Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I rise to honor a great naval officer and a true friend. Yesterday, VADM William ``Bill'' Douglas Houser, USN, Retired, was buried with full military

honors at Arlington National Cemetery. His was a life spent in service to our great country and its Navy and sailors.

An Atlanta native, Admiral Houser entered the Naval Academy in 1938 at the age of 16, as part of the class of 1942. He was commissioned early with his class in 1941, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. During World War II, he served for 3 years as a deck officer aboard the USS Nashville, which saw combat in the battle for Guadalcanal, raids on the Marcus and Wake Islands, and operations around Leyte and Luzon in the Philippines. In 1945, Admiral Houser entered flight training and was designated a naval aviator the following year. He saw combat in Korea as commanding officer of Fighter Squadron 44 and during the Vietnam War as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation. Other commands-at-sea included Fighter Squadron 124, the USS Mauna Loa, and Carrier Division TWO as a flag officer.

Ashore, Admiral Houser served on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1960 to 1962 and again from 1967 to 1968 as Director, Strategic Plans Division. He was the Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1962 through 1963; a member of the staff of the National Security Council in 1965; and Director of Aviation Plans and Requirements for the U.S. Navy from 1968 through 1970. He was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1972 and served his last tour of duty from 1972 to 1976 as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare, where he was responsible for all Naval aviation matters. Admiral Houser said that his most satisfying accomplishment as Deputy Chief was saving the F-14 fighter from cancellation.

Admiral Houser received numerous medals and decorations while on Active Duty. They include the Distinguished Service Medal, two awards; the Legion of Merit, four awards; the Bronze Star with Combat V; and the Air Medal, two awards. In retirement, he was also honored to receive the prestigious U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association Distinguished Graduate Award in 2003.

After retirement from the Navy, Admiral Houser went on to a successful career in the telecommunications industry, working for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Communications Satellite Corporation, and Com21, among others. But he always remained dedicated to the Navy he so loved. He served as a trustee of the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation for 30 years. He served on the International Midway Memorial Foundation and helped establish the annual Navy Midway Dinner. He spearheaded the creation of a Midway Memorial in the yard of the U.S. Naval Academy.

Beyond all his accomplishments, Bill was a great friend. When I returned home from prison in Vietnam, he was instrumental in helping me return to flying status. I remain forever indebted to him for his support and assistance.

Bill passed away on February 5, 2012, and is survived by his wife Jan; his 3 daughters, Cindy, Gayle, and Francie; his 2 stepdaughters, Karla and Louise; 11 grandchildren; and 1 great-granddaughter. President John F. Kennedy once said, ``Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, `I served in the United States Navy.''' By that standard, VADM William D. Houser, USN, Retired, lived a life of immeasurable worth. God bless and Godspeed, old friend.

Mr. President, I fully support the passage of S. 3187, the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, Safety and Innovation Act. This important piece of legislation reauthorizes and establishes important user fee agreements for drugs, devices, generic drugs and biosimilar biological products. Furthermore, the bill improves the medical device approval process and modernizes FDA's global drug supply chain authority to ensure that the drug manufacturing process is safer.

The legislation also contains provisions to incentivize development of pediatric drugs and devices, spur innovation of new drug therapies for life-threatening medical conditions, mitigate drug shortages, and improve agency accountability and transparency in the drug and device approval process.

Unfortunately, Mr. President, I was necessarily absent from the Senate and, therefore, unable to cast my vote in support of this bill.

Mr. President, it is my distinct privilege to honor the outstanding men and women who have made lasting contributions to U.S. Army Intelligence over the years. On July 1, 2012, MG Gregg C. Potter, commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence and Fort Huachuca, will officially recognize the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Military Intelligence Branch and the 25th anniversary of the Military Intelligence Corps at Fort Huachuca, AZ. This is a momentous occasion, and I congratulate all Army intelligence professionals--soldiers and civilians alike--on these distinguished achievements.

Timely and accurate intelligence information has always been critical to the success of our Armed Forces on the battlefield. Across all intelligence disciplines, Army intelligence professionals have collected, analyzed, and supplied this vital information to commanders at all levels--from the tactical to the strategic. The intelligence information they supplied has directly contributed to winning our Nation's wars and to saving lives. Army Intelligence professionals have carried out this mission with great courage, devotion, and skill since we declared our independence 236 years ago. We recognize this legacy and look forward to Army intelligence's continued success and service to our country in the future.

Two critical events shaped the Military Intelligence Corps into the organization that exists today.

On July 1, 1962, the Secretary of the Army signed a general order authorizing the creation of the Army Intelligence and Security Branch. With this authorization, all Army intelligence soldiers, including regular Army and Reserve officers, were placed into a distinct branch. It ended the practice of detailing officers from other branches into intelligence positions and facilitated the professionalization of the intelligence field. By establishing a branch equal to all others, the Army recognized the critical importance of military intelligence.

On July 1, 1987, the Military Intelligence Corps was activated at Fort Huachuca. With the activation of the Corps, all Army intelligence professionals, regardless of their discipline, were symbolically bound together into one unified organization under the U.S. Army Regimental System. Since its activation, the unity of purpose and mission of the Military Intelligence Corps has remained vital to the success of the Army.

Today, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort Huachuca is the home of military intelligence. Every year, the center trains approximately 20,000 students in the intelligence field, including initial military training, professional military education courses for all ranks and intelligence specialties, mobile training teams, and foreign military students.

I am immensely proud of the men and women in the U.S. Army intelligence community. They work tirelessly to protect our Nation and deserve our deepest gratitude for the sacrifices they have made. As indicated by their motto ``Always Out Front,'' Military intelligence will remain a critical element of the readiness of our Armed Forces.

Again, congratulations on this proud occasion.

Mr. President, I came to the floor to discuss another issue. But since my friend from Illinois, with whom I share many of his comments, I have to comment. The fact is that the irony of the Supreme Court decision today said it is a Federal responsibility to ensure our borders and not the States' responsibility. The State of Arizona acted because the Federal Government wouldn't act, because our borders were broken, because the people in the southern part of our State were living in fear, because a rancher was killed by someone who had crossed our border illegally, because people are on mountaintops today guiding drug runners across our border into Arizona with drugs ending up in Phoenix, AZ, and distributed all over this Nation, $887 million wasted on a contract for a virtual fence.

Coyotes bring these people across and then treat them in the most abominable fashion, where they are put into drop houses and kept in the worst kinds of conditions and held for ransom.

Because the Federal Government would not secure our borders, the State of Arizona believed they had to act because people in the southern part of our State and even other parts of our State were living in fear. They are living in fear because of the drug dealers who are coming across, because of the coyotes who are mistreating the people they were bringing.

Of course we want to address the issue of children who weren't born here. But we also have an obligation to have our borders secured. I repeat--today, I say to my friend from Illinois--there are people sitting on mountaintops hired by the drug cartels who are guiding the drug runners across our borders and up to Phoenix. You can ask the DEA. These drugs are then distributed throughout the country from Phoenix, AZ. People are murdered, and the violence on the other side of the border threatens every day to spill over to our side of the border. So I hope, as a result of this decision, the administration will get serious about actually securing our border. Every expert agrees that because of the work that has been done in California and Texas it has funneled through the State of Arizona.

Have there been improvements? Of course there have been improvements. Is it still going on? As long as we have guides sitting on mountaintops guiding drug dealers, we haven't got a secure border. That is what the people of Arizona not only want but they also deserve.

By the way, Mitt Romney agrees that we have to address this issue in a comprehensive fashion as well as concern about the plight of the children who are brought here illegally. But I would also point out to my friend that part of the DREAM Act, as proposed by the Senator from Illinois, is 2 years' service in the military. We don't sign people up for 2 years. Average citizens, in order to get on a path to a green card and citizenship, sign up for 4 years. That is just one of the areas that need to be worked out.

So there will be a lot of conversation about this. But I believe people who live inside of our country--no matter whether it is in Arizona or Illinois--deserve the right to live in a safe environment. The people who live in the southern part of our State do not have that.

So I hope we can get our borders secure and we can move forward with comprehensive immigration.

By the way, then-Senator Obama was one of the key reasons it failed because he wanted to sunset the guest worker program. That is a fact, and you can look it up, I say to my friend from Illinois. Although it was killed by people on this side, it was also a broken promise on the part of then-Senator Obama who assured Senator Kennedy and me that he wouldn't vote for an amendment that would impair the progress of comprehensive reform at that time.

I look forward to having further discussions with the Senator from Illinois as we move forward--sooner or later--with comprehensive immigration reform, which is absolutely needed. But we also have to ensure the security of all of our citizens and stop the flow of drugs across our southern border, which is killing our young Americans.

By the way, I would say to the Senator from Illinois, the price of an ounce of cocaine on the streets of Chicago today is not one less penny higher than it was 10 years ago, which means we are not restricting the flow of drugs coming into our country. As we all know, the majority of it comes across from our southern border.

Finally, I would remind my friend from Illinois that then-Senator Obama promised in the campaign of 2008 that immigration reform would be his first priority. The Senator had 60 votes over here and an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives in the first 2 years of the Obama administration. I never saw a proposal come to the Senate for comprehensive immigration reform. Now, the DREAM Act did. Comprehensive immigration reform? No. That is what then-Senator Obama promised.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for a colloquy between myself and the Senator from Illinois.

I don't dispute that point, I say to my friend from Illinois. There was no comprehensive immigration reform proposal that came over from the White House or from the Democrats, as was promised by then-Senator Obama when running for the Presidency. That is a fact.

I wish that when then-Senator Obama was running for President he would have said: But first I am coming over with the DREAM Act. He didn't. He said: My first act will be comprehensive immigration reform.

I was invited over to the White House in 2009. We talked about comprehensive immigration reform and I said: I will await a proposal from the administration on comprehensive immigration reform. My phone never rang.

I look forward to it, and I want to say there has been no more passionate advocate in the Senate than the Senator from Illinois. I respect him and admire him for his compassion and his concern about young people whose lives, as he very well described, need to have some kind of assurance for their future since it is clearly a compelling humanitarian situation. I thank my friend from Illinois.

Health Care Ruling

Mr. President, later this week the Supreme Court will issue its ruling on the health care bill, designed and negotiated by the White House and rammed through Congress during President Obama's first year in office when the economy was near its weakest.

Instead of focusing on recovery and persistent unemployment, the President and the Democratic majorities controlling Congress squandered the opportunity and forced the unpopular and potentially unconstitutional legislation on the American people.

Today we are voting on final passage on the reconciled FDA user fee bill. During Senate consideration of this bill I offered an amendment to allow safe drug importation from legitimate

Canadian pharmacies. But the pharmaceutical industry spread misleading and inaccurate information about the amendment, as they have done time and a time again. As I said then, there is no greater example of the influence of special interests on this body than the failure to enact an amendment that would have allowed drugs from legitimate Canadian pharmacies so people could purchase their much needed medication at sometimes half the cost of what it is in the United States of America. I am embarrassed to this day that nine of my Republican colleagues also voted against it.

I don't know if there was a sweetheart deal to protect PhRMA at the expense of American patients from the vote on my amendment. But we do know that PhRMA was protected by the White House and Senate Democrats from provisions they didn't like in ObamaCare only after they offered up advertising in exchange for more accommodating policies.

From a recent House Energy and Commerce Committee investigation, it is now confirmed that PhRMA orchestrated a grand deal with the White House and Senate Democrats to oppose importation and other policies. I might point out then-Senator Obama supported drug importation.

