CAN-SPAM Act.

My comments were a little lengthy, and I apologize. This is a very serious and important and complex issue, as I stated at the beginning of my remarks. That is why my two colleagues have spent 4 years working on this issue. I think they would be the first to agree that this may not stop spam.

There are some very smart people out there who will do everything they can for avoidance, including this issue I mention of organizations outside the United States. For us to do nothing would be a great disservice to millions of Americans, including the young ones, the majority of whom in America are regular users of computers.

I thank my colleagues, Senator Wyden and Senator Burns. For the benefit of my colleagues, we have three or four amendments. Maybe one or two might require a vote. I hope we can dispose of this legislation in a fairly short period of time.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I believe the Senator from Oregon has a technical amendment and maybe would like to propose that at this time. It is my understanding that the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, is on his way over to propose his Do Not Spam amendment.

It is also my understanding that Senator Hatch, Senator Santorum, and Senator Corzine are the ones who have amendments. I would urge them to come forward when it is convenient so we can dispense with those amendments in a timely fashion.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, we support the amendment. It is helpful to the legislation. I urge its adoption.

Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, we would like to, obviously, finish the bill as expeditiously as possible and yet offer all Members the opportunity to propose amendments. As I understand it right now, we have pending amendments by Senators Corzine, Santorum, and Hatch.

As Members know, there is a briefing at 4 p.m. by the Secretary of Defense for all Members in room 407. Shortly before 4, I would like to propose a unanimous consent agreement to lock in all amendments with no time agreements agreed to. I ask my colleagues who may have additional amendments to let us know between now and shortly before the hour of 4, which is over a half an hour.

I will also say we are asking Senators Hatch, Santorum, and Corzine to come over to offer their amendments so we can dispose of those amendments.

Amendment No. 1892

Mr. McCain. Madam President, I wish to make a few comments about Senator Schumer's amendment regarding the Do Not Spam list. As Senator Schumer pointed out, it authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to develop a Do Not Spam list similar to the Do Not Call list which has been widely supported by Americans across the country.

The Senator from New York and I remember when apparently perhaps, in the view of some, a misguided member of the judiciary stayed the Do Not Call list and the reaction that followed was certainly extraordinary. If we are able technologically to develop a Do Not Spam list, I think it would be of great assistance to many Americans. So I think the Senator from New York has a remarkable idea here.

As a first step, the FTC, which has testified they have some technological reservations about creating such a list, although I am sure the FTC would not object to it in principle, but they have some reservations, Senator Schumer has modified his amendment so that the FTC would be required to submit a report to the Congress within 6 months. It contains a plan for implementing the Do Not Spam list. The FTC would be authorized to implement the list 3 months later, and I would certainly urge them to do so.

As everyone is aware by now, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion about this issue. I believe it is a good one and one that provides the FTC with the authority to establish such a registry if they believe it is the proper mechanism to stop the onslaught of spam to consumers.

I think we have given them the flexibility to come back and show us if there are serious problems. If there are serious problems, we would be glad to look at them and help resolve those problems through any kind of legislative or other assistance we can provide.

The Schumer amendment also absolutely emphasizes this is an idea that has worked in the Do Not Call area and is a concept that should be pursued to the fullest extent of our capabilities. So I thank the Senator. I also thank Senator Nelson, a valued member of the committee, for his involvement in this issue.

Again, I hope Senators who have amendments will come to the floor and let us know about them.

I am glad to yield.

I am glad to yield, but first, to add to my remarks, I believe Senator Enzi may have an amendment as well.

I thank my friend from New York for his comments and I yield to the Senator from Oregon.

Madam President, I again urge my colleagues, particularly Senators Santorum, Hatch, Corzine, and Enzi, to come to the floor to give us their amendments so we can move expeditiously.

I also intend to propose a unanimous consent agreement in about 15 minutes that there be no further amendments in order at that time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank Senator Hatch and Senator Leahy for their work to improve the criminal provisions and strengthen the Burns-Wyden CAN-SPAM Act. The active participation of Senator Hatch and his committee on this issue has been extremely valuable.

I join my friend from Oregon in urging Senator Hatch to have oversight on how this law is enforced and that it is properly done. We face challenges in enforcement of this act, particularly in light of the changes in technology that will inevitably occur which will make this legislation even harder to enforce than it is today. I thank Senator Hatch, and I urge adoption of the amendment.

Madam President, I ask consent that the following amendments be the only first-degree amendments in order to the bill and that they be subject to second-degrees which would be relevant to the first degree to which they are offered: Corzine amendment, Santorum amendment, Enzi amendment, Landrieu amendment, and Boxer amendment.

I do modify my request.

Pending and about to be adopted.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Leahy for his work on this amendment, along with Senator Hatch, who lends and contributes a great deal of teeth to this bill. I know they have worked very hard.

As I mentioned to Senator Hatch, as did the Senator from Oregon, we know that the Senator and his committee will be involved in the oversight of the enforcement of this legislation. We thank you for his valuable contribution.

I urge the sponsors of those amendments, Senators Corzine, Santorum, Enzi, Landrieu, Boxer, and Harkin, to please come to the floor in courtesy to their colleagues so we can take up and dispose of these amendments. Please show some courtesy to your colleagues. If you have amendments pending, please come. We are ready for them.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senators Santorum and Enzi, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Madam President, this amendment by Senators Santorum and Enzi requires warning labels on sexually explicit commercial e-mail to regulate interstate commerce by imposing limitations and penalties on the transmission of unsolicited commercial electronic mail via the Internet.

Basically, this amendment says no person may initiate or affect interstate commerce the transmission, to a protected computer, of any unsolicited commercial electronic mail message that includes sexually oriented material and fail to include in the subject heading for the electronic mail message the marks or notices prescribed by the Commission, or fail to provide that the matter in the message that is initially viewable to the recipient, when the message is opened by any recipient, and absent any further actions by the recipient, includes only to the extent required or authorized pursuant to any such marks or notices; the information required to be included in the message is clear.

This amendment also prescribes that not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this act, the Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall prescribe clearly identifiable marks or notices to be included in or associated with unsolicited commercial electronic mail that contains sexually oriented material, in order to inform the recipient of this message, of the material, of that fact to facilitate filtering of such electronic mail.

