Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN addressed the Chair.

I withdraw my suggestion of the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions, on his remarks.

Mr. President, Senator Sessions is absolutely correct, Senator Gregg is absolutely correct, and this Senate will be absolutely correct if we vote to go to cloture so we can proceed on the total repeal, or at least an additional repeal, of the estate tax. There are a lot of reasons, but I want to try and make my point succinctly and I want to make it briefly because I want to point out how punitive the estate tax is today.

Most Americans are employed by small business; 75, 76, 77 percent of all Americans are employed by small business. It may be a restaurant, it may be a laundry, it may be a farm, it may be a construction company, it may be a utility contractor just like the ones that are in town today lobbying all of us for the best interests of their business. Most people work a lifetime to build a business. They employ people to whom they pay income. The people to whom they pay income pay income

taxes. Yet when the tragedy of death comes, an individual owner of a small business dies, immediately they are confronted with one of the most punitive and confiscatory taxes that has ever been devised in the history of taxation.

Granted, we did a good job when we passed the accelerated improvements in the unified credit or the deduction on the estate tax. This year, based on the bill we passed a few years ago, there is a $2 million exemption, and that is a help, and it goes to $3.5 million in a couple of years. Then, magically, the estate tax is repealed in 2010, only to return to us a year later, to return to us at 55 percent. So we are asking people who work a lifetime to save and build a business, to plan, based on a tax that is here today, gone tomorrow, and then returns with a vengeance a year later.

To best illustrate what the estate tax does to American small business, ranchers, and family farmers, I would like to do a little demonstration on the Senate floor. For the sake of argument, let's just round the 55 percent estate tax off to 50 percent, and let's assume for a moment that a small business owner, a family farmer, passes away and dies and their estate becomes taxed at 50 percent. After the credit that is available now, or when we get back to 2011, no credit at all, the United States of America and the department of revenue, the IRS, want to tell the heirs of that estate that within 9 months of the death of that individual, they want this much of that person's estate. If one sheet of paper is the whole estate, they want half of it in taxation.

So when the first generation owner of a small business passes that business on to the second generation, after the Government gets its half, there is only this much left.

Let's assume that family is able, because of savings and because of borrowing and because of productivity, to pay that 50 percent tax without liquidating the business, and that second generation small business owner operates that business, employs the workers in that business, pays them the income that pays the taxes, but let's assume that second generation person meets their demise. And when they die, before they can pass that family business on to the next generation, once again, the IRS gets half of what is left.

So in two generations, what was a full estate ends up with three- fourths of it going to the United States Government, and one-fourth of it left to the individual or family. Of course, that is in reality not really what happens because before that last passing takes place, that business is sold or liquidated, or it is leveraged to such an extent that the amount of cost of the debt service on the leverage makes that business go from profitable to unprofitable. That is why the estate tax is punitive. That is why it is wrong for this country.

I want to address another point that Senator Sessions made that is so important for us to focus on as we listen to the two sides of this debate tonight and tomorrow. You will have some come and they will take that score on how much the repeal is going to cost us, and they will talk about that score, saying that is a reason we should not repeal the estate tax or the death tax. I submit, as Senator Sessions did, that score is dead wrong because just as the scoring of the reduction in the capital gains tax was dead wrong a few years ago, this scoring is equally dead wrong and it is wrong for this reason: If that family business that was reduced to almost nothing has to be sold, then along with what is sold is the jobs that went with it, the income that went with it, and the future taxes that were paid because of it.

Think of this for a second. If someone has stock they have to sell and liquidate in order to pay the one-time capital gains tax, then it is gone forever from the standpoint of the income production that they otherwise would pay with dividends year in and year out. Wouldn't we rather have people hold assets such as businesses and stocks and real estate and pay taxes on its profitability and its income year after year after year? Wouldn't we rather that happen than all at once to take 50 percent, cause the business to be sold, the stock to be liquidated, the real estate to be divided, and the revenue never to be paid again? It is short-sighted and it is wrong.