This is how the New York Times described the deal that was done in exchange for reportedly $150 million in advertising to support ObamaCare, June 8, 2012:

After weeks of quiet talks, drug industry lobbyists were

growing nervous. If they were to cut a deal with the White

House on overhauling health care, they needed to be sure

President Obama would stop a proposal by his liberal allies

intended to bring down medicine prices.

On June 3, 2009, one of the lobbyists e-mailed Nancy-Ann

DeParle, the president's top health care adviser. Ms. DeParle

sent a message back reassuring the lobbyists. Although Mr.

Obama was overseas, she wrote, she and other top officials

had ``made a decision, based on how constructive you guys

have been, to oppose importation on the bill.'' Just like

that, Mr. Obama's staff abandoned his support for the

reimportation of prescription medicines at lower prices and

with it solidified a growing compact with an industry he had

vilified on the campaign trail the year before.

A president who had promised to air negotiations on C-SPAN

cut a closed-door deal with the powerful pharmaceutical

lobby, signifying to some disillusioned liberal supporters a

loss of innocence, or perhaps even the triumph of cynicism.

Still, what distinguishes the Obama-industry deal is that

he had so strongly rejected that very sort of business as

usual.

Ironically, candidate Obama sang a very different tune on the campaign trail in 2008:

You know, I don't want to learn how to play the game

better. I want to put an end to the game playing.

Now, PhRMA is the lobbying group for the pharmaceutical industry. The New York Times article continued:

The e-mails, which the House committee obtained from PhRMA

and other groups, document a tumultuous negotiation, at times

transactional. . . .

In the end, the White House got the support it needed to

pass its broader priority, but industry emerged satisfied as

well. ``We got a deal,'' wrote Bryant Hall, then senior vice

president of the pharmaceutical group.

In July, the White House made clear that it wanted

supportive ads using the same characters the industry used to

defeat Mr. Clinton's proposal 15 years earlier. ``Rahm asked

for Harry and Louise ads thru third party,'' Mr. Hall

wrote.''

Talks came close to breaking down several times. In May,

the White House was upset that the industry had not signed

onto a joint statement. One industry official wrote that they

should sign: ``Rahm is already furious. The ire will be

turned on us.''

The e-mails also detail extensive and direct negotiations with PhRMA, its drug company members, the American Medical Association, AARP, the American Hospital Association, unions, and many more. Members of the alliance all participated because they thought they were getting something more valuable--revenue to their organization or membership because the Federal Government was going to force everyone into some form of government-designed health insurance coverage--than what they were going to have to spend on advertising to support the legislation. Some reports have the PhRMA advertising commitment as high as $150 million, spread out through direct advertising in certain important States and among groups created to sound like they were looking out for patients or to tout the economic benefits of ObamaCare.

On June 11, 2012, the Wall Street Journal described the e-mails about the 2009 negotiations:

The joint venture was forged in secret in spring of 2009

amid an uneasy mix of menace and opportunism. The drug makers

worried that health-care reform would revert to the liberal

default of price controls and drug re-importation that Mr.

Obama campaigned on, but they also understood that a new

entitlement could be a windfall as taxpayers bought more of

their products. . . .

Initially, the Obamateers and Senate Finance Chairman Max

Baucus asked for $100 billion, 90% of it from mandatory

``rebates'' through the Medicare prescription drug benefit

like those that are imposed in Medicaid. The drug makers

wheedled them down to $80 billion by offsetting cost-sharing

for seniors on Medicare, in an explicit quid pro quo for

protection against such rebates and re-importation.

``Terms were reached in June. . .lead PhRMA negotiator

Bryant Hall wrote on June 12 that Mr. Obama ``knows

personally about our deal and is pushing no agenda.''

But Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman then

announced that he was pocketing PhRMA's concessions and

demanding more, including re-importation. We wrote about the

double-cross in a July 16, 2009 editorial called ``Big Pharma

Gets Played,'' noting that Mr. Tauzin's ``corporate clients

and their shareholders may soon pay for his attempt to get

cozy with ObamaCare.''

Mr. Hall forwarded the piece to Ms. DeParle with the

subject line, ``This sucks.'' The White House rode to the

rescue. In September Mr. Hall informed Mr. Kindler that

deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina ``is working on

some very explicit language on importation to kill it in

health care reform. This has to stay quiet.''

``PhRMA more than repaid the favor, with a $150 million

advertising campaign coordinated with the White House

political shop. As one of Mr. Hall's deputies put it earlier

in the minutes of a meeting when the deal was being

negotiated, ``The WHdesignated folks . . . would like us to

start to define what 'consensus health care reform' means,

and what it might include. . . . They definitely want us in

the game and on the same side.''

More on the ``WH-designated folks . . .'' in a moment. The June 11 WSJ editorial continued:

In particular, the drug lobby would spend $70 million on

two 501(c)(4) front groups called Healthy Economy Now and

Americans for Stable Quality Care. In July, Mr. Hall wrote

that ``Rahm asked for Harry and Louise ads thru third party.

We've already contacted the agent.

Other groups like the AMA were also willing to commit their membership dollars to advertising in support of the legislation in exchange for their policy priorities. According to the Wall Street Journal:

``At least PhRM/I deserves backhanded credit for the

competence of its political operatives--unlike, say, the

American Medical Association. A thread running through the

emails is a hapless AMA lobbyist importuning Ms. DeParle and

Mr. Messina for face-to-face meetings to discuss reforming

the Medicare physician payment formula. The AMA supported

ObamaCare in return for this ``doc fix,'' which it never got.

``We are running out of time,'' this lobbyist, Richard

Deem, writes in October 2009. How can he ``tell my colleagues

at AMA headquarters to proceed with $2m TV buy'' without a

permanent fix? The question answers itself: It was only $2

million.''

The emails uncovered by the House committee also describe potentially serious conflicts of interest for senior White House staff, their former businesses, who was really writing the legislation--the White House, Congress or affected industries--and questions about the appearance of the White House staff orchestrating the outside advertising campaign. On June 21, 2012 the Wall Street Journal further reported on the 2009 secret deals:

Strassel: Axelrod's ObamaCare Dollars

(By Kimberly A. Strassel)

Rewind to 2009. The fight over ObamaCare is raging, and a

few news outlets report that something looks ethically rotten

in the White House. An outside group funded by industry is

paying the former firm of senior presidential adviser David

Axelrod to run ads in favor of the bill. That firm, AKPD

Message and Media, still owes Mr. Axelrod money and employs

his son.

The story quickly died, but emails recently released by the

House Energy and Commerce Committee ought to resurrect it.

The emails suggest the White House was intimately involved

both in creating this lobby and hiring Mr. Axelrod's firm--

which is as big an ethical no-no as it gets.

Mr. Axelrod--who left the White House last year--started

AKPD in 1985. Mr. Axelrod moved to the White House in 2009

and agreed to have AKPD buy him out for $2 million. But AKPD

chose to pay Mr. Axelrod in annual installments--even as he

worked in the West Wing.

The White House and industry were working hand-in-glove to

pass ObamaCare in 2009, and among the vehicles supplying ad

support was an outfit named Healthy Economy Now (HEN).

House emails show HEN was in fact born at an April 15, 2009

meeting arranged by then-White House aide Jim Messina and a

chief of staff for Democratic Sen. Max Baucus. The

two politicos met at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign

Committee (DSCC) and invited representatives of business and

labor.

The call was from Nick Baldick, a Democratic consultant who

had worked on the Obama campaign and for the DSCC. Mr.

Baldick started HEN. The only job of PhRMA and others was to

fund it.

Meanwhile, Mr. Axelrod's old firm was hired to run the ads

promoting ObamaCare. At the time, a HEN spokesman said HEN

had done the hiring. But the emails suggest otherwise. In

email after email, the contributors to HEN refer to four men

as the ``White House'' team running health care.

In one email, PhRMA consultant Steve McMahon calls these

four the ``WH-designated folks.'' He explains to colleagues

that Messrs. Grossman, Grisolano and Del Cecato ``are very

close to Axelrod,'' and that ``they have been put in charge

of the campaign to pass health reform.''

A 2009 PhRMA memo also makes clear that AKPD had been

chosen before PhRMA joined HEN. It's also clear that some

contributors didn't like the conflict of interest. When, in

July 2009, a media outlet prepared to report AKPD's hiring, a

PhRMA participant said: ``This is a big problem.'' Mr.

Baldick advises: ``just say, AKPD is not working for PhRMA.''

AKPD and another firm, GMMB, would handle $12 million in ad

business from HEN and work for a successor 501(c)4.

A basic rule of White House ethics is to avoid even the

appearance of self-dealing or nepotism. Could you imagine the

press frenzy if Karl Rove had done the same after he joined

the White House?

Until the White House explains all this, voters can fairly

conclude that the President's political team took their

Chicago brand of ethics into the White House.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a New York Times article, June 8, 2012; a Wall Street Journal article, June 11, 2012; and June 21 Wall Street Journal editorial, and the memos about the e-mails associated with this report.

Mr. President, I know my other colleagues are waiting to speak, but last month when we voted down this amendment to allow drug reimportation from pharmacies that are accredited by both the Canadian and American Governments, my statement was, and I will repeat it:

In a normal world, this would probably require a voice

vote. But what we are about to see is the incredible

influence of the special interests, particularly PhRMA, here

in Washington.

What you are about to see [as I predicted just before the

vote] is the reason for the cynicism the American people have

about the way we do business in Washington. PhRMA--one of the

most powerful lobbies in Washington--will exert its influence

again at the expense of average low-income Americans who

will, again, have to choose between medication and eating.

In response the Senator from New Jersey said, in opposition to my amendment:

It is not the special interests that have caused the Senate

countless times to reject this policy. . . . .

This is about the health and security of the American

people. That is why time after time the Senate has rejected

it. It is why it should be rejected once again.

He was correct. It was rejected. The American people were rejected in favor of one of the most powerful special interest lobbies in Washington and it is a shame.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I could not support Senate passage of S. 3240, the ``2012 Farm Bill.'' CBO estimates the Senate's Farm Bill will consume a colossal amount of taxpayer dollars--at least $966 billion over 10 years. While I agree that we need nutrition programs to assist low-income families as well as programs to ensure farmers receive a fair return on their labors, the fact remains we are living in an era of crushing national debt and runaway government spending. Ultimately, the American people, both farmers and consumers, lose under this bill.

Farm Bill programs are ripe for reform. Unfortunately, we rejected amendments to fix USDA's sugar programs which cost American consumers $3 billion annually in artificially high sugar prices. We created several new so-called ``shallow-loss'' subsidy programs, which could balloon to $14 billion each year if crop prices drop from today's record high levels and return to average prices. We implemented a new $3 billion cotton program that may exacerbate our ongoing trade dispute at the World Trade Organization. We could have eliminated the outdated mohair subsidies, but didn't, and wound up creating several new and unnecessary subsidy programs for products like popcorn and maple syrup. We've made some progress on imposing stricter payment limits on subsidies and we eliminated wasteful and duplicative USDA programs like the Catfish Inspection Office. Unfortunately, much more remains to be fixed in the Senate's farm bill before I could support it.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on an amendment I have introduced--with a dozen cosponsors to require the Secretary of Defense to provide to Congress a detailed

report by August 15, 2012, on the impacts on national security of the automatic budget cuts, also known as sequestration. These cuts will be imposed upon the Defense Department 6 months from now unless Congress acts.