As all of us have discussed in consideration of this bill, one of the great concerns all of us have is pornographic material that is transmitted in the form of spam. According to several experts, 20 percent of unsolicited spam is pornography. This is an effort on the part of Senators Enzi and Santorum to try to at least begin addressing this issue. It is a valuable and important contribution in the form of trying to identify it and to bring it under control. It would make it a crime to send unsolicited e-mail that contains sexually oriented material unless they labeled it as prescribed by the FTC. The criminal penalties for this section would be the same as those contained in the Hatch-Leahy amendment.

I strongly support the amendment and urge its adoption.

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

Madam President, for the benefit of my colleagues, we have a Landrieu amendment which the Senator from Louisiana has been kind enough to withdraw, but we need to discuss what we need to do in the form of sending a letter to the Federal Trade Commission instructing them to take certain actions which I will discuss in a minute; a Corzine amendment which has two parts to it, which both sides have agreed to; and then I don't believe there will be any further amendments, although that is not completely clear. We could expect a vote on final passage relatively soon.

Senator Landrieu was going to offer an amendment that would have required the Consumer Product Safety Commission to undertake a rulemaking to have manufacturers create a database for consumers to be notified of certain product recalls. I have committed to Senator Landrieu to work with the CPSC to solicit these views on her legislation and ask how best to accomplish her worthy goals of better informing consumers about product recalls.

Senator Landrieu has hit on a very important issue. Unless you happen to see it by accident mentioned on television, the recalls are very seldom

known by at least a majority of those who would be affected by it. I commit to Senator Landrieu to see how we can best accomplish that. I appreciate her forbearance at this time in withdrawing the amendment. I hope we can satisfy her concerns by asking for rapid action on the part of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, as we are nearing the end, I am waiting for the Corzine amendment that we will discuss and adopt. Then I believe we will be able to move to final passage. I am not positive, but I think we will be able to. I would like to again express my appreciation to the Senator from Montana, Mr. Burns, and Senator Wyden. Four years is a long time to work on a single issue. When these two Senators began work on this issue, spam was minuscule as compared to what it is today. I must admit, I didn't pay much attention to it then, nor did the members of the Commerce Committee, nor the oversight agencies. Both Senators had the foresight to see the incredible proportions that this spamming would reach and the effect that it would have not only on our ability to use e-commerce and e-communications but also on our ability to improve productivity.

The costs involved in the spamming issue are pretty incredible when you count it all up according to certain experts.

So I thank our staffs who have worked on this for so long. Without the leadership of the Senator from Montana, Mr. Burns, and that of Senator Wyden, we would not have been able to move this, after several hearings in the Commerce Committee, to the floor of the Senate. I have some confidence that our friends on the other side of the Capitol will act with some dispatch since they are as wary as we are of the gravity of this problem. As soon as we get the Corzine amendment, we will move forward.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we lay aside the pending amendment so Senator Harkin may be recognized.

Amendment No. 1895

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Hatch be added as a cosponsor to the Enzi-Santorum amendment No. 1894, and I ask unanimous consent that I be added as a cosponsor of S. 877.

Mr. President, I think the amendment of the Senator from Iowa is a worthy cause. We appreciate very much Senator Harkin's continued commitment to those who are hearing impaired in America. He has been a consistent and longtime advocate of this group of Americans. I thank him for his other contributions.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, Senator Santorum would like to speak about the Santorum-Enzi amendment, and then we will have the Corzine amendment, which I will propose, and then we will be ready, I believe, for final passage.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I assure the Senator from Pennsylvania that we will do everything we can to hold it. I have to tell my friend from Pennsylvania that probably the greatest single aspect of this spamming that is so disturbing to families all over America is the issue the Senator from Pennsylvania raises, and that is this graphic pornography that pops into view when children are trying to do their homework, much less other entertaining aspects of using the computer.

I want to work with the Senator from Pennsylvania in every way we can to see if we can enact whatever safeguards to prevent this pollution of young Americans' minds.

Mr. President, as we await the completion of the Corzine amendment, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I believe the pending amendment is the Santorum-Enzi amendment.

Mr. President, we have discussed this amendment and we have now received clearance from both sides of the aisle and I urge its adoption.

I am told by the staff that we will commence this vote at 6:30. I hope by that time we would have the final writing of the Corzine amendment, which I could propose at that time and have adopted since it is agreed to by both sides. We are waiting for that. Is that correct?

I am glad to yield.

It has been resolved. We are just waiting for the language to be done. We may have to fire some staff people, I am afraid. Senator Wyden was writing them before.

Let me put it this way: I ask unanimous consent that after the adoption of the Corzine amendment, the bill be read a third time and a final vote be taken at 6:30, with the understanding that if the Corzine amendment is not adopted that would not happen.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

On behalf of Senator Corzine, I have an amendment at the desk. I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I support the amendment by Senator Corzine. I thank my colleagues for reaching a compromise at this time. I thank those who rapidly wrote this amendment on short notice so we could complete work on this legislation.

The amendment has two components. The first part addresses labeling of unsolicited commercial e-mail with the term ADV and also addresses the possibility of industry self-regulation. The Federal Trade Commission has raised serious concerns with both of these proposals with respect to ADV labeling. The FTC has written to me in opposition to labeling:

First, consumer groups, ISPs, and emailers at the SPAM

Forum roundly criticized the mandatory use of an ``ADV''

label. Labeling requirements could harm legitimate marketers,

while illegitimate marketers are likely to ignore the

requirement. Indeed, although several States require ``ADV''

labels on unsolicited commercial email, in its recent study

on False Claims in SPAM, Commission staff found that only 2

percent of email messages analyzed contained such a label.

In lieu of Senator Corzine's original proposal to make ADV labeling an industry self-regulation, the amendment has been modified to require the Federal Trade Commission to report to Congress on whether the ADV labeling and industry self-regulation should be implemented.

So I think this is a sensible solution in light of the Federal Trade Commission's concerns as I just read from their report to Congress.

The second part of the amendment would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to adopt a bounty hunter proposal to give people a portion of the fines collected from spammers that they hope to catch. As with the Do Not Spam Registry, the FTC would be authorized to act after first sending a report to Congress.

I support the amendment.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. Under the previous order, I believe the vote will start at 6:30.