I hope the Members of the Senate, when we come to the cloture vote tomorrow, will recognize the death tax is the third bite of the apple. We charge people income tax when they earn income, with what is left they make investments, and then as those investments pay dividends or pay income, we tax that, and then we say: When you die, we want half of that asset. It is wrong. It is wrong for individuals, it is wrong for family farmers, it is wrong for landowners, and it is wrong for America.

I urge all of my colleagues when the cloture vote comes tomorrow to vote yes to bring about a meaningful debate on the repeal of the estate tax or the death tax, and let's take that third bite of the apple away from the Government and put it back in the hands of the people, so those assets, farms, and investments can be productive, not just for one year, but for a lifetime.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to two members of my staff, and they are Bradford Swann and Captain Gade.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. President, I would like to call everybody's attention to the special day that today is. Today is the 6th day of June. Sixty-two years ago today on the shores of France and Normandy, Omaha Beach, Sword Beach, American troops and allied forces invaded France, pushed back the German Army, pushed through the Battle of the Bulge, and ultimately into Germany, and today, you and I enjoy freedom and liberty in this country, as Europe enjoys its freedom, and as, in fact, the world enjoys its freedom because of what those brave men and women did.

This past week, I had a unique occasion to travel with the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Craig from Idaho, and with GEN Jack Nicholson, who is the chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission. We traveled through Europe and northern Africa paying Memorial Day tributes to the men and women buried on those foreign shores.

I have to tell my colleagues, it was a life-altering experience for me. I am a patriotic American. I love this country more than anything on the face of this Earth. I have teared up more than once at the funeral of a friend who died in the service of this country. But I have never seen the outpouring of love and respect for our country or for our servicemen than I saw in the Netherlands or in Belgium or outside of Paris or at Bellewood outside of Paris or in Tunisia at the American cemetery in northern Africa.

I think it is appropriate for us to memorialize today what those of us who traveled on this trip saw to hopefully inspire other Members of the Senate, and hopefully every American at one point in time in their life, to travel to these marvelous memorials. I have been in elected office for most of the last 30 years. I have done more Memorial Day ceremonies than one would want to count. They have all been beautiful, they have all been meaningful, but, quite frankly, they usually aren't very well attended because Americans more often than not take Memorial Day as a 3-day vacation or a 3-day weekend. But I would like to tell you what the people of Margraten in the Netherlands take Memorial Day as.

When we went to the American cemetery in the Netherlands and saw the over 6,000 graves of the American men and women who died in liberating the Netherlands, we were moved. We were more moved by the fact that every one of those graves is adopted by a citizen of the Netherlands who cares for that grave, leaves flowers at that grave, and attends the ceremonies on Memorial Day, the American Memorial Day, which we conduct. On that day in the Netherlands there were over 7,000 citizens--7,000 Dutch--who came to pay tribute to the men and women of the United States of America who died on their soil so they could be free. The royal Dutch Air Force did a missing man fly-over formation, and the senior men's choir of Holland sang ``God Bless America.'' It was a moving scene unlike anything I have personally seen. It renewed, for me, the faith and pride I have in all that is good about the United States of America.

Following that visit, we went to Normandy. We saw the monument the French had erected to the Rangers who stormed the Normandy cliffs and moved in and rooted out the Germans. We went to Omaha Beach and saw firsthand where the American troops came across, where the Canadian troops came across, where the British troops came across. We saw where in one day 2,500 men of America died on the beaches of Normandy so that all of us today can live in freedom and in hope and in peace.

I commend Chairman Craig for making this delegation. We found out we were the first delegation that anyone could remember to ever do what we did. Not only do I hope we are not the last, I hope it is an annual occasion where Members of the Senate go and pay their respects to the brave Americans who died in the great wars of Europe, World War I and World War II; for without them, we would not enjoy what we do today, nor would the world enjoy the peace and the freedom and the liberty that it treasures and it enjoys.