My amendment makes no changes to the Budget Control Act and should be non-controversial. It simply requires the Secretary of Defense to detail for us the implications of these cuts so that we may consider legislative options. My colleagues are well aware of how budget sequestration became the law of the land, of the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, and of the enforcement mechanism of automatic cuts. But none of us fully understand the specific consequences of the across-the-board spending reductions should they be triggered on January 2, 2013.

We know from statements and testimony from the Secretary of Defense and high-ranking DOD and military officials that the impact of sequestration on the Department of Defense would be disastrous. I need not remind my colleagues that one of government's foundational responsibilities is to defend the Nation. Our constituents entrust us to do so. Allowing budget sequestration to occur in the Department of Defense would dramatically increase risk to our national security and undermine our ability to protect our interests at home and abroad.

I agree that our current fiscal climate demands that we reduce annual deficits and pay down the massive Federal debt. I also recognize that the demands placed on our Armed Forces are beginning to diminish at least insofar as current operations in Afghanistan are concerned. The administration and the Congress have acknowledged as much, reducing war funding by almost half since 2011. The President's withdrawal plan for Afghanistan will reduce that funding need even further. In addition, the President has already put in place a plan to cut the defense budget by $487 billion over the next 9 years.

I have reluctantly supported these planned cuts in the interest of deficit reduction, and we have scrutinized their impact on the Armed Forces. Many of my colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee joined me in expressing concerns to the Secretary of Defense about significant troop reductions in the Army and Marine Corps, major program curtailments, and proposed base closures.

Army Chief of Staff GEN Odierno told us that his service could perform its mission with 80,000 fewer troops. Commandant of the Marine Corps General Amos echoed those sentiments when describing his plan to reduce by 20,000 marines. My point is that the Department of Defense has already undertaken major budget reductions which will impact our forces for a decade or longer. While I do not agree with every reduction proposed by the administration, I acknowledge that we all need to tighten our belts and that the Defense Department is not sacrosanct.

It is in the context of the nearly $\1/2\ trillion of reductions that have already been levied against the Defense Department that we should consider the impact of additional automatic budget cuts. Budget sequestration would cancel an additional $\1/2\ trillion from the defense budget and would do so in a thoroughly arbitrary and destructive way. It is one thing for the Department to make planned reductions to troops, equipment, training, and operations, and to keep these reductions synchronized; it is quite another to apply an across- the-board percentage reduction to every defense program. The law does not provide flexibility; it dictates that budget sequestration must be applied in equal percentages to each ``program, project, and activity.'' That means equal percentage cuts in every research project, weapons program, and military construction project. Assuming military personnel accounts are exempted, we understand that cut to be about 14 percent. A 14-percent cut in a military construction project would render it unexecutable. How can you buy 86 percent of a building or 86 percent of an aircraft carrier? This is the danger of sequestration. The law mandates that cuts be taken equally across every budget line. It is absolutely senseless and will have enormous primary and secondary effects.

As an example, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of contracts for services and equipment will have to be renegotiated. Contracts with specific delivery quantities will have to be rewritten to reduce the quantities, which will increase the cost per unit to the government. More likely, management decisions will be taken out of the hands of managers and put into the hands of lawyers, as companies sue the government for breach of contract and termination costs. Legal proceedings could stretch out over years, at enormous expense to the taxpayer. ``Savings'' from budget sequestration would be consumed by the cost of implementing it. Maybe we should think of sequester as an earmark for lawyers.

Beyond the cost of implementing a dysfunctional system for budget cutting, the impact of sequestration on the capability of the Armed Forces would needlessly increase risk to national security. I am very concerned about the recent decision by the administration to apply sequestration to accounts supporting our military operations in Afghanistan. In November 2011, I was assured by the Secretary of Defense that this account would not directly be affected. Now, the Department is conceding that funds we are using to defeat our enemies and to build a secure and self-sufficient Afghanistan will be subject to immediate reductions. Despite this potentially grave risk to our military forces engaged in combat, the Department cannot tell me with any assurance to what extent our deployed forces will be affected. We must have a detailed assessment of the impact of these mandatory cuts to the support of our forces engaged in hostilities on behalf of our Nation.

We know that the President has decided to exempt veterans programs from budget sequestration but to include war funding under sequester. This demonstrates that the administration is actively deliberating the implementation of the Budget Control Act, which makes it all the more surprising that the President is reluctant to provide even a preliminary estimate of the impact of sequestration. If the President is making decisions regarding sequestration, why not reveal the impacts to Congress and the public?

The leaders of the Department of Defense have consistently stated that threats to the national security of the United States have increased, not decreased. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that these automatic reductions would ``inflict severe damage to our national defense for generations.''

General Odierno testified that sequestration would force the Army to cut an additional 100,000 troops, half of which would come from the Guard and Reserve on top of the 80,000 soldiers already planned to be separated from service. General Odierno stated that the damaging effects of sequestration would force the Army to ``fundamentally re- look [at] how we do national security.''

The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Greenert, testified that the Navy fleet would shrink from 285 ships to 230 to 235 ships, well below the 313 ships the Navy has said it requires. The Navy will be forced to absorb a cut equivalent to the entire annual shipbuilding budget. According to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, ``The force that comes out of sequestration is not the force that can support the current [defense] strategy.''

Chief of Staff of the Air Force GEN Schwartz testified that sequestration ``would slash all of our investment accounts, including our top priority modernization program such as the KC-46 tanker, the F- 35 Joint Strike Fighter, the MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft, and the future long-range strike bomber.''

We would be left with a much more expensive, much less capable national defense program.

The irony in all this is that defense spending is not the reason we are in a fiscal mess. The United States spends about 20 percent of its annual budget on national defense. Since one of the principal responsibilities of government is to protect the Nation, I consider this amount to be quite modest. The real driver of our national debt is mandatory spending, which consumes 58 percent of the annual budget and is projected by the Office of Management and Budget to be over 62 percent by 2017--growth of almost a percentage point per year. However, under budget sequestration, half of the total amount of cuts would be levied from defense and the other half from all other government programs. Let me repeat that.

Defense is 20 percent of the budget but will take 50 percent of the cuts. It simply doesn't make sense.

In addition, these cuts will impact jobs in the defense industry as well as countless counties and towns around the country at a time when millions of Americans are still seeking employment. I appreciate the work of my friend Senator Ayotte to bring this issue of industrial and economic impact to the forefront.

We must receive a clear assessment from the Department on the extent of the risk to our military operations in Afghanistan, to our military programs, and to readiness here at home if the automatic cuts are allowed to occur. Only when we have a clear picture of the impact of current law will we be able to consider alternatives to sequestration that reduce the deficit but do not imperil our Nation's security.

Some have suggested that the Congress wait until after the election to address possible alternatives to sequestration. Mr. President, we all know that nothing good happens in a lameduck session. We cannot wait for an election to muster the courage to make difficult budget decisions. This amendment to the farm bill is meant to inform the debate about the perils we face if we do not take action.

I thank my colleague from Washington, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the last 2 weeks several Members of this body and I have raised serious concerns about a series of leaks that recently appeared in several publications concerning certain military and intelligence activities--activities the authors themselves cite as among the Nation's most highly classified and sensitive. These enormously troubling leaks have raised concerns amongst both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, including leaders of our Intelligence, Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and Homeland Security Committees.

According to Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

These disclosures have seriously interfered with ongoing

intelligence programs and have put at jeopardy our

intelligence capability to act in the future. Each disclosure

puts American lives at risk, makes it more difficult to

recruit assets, strains the trust of our partners, and

threatens imminent and irreparable damage to our national

security in the face of urgent and rapidly adapting threats

worldwide.

For these reasons and more, 26 other Members and I filed a resolution that conveys the sense of the Senate that the Attorney General should appoint an outside special counsel to investigate these leaks.

I have been around for quite some time. I think there is no doubt that these leaks are almost unprecedented in that they are ongoing covert operations that are directly involved with the greatest threats to our Nation's security. I certainly understand that robust public debate about the Nation's offensive use of cyber-related and unmanned- strike capabilities is valuable and warranted, that debate and discussion is valuable and warranted. The use of these kinds of military capabilities is new, and how these secretive warfighting capabilities should be deployed by a modern democracy deserves careful and thoughtful discussion, and we will have discussions in the future about these new aspects of warfare and counterterrorism.

But the detail with which these articles lay out particular counterterrorism activities--and as one commentator recently described, the ``triumphalist tone of the leaks--the Tarzan-like chest-beating of [the] various leakers,'' greatly exceeded what is necessary or appropriate for that discussion. Something else--something very different--is going on.

Considering how closely in time these items were published and how favorable of an impression they left upon the President's approach to national security, it is not unreasonable to ask whether these leaks were part of a broader effort to paint President Obama, in the midst of an election year, as a strong leader on national security issues. That is the strong impression that is given.

The most compelling evidence is the obvious participation of some of the administration's senior-most officials. Among the sources that New York Times journalist David Sanger cited in the passage of his recent book pertaining to U.S. cyber attacks on Iran are ``administration officials'' and ``senior officials,'' ``senior aides'' to the President, ``members of the President's national security team who were in the [White House Situation Room] during key discussions,'' an official ``who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program,''; ``current . . . American officials . . . [who would not] allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified, and parts of it continue to this day,'' and several sources who would be ``fired'' for what they divulged--presumably because what they divulged was classified or otherwise very sensitive.

Some of the sources in recent publications specifically refused to be identified because what they were talking about related to classified or ongoing programs.

In his book, which describes the administration's use of drones in Yemen, Newsweek journalist Daniel Klaidman writes:

[W]hen I quote President Obama or other key characters, I

do so only if that quote was relayed to me by a source who

personally heard it.

That certainly narrows down the number of people who could be guilty of these leaks.

On Sunday, a reviewer of both Mr. Sanger's and Mr. Klaidman's books for the Washington Post found--as I did--that ``[both authors] were clearly given extraordinary access to key players in the administration to write their books . . . [i]n some cases, they appear to have talked to the same sources: [s]everal of their stories track nearly word for word.''

Perhaps most illuminating in all of the articles and books is how, taken together, they describe an overall perspective within the Obama White

House that has viewed U.S. counterterrorism and other sensitive activities in extraordinarily political terms and taken on a related approach about how classified information should be handled. Both approaches would have predisposed the administration to the most recent, egregious national security leaks.

There are plenty of examples of how the administration apparently viewed these highly sensitive matters through a political prism. In his book, Mr. Klaidman observed that then-White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel, ``pushed the CIA to publicize'' successes associated with a covert drone program because ``the muscular attacks could have a huge political upside for Obama, insulating him from charges that he was weak on terror.'' Mr. Klaidman noted, that ``[as to the killing of a particular drone target,] [CIA] public affairs officers anonymously trumpeted their triumph, leaking colorful tidbits to trusted reporters on the intelligence beat, [with] [n]ewspapers describ[ing] the hit in cinematic detail.''

A recent article in The New York Times similarly noted:

David Axelrod, the president's closest political adviser,

began showing up at the `Terror Tuesday' meetings [by the

way, during which drone targeting was discussed], his

unspeaking presence a visible reminder of what everyone

understood: a successful attack would overwhelm the

president's other aspirations and achievements.

And, in his recent book, Mr. Sanger notes:

[O]ver the course of 2009, more and more people inside the

Obama White House were being `read into' the cyber program,

even those not directly involved. As the reports from the

latest iteration of the [cyber-]bug arrived, meetings were

held to assess what kind of damage had been done, and the

room got more and more crowded.