Mr. President, today Human Rights Watch released a statement condemning what it calls a ``brutal political crackdown'' in Azerbaijan following its flawed October 15 presidential elections. In the words of Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, ``Azerbaijan is going through its most serious human rights crisis of the past decade. If this crackdown continues, there won't be an opposition left in Azerbaijan by the end of the month.'' I direct my colleagues' attention to Human Rights Watch's disturbing conclusions and ask unanimous consent that its report be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Michigan, Senator Levin, in sponsoring the Auditor Independence and Tax Shelters Act.

While the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Securities and Exchange Commission rules rightly prohibit accounting firms from providing certain non- auditing services to the publicly traded companies they audit, auditors are not prohibited from providing tax shelter services to their audit clients.

The Auditor Independence and Tax Shelters Act is intended to address this gap in the law by prohibiting audit firms from providing such services to their audit clients. It would thereby significantly strengthen auditor independence and eliminate a fundamental conflict of interest that is adverse to the best interest of investors.

Although I believe that any firm that serves as an auditor of a company should generally be prohibited from providing any non-audit service to that company, I strongly support this bill because it is a significant step toward achieving true auditor independence.

I urge my colleagues to support this important bill to further protect investor confidence in our capital markets.

Mr. President, on October 15, citizens of Azerbaijan went to the polls to elect their next president. The months and days leading up to the election were characterized by extremely biased media attention for the pro-presidential Yeni Azerbaijan Party, YAP, and government-sponsored intimidation and harassment of the opposition parties. The U.S. Government and the OSCE expressed serious concern about the preelection environment to the highest levels of Azerbaijan's Government. Our advice went largely unheeded, and grave levels of government interference and intimidation continued through election day.

I traveled to Azerbaijan just before the election to meet with Azerbaijani political leaders to discuss these concerns. I told then- Prime Minister Ilham Aliyev in the clearest possible terms that the international community was carefully watching his actions and expected a democratic outcome. I also met with a range of opposition leaders and assured them that we shared their concerns and were working to encourage the government to hold elections consistent with internationally recognized standards.

On election day, the OSCE and U.S. government brought in over 600 international election observers and deployed them nationwide. Although a number of areas were peaceful and orderly, observers noted many violations of the new Unified Election Code, UEC. Violations included ballot stuffing, multiple voting, harassment at the polling station by authorities, incomplete voter lists, and a lack of regard for the procedural process of ballot tabulation.

The undemocratic and blatant disregard for the UEC in both the preelection period and on election day led to civil unrest in Baku as the final ballot counts were being made public. The night of the election and the following days showed citizens coming together in protest in large numbers in response to the election's failure to meet international standards. Reports continue to come in of severe and sometimes fatal violence against journalists and political activists. Not only has the government has not met its obligation to uphold law and order, but the government's security forces are largely responsible for the violence.

This presidential election was a chance for Azerbaijan to demonstrate its commitment to the democratic process. Despite the new election code, the ruling party chose to retain power at all costs and to ensure that its candidate received nothing short of an overwhelming victory. The United States will have to review its interest in deepening strategic relations with an Azerbaijani regime that does not enjoy the full legitimacy a free and fair election confers. We should step up American assistance to the democratic opposition in Azerbaijan and continue to work to deepen civil society as a bulwark against the state. The government in Baku must know that the United States values our relations with

the people of Azerbaijan but cannot turn a blind eye to an election that demonstrated such shortcomings, including state-directed violence against political opponents. Improved U.S.-Azerbaijan relations require a new commitment to political pluralism, and a rejection of political violence, on the part of a government that has failed this important test of democratic legitimacy.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I don't want to take too much time. The hour grows late and all of my colleagues would like to finish up with this legislation.

Everybody knows there are two phases to the Iraqi conflict. One is the military phase, which for all intents and purposes expired, finished, and was completed some months ago. Now we face the most difficult challenge; that is, the rebuilding and reconstruction of this country which was damaged not only in the conflict--and, by the way, surprisingly little given the brevity of the conflict and the enormous success our military enjoyed--but mostly because of the cruel and criminal neglect of the infrastructure and on the people of Iraq inflicted by Saddam Hussein.

There were several mis-estimations concerning the conflict. But perhaps the greatest mis-estimation was our failure to understand the degree of deterioration of the goods, fundamental services, and infrastructure of Iraq.

We all know, whether we support or oppose our effort in Iraq, that a vital ingredient is the reconstruction. Without the people of Iraq being provided with the fundamental services they need to conduct a normal life, sooner or later the people of Iraq will turn against us. They will fall prey to the propaganda of our enemies who say the United States invaded, will not help you rebuild your country, and wants to take your oil--one of the unfortunate aspects of the vote last night.

I don't know if every single item the administration asked for is most necessary. I had a chance to review most of these projects. More importantly, the Appropriations Committee, in its deliberations and hearings, did also. We had hearings in the Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member. This was a subject raised.

I note in the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia that no funds could be used to build maximum security prisons, as one example. I am sure the Senator from West Virginia knows that one of the most terrible aspects of the postcombat phase is the tragic deaths of young American soldiers. What if we have no place to put these people we capture who are killing American soldiers? If we agree to the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia, no maximum security prisons can be built.

No communications network: One of the greatest difficulties for the Iraqi police force--that we are trying to rebuild and actually build-- is their ability to communicate with one another.

These are security projects: Traffic police buildings, fleet, and equipment. It seems to me that one of the fundamentals and first priorities would be to build a capable police force. That is Ambassador Bremer's priority. That is an Iraqi ruling council priority. Yet we couldn't spend any money if the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia were approved to help traffic police buildings, fleet, and equipment.

I will not go through every one of these items on which the Senator would like to prohibit us from spending any money. Some of them are legitimate questions. But we have hearings. That is why we have congressional scrutiny. That is why there will be, when this bill is passed, a conference with the other body whose changes will be considered as well.

Again, legitimate debate will go on for years and years. Historians will judge, of the 77 Senators who voted in favor of authorizing the President of the United States to go to Iraq and the 23 who voted against it, which ones were right. History will make that judgment. But there is no one who believes that once we are there in Iraq that we don't have an obligation, an absolute obligation, to do what we can to help them rebuild their country, which is a fundamental if we expect democracy to take root in a place in the world which has never known it.

I travel a fair amount. I believe it is part of my duties as a member of the Armed Services Committee. Frankly, I

enjoy it because I find it to be the most informative way for me to be able to understand our national security, our foreign policy, and many other issues.