So on this day of June 6, 2006, 62 years after 2,500 Americans died and tens of thousands of Americans pursued the German Army in France, I know what I will do tonight when I say my prayers. I will say a special prayer for those folks I never knew but without whom I never could have lived the life that I have, and I will say thanks. I will repeat the pledge I made to myself on the cemetery of Normandy. I said: Before I die, I am going to see to it that my children and my grandchildren get to visit this scene and have this experience because only through the preservation of the memory of what those men fought and died for will we as Americans ever be able to continue to make the commitments we have around the world to preserve liberty, preserve democracy, and protect the people of the world's right to determine their own future and their own peace and their own liberty.

So, Mr. President, on this day, June 6, 2006, I thank God for the men and women of the U.S. military, for the leadership of the 20th century, and pray that all of us will have the courage they had to continue to preserve the liberty we all treasure and enjoy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 3 minutes.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 3 minutes.

Mr. President, I thank you and I thank the Members for allowing me this courtesy.

Mine Safety Legislation

Mr. President, I just received a phone call about 30 minutes ago from the House of Representatives to notify me they are prepared, tomorrow, to agree to the mine safety bill which this Senate just passed today. That is record speed for the House of Representatives. It is record speed for the Senate. But it proves that Congress can respond to a great tragedy.

Certainly, with the Sago mine disaster of January 2, followed by other disasters, and now the recent Kentucky disaster, it was very important that we look at all the mine safety issues, all the occupational safety issues, and look at coal mining.

I want to pay tribute today to the staff that worked so diligently, the staffs of Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, the staff of Senator Murray, my staff, and the staffs of the two distinguished Senators from West Virginia, Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Byrd: Ilyse Schuman, Brian Hayes, Kyle Hicks, Holly Fechner, Portia Wu, Sharon Block, Ed Egee, Bill Kamela, David McMaster, Ellen Doneski, and John Richards.

These individuals worked tirelessly to bring a bill to this floor which we adopted unanimously. I am pleased to tell you the House intends to do the same tomorrow.

I particularly commend Senators Rockefeller and Byrd, in whose State the Sago mine tragedy took place, who have worked tirelessly on behalf of the citizens in their State, and the Senators from Kentucky in their response to this tragedy that took place just last week.

But in symbol of all those brave miners, I want to pay tribute to George Junior Hamner. I went to West Virginia to see the Sago mine families 3 days after they had been found dead in that mine. I met Junior's wife and I met his 22-year-old daughter. His daughter gave me this picture, taken on Christmas Eve, just 8 days before he died in the Sago mine. And she said: Sir, if you will take this back to Washington and make sure, whatever you do, you pass legislation that hopefully will keep people from ever facing the tragedy my father faced in that mine.

So as a tribute to Junior Hamner, to his daughter, to his wife, and to all the families of those who died in the Sago mine tragedy, I pay tribute to the Senators from West Virginia, the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, to Senator Enzi, the tireless chairman of this committee, who has worked tirelessly to see this happen, and to all the Members of this great body for passing legislation to respond to a tragedy--with hope, with reasoned responsibility, and with the promise for better technology and better safety in the future of all coal miners.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman.

I rise to oppose the Kennedy amendment. I come to the floor as chairman

of the subcommittee on occupational safety in the HELP Committee. I come to the floor because the issue this amendment addresses has nothing to do with immigration. It affects immigrants and nonimmigrants. It affects employment. It amends the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is a massive increase in fines and penalties. It changes many penalties from civil to criminal. There has not been a single hearing or anything else.

The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts knows full well that we have just completed 6 months of hard work on the Mine Safety Act, which this Senate today will pass unanimously in response to the terrible tragedy at the Sago mines. He knows how much time and effort went into the hearings and the studies to see to it what OSHA needed to do and what we needed to do. To summarily come to the floor on an immigration bill and amend the OSHA laws and the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, to throw in massive penalties, massive criminal fines--in fact, just to give you an example, it dramatically increases criminal and civil penalties, with up to as much as 5 years in jail for a workplace accident. Arbitrary provisions such as this have no business on the floor of the Senate being tacked on to a bill that deals with a major pressing problem in an entire other area.

Just to add the piece de resistance, this amendment, as I read it, overturns the Supreme Court ruling in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. the National Labor Relations Board. What that would, in effect, do is force employers now to go pay back compensation to illegal immigrants who were working in the workplace and put the Justice Department as their designated attorney when they are not even here legally in the first place. Now, if that action is the right thing to do, it certainly needs to be done in civil debate and through the committee process and not as a last-minute attachment to a bill that is in itself controversial and in itself comprehensive.