Let's look at another anecdote in Mr. Sanger's book that provides another powerful example of what I am talking about. In this excerpt, Mr. Sanger depicts a curious meeting that occurred in the fall of 2009 in Pittsburgh at the G 20 economic summit. He writes:

As often happens when the president travels, there was a

dinner organized with a number of other reporters and several

of Obama's political aides, including David Axelrod and Rahm

Emanuel. The talk was mostly politics and the economic

downturn. But just as coffee was being served, a senior

official in the National Security Council tapped me on the

shoulder. After dinner, he said, I should take the elevator

to the floor of the hotel where the president had his suite.

`We'll talk about Iran,' he whispered.

Obama was not back at the hotel when we gathered that

evening outside his suite. But most of the rest of the

national security staff was present and armed with the

intelligence that had been collected over many years about

Iran's secret site. As they laid it out on a coffee table in

the hotel suite, it was clear that this new site was

relatively small: it had enough room, they estimated, for

three thousand centrifuges . . .

Via satellite photos, the United States had mapped the

construction of the building--useful if it ever had to hit

it. It was clear from the details that the United States had

interviewed scientists who had been inside the underground

facility . . . We spent an hour reviewing the evidence. I

probed them to reveal how the facility was discovered and

received evasive answers . . . Then I went down to my hotel

room and began writing the story.

It absolutely eludes me under what circumstances it would be appropriate for a senior national security official to provide a reporter the opportunity to review for an hour what appears to have been raw intelligence supporting the government's recent discovery of secret nuclear sites in Iran. Yet, this vignette is indicative of what appears throughout the book as a pervasive administration perspective that viewed even the Nation's most secretive military and intelligence activities in starkly political terms and was overly lax on how related intelligence should be handled. These stories provide a revealing context for the most recent leaks--leaks that everyone has conceded have compromised our national security.

I would like to believe that the Justice Department will get to the bottom of all this. But after watching senior White House advisor David Plouffe's appearance on Fox News on Sunday, I highly doubt that it will. I was particularly troubled by Mr. Plouffe's inability or refusal to answer whether the White House will cooperate fully with the investigation and whether President Obama would agree to be questioned by investigators as President Bush was during the Valerie Plame case. I was also discomforted by Mr. Plouffe's statement that the White House talked to Mr. Sanger for his book but did not leak classified information, which of course prejudges the outcome of the investigations.

As one commentator observed yesterday, Mr. Plouffe's answers:

were so rehearsed, clumsy and full of forced distractions and

faux frustration that[,] if [his] interview [on Fox News] had

been conducted by law enforcement[,] Plouffe would have been

told he was going for a ride downtown to the police station

for further questioning.

As this commentator noted, from these sorts of appearances, it's apparent that ``[t]he administration has something to hide. Plouffe could not have been more parsed, poorly prepared or unconvincing.''

Moreover, just this past Friday, The Washington Post reported that Federal authorities have interviewed more than 100 people in the two ongoing leak investigations and, specifically citing ``officials familiar with the probes,'' described these interviews as ``the start of a process that could take months or even years.'' According to anonymous ``officials,'' the Post also noted that ``the pace of the investigations is partly driven by the large number of government officials who had access to the material that was disclosed and who now must be interviewed.'' The fact that details about these leak investigations are themselves being leaked does not inspire me with confidence that we are on the right track.

Furthermore, according to the Post, citing ``officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter,'' the two pending investigations focus on the Associated Press article about a disrupted terrorist bomb plot by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen and The New York Times' report about the Obama administration's role in authorizing cyberattacks against Iran. In other words, there appears to be no probe of the leaks relating to U.S. drone operations. Apparently, ``officials'' told the Post that such an investigation had not been requested.

Why not?

With the passage of time, the need for the Attorney General to appoint an outside special counsel to independently investigate and, where appropriate, hold accountable those found responsible for these egregious violations of our national security, becomes clearer and stronger. At the end of the day, can we really expect the administration to investigate itself impartially in the midst of an election on a matter as highly sensitive and damaging as this leaks case, especially when those responsible could themselves be members of the administration? Plus, we are not talking about an isolated instance of one leak. As my colleague, the chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein rightly observed, we are talking about ``an avalanche of leaks'' on national security matters--the implications of which are severe.

To date, I have seen no evidence that suggests that the American people should rely on the direction that the White House has chosen to provide a full and timely investigation of these leaks. For these reasons, I once again call on the appointment of an outside special counsel to do so today. Just as former Senator Biden and former Senator Obama called for a special counsel in the case of Valerie Plame, a case far less severe as far as the implications to our national security are concerned.

As I said at the beginning of my comments, I have been around this town for quite a while. I, like the rest of my colleagues, have never seen leaks of this nature at such a high level concerning ongoing covert operations. They deserve an investigation which will have credibility with the American people. So far that has not been forthcoming from this administration.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Reid of Nevada, our distinguished majority leader, to introduce the Professional Boxing Amendments Act of 2012. This legislation is virtually identical to a measure reported by the Commerce Committee during the 111th Congress, after being approved unanimously by the Senate in 2005. Simply put, this legislation would better protect professional boxing from the fraud, corruption, and ineffective regulation that has plagued the sport for too many years, and that has devastated physically and financially many of our Nation's professional boxers.

My involvement with boxing goes back a long way, first as a fan in my youth--in what many view as the golden age of boxing in America: in the days of Joe Louis and Billy Conn and Floyd Patterson and Sugar Ray Robinson--probably the greatest boxer in history--and Kid Gavilan and Joey Giardello, the names I still remember because of the incredible acts of sportsmanship and courage and tenacity in the ring that they displayed, which made boxing one of the most popular sports in all of the United States, then with my undistinguished record as a boxer at the U.S. Naval Academy, and then over my time here in Congress, where I have been involved in legislation related to boxing since the mid- 1990s.

The 19th century sportswriter Pierce Egan called the sport of boxing the ``sweet science.'' Long-time boxing reporter Jimmy Cannon called it the ``red light district of sports.'' In truth, it is both. I have always believed that at its best, professional boxing is a riveting and honorable contest of courageous and highly skilled athletes. Unfortunately, the last few decades of boxing history have--through countless examples of conflicts of interest, improper financial arrangements, and inadequate or nonexistent oversight--led most to believe that Cannon's words--that boxing is the ``red light district of sports''--were more appropriate than that of Pierce Egan's words, who called it the ``sweet science.''

The most recent controversy surrounding the Pacquiao-Bradley fight is the latest example of the legitimate distrust boxing fans have for the integrity of the sport. After the Pacquiao-Bradley decision was announced, understandably fans were clearly apoplectic and many commentators found the decision astonishing.

Bob Arum, the promoter of the fight--and he represented both Pacquiao and Bradley--said:

What the hell were these people watching?. . . . How can

you watch a sport where you don't see any motive for any

malfeasance and yet come up with a result like we came up

with tonight? How do you explain it to anybody?. . . .

Something like this is so outlandish, it's a death knell for

the sport.

Those words came from the promoter of the fight, long-time promoter Bob Arum.

ESPN boxing analyst Dan Rafael--who scored the fight 119 to 109 for Pacquiao--called the decision an ``absolute absurdity.'' And he said:

I could watch the fight 1,000 times and not find seven

rounds to give to Timothy Bradley.

Additionally, following the fight, HBO's Max Kellerman--a guy I have always enjoyed--was ringside, where he said:

This is baffling, punch stat had Pacquiao landing many more

punches, landing at a higher connect percentage, landing more

power punches. Ringside, virtually every reporter had

Pacquiao winning by a wide margin. . . . I can't understand

how Bradley gets this decision. There were times in that

fight where I felt a little bit embarrassed for Bradley.

Clearly, the conspiracy theories and speculation surrounding the fight are given life because there are so many questions surrounding the integrity of the sport and how it is managed in multiple jurisdictions. Professional boxing remains the only major sport in the United States that does not have a strong centralized association, league, or other regulatory body to establish and enforce uniform rules and practices. Because a powerful few benefit

greatly from the current system of patchwork compliance and enforcement of Federal boxing law, a national self-regulating organization--though preferable to government oversight--is not a realistic option.

What has happened to the meaning of the word champion? There is an alphabet soup of organizations today, some of them--or many of them-- based outside of the United States of America, that clearly manipulates the rankings in order to set up a fight which has a ``championship'' associated with it.

Ineffective oversight of professional boxing will continue to result in scandals, controversies, unethical practices, a lack of trust in the integrity of judged outcomes and, most tragic of all, unnecessary deaths in the sport. These problems have led many in professional boxing to conclude that the only solution is an effective and accountable Federal boxing commission.

The legislation that Senator Reid and I are introducing would establish the United States Boxing Commission--the USBC or Commission-- providing the much-needed oversight to ensure integrity within this profession through better reporting and disclosure, requiring that the sport avoid the conflicts of interest which cause fans to question the outcome of bouts, which hurts the sport.

If enacted, the commission would administer Federal boxing law and coordinate with other Federal regulatory agencies to ensure that this law is enforced, oversee all professional boxing matches in the United States, and work with the boxing industry and local commissions to improve the safety, integrity, and professionalism of professional boxing in the United States.

More specifically, this legislation would require that all referees and judges participating in a championship or a professional bout lasting 10 rounds or more be fully registered and licensed by the commission. Further, while a sanctioning organization could provide a list of judges and referees deemed qualified, only the boxing commission will appoint the judges and referees participating in these matches.

Additionally, the commission would license boxers, promoters, managers, and sanctioning organizations. The commission would have the authority to revoke such a license for violations of Federal boxing law, to stop unethical or illegal conduct, to protect the health and safety of a boxer or if the revocation is otherwise in the public interest.

The Professional Boxing Amendments Act would strengthen existing Federal boxing law by improving the basic health and safety standards for professional boxers, establishing a centralized medical registry to be used by local commissions to protect boxers, reducing the arbitrary practices of sanctioning organizations, and enhancing the uniformity and basic standards for professional boxing contracts. Most importantly, this legislation would establish a Federal regulatory entity to oversee professional boxing and set basic uniform standards for certain aspects of the sport.

Thankfully, current law--which we passed in the 1990s--has already improved some aspects of the state of professional boxing. However, like me, many others remain concerned the sport continues to be at serious risk. In 2003, the Government Accountability Office spent more than 6 months studying 10 of the country's busiest State and tribal boxing commissions. Government auditors found that many of these commissions do not comply with Federal boxing law, and that there is a disturbing lack of enforcement by both Federal and State officials.

It is important to state clearly and plainly for the record that the purpose of the commission created by this bill is not to interfere with the daily operations of State and tribal boxing commissions. Instead, it would work in consultation with local commissions, and it would only exercise its authority when reasonable grounds exist for such intervention. In fact, this bill states explicitly that it would not prohibit any boxing commission from exercising any of its powers, duties, or functions with respect to the regulation or supervision of professional boxing to the extent consistent with the provisions of Federal boxing law.

With respect to costs associated with this legislation, the pricetag for this legislation should not fall on the shoulders of the American taxpayer, especially during a time of crushing debt and deficits. As such, to recover the costs, the bill authorizes the commission to assess fees on promoters, sanctioning organizations, and boxers, ensuring that boxers pay the smallest portion of what is, in fact, collected.