I went to the city of Basra. I wish the Senator from West Virginia could have been with me. Since 1991, Saddam Hussein allowed that city, the second largest city in Iraq, to deteriorate to the point where it is a total disaster. It is a giant slum. Stagnant water is sitting around everywhere. There is filth, disease, the threat of cholera. I notice that the Senator from West Virginia wants to remove a Basra water pipeline and treatment plant.

I say to the Senator from West Virginia, if he doesn't want to travel there, I would be glad to show him pictures of the absolute criticality of taking care of the sewage and waste that abound throughout that city, if only from a humanitarian standpoint, to save the children who are dying every day there because of the lack of basic sanitation.

I am glad to yield.

I thank the Senator from Virginia who I know made a trip to Iraq as well. Again, I am sure Ambassador Bremer will kill me, but I urge all of my colleagues. The Chair and I took a trip together. You cannot appreciate the degree of devastation to that country inflicted by Saddam Hussein--not by the U.S. military--until you see it. Yes, any student of history knows that democracy cannot take hold where there are no fundamental services that allow people to deal with issues other than their own survival. And unless this democracy moves forward, then the forces in opposition grow and the risk to American lives is obvious. Parts of Iraq are still up for grabs; we are still trying to win the hearts and minds of the people in the Sunni triangle, and to say we will not help them build their infrastructure, in my view, would be a serious error.

As the Senator from Virginia said, it could increase the casualties and risks to the American men and women fighting there. I am sure that that is not the intent of the Senator from West Virginia. So I hope we can dispense with this amendment rapidly. I do believe that in the upcoming weeks and months we will be examining our programs and progress. There are numerous amendments that require auditing by the GAO. They require reporting as to how money is expended. There are numerous requirements included in this legislation, both in its original form and through amendments.

The Senator from Delaware and I have added an amendment, that was accepted, that requires GAO auditing of this money and how it is spent, regular reporting to the Congress. I believe this money will be as heavily scrutinized as any appropriation that the Congress has allocated in history, and that is justified because this is a huge amount of money. So I hope we will understand that taking these items out of our aid to reconstruct the country of Iraq would be a serious mistake.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I noticed the Senator was talking about how the money would be spent in the amendment. It includes $200 million available for relief in Liberia, and $50 million should be made available for Sudan. What in Sudan would this money go for, I wonder.

While you are at it, if I may continue my question, not to exceed $50 million to support the Government of Afghanistan. Of course, not surprisingly, there is specific money for Fort Monroe, VA.

My question is, Why is $50 million made available for Sudan and $50 million to support the Government of Afghanistan, which was not requested by the administration in any way, not scrutinized? Congratulations; hello, Sudan; here is $50 million.

I ask my colleague, if he is concerned about how some of the money is being spent, should he not justify how the amendment would like to have that money spent?

Mr. President, I want to be extremely brief.

We spent a long time on this amendment. There are other amendments pending. I in no way criticize or take exception to the rights of the Senator from Delaware, nor the Senator from West Virginia. In fact, I wish more would exercise scrutiny in the work of the Appropriations Committee. But I think we ought to know what this amendment is about. It is taking $1.65 billion from the reconstruction of Iraq and putting it to work in Fort Monroe, VA, the Sudan, Liberia--places that

are worthy and deserving, perhaps. The purpose of this legislation is to provide money for the military and reconstruction of Iraq plus Afghanistan. Tough choices have to be made on other issues.

I share the concern of the Senator from Delaware about the situation in Afghanistan. But I don't share his open-ended desire to send money just to the Sudan, just to Liberia, and another open-ended $75 million for foreign military financing programs.

I think we need to stick to what we have. It has already been examined by the Appropriations Committee. It has been examined by all Members. I hope the motion to table will be agreed to.

I think the Sudan is important. I don't think it is as important right now, to be honest with you, as the projects the Senator from West Virginia cuts out: Iraqi national community network, maximum security prisons, traffic police, water pipelines, treatment plants, on and on. These are cut out so we can send money to the Sudan.

We have taken a long time here. Our colleagues are getting restless in their offices all over the Capitol. I don't want to continue this. We have a difference of opinion as to this amendment and to how the money should be spent. But to take money from Iraq and send it to Fort Monroe, VA, which is a worthy cause, is not appropriate for the way this bill was designed.

Mr. President, is there 2 minutes?

I thank the Senator.

I thank you, Mr. President.

Amendment No. 1885, As Modified

Mr. President, I want to speak on the Brownback amendment. It will be the last signal that we send before final passage.

My colleagues should know that it diverts $450 million out of Iraq into what are largely unspecified projects. It ignores the fact that the reconstruction of Iraq is as vital as is the defense of Iraq and the military portion of it.

Basically, the sponsor of the amendment has decided what is necessary and what is not necessary to be allocated to Iraq, whether it be housing or other programs that have been deemed necessary by the administration, and decided that $450 million would go to Afghanistan and to Liberia.

So the fact is, this is another micromanagement amendment, point No. 1. No. 2, it ignores the fact that the reconstruction of Iraq is equally as vital as the military side of it.

There are some provisions that I do not particularly agree with, but the fact is, these have been scrutinized, and I believe it would be a terrible mistake to divert this money from the

projects for which they are intended. The Appropriations Committee had hearings and discussion with the administration and with Ambassador Bremer.

This amendment is not very much different from the Byrd-Biden amendment which the Senate decided not to accept some time ago.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the part of my colleagues on this amendment.

Mr. President, I share Senator Mikulski's commitment to the U.S. Naval Academy, and I greatly appreciate her outstanding leadership in addressing all matters that concern the health and welfare of midshipmen, especially in this matter of the serious damage which occurred at the Academy. I join her in seeking assurances from the Appropriations Committee and the Department of Defense that the funding provided by Chairman Warner's Amendment will include funding to fully meet the needs of the Naval Academy to recover from Hurricane Isabel. Admiral Rempt, the Superintendent of the Naval Academy, and Mullen, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, are still determining the extent of the damage and its total costs caused by the hurricane. According to ADMs Rempt and Mullen, there may be additional resources that may be required to relocate the Chiller Plant which provides critical heating and air conditioning and was seriously damaged by the floods from Hurricane Isabel. I thank Senator Mikulski for her leadership in this matter.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. President, I say to my friend from Virginia that perhaps we should for a moment discuss what happened yesterday and what we are trying to do under the leadership and initiation of Senator McConnell.