So with all due respect to the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts but with respect for the integrity of the committee system, I submit this amendment should not be adopted, and I will oppose it.

Mr. President, there have been no hearings on this amendment. The Senator from Massachusetts knows full well the mine safety bill has been heard for over 6 months. I have worked with him.

This amendment takes civil penalties and makes them criminal. I worry about the worker going to work and getting hurt, but I worry about destroying the incentive to employ anyone by imposing punitive, arbitrary assessments on them, all because we sneak an amendment in at the last minute on a bill that is on an entirely different subject. I urge everybody to vote with me, because I am going to move to table the Kennedy amendment, and I encourage a yea vote.

Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Let me respond to the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts.

Something he said--I am sure unintentionally--was very incorrect. He said we are going to force people, by what the Senator is trying to do, to earn less than the minimum wage. What we are, in fact, trying to do is to ensure that those who are working in the fields, who are illegal and are being abused and are not being paid the adverse effect wage rate, prevailing rate, or anything else, all those--maybe 1.8 million-- will now get a pay raise under what the Senator is trying to do. He is saying they will be paid the higher of the minimum wage or the prevailing wage.

I ran for the Senate in the years 2003 and 2004. Although I worked farms in the 1950s, I had not been on a farm in a long time, and I spent a lot of time in south Georgia, slept in a lot of barns on farms. I got to know the onion folks, the peanut folks, and the row crops.

I spent the night in a farmer's barn--a mighty nice barn, I might add, with a nice double bed--I spent the night in the barn, and he complained about what happened. He hired H-2A workers, as he should, legal workers. According to the law, he paid them the adverse effect wage rate, and the farmer down the road from him hired illegals and paid them the minimum. They got away with paying much less for picking the same crop he was because he was obeying the law.

The circumstances the Senator has right now in the United States of America are the following: The unintended consequence of the adverse effect wage rate is that you are driving farmers to hire illegally rather than hire legally and pay them at adverse effect wage rates. That is what the Senator is trying to correct.

But it is absolutely incorrect to allege or to say that the bill of the Senator from Georgia, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, would force people to be paid below the minimum wage. It will, in fact, ensure that workers will be paid the higher of the minimum wage or the prevailing wage; is that not correct?

Facts are stubborn things. We can argue about a lot of things, but treating people right is something Senator Chambliss has been doing in Georgia, what I have grown up in Georgia doing, and I am sure what the Senator from Massachusetts does. The argument here is about repealing a law that has the unintended consequence of making it attractive to hire illegal aliens to work. What this bill is supposed to be doing is fostering legal immigration and equitable treatment for all.

I commend the distinguished Senator from Georgia. I commend the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. I pledge my support to this amendment and congratulate him on this effort.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize in the Record American Legion Post 51 of East Point, GA, for its unselfish efforts on behalf of our brave soldiers serving in Iraq. The Post 51 family has adopted Charlie Company 324th Signal Battalion from East Point, GA. This Reserve unit made up of 144 service men and women is in the process of deploying in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The post held a barbeque for the soldiers' families, planned a Christmas party for the soldiers, and Post 51 members attended the deployment ceremony for nine members of Charlie Company. Post 51 has also dedicated countless hours supporting the families of deployed members by helping with home repairs and offering financial advice.

Mr. President, I am very proud of our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I am equally proud of organizations such as American Legion Post 51 for all it is doing to support our soldiers and their families here at home.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: It was my understanding that the time of the distinguished Senator from Idaho was not a part of the debate but was to precede our debate, and we were supposed to equally divide the remaining time. Am I incorrect?

So we have how many minutes?

Mr. President, I appreciate the statement of the Senator from Colorado. I thank the Senator from South Carolina, the Presiding Officer. I thank Senator Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for the untiring efforts he made on the bill and the courtesies he has shown to me. I thank leader Harry Reid for accommodating us and allowing us to come to the floor and have a debate. I particularly thank Lindsey Graham and John McCain for seeing to it that all of us who had amendments to offer had a chance to negotiate the time to do that. I especially thank my staff, in particular, Mike Quiello, for the work he has done on this issue over a long period of time.