Let there be no doubt, however, of the very basic and pressing need in professional boxing for a Federal boxing commission. The establishment of the USBC would address that need. The problems that have plagued the sport of professional boxing for many years continue to undermine the credibility of this sport in the eyes of the public and, more importantly, compromise the safety of boxers. This bill provides an effective approach to curbing these problems.

I take a back seat to no one in my desire for smaller government and less regulation. It is a crying need today, not only for the integrity of the sport but the health of boxers. We are finding more and more, especially in the sport of professional football lately, the effect of blows to the head. Anyone who has had the honor of knowing Muhammad Ali, as I have over the years, recognizes that this is a very brutal sport. There is no doubt that if in professional football blows to the head can be damaging to one's health, clearly it can be in the sport of boxing. I regret to tell my colleagues that there are not sufficient protections for the safety of the boxers engaged in the sport today.

The Pacquiao-Bradley fight is only the latest example, and its outrage is spread because of the size of the fight. Unfortunately, over the years, there have been a series of fights--some of them I will add for the Record at the appropriate time--where the wrong decision has been announced.

This is a great sport. It has given an opportunity, for young men particularly, to rise from the depths of poverty to pinnacles of greatness in the sport--and wealth beyond their imagining at the time they entered the sport. So we need to protect these people. We need to give them a fair and legitimate playing field in which to compete.

I urge the support of my colleagues and again thank my friend the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, who was a boxer of great skill and ability himself in his younger days. Some of those traits he has displayed very prominently here on the floor of the Senate, and I respect him greatly.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Reid of Nevada, our distinguished majority leader, to introduce the Professional Boxing Amendments Act of 2012. This legislation is virtually identical to a measure reported by the Commerce Committee during the 111th Congress, after being approved unanimously by the Senate in 2005. Simply put, this legislation would better protect professional boxing from the fraud, corruption, and ineffective regulation that has plagued the sport for too many years, and that has devastated physically and financially many of our Nation's professional boxers.

My involvement with boxing goes back a long way, first as a fan in my youth--in what many view as the golden age of boxing in America: in the days of Joe Louis and Billy Conn and Floyd Patterson and Sugar Ray Robinson--probably the greatest boxer in history--and Kid Gavilan and Joey Giardello, the names I still remember because of the incredible acts of sportsmanship and courage and tenacity in the ring that they displayed, which made boxing one of the most popular sports in all of the United States, then with my undistinguished record as a boxer at the U.S. Naval Academy, and then over my time here in Congress, where I have been involved in legislation related to boxing since the mid- 1990s.

The 19th century sportswriter Pierce Egan called the sport of boxing the ``sweet science.'' Long-time boxing reporter Jimmy Cannon called it the ``red light district of sports.'' In truth, it is both. I have always believed that at its best, professional boxing is a riveting and honorable contest of courageous and highly skilled athletes. Unfortunately, the last few decades of boxing history have--through countless examples of conflicts of interest, improper financial arrangements, and inadequate or nonexistent oversight--led most to believe that Cannon's words--that boxing is the ``red light district of sports''--were more appropriate than that of Pierce Egan's words, who called it the ``sweet science.''

The most recent controversy surrounding the Pacquiao-Bradley fight is the latest example of the legitimate distrust boxing fans have for the integrity of the sport. After the Pacquiao-Bradley decision was announced, understandably fans were clearly apoplectic and many commentators found the decision astonishing.

Bob Arum, the promoter of the fight--and he represented both Pacquiao and Bradley--said:

What the hell were these people watching?. . . . How can

you watch a sport where you don't see any motive for any

malfeasance and yet come up with a result like we came up

with tonight? How do you explain it to anybody?. . . .

Something like this is so outlandish, it's a death knell for

the sport.

Those words came from the promoter of the fight, long-time promoter Bob Arum.

ESPN boxing analyst Dan Rafael--who scored the fight 119 to 109 for Pacquiao--called the decision an ``absolute absurdity.'' And he said:

I could watch the fight 1,000 times and not find seven

rounds to give to Timothy Bradley.

Additionally, following the fight, HBO's Max Kellerman--a guy I have always enjoyed--was ringside, where he said:

This is baffling, punch stat had Pacquiao landing many more

punches, landing at a higher connect percentage, landing more

power punches. Ringside, virtually every reporter had

Pacquiao winning by a wide margin. . . . I can't understand

how Bradley gets this decision. There were times in that

fight where I felt a little bit embarrassed for Bradley.

Clearly, the conspiracy theories and speculation surrounding the fight are given life because there are so many questions surrounding the integrity of the sport and how it is managed in multiple jurisdictions. Professional boxing remains the only major sport in the United States that does not have a strong centralized association, league, or other regulatory body to establish and enforce uniform rules and practices. Because a powerful few benefit

greatly from the current system of patchwork compliance and enforcement of Federal boxing law, a national self-regulating organization--though preferable to government oversight--is not a realistic option.

What has happened to the meaning of the word champion? There is an alphabet soup of organizations today, some of them--or many of them-- based outside of the United States of America, that clearly manipulates the rankings in order to set up a fight which has a ``championship'' associated with it.

Ineffective oversight of professional boxing will continue to result in scandals, controversies, unethical practices, a lack of trust in the integrity of judged outcomes and, most tragic of all, unnecessary deaths in the sport. These problems have led many in professional boxing to conclude that the only solution is an effective and accountable Federal boxing commission.

The legislation that Senator Reid and I are introducing would establish the United States Boxing Commission--the USBC or Commission-- providing the much-needed oversight to ensure integrity within this profession through better reporting and disclosure, requiring that the sport avoid the conflicts of interest which cause fans to question the outcome of bouts, which hurts the sport.

If enacted, the commission would administer Federal boxing law and coordinate with other Federal regulatory agencies to ensure that this law is enforced, oversee all professional boxing matches in the United States, and work with the boxing industry and local commissions to improve the safety, integrity, and professionalism of professional boxing in the United States.

More specifically, this legislation would require that all referees and judges participating in a championship or a professional bout lasting 10 rounds or more be fully registered and licensed by the commission. Further, while a sanctioning organization could provide a list of judges and referees deemed qualified, only the boxing commission will appoint the judges and referees participating in these matches.

Additionally, the commission would license boxers, promoters, managers, and sanctioning organizations. The commission would have the authority to revoke such a license for violations of Federal boxing law, to stop unethical or illegal conduct, to protect the health and safety of a boxer or if the revocation is otherwise in the public interest.

The Professional Boxing Amendments Act would strengthen existing Federal boxing law by improving the basic health and safety standards for professional boxers, establishing a centralized medical registry to be used by local commissions to protect boxers, reducing the arbitrary practices of sanctioning organizations, and enhancing the uniformity and basic standards for professional boxing contracts. Most importantly, this legislation would establish a Federal regulatory entity to oversee professional boxing and set basic uniform standards for certain aspects of the sport.

Thankfully, current law--which we passed in the 1990s--has already improved some aspects of the state of professional boxing. However, like me, many others remain concerned the sport continues to be at serious risk. In 2003, the Government Accountability Office spent more than 6 months studying 10 of the country's busiest State and tribal boxing commissions. Government auditors found that many of these commissions do not comply with Federal boxing law, and that there is a disturbing lack of enforcement by both Federal and State officials.

It is important to state clearly and plainly for the record that the purpose of the commission created by this bill is not to interfere with the daily operations of State and tribal boxing commissions. Instead, it would work in consultation with local commissions, and it would only exercise its authority when reasonable grounds exist for such intervention. In fact, this bill states explicitly that it would not prohibit any boxing commission from exercising any of its powers, duties, or functions with respect to the regulation or supervision of professional boxing to the extent consistent with the provisions of Federal boxing law.

With respect to costs associated with this legislation, the pricetag for this legislation should not fall on the shoulders of the American taxpayer, especially during a time of crushing debt and deficits. As such, to recover the costs, the bill authorizes the commission to assess fees on promoters, sanctioning organizations, and boxers, ensuring that boxers pay the smallest portion of what is, in fact, collected.

Let there be no doubt, however, of the very basic and pressing need in professional boxing for a Federal boxing commission. The establishment of the USBC would address that need. The problems that have plagued the sport of professional boxing for many years continue to undermine the credibility of this sport in the eyes of the public and, more importantly, compromise the safety of boxers. This bill provides an effective approach to curbing these problems.

I take a back seat to no one in my desire for smaller government and less regulation. It is a crying need today, not only for the integrity of the sport but the health of boxers. We are finding more and more, especially in the sport of professional football lately, the effect of blows to the head. Anyone who has had the honor of knowing Muhammad Ali, as I have over the years, recognizes that this is a very brutal sport. There is no doubt that if in professional football blows to the head can be damaging to one's health, clearly it can be in the sport of boxing. I regret to tell my colleagues that there are not sufficient protections for the safety of the boxers engaged in the sport today.

The Pacquiao-Bradley fight is only the latest example, and its outrage is spread because of the size of the fight. Unfortunately, over the years, there have been a series of fights--some of them I will add for the Record at the appropriate time--where the wrong decision has been announced.

This is a great sport. It has given an opportunity, for young men particularly, to rise from the depths of poverty to pinnacles of greatness in the sport--and wealth beyond their imagining at the time they entered the sport. So we need to protect these people. We need to give them a fair and legitimate playing field in which to compete.

I urge the support of my colleagues and again thank my friend the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, who was a boxer of great skill and ability himself in his younger days. Some of those traits he has displayed very prominently here on the floor of the Senate, and I respect him greatly.

If the Senator from New Mexico desires a few extra minutes, I would be more than happy to yield.

Mr. President, I note the Presiding Officer was paying close attention to the Senator from New Mexico. I think that is entirely appropriate for that to happen. I am sure it certainly has nothing to do with family allegiance.

The Senate is considering the farm bill, which we do every 5 years. During

this debate, Americans will hear speeches about spending reductions and cuts to farm subsidies. I concede that there is some of that in this bill.

Unfortunately, so far we have failed to have an open and fair amendment process that should be the case in the Senate. I have several amendments I would like to have considered. Similar to my other colleagues, we have been prevented from doing so. I have been in this body for some years during the consideration of previous farm bills. I have always been able to have a couple amendments considered and voted on.

Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case in the consideration of this farm bill.

It is very regrettable and unfortunate that we cannot just start voting on amendments and then see where we are. Instead, we have the filling of the tree and other language, and most Americans have no idea what we are talking about. But it does prevent this body from considering the amendments of Members on both sides of the aisle. It is unfortunate.

Also, the fact remains that the programs authorized under this farm bill consume a colossal sum of taxpayer dollars. It is over 1,000 pages and is estimated to cost $969 billion over 10 years. Again, that is $969 billion over 10 years. That is about $1 billion per page. It is a 60-percent increase from the previous farm bill, which was passed in 2008. While I believe it is necessary to assist low-income families with nutrition programs, we should keep farmers out of the red when a natural disaster strikes.

I am also mindful of the taxpayers who are saddled with a $1.5 trillion deficit and a ballooning $15 trillion national debt. The farm bill is certainly ripe for spending cuts. Some have taken place--not nearly as much are necessary. As usual, the farm bill, being 1,000 pages long, is filled with special deals for special interests.

I acknowledge that the Senate bill generates $23 billion in savings, and that is a notable accomplishment. We have finally done away with Depression-era farm subsidies such as ``direct payments'' and the ``countercyclical program,'' which encourages overproduction, thereby triggering more farm subsidies to compensate for depressed prices. Unfortunately, it seems that Congress's idea of farm bill reform is to eliminate one subsidy program only to invent a new one to take its place. Cutting direct and countercyclical payments actually saved the taxpayers about $50 billion, but rather than plug that money into deficit reduction this farm bill blows $35 billion of its own savings on several new subsidy programs.