Yesterday there was, as part of the $87 billion assistance package to Iraq, an amendment that was proposed which would have bestowed a specific decoration on those who fought in the Iraqi conflict. There was a provision also that prohibited others, those eligible for that medal, from being eligible for other decorations, as I understood it. Then that provision was voluntarily removed by the sponsor of the amendment. I ask my friend, isn't it a little appropriate to remember what happened?

On March 12, 2003--that was a number of months ago--the President of the United States, by Executive order, which is the proper and accepted methodology for this kind of designation of awards, established the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal to be awarded to service members who serve in military operations to combat terrorism on or after September 11, 2001, including, but not limited to, actions in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, in such locations as Afghanistan, Iraq, the Republic of the Philippines, and elsewhere in Southwest Asia, in recognition of sacrifice and contribution.

In addition to that, in that same Executive order, the President established the service medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal recognizing service in Operation Noble Eagle and the homeland defense mission against further terrorist attacks--for example, military duties here domestically--in providing security and much- needed service here.

In other words, isn't it the Senator's understanding there were two medals? That by Executive order, following the advice of senior military and civilian defense leaders, President Bush established two different medals for men and

women who have engaged in the war on terrorism since September 11?

I guess what I see coming from my colleague is, if we are going to make a specific award for Iraq, shouldn't the same award be bestowed in Afghanistan? In other words, in other areas? Wouldn't, at least in the President's Executive order, the expeditionary medal and the service medal cover service literally globally? I think we might have difficulty if you gave a specific medal for Iraq, which was a dangerous mission which entailed the loss and injury of brave young Americans, but also Afghanistan is being left out. I think that was the point the Senator from Virginia and I were trying to make yesterday.

Could I also point out to my colleague, this was also an argument, I think he would agree with me, to allow the executive branch to act in what has been, frankly, the executive branch's area of responsibility, and that is the designation of service medals, expeditionary medals, et cetera, including, by the way, higher awards which would be bestowed for acts of heroism and courage no matter where they fall. This is not the only medal of recognition available for a lot of these young men. But when we get into a bill which is legislation that is for the reconstruction of Iraq, and all of a sudden we come up with a great idea to designate a medal, we have to think these things through.

The Senator from Virginia is the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Was this issue ever raised in the Armed Services Committee?

Again, I know the Senator from Virginia shares my admiration and appreciation for the Senator from New Mexico who proposed this amendment. In a good-faith effort, he wanted to recognize the service and sacrifice of those who had served. I appreciate that. But I would also caution my colleagues that it is probably best to explore what has been done and also what should be done by the committees of jurisdiction. Otherwise, we should not have committees of jurisdiction; we should all just come to the floor with our ideas as to how best to address issues.

I think the Armed Services Committee has a reputation, as one of the oldest committees in the Senate, of never shirking in its duty to address issues, including ones such as these.

Again, I thank the Senator from New Mexico for his desire and motivation to honor these brave young people.

I say to my friend, President Bush signed this Executive order on March 12. The way I count, that is 7 months ago. I am deeply disturbed that the Secretary of Defense has not acted to implement these regulations. I would like to tell my friend from Virginia that I still have people who work over in the Pentagon, who provide me from time to time with information--usually anonymously, for obvious reasons--but I have been told that these regulations have been on Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz's desk for 3\1/2\ weeks. That is not right. I know the Deputy Secretary of Defense is busy and I know the Secretary of Defense is busy, but I think we have every right to expect immediate action on this so that these men and women can go about receiving this recognition because they cannot until these papers are signed.

I yield to my friend from Virginia.

Could I mention to my friend from Virginia, too, as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, perhaps we should look at whether individual medals should be given for operations in Iraq, and perhaps individual decorations should be given for the conflict in Afghanistan, as two prime examples. Perhaps it is not sufficient to just have an expeditionary medal and a service medal.

I had hoped that if we had acted in order to separate those two conflicts from others, we would get input from the Secretary of Defense, that there would be proper consultation and hearing and scrutiny before the Senate Armed Services Committee before we acted.

I think the Senator from Virginia pointed out that if we only gave an Iraqi freedom medal, what about those in Afghanistan? Is there an Afghanistan freedom medal, too? No, that was not part of the proposal yesterday. That is why these things with noble motivation have to be thought through. I hope that with this sense-of-the-Senate resolution, which we will all vote on, we will send a message that we are all in support of the incredible importance of recognizing the service and sacrifice of the young men and women of our Armed Forces today.

Mr. President, I say to my good friend he fails to mention that I served under the distinguished Senator from Virginia when he held the position of Secretary of the Navy. I might say I served way under. Given the chain of command, there were probably at least seven or eight individuals who separated the two of us, but I certainly appreciate the honor and pleasure of having served under then-Secretary of the Navy Warner. I have appreciated the relationship we have enjoyed in the intervening 30 years.

I do not think I was ever considered for that.

If it was up to a vote of our colleagues, I doubt I would be eligible today.

I note the presence of the Senator from New Mexico. I hope he was able to hear our remarks concerning our appreciation for his motivation to honor these young men and women who have served and sacrificed. We look forward to and anticipate we will continue working together on this worthy cause.

I yield the floor.

Is it true----

Is it true that we had a 97-to-0 vote on the Byrd amendment, as I recall?

I thank my colleague.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I congratulate all of my colleagues on a very important and well- conducted debate.

I strongly oppose the Bayh amendment because its enactment would undermine the central purpose of our mission in Iraq, which is to empower the Iraqi people to build a prosperous and secure future in which their country's natural resources support progressive government and economic prosperity, not additional debt payments to rich Western powers.

I oppose the amendment because I believe decisions on how to finance Iraq's reconstruction should be made in Washington, not in Moscow, Paris, Berlin, or Bonn, whose leaders' decisions, if this amendment were enacted, could determine what form United States assistance takes. I cannot accept the prospect that the United States, with our British allies, who liberated Iraq, would now cede our leadership on reconstructing it to Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder.

Let's talk about what is at stake. Things are not going as well in Iraq as we would hope. They are not going as poorly as some would allege. In the northern part of Iraq, in the southern part of Iraq, democracy and reconstruction are proceeding apace. As I said, things are not going as well in some parts of Iraq but they are going very well in other parts. The fact is that every few days, tragically, we lose additional American lives. This is the result primarily of a concerted effort in what we know of as the Sunni triangle, of a rare combustible mixture of ex-Baathists, criminals who were released from prison, terrorists from outside the country of Iraq who have infiltrated into the country, and former military people who really know that they will never attain their goals unless the United States is driven out of Iraq. These people have done very bad things. We know all about them. We hear about them or see them every single day.