Mr. President, to set the stage for my remarks on my amendment, let me, first of all, tell you a little bit about myself. I am a product of the legal immigration system of the United States. My grandfather came here in 1903 and went through Ellis Island. There is nobody who has greater respect for the hope and opportunity and the laws of our country than do I. I was in the construction industry, and I know the great contribution the workers made to construction and to tourism and to hospitality services and to agriculture.

I, also, know the issue before us is now the most important issue domestically before the United States. When I ran for the Senate in 2003 and 2004, the most commonly asked question after Iraq was: What are you going to do about illegal immigration? In the first speech on any issue I made as a Senator, I made the statement that I thought illegal immigration was the No. 1 domestic issue in this country.

I rise to tell you my mind has not been changed. I think neither have the minds been changed of the American people because you have seen the intensity of the interest of all Americans in border security and immigration.

My amendment is very simple. It says that before any provision of this Immigration Act could grant legal status to someone who is here illegally is in effect, the Secretary of Homeland Security must certify to the President and the Congress that every provision for border security and enforcement contained in title I and section 233 of title II is in place, funded, and is operational.

There is a simple reason for that. In 1986, this Congress, under President Ronald Reagan, passed a border security and amnesty bill for the 3 million illegal aliens who were in this country. We enforced the border and granted amnesty. And 20 years later, there are 11 million to 13 million illegal aliens who have come because of the promise of this country and its opportunity but also because we have given a wink and a nod to the security of our borders.

I want to emphasize that I am not just talking about something I am thinking about or that I read. I have been to our border. I took a codel with Senator Coleman in February. We went to Fort Huachuca in Arizona and saw the unmanned aerial vehicle working and identifying those coming across the border and sealing a 150-mile stretch. In San Diego, at the border with Juarez, we saw where the barriers at Smugglers' Gulch have effectively stopped the people coming through that gully and immigrating illegally into this country. We went up and down the border and saw the bits and pieces of security that worked. We also saw the over 1,500 miles of the border that are not secure--the 1,500 miles that have allowed people to come here either through smuggling or through their own volition or by paying bribes to get here, to get into our workforce, to overcrowd our schools, to stretch the services in our emergency rooms and put great pressure on our civil justice system.

It is time that we seal the border and secure it so that the promise of legal immigration works and illegally entering this country is not the preferred way to cross on our southern border.

I commend the President for his remarks last night. The President last night said, in order, the five important things we must do. The first thing the President said is to secure the border. With this amendment, with our commitment and with the President's commitment, securing the border will take place. Then we can grant a program to those who are here illegally, with the sincere knowledge that we know no more are coming. If we grant programs and status to those who are here illegally and look the other way, the next time we bring this up in 10 or 15 years, it will not be 12 million, it will be 24 million and, worst of all, we will have lost control.

Last night, the President said we are a nation of laws. And we are a nation of laws. I submit to you that when laws

are enforced, and they are enforced soundly, laws are obeyed and they are respected. We have not enforced our border and, therefore, its security is not respected.

So I call on all of our colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, everybody who is interested in a comprehensive reform of our immigration policy and our immigration system, to think what comes first. And what comes first is securing the border. After that, the American people would be willing to work with us on programs to grant status. But in the absence of securing the border and making that commitment, we are not going to have the cooperation of the American people. We are not going to have comprehensive reform, and a growing problem in this country will grow even greater.

My last point is there may be some who say you cannot secure the border or it is going to take too long. Listen, this country put a man on the Moon in 9 years, and we responded to the terrorist attacks within 3 weeks. This country can do anything it sets its mind to do. We know how to do it. In incremental places, we do it now. It is time we put in the additional 6,000 border security agents, put the UAVs in the air, put the ground sensors on the ground, put the prosecuting officials along the border in those jurisdictions to see to it that the law is enforced and prosecuted, and it is time that we build the barriers in