For example, we have a new agricultural risk coverage subsidy program, or ARC, which works by locking in today's record-high crop prices and guaranteeing farmers up to an 89-percent return on their crop. ARC could cost taxpayers anywhere from $3 billion to $14 billion each year, depending on market conditions. We also create a new $3 billion cotton subsidy program called STAX, which the Brazilian Trade Representative has signaled will escalate their WTO antidumping complaint against the United States. I wonder how many of our taxpayers know that we already pay Brazil $150 million a year to keep our cotton programs. Why would we make things worse?

This bill authorizes the creation of a new marginal loss subsidy program for catfish. This bill maintains a $95 billion federally backed crop insurance program, which also subsidizes crop insurance premiums. We then pile on a new $4 billion program called supplemental coverage option, or SCO, that subsidizes crop insurance deductibles. Subsidized insurance, subsidized premiums, and subsidized deductibles--I am hard pressed to think of any other industry that operates with less risk at the expense of the American taxpayer.

This is all part of farm bill politics. In order to pass the farm bill, Congress must find a way to appease every special interest of every commodity association, from asparagus farmers to wheat growers. If you cut somebody's subsidy, you give them a grant. If you kill their grant, then you cover their insurance programs.

Let's look at several other handouts that special interests have reaped in this year's farm bill, which may account for the size of the bill.

The bill authorizes $15 million to establish a new grant program to ``improve'' the U.S. sheep industry. We are going to spend 15 million of your taxpayer dollars to improve the U.S. sheep industry.

The bill authorizes $10 million to establish a new USDA--Department of Agriculture--program to eradicate feral pigs. I have always been against pork spending, but now we are going to spend $10 million to establish a new USDA program to eradicate feral pigs.

The bill authorizes $25 million to study the health benefits of peas, lentils, and garbanzo beans--$25 million to study the health benefits of peas, lentils, and garbanzo beans. I know mothers all over America who have advocated for their children to eat their peas will be pleased to know there is a study that will cost them $25 million as to the health benefits of peas, lentils, and garbanzo beans.

It authorizes $200 million for the Value Added Grant Program, which gives grants to novelty producers such as small wineries and--I am not kidding--the occasional cheesemaker.

There is $40 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to encourage private landowners to use their land for bird- watching or hunting. We are looking at a $1.5 trillion deficit this year, and we are going to spend $40 million to encourage private landowners to use their land for bird-watching or hunting. I am all for bird-watching, and I support hunters--not to the tune of $40 million.

The bill authorizes $700 million for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative--$700 million. That funds a variety of research grants, such as testing pine tree growth in Florida or studying moth pheromones. I have no clue what a moth pheromone is. When did it become a national priority to study moth pheromones?

There is $250 million for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Urban Forest Assistance Program, which spends Federal funds to plant trees in urban parks and city streets. There is a new program that spends $125 million to promote healthy food choices in schools. There are already at least four other healthy eating educational programs in this bill. There are already four, but we are going to add another $125 million program for another healthy eating educational program.

There is $200 million for one of my all-time favorites, the Market Access Program, which has been there for years, which subsidizes overseas advertising campaigns of large corporations. We have, of course, the infamous mohair wool subsidy, which has been fleecing the American people since 1954. When Congress passed the 1954 farm bill, they wanted to ensure a domestic supply of wool for military uniforms by paying farmers to raise, among other things, angora goats for mohair. This may have held merit then, but nobody can dispute that mohair became obsolete, thanks to synthetic fibers. Today we use mohair in custom socks, fashionable scarves, and trendy throw rugs. Some of my colleagues may recall that Congress killed off mohair subsidies in the 1990s. Unfortunately, goats are reputed to eat just about anything, and our hard-earned tax dollars are no exception.

By the time Congress passed the 2002 farm bill, mohair subsidies had been restored. The mohair program, which costs taxpayers about $1 million a year, may not be particularly expensive compared to most farm programs. I suppose where some of my colleagues see a minor government pittance for wool socks I see a disgraceful example of how special interests can embed themselves in a farm bill for generations.

As if field corn and ethanol subsidies weren't nefarious enough, this farm bill includes a new carve-out for popcorn subsidies--I am not making it up. This is a perfect example of farm bill politics. Thanks to a provision snuck into a 2003 appropriations bill, popcorn started receiving millions of dollars in ``direct payment'' subsidies. However, because the new farm bill eliminates direct payments, the popcorn industry is scrambling to be added to the newly created ARC Program. Under this farm bill, popcorn will be subsidized to the tune of $91 million over 10 years, according to CBO.

The cooking oil that movie theaters use to heat popcorn is already subsidized, as well as the butter they put on top. So popcorn is doing fine is the

truth of the matter. The price of popcorn has risen 40 percent in recent years, thanks in part to ethanol, and recent free-trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea are creating a boom for American popcorn exports. There isn't a kernel of evidence that they need this support from taxpayers.

The Sugar Program is another masterful scam. The USDA operates a complex system of important tariffs, loans, and government production quotas that restrict sugar imports and keeps sugar prices artificially high. The sugar barons will tell us that the Department of Agriculture Sugar Program operates at ``no net cost'' to the American taxpayers because sugar didn't receive ``direct payments.''

In actuality, businesses and consumers bear the burden of the Sugar Program by paying higher costs for any sweetened product. Every year, American consumers are forced to pay an extra $3.5 billion on sweetened food products.

Just yesterday, the Senate voted to table an amendment to phase out the Sugar Program, which is quite a sweetheart deal for sugar growers.

Finally, one of my favorites of all time is regarding catfish. I have an amendment that will repeal the farm bill provision that directs the USDA to create a new catfish inspection office. I am grateful for the support of my colleagues who cosponsored it. What we are attempting to do with this amendment is simple: It puts an end to the latest attempt by southern catfish farmers to restrict catfish imports.

Five years ago, a protectionist provision was snuck into the 2008 farm bill that requires the Department of Agriculture to begin inspecting catfish. As my colleagues know, the USDA inspects meat, eggs, and poultry but not seafood. That is a whole new government office. It is being developed at USDA just to inspect catfish. Catfish farmers have tried to argue that we need a catfish inspection office to ensure Americans are eating safe and healthy catfish.

I wholeheartedly agree that catfish should be safe for consumers. The problem is that FDA already inspects catfish, just as it does all seafood, screening it for biological and chemical hazards. If there were legitimate food safety reasons for having USDA inspect catfish, we would not be having this discussion. Don't take my word for it, just ask USDA.

When the Department of Agriculture completed an internal assessment for the program in December 2010, the Department said it could not establish a ``rational relationship'' between the catfish office and the risks to human health, concluding, ``There is substantial uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of the catfish inspection program.'' The Department of Agriculture estimates that this questionable program will come at a cost to taxpayers of $30 million just to create the office and another $14 million each year thereafter.

GAO has also extensively examined the catfish office. In February 2011, GAO released a report saying the catfish office is at ``high risk'' for fraud, waste, and abuse, and it is ``duplicative'' of FDA's functions and would fragment our food safety system. Just last week GAO issued a new report, titled ``Responsibility For Inspecting Catfish Should Not Be Assigned to USDA,'' and they called upon Congress to repeal the catfish office.

This isn't the first time consumers have been hoodwinked by southern catfish farmers. When the Senate considered the 2002 farm bill, they slipped in an obscure provision that made it illegal to label Vietnamese catfish as ``catfish'' in the United States. At that time, the State Department had recently reopened trade relations with Vietnam, and domestic catfish farmers in Southern States found themselves competing against cheaper catfish imports. Domestic catfish farmers wanted to discourage American consumers from buying Vietnamese catfish by marketing it under the Latin name ``pangasius,'' or ``panga,'' even though it is virtually indistinguishable from U.S.- grown catfish.

Although the panga labeling law was enacted, it ultimately backfired on catfish farmers because panga catfish remained popular with American consumers. It is a senseless law, and my colleagues may recall that I came to the floor to fight against it. I asked the question: ``When is a catfish not a catfish?'' Why would Congress pass a law that renames a species of catfish into something else? Why single out catfish and put it in the same category as USDA-inspected beef. Ironically, catfish farmers are lobbying USDA to re-relabel Vietnamese ``panga'' back to ``catfish'' to ensure Asian imports are subject to this new catfish office.

So the catfish office offers no legitimate food safety benefit. Its true goal is to erect trade barriers on Asian catfish imports to prop up the domestic catfish industry and make American consumers pay more.

The farm bill before us has some laudable parts to it. There are some reductions in spending. When we examine the bill, however, we find more and more of this kind of special interest, unnecessary spending, and programs that either are protectionist in nature or programs that have been inserted sometimes in the middle of the night in the past. We have also just begun to examine a number of provisions in this bill, which I did not discuss today.

I wish the small business men and women in my State had a bill for small business, a bill that would help them in the very difficult times they are experiencing, in the terrible economic times which have caused them to not be in business anymore so that they and their families are going through the most difficult of times. This is obviously a well- intentioned bill, but I also think in these harsh economic times it is far from the kind of legislation we owe the American people.

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

I thank my colleague from South Dakota and appreciate very much his leadership on this issue and my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Ayotte, who has done a preliminary study on the effect of these sequestrations on our defense industries and jobs and employment in States across America.

In fact, she has been asked by the Conference of Mayors to give them assessments. One of the problems we have is not only sequestration itself, as my colleague from South Dakota mentioned, but the American people don't fully understand the impact--not only from a national security standpoint but from an economic standpoint.

I appreciate and admire our Secretary of Defense who continues to say that sequestration would be devastating to our national security, the effects would be Draconian in nature. He has described it in the most graphic and, I think, accurate terms. But we don't know exactly what those impacts would be and, unfortunately, the Secretary of Defense and the Defense Department have not given us information as to what those impacts would be. The American people need to know and they deserve to know what these impacts would be.

That is why we put in the Defense authorization bill a requirement that the Secretary of Defense send to the Congress and the American people the exact effects of this sequestration, which he has refused to do, up until now.

Since we have not taken the bill to the floor--and it may not be signed until the end of this year--that is why I have an amendment pending on the farm bill, to seek that same reporting, because Members of Congress, elected representatives, and the American people deserve to know the effects of sequestration.

One, they need to know from the interest of our national security, but I would argue to my friend they also need to know from the impact on an already faltering economy. I want to thank the Senator from New Hampshire, who has done more on this issue. In fact, she has given every member of our conference a rough readout as to exactly what the impact would be in our States. But obviously, the Senator from New Hampshire and I don't have access to the same database the Secretary of Defense has as to these Draconian effects.

So in summary, I would say we are facing what is now known as the fiscal cliff: the debt limit, which needs to be raised; the sequestration issue; the expiration of the Bush tax cuts; and several other issues, which we are all going to now address in a lameduck session. That is a Utopian vision for a lameduck session that, frankly, is not justified by history.

One of the aspects of this sequestration, the reason we need to address it now, is because the Pentagon has to plan. They have to plan on a certain budget. They can't wait until the end of this year, or early next year when it kicks in, until January 2, I believe it is, of 2013, in order to adjust to it. So, one, we need the information.

And, two, Members of Congress need to know that the sequestration issue should be, and must be, addressed. I thank Senator Thune not only for his outstanding work on the farm bill but also for his leadership on this important issue.