What are they telling the people of Iraq? They are telling the people of Iraq the following: The United States of America is not on your side. The United States of America supported Saddam Hussein all during the 1980s. They propped up his regime, as a matter of fact. They turned a blind eye while he used weapons of mass destruction twice, once against the Iranians and once against his own people.

In 1991, the Americans told the people of Iraq that Saddam Hussein was on his way out the door. That turned out not to be the case. Saddam Hussein stayed in power and slaughtered thousands of people who rose up against him in places such as Basra. In the 1990s, the Iraqi economy was crippled by economic sanctions imposed by coalitions led by the United States of America, and now the United States of America is about to do what they came for, and that is to take your oil.

Now, I can rebut every single one of those arguments that these bad people are making to the people in the Sunni triangle, but, frankly, I am not there to talk to them. Nor is there much besides Al-Jazeera for them to watch.

The battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people is not over by a long shot, and the passage of this amendment will send a clear signal that the United States is really there for the oil as they alleged all along.

The Washington Post, on October 15, 2003, stated that Iraq is already burdened with $200 billion in debt. Either much of that will be forgiven, in which case the United States reconstruction loan will prove mostly symbolic, or Iraq will struggle for years under a crushing debt burden--by the way, the estimates are that the interest on that debt is as high as $6 billion or $7 billion a year--in which case, another loan only adds to the memory. To make a loan in these circumstances is like swimming out to a drowning man and handing him a 10-pound weight. That is from the Washington Post on October 15, that well-known, conservative, right-wing periodical.

I do not know who is going to volunteer to go to the donors meeting if this amendment is passed. If we go to the donors meeting and say, my dear friends, we want you to give money for Iraq but, by the way, we are only going to loan it to them, the rest of you give the money but we are going to loan it to them, I am sure there is somebody who is highly paid in the State Department who will carry out that task, but it cannot be a pleasant one because it is hypocrisy. How can we ask other countries to give money when ours is in the form of a loan?

I would like to express a little sympathy for my colleagues who support this amendment. It is tough going home when people are without jobs and the economy is still stumbling along and say, we are going to give all this money to Iraq and, by the way, I know that the local highway needs to be fixed and a bridge needs to be built. It is tough, but I want to tell my colleagues what is at stake here.

The reason these bad guys came from all of these other countries into Iraq, the reason the Muslim extremists all over the Middle East are doing everything they can to incite people against America, the reason we are seeing such fierce opposition in some quarters, is that they know that the day democracy flourishes in Iraq, their day is over. The day of the Middle East despot is gone. The day of the Muslim extremist is gone. No longer will the madrasahs, funded by the Saudis, function anymore to train people who are terrorists who will then sacrifice their lives as well as taking others'.

The seminal event since the Vietnam war in American history is now, and there has never been more at stake. We paid a very heavy price for a long time for our failure in Vietnam. We should not pay that price here because we send a signal to the Iraqi people that our commitment to democracy and freedom is somehow contingent upon their ability to pay us back a loan which will then be gauged by the willingness of other countries. Are we going to be the Blanche DuBois of loans? Are we going to be dependent upon the generosity of others? Is it going to be Mr. Chirac and Mr. Schroeder who determine whether we give money to the Iraqis?

I don't think we should. I think this has been a fine debate. I hope we will vote to turn down this amendment. I hope we will vote to maintain the commitment we made when we sent our young men and women to fight and some to die in a conflict which is important, not only to the future of the Middle East but the future of the United States of America.

I yield my time.

Mr. President, this has been a very important debate. I congratulate all who took part. This is obviously a very important and critical vote. This vote is a message to our constituents about how we feel about foreign aid. It is a message to the Iraqis about what we expect from them and what they can expect from us. It is a message to our allies about their obligations to peace in the Middle East and our willingness to meet our own.

Ultimately, this vote speaks to who we are as a nation and as a people. We won the peace. Let's win the reconstruction and democracy and freedom for the Iraqi people. I ask you to vote no on this amendment.

Mr. President, I share the view of the Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from Nebraska that we need more troops in the military. We have authorized that in the Defense authorization bill. I agree that there are specific needs in Iraq and our Guard and Reserves are overstressed. I believe this is not the appropriate vehicle. I believe it is an earmark of the $87 billion, and at this juncture it would take away from the flexibility that is necessary for the spending of this money. I hope we could address this issue in the fashion which it deserves both in Defense authorization and Defense appropriations bills.

Mr. President, none of us understands a prohibition on a concurrent award of any other medal. This is unprecedented. Never in the history of our military has the Senate or Congress mandated the awarding of one medal or the prohibiting of an awarding of another medal.

We all want to honor the men and women who have served in the military and have sacrificed. Where is it that the Senator from New Mexico gets the expertise or the knowledge to deny any medal that is judged by the leaders of the military and the President of the United States? It is very laudable to award a medal to people who served and sacrificed. Instead, the Senator from New Mexico has to complicate it to the point where the Senator from Virginia and I have to stand and say: What is this all about?

So the point is, the Senator from New Mexico complicated an otherwise straightforward issue by deciding who is in what theater of war and what the war on terrorism is about. And the Senator from New Mexico should have left it alone.

I am glad this is a bicameral legislature we have because I do not think the House of Representatives would ever agree to such a thing, nor would the leaders of our military.

I yield to the Senator from Oklahoma.

That is correct.

I say to the Senator from New Mexico, we should be able to work this out to everyone's satisfaction, but if you insist on micromanaging to the degree of where people serve and what they are eligible for, then we will never be able to honor those men and women who serve.

Why didn't the Senator from New Mexico leave this alone?

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Dorgan amendment. It is unwise and uncharacteristic of the greatness and strength of America and in many ways could increase the risk that we may cause to young Americans who are fighting in defense of freedom in Iraq and trying to help that country begin the process of democracy and a free society. It is an extremely difficult task and one which will require a long period of time.

I don't share the view of some that the situation in Iraq is bright and wonderful. I don't agree with the opinion of some others who think that things are in a very bad state. I think progress is being made. In the northern part of Iraq there is real stability. In the southern part of Iraq there is significant progress.

All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or turn on the television or radio and hear that things are not so good in some parts of the country, particularly in the area we refer to as the Sunni Triangle. Every day there is some kind of attack mounted against American troops, against installations, car bombs. Our military leaders have stated that the attacks, primarily aimed at American soldiers and installations, are becoming more and more sophisticated.

In my view--and my view is shared by many others who are more expert and more knowledgeable than I--the battle for the hearts and minds-- dare I use that phrase--in Iraq is still going on. We are winning that battle in some parts of Iraq. In other parts, it is still up for grabs.

Those who are the former Baathists, the terrorists, the extremists, this rather unusual combination of opponents of the United States and opponents of the democratization of Iraq, are echoing a similar theme: The United States is not in Iraq to free the Iraqi people. The United States is in Iraq for the oil.

That theme is being echoed and re-echoed throughout the Middle East, not just in Iraq but in every extremist Muslim madras in the Middle East, every dictatorship, in every oppressive regime that recognizes if democracy and freedom comes to Iraq, then their days are numbered, they are through, they are finished because we can prove in Iraq that democracy and a free and open society can grow and prosper anywhere in the world, including the Middle East.

Here is what they are saying. They are saying: Here is the history of the United States involvement with Iraq. All during the 1980s, the United States Government propped up Saddam Hussein and did a lot of business with him. He had a war with Iran. We took his side in the war with Iran. In 1991, in the gulf war, we defeated Saddam Hussein soundly and we told the Iraqi people that he would be gone. He wasn't gone. In fact, he went into these very same areas and slaughtered thousands of people as he reasserted his grip on power. I have seen one of the mass graves. No, Saddam Hussein, they are saying, was left in power by the United States of America and allowed to freely oppress the people of Iraq and brutally repress and murder and commit unspeakable atrocities on the Iraqi people, when the United States told the Iraqi people that he would be gone.

They are also saying: Do you know why the economic conditions in Iraq were so terrible all during the 1990s? Do you know why you have an airport out here at Basra that is in mint condition but has never been used? Because of American economic sanctions imposed through the United Nations on Iraq.

Now the United States finally overthrew Saddam Hussein and they are going to demand our oil. In return for money, they are going to take our oil, the oil which we need, we, the Iraqi people, in order to rebuild the infrastructure of our country.

Mr. President, that argument is going to gain traction in some parts of Iraq--that the United States came for the oil and now we are asking for them to pay up. If we are concerned--and I know we all are--about the lives and safety of the young men and women serving in Iraq in the military, I can tell you this will put them in greater danger. If the opponents--this unusual combination of extremists and Baathists and terrorists, and this unusual but lethal cocktail of opponents of Iraqi freedom--are given additional propaganda, then I think it is going to be obviously very harmful to our effort to democratize and free Iraq.

I ask my colleagues to consider the fact there is no possibility that the Iraqi people and government--when it comes into being--could pay back any debt in the short term. It is not possible. If we want to condition future aid at a future time on a loan, or some kind of repayment, then I think it should be discussed and debated given the climate of the times at that time. But to at this moment in time, when we still have not gained the support of the Iraqi people that we need not only to ensure further democratization and freedom of Iraq--to protect the lives of the young men and women who are serving so nobly in Iraq, let's not do it at this time. Let's reject this amendment.

I don't impugn the motives or the patriotism of the sponsors of this amendment. I think it is hard to answer to our constituents why we are spending so much money there and not getting it back. I understand that and sympathize with that argument. One of my colleagues recently talked with great emotion about the loss of jobs in his State. These are all compelling problems. But I don't see how anyone could argue coherently that, at this moment, to send the wrong signal would be the right thing to do to achieve any of those goals.

I repeat that the battle is still on for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. We are a great and generous nation. We have proven that time after time after time. I think it is time for this body to express that generosity, that commitment--which only the United States has ever really displayed--to freedom and democracy in Iraq and tell these people we are going to do everything we can to help rebuild their country, we will help them on the road to freedom and democracy, and at the end of the day, years from now, that gratitude on the part of the Iraqi people will be displayed to us in many ways, that will far exceed any benefits that might be accrued from this being some kind of a loan that would be paid back.

I hope my colleagues will understand the seriousness of this issue. It won't stop us from going about the work of securing the peace in Iraq, but it will set it back and it will send the wrong signal at the wrong time about the United States, true commitment in this country.

Mr. President, too many young Americans have already made the supreme sacrifice for us to go back on that commitment now.

I yield the floor.

I ask my friend from Wisconsin how long he will be.

I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Wisconsin be recognized for 10 minutes, and I be recognized for 15 minutes following that.

I thank my friend from Wisconsin who was here before me.

Mr. President, we have begun a debate that may ultimately be more consequential than the war debate we had in this Chamber last October, which culminated in the votes of 77 Senators authorizing the President of the United States to go to war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. A negative Senate vote last fall, before our country was committed to liberating and reconstructing Iraq, would have weakened the President's leadership and made America less secure. But a vote against reconstructing Iraq now, with 130,000 American forces on the ground, American credibility before our friends and enemies at stake, and the enormous responsibility of helping the Iraqi people rebuild their country now on our shoulders, would doom Iraq's transformation to failure, with grave consequences for the entire Middle East, and devastate American leadership in a dangerous world.

An extraordinary allied military campaign in Iraq overthrew, in 3 weeks, a Baathist regime that had ruled for three decades. Americans were rightly proud not only of our military's exemplary performance, but of the cause for which they fought: ending the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime and liberating the Iraqi people from his tyrannical rule. With their liberation came an obligation: to help them restore their devastated and demoralized country until it is stable, and secure, and free, and therefore, no longer poses a threat to its people or its neighbors. That job is not close to being done. We have not yet won the peace. And we do not have time to spare.

If we do not meaningfully improve services and security in Iraq over the next few months, it may be too late. The danger is that our failure to improve daily life, security, and Iraqis' participation in their own governance will erode their patience and fuel a minority's appeal for insurrection. We will risk an irreversible loss of Iraqi confidence and reinforce the efforts of extremists who seek our defeat and threaten Iraq's democratic future. That is why we have to pass this supplemental spending bill, urgently.

There are two fundamental errors we could make in postwar Iraq. We could stay too long, denying Iraqi sovereignty to a proud and talented people who have the human and material resources to build a progressive and modern Arab state. We cannot repeat in Iraq the example of the Balkans, where Bosnia and Kosovo remain U.N. protectorates years after our just military intervention. Few things would inflame Iraqi and Arab opinion more than a long-term United States occupation of Iraq. But America is not an imperial nation. We will leave Iraq when our job is done, and we will leave behind an Iraq that is whole, free, and at peace.