I yield to my colleague from New Hampshire, who has done probably a more in-depth study of this issue and its impact on the defense industry in America and jobs and employment than any other Member.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate in a colloquy with my colleague from South Carolina, Senator Graham.

Mr. President, Senator Graham and I know there are others who would like to come to the floor on the issue of the almost unprecedented release of information which directly affects our national security--in fact, the most important programs in which we are engaged, including the use of drones and our counterterrorism activities, and, of course, the highly classified cyber attacks that have been made on the Iranians in order to prevent them from achieving their goal of building nuclear weapons.

I can't think of any time that I have seen such breaches of ongoing national security programs as has been the case here. The damage to our national security has been articulated by many both inside and outside of the administration, including the most damaging that we have seen. Our Director of National Intelligence said that it is the worst he has seen in his 30 years of service in the area of intelligence. All of the

ranking and chair members of the Intelligence Committee, Armed Services Committee, Foreign Relations Committee, and Homeland Security Committee have described in the strongest terms what damage has been done by these ``leaks.''

Among the sources that the authors of these publications list are ``administration officials'' and ``senior officials''; ``senior aides'' to the President; ``members of the President's national security team who were in the [White House Situation Room] during key discussions''; an official ``who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program''--I am quoting all of these from the public cases; ``current . . . American officials . . . [who would not] allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified, and parts of it continue to this day''; several sources who would be ``fired'' for what they divulged--presumably because what they divulged was classified or otherwise very sensitive.

One author notes:

[O]ver the course of 2009, more and more people inside the

Obama White House were being `read into' a [particular

secret, compartmentalized] cyber program [previously known

only by an extremely tight group of top intelligence,

military and White House officials], even those not directly

involved. As the reports from the latest iteration of the bug

arrived--

Talking about the cyber attack on Iran--

meetings were held to assess what kind of damage had been

done, and the room got more and more crowded.

Some of the sources in these publications specifically refused to be identified because what they were talking about related to classified programs or ongoing programs. One of the authors specifically observed that some of his sources would be horrified if their identities were revealed.

As always with this leaking, which goes on in this town, although not at the level I have ever seen, I think we need to ask ourselves first who benefits--certainly not our national security or our military intelligence professionals or our partners abroad who are more exposed as a result of these leaks. I think to answer the question of who benefits, we have to look at the totality of circumstances. In this case, the publications came out closely together in time. They involved the participation, according to those publications, of administration officials. The overall impression left by these publications is very favorable to the President of the United States.

So here we are with a very serious breach of national security--and in the view of some, the most serious in recent history--and it clearly cries out for the appointment of a special counsel.

I would remind my colleagues and my friend from South Carolina will remind our colleagues that when the Valerie Plame investigation was going on, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle argued strenuously for the appointment of a special counsel at that time. Later on, I will read some of their direct quotes.

It is obviously one of the highest breaches of security this country has ever seen because of ongoing operations that are taking place. By the way, our friends and allies, especially the Israelis, who have been compromised on the Stuxnet operation, the virus in the Iranian nuclear program, of course, feel betrayed.

Now, can I finally say that I understand our colleague and chairperson of the Intelligence Committee is going to come over to object to our motion for the appointment of a special counsel. It is the same special counsel who was appointed at other times in our history, and ahead of her appearance after the statements she made about how serious these breaches of intelligence were. It is a bit puzzling why she should object to the appointment of a special counsel.

I ask my colleague from South Carolina--to place two outstanding individuals and prosecutors to investigate still places them under the authority of the Attorney General of the United States. The Attorney General of the United States is under severe scrutiny in the House of Representatives. The Attorney General of the United States may be cited for contempt of Congress over the Fast and Furious gunrunning-to-Mexico issue which also resulted, by the way, in the death of a brave young Border Patrolman, Brian Terry, in my own State, who was killed by one of these weapons. That is how serious it is.

I would think Mr. Holder, for his own benefit, would seek the appointment of a special counsel, and I ask that of my friend from South Carolina.

Mr. President, could I add revealing the name of Seal Team 6.

Mr. President, wouldn't my colleague agree that one of the most revealing aspects of this entire issue from program to program that leads to enormous suspicion would be that probably the most respected Member of the President's Cabinet who stayed over from the Bush administration, Secretary Gates, was so agitated by the revelation of information about the bin Laden raid that he came over to the White House and said to the President's National Security Adviser that he had a ``new communication strategy.'' He responded by saying to the National Security Adviser, ``Shut the F up.'' That is a devastating comment and leads one to the suspicion that things were done improperly in the revelation of these most important and sensitive programs that were being carried out and are ongoing to this day.

So I ask my colleague, what is the difference between the Biden- Schumer-Levin-Daschle letter to President Bush in 2003 where they called for the appointment of a special counsel--Vice President Biden-- and how the White House should handle Libby? I think they should appoint a special prosecutor. In 2003, then-Senator Biden called for a special counsel with 34 Senators, and then-Senator Obama requested the appointment of a special counsel to lead the Abramoff case.

I was involved heavily initially with the Abramoff case, and I can tell my colleagues even though there was severe corruption, there was certainly nothing as far as a breach of national security is concerned. Yet they needed a special counsel, according to then-Senator Obama, to investigate Abramoff but not this serious consequence.

So I guess my unanimous consent request for this resolution will be objected to. But the fact is, we need a special counsel because the American people need to know. I do not believe anyone who has to report to the Attorney General of the United States would be considered as objective.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 3 minutes.

I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues.

I would like to thank Senator Moran of Kansas for a very moving tribute to those who have served and sacrificed. I know the people of Kansas join him in expressing their gratitude for their service and sacrifice, and I thank the Senator from Kansas for a very eloquent and moving statement. God bless.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Connecticut and I be permitted to join in a colloquy on the situation in Syria.

Before entering into our colloquy, I would like to make some brief remarks.

It should come as no surprise to any of our colleagues--and it certainly comes as no surprise to me--that the civil war raging in Syria has only deteriorated further over the past 2 weeks. On Saturday, May 26, we read the horrific news of a massacre that Bashar al-Assad's forces committed in the Syrian town of Houla. At least 108 civilians-- the majority of them women and children--are now believed to have been killed, some from repeated shelling by Assad's tanks and artillery, but most slaughtered in their homes and executed in the streets. Survivors describe a scene so gruesome that even after 16 months of bloodshed and more than 10,000 dead, it still manages to shock the conscience.

There are now reports of another massacre by Assad's forces with as many as 78 Syrians dead and that Syrian authorities are blocking access to the scene for the U.N. monitors on the ground. These massacres of civilians are sickening and evil, but it is only the latest and most appalling evidence there is no limit to the savagery of Assad and his forces. They will do anything, kill anyone, and stop at nothing to hold on to power.

What has been the response of the United States and the rest of the civilized world to this most recent atrocity in Syria? More empty words of scorn and condemnation. More hollow pledges that the killing must stop. More strained expressions of amazement at what has become so tragically commonplace.

Indeed, as Jeffrey Goldberg has noted, administration officials are now at risk of running out of superlative adjectives and adverbs with which to condemn this violence in Syria. They have called it ``heinous,'' ``outrageous,'' ``unforgivable,'' ``breathtaking,'' ``disgraceful,'' and many other synonyms for the same. I don't know what else they can call it. Yet the killing goes on.

The administration now appears to be so desperate they are returning to old ideas that have already been tried and failed. Let me quote from a New York Times article that appeared on May 27.

In a new effort to halt more than a year of bloodshed in

Syria, President Obama will push for the departure of

President Bashar al-Assad under a proposal modeled on the

transition in another strife-torn Arab country, Yemen. . . .

The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Mr. Assad's

staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.

This is a case of history repeating itself as farce. Trying to enlist Russia in a policy of regime change in Syria is exactly what the administration spent months doing earlier this year, and that approach was decisively rejected by Russia when it vetoed a toothless sanctions resolution in the U.N. Security Council in February.

How is this recycled policy working out? Well, last week, a human rights organization disclosed that on May 26, a Russian ship delivered the latest Russian supply of heavy weapons to the Assad regime in the Port of Tartus. Last Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the Houla massacre--and blamed it on the opposition. President Putin, after blowing off a trip to Washington in favor of a visit to Europe, suggested that foreign powers were also to blame for the Houla massacre. He went on to reject further sanctions on the Assad regime and to deny Russia is shipping any relevant weapons to Assad.

Not to be outdone, last week the Russian Foreign Minister also described the situation in Syria this way.

It takes two to dance--although this seems less like a

tango and more like a disco, where several dozens are taking

part at once.

One might think this alone would be enough to disabuse the administration of its insistence, against all empirical evidence, that Russia is the key to ending the violence in Syria. One might think so, but one would be wrong. Asked last week whether he could envision some kind of military intervention in Syria without a U.N. Security Council resolution, which is subject to a Russian and Chinese veto, the Secretary of Defense said, no, he cannot envision it.

Similarly, the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, rejected the idea of providing weapons to the Syrian people to help them defend themselves, saying that would lead to--get this, get this: If we supplied weapons to the Syrian resistance, it would lead to ``chaos and carnage,'' and it would militarize the conflict. It would militarize the conflict. After more than 10,000 have been slaughtered by Bashar al-Assad with Russian weapons, Iranians on the ground, it would militarize the conflict.

It is difficult even to muster a response to statements and actions such as these. U.S. policy in Syria now seems to be subject to the approval of Russian leaders who are arming Assad's forces and who believe the slaughter of more than 10,000 people in Syria can be compared to a disco party. Meanwhile, the administration refuses even to provide weapons to Syrians who are struggling and dying in an unfair fight, all for fear of ``militarizing the conflict.'' If only the Russians and the Iranians and al-Qaida shared that lofty sentiment.

I pray that President Obama will finally realize what President Clinton came to understand during the Balkan wars. President Clinton, who took military action to stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and did so in Kosovo without the U.N. Security Council mandate, ultimately understood that when regimes are willing to commit any atrocity to stay in power, diplomacy cannot succeed until the military balance of power changes on the ground.

As long as Assad and his foreign supporters think they can win militarily, which they do, they will continue fighting and more Syrians will die. In short, military intervention of some kind is a prerequisite to the political resolution of the conflict we all want to achieve.

The question I would pose to my colleague from Connecticut and to the administration is this: How many more have to die? How many more have to die? How many more young women have to be raped? How many more young Syrians are going to be tortured and killed? How many more? How many more before we will act? How many more?

I would like to also ask, When will the President of the United States speak up in favor of these people who are fighting and dying for freedom?

I thank my colleague from Connecticut for his continued involvement. He has shared the same experiences I have in refugee camps, meeting people who have been driven out of their homes, family members killed, tortured, young women raped as a matter of policy and doctrine of Assad's brutal forces.

I thank my colleague. I also want to point out that traveling in the region and meeting with the leaders in these various countries, it cries out for American leadership, I think my colleague would agree, in a coordinated partnership with these countries. But they cry out for American leadership. And meanwhile, the President of the United States, as this slaughter goes on, is silent. His spokesman says they don't want to militarize the conflict. How in the world could you make a statement like that when 10,000 people have already been slaughtered? That, to me, is so bizarre. I am not sure I have ever seen anything quite like it.

There is always the comparison, I say to my friend from Connecticut, about Libya. There is an aspect of this issue. Libya was not in America's security interests. Libya was clearly a situation where we got rid of one of the most brutal dictators who was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103 and the deaths of Americans. But if Syria goes on the path to democracy, it is the greatest blow to Iran in 25 years. Hezbollah is broken off. Russia loses its last client state. Iran loses the most important ally it has in the region.

Finally, I would say to my friend we keep hearing over and over again that extremists will come in; Al Qaida will come in. We heard that in Tunisia, we heard that in Libya, we are hearing that in Egypt, and we are hearing that again--neglecting the fact that al Qaida and extremists are the exact antithesis of who these people are. These people believe in peaceful demonstrations to bring about change--they have been repressed through brutality--whereas al Qaida, as we know, believes in acts of terror.

I agree with my colleague, if we provided a sanctuary for these people in order to organize and care for the wounded, to have a shadow government set up as we saw in Libya, then I think it is pretty obvious that it would be a huge step forward.

Again, as my friend from Connecticut has often said so eloquently, probably the most immortal words ever written in English are: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all of us are endowed--all--by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.

The people of Syria who are suffering under this brutal dictatorship and are being slaughtered as we speak I believe have those inalienable rights. The role of the United States has not been to go everywhere and fight every war, but it has been the role of the United States of America, when it can, to go to the assistance of people who are suffering under dictatorships such as this, one of the most brutal in history. And for us to now consign them to the good graces of Russia and whether they will veto a U.N. Security Council resolution as to whether we will act on behalf of these people is a great abdication of American authority and responsibility.

Finally, I wish to say that Senator Lieberman and I have visited these places. We have seen these people. I wish all of our colleagues-- I wish all Americans--could have gone to the refugee camp where there are 25,000 people who have been ejected from their homes, the young men who still had fresh wounds, the young women who had been gang raped, the families and mothers who had lost their sons and daughters. It is deeply moving. It is deeply, deeply moving. And, as my friend from Connecticut said, they cry out. They cry out for our help.

We should be speaking up every day on their behalf, all of us, and we should be contemplating actions that stop this unprecedented brutality.

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

Madam President, over the past few months there has been a

disturbing stream of articles in the media and common among them, they cite elite, classified, or highly sensitive information in what appears to be a broader effort by the administration to paint a portrait of the President of the United States as a strong leader on national security issues--information for which there is no legitimate reason whatsoever to believe should be in the public domain. Indeed, the release of this information in these articles harms our national security and puts in danger the lives of the men and women who are sworn to protect it.

What price did the administration apparently pay to proliferate such a Presidential persona--highly valued in an election year? Access. Access to senior administration officials who appear to have served as anonymous sources divulging extremely sensitive military and intelligence information and operations.

With the leaks that these articles were based on, our enemies now know much more than they did the day before they came out about important aspects of our Nation's unconventional offensive capabilities and how we use them. Such disclosures can only undermine similar ongoing or future operations and, in this sense, compromise our national security. For this reason, regardless of how politically useful these leaks may have been to the President, they have to stop. These leaks have to stop.

The fact that this administration would aggressively pursue leaks perpetrated by a 22-year-old Army private in the Wikileaks matter and former CIA employees in other leaks cases but apparently sanction leaks made by senior administration officials for political purposes is simply unacceptable. It also calls for the need for a special counsel to investigate what happened.

I am also pleased to report that Chairman Carl Levin has agreed, at my request, to hold a hearing on these leaks in the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Senate Armed Services Committee has a responsibility here, and I am grateful that Chairman Levin has agreed to hold a hearing.

In the latest of the recently published articles--published on June 1, 2012, just a few days ago--the New York Times documented in rich detail the President's secret decision to accelerate cyber attacks on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with a computer virus that came to be known as Stuxnet. The author of the article, Mr. David Sanger, clearly states that former and current American officials spoke to him but refused to do so on the record because the program is both highly classified and parts of it are ongoing. I repeat, the administration officials discussed a most highly classified operation that is both highly classified and still ongoing, an operation that was clearly one of the most tightly held national security secrets in our country until now. And I might point out to my colleagues that this is all about the Iranian effort to acquire nuclear weapons, which is one of the most difficult national security challenges this Nation faces.

Other recent articles divulged critical and classified information regarding U.S. plans to expand the secret drone campaign against terrorists in Yemen and the Horn of Africa. One of these pieces was a sorry excuse for journalism that the New York Times published on May 29, 2012, which Charles Krauthammer rightly observed should have been entitled ``Barack Obama--Drone Warrior.''

Finally, there was a recent so-called article about the so-called ``kill list''--the highly classified list of counterterrorism targets against whom the President has authorized lethal action--in other words, to kill. It was reported in that article on May 29, 2012, in the New York Times that David Axelrod, the President's chief political adviser--who is running the reelection campaign as we speak--began attending the meetings in which this list was discussed. I repeat, the President's campaign manager was present and attending the meetings where lists of possible people to be eliminated through drone strikes was discussed and decisions were made. The only conceivable motive for such damaging and compromising leaks of classified information is that it makes the President look good.

These are not the only times I have been frustrated about national security-related leaks coming from this administration. The administration similarly helped journalists publish some of the highly sensitive tactics, techniques, and procedures that enabled our special operations forces--including the classified name of the unit involved-- to carry out the operation to kill Osama bin Laden last year. It is entirely possible that this flurry of anonymous boasting was responsible for divulging the identity of Dr. Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who assisted us in our search for Osama bin Laden and whose public exposure led to his detention and a 33-year prison sentence in Pakistan. His name was divulged by members of the administration, and he has been basically given a death sentence, a 33- year sentence in prison in Pakistan. Our friends are not the only ones who read the New York Times; our enemies do, too.

Let me be clear. I am fully in favor of transparency in government. I have spent my entire career in Congress furthering that principle. But what separates these sorts of leaks from, say, the whistleblowing that fosters open government or a free press is that these leaks expose no violations of law, abuses of authority, or threats to public health or safety. They are gratuitous and utterly self-serving.

These leaks may inhibit the Nation's ability to employ the same or similar measures in its own defense in the future. How effectively the United States can conduct unmanned drone strikes against belligerents, cyber attacks against Iran's nuclear program, or military operations against terrorists in the future depends on the secrecy with which these programs are conducted. Such activities are classified or enormously sensitive for good reason--in many cases, for reasons related to operational security or diplomacy. Their public disclosure should have no place in how this or any other administration conducts itself. These are the kinds of operations and intelligence matters no one should discuss publicly, not even the President.

With this in mind, I call on the President to take immediate and decisive action, including the appointment of a special counsel, to aggressively investigate the leak of any classified information on which the recent stories were based and, where appropriate, to prosecute those responsible. A special counsel will be needed because the articles on the U.S. cyber attacks on Iran and expanded plans by the United States to use drones in Yemen were sourced to--and I quote from the articles--``participants in the [cyber-attack] program'' and ``members of the [P]resident's national security team.'' In the cyber attacks article, in particular, the author stated that ``current and former American officials'' spoke to him anonymously about the program because ``the effort remains highly classified and parts of it continue to this day.''

What could be worse?

The suggestion that misconduct occurred within the executive branch is right there in black and white and is why a special counsel is needed.

As part of this investigation, this special counsel should also scrutinize the book from which the New York Times cyber attacks article was adapted, which was just released yesterday, for other improper or illegal disclosures.

Where classified information regarding cyber operations was leaked, the President should assess any damage that those leaks may have caused to national security and how that damage can be mitigated.

In my view, the administration should be taking these leaks, apparently perpetrated by senior administration officials, as seriously as it pursued those made by relatively low government personnel such as the Army private in the WikiLeaks matter or the former CIA employee who provided the New York Times with classified information about U.S. attempts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program. The failure of the administration to do so would confirm what today is only an inference-- that these leaks were, in fact, sanctioned by the administration to serve a pure political purpose.

As I continue to closely monitor developments in this matter, I hope to be proved wrong.

There is a Wall Street Journal article, ``FBI Probes Leaks about Cyberattacks by U.S.'' I am glad the FBI is going to probe that. It says Mr. Sanger, in an appearance on CBS News ``Face the Nation,'' suggested that deliberate White House leaking ``wasn't my experience.''

He added:

I spent a year working on the story from the bottom up and

then went to the administration and told them what I had.

Then they had to make some decisions about how much they

wanted to talk about . . . I'm sure the political side of the

White House probably likes reading about the President acting

with drones and cyber and so forth. National security side

has got very mixed emotions about it because these are

classified programs.

Mr. Sanger again is authenticating that senior members of the White House and our intelligence community decided to talk to him about classified programs. Their motivation for doing so--perhaps we don't know particularly at this time, but I don't think one could argue that these articles have all conveyed the impression that the President is a very strong warrior in carrying out his responsibilities as Commander in Chief, something I have disputed as far as Iraq, Afghanistan, and other national security issues, which I will discuss on another day.

I don't know how one could draw any conclusion but that senior members of this administration in the national security arena have either leaked or confirmed information of the most highly classified and sensitive nature. Some of these leaks have concerned ongoing operations. Since they were highly classified and sensitive information, that classification was there for a reason--the reason being that if that information was classified, it could harm our national security.

These are very serious actions on their part. They are very serious actions when ongoing operations in the war against terror and the issue of Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons could trigger attacks either by Israel or the United States to prevent such an eventuality. We now find leaks which have exposed, not only to the American people but to the Iranians as well, exactly what American activity is of the most sensitive nature. This is not a proud day for the United States of America.

I ask unanimous consent that following the remarks of Senator Chambliss, he and I be permitted to engage in a colloquy.

As my colleague well knows, the leaks are part of the way the environment exists in our Nation's capital, and leaks will always be part of the relationship between media and both elected and appointed officials. I understand that. I think my colleague would agree there have been times where abuses have been uncovered and exposed because of leaks so this information was made public, and we have always applauded that.

There has also continuously been a problem of overclassification of information so government officials don't have to--be it Republican or Democratic administrations--discuss what is going on publicly.

But I have to tell my friend, I do not know a greater challenge that the United States faces in the short term than this entire issue of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. The President of the United States said it would be ``unacceptable.'' We all know the Israelis are going through an agonizing decisionmaking process as to whether they need to attack Iran before they reach ``breakout,'' which means they have enough parts and equipment to assemble a nuclear weapon in a short period of time.

Here we are exposing something that, frankly, I was never told about. I was never informed of Stuxnet, and it is ongoing, at least according to the media reports. So aren't the Iranians going to

learn from this? I would ask my colleague, aren't the Iranians going to become more and more aware?

Drone strikes are now one of the leading methods of going after al- Qaida and those radical terrorists who are intent on destroying America. So now al-Qaida and our enemies, both real and others who plan to be, are very aware of the entire decisionmaking process in the White House.

I guess the most disturbing part--and I would ask my friend--it is one thing to have a private, in the WikiLeaks matter, who had access to it, low-level members of certain agencies, one in the CIA who I know was prosecuted, but this is, according to the articles that are written, the highest levels in the White House are confirming this classified information and maybe even volunteering it, for all we know.

But there, obviously, has been a very serious breach of perhaps the two most important challenges we face: the Iranian nuclear process and, of course, the continued presence and efforts of al-Qaida to attack America.

I wonder if my friend from Georgia would agree that these are two of the most challenging national security issues America faces.

Could I finally add, the disturbing aspect of this is that one could draw the conclusion, from reading these articles, that it is an attempt to further the President's political ambitions for the sake of his election at the expense of our national security. That is what is disturbing about this entire situation.

I see our friend from Oregon is waiting to illuminate us, so I yield the floor. I thank my friend from Oregon for his patience.