The other danger, and the greater risk, is that we leave too soon-- before basic Iraqi services are up and running, before law and order are restored, and before there is a competent, representative Iraqi government in place to answer to the Iraqi people. They key to a

timely United States withdrawal from Iraq, and for the quickest restoration of Iraqi sovereignty, is to maximize our commitment now to providing the security and services that will allow the fragile institutions of democracy to take root. A serious United States investment in Iraq's future is the only way we can leave the Iraqi people and their leaders with a functioning, progressive state that will be an example for the region and a future partner and ally of the United States.

Some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle accept that Iraq requires substantial and immediate reconstruction funding, but would provide that funding in the form of loans to be repaid to the United States or international financial institutions when the Iraqi economy is up and running again. This would gravely damage America's reputation and our support within Iraq. Asseting our claim to Iraq's oil revenues over the next 10 or 20 years would confirm the propaganda of our enemies and the suspicions of skeptics across the Arab world and closer to home: that this was a war for oil. It would also make it impossible for us to encourage countries like Russia, France, and Germany, which hold enormous levels of Iraqi debt from Saddam Hussein's era, to write off some of that debt in order to life its burden from the Iraqi people.

Seeking control, whether directly or indirectly, over Iraq's future oil revenues would condemn Iraq to be another ward of the international community by denying the Iraqi people the key to their future prosperity. By making a claim that would prevent future oil revenues from being spent by a representative Iraqi government to meet the needs of the Iraqi people, we would impede the economic development that will be key to a moderate, progressive Iraqi politics. We would make our immediate task of reconstructing and securing Iraq much more difficult, because collateralizing Iraqi oil revenues would encourage more Iraqis to believe the message of the Baathists and terrorists who oppose us: that we are in Iraq not to help the Iraqi people build a better future but to serve our own narrow ends, at their expense. Ironically, we would also make it more difficult for American forces to leave Iraq by handicapping Iraqis' ability to reconstruct their country and govern themselves. Providing reconstruction monies in the form of a loan would seriously undermine American national interests in the Middle East.

We will also debate the question of whether to divide this spending bill into military and reconstruction components. Proponents of this approach would substantially trim or vote down reconstruction funding, as if we should pay only for our troop presence in Iraq but spend little to nothing on what our troops are actually there to do: create basic security and enable restoration of services so the Iraqis can govern themselves. The reconstruction and military components of this spending request are inextricably linked. Part of the answer to the security challenges we face in Iraq is restoring basic services and empowering Iraqis to play a greater role in their own security. Voting against reconstruction funds will seriously degrade the security environment as greater numbers of frustrated Iraqis fall prey to the extremists' appeals to oppose our presence, putting our troops in greater danger and imperiling their core mission of stabilizing Iraq.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, I asked Ambassador Paul Bremer what would happen if Congress did not pass the reconstruction portion of the President's supplemental spending request. Here is his response: ``Well, it would be directly contrary to American's interest--obviously, it would be contrary to the Iraqi people's interest, but it would be contrary to our interest, because it would create a situation of much greater insecurity. I think we would find more of the population turning against us. I think we would find more attacks on coalition forces. Eventually, Iraq would . . . recede into a situation of chaos, not dissimilar from what was experienced in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s, and we would find another breeding ground for terrorists. So I think it's a rather grim outlook.''

I would encourage my colleagues who may be considering efforts to split this bill into military and reconstruction components in order to decrease or vote down reconstruction funding to contemplate the prospect of the kind of state collapse and civil war that destroyed Lebanon happening in Iraq as a result of our own shortsightedness.

The Senate will also consider proposals to reduce tax cuts for the wealthy in order to pay for Iraqi reconstruction. I voted against the President's tax cut package in 2003, in part because the costs of this war and its aftermath were unknown at the time. But given what is at stake for the Iraqi people and for America's national interest, I cannot support proposals to raise taxes to fund our mission in Iraq. Such proposals, if not linked to the Iraq supplemental, would have merit, but were they to pass as part of this package they would endanger its passage, transforming a domestic political dispute into what would quickly become a foreign policy defeat. Our success in Iraq is too important to take that chance.

This bill is not perfect. I intend to offer an amendment to provide for regular auditing of the Coalition Provisional authority's budget, and I suspect the Senate will add additional reporting requirements to better inform us about how reconstruction money is being spent. But given the urgency of our mission in Iraq, I intend to strongly support the President's budget request, oppose all amendments that could endanger its passage, and do everything I can to see that the United States honors the commitment we have entered into to help the Iraqi people stand up a legitimate, representative government that does not threaten them or their neighbors, and that is a force for good in a dangerous region.

Every so often in this Chamber, we deal with an issue of such gravity that it transcends partisan divisions. Providing for Iraq's democratic future should be such an issue. I encourage my colleagues to gauge carefully the broader national interest, as we conduct what I hope is a civilized and high-minded debate. To a large extent, or choices will determine the success or failure of what I believe to be the most important foreign policy challenge in a generation.

Failure to make the necessary political and financial commitment to build the new Iraq could endanger American leadership in the world, empower our enemies, and condemn Iraqis to renewed tyranny. We must act urgently to transform our military success into political victory. Passage of these supplemental funds will move us meaningfully towards that goal. Stripping reconstruction aid or providing it in the form of a loan that will incite Iraqi and Arab hostility against us will only make the job of our service men and women in Iraq harder and could doom them to failure. After all their sacrifice, and in light of the potential a free and stable Iraq holds for the future of the Middle east and America's position in the world, it would be disgraceful to turn our backs now.

Iraq's transformation into a progressive Arab state could set the region that produced Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, and al-Qaida on a new course in which democratic expression and economic prosperity, rather than a radicalizing mix of humiliation, poverty, and repression, define a new modernity in the Muslim world that does not express itself in ways that threaten its people or other nations. Conversely, a forced United States retreat from Iraq would be the most serious American defeat on the global stage since Vietnam. I don't make that statement lightly. I repeat: A forced United States retreat from Iraq would be the most serious American defeat on the global stage since Vietnam.

Our mission in Iraq is too important to fail. But it is winnable, because an Iraqi majority shares our vision of a free and progressive Iraq. Our national interest demands that we help them realize this goal.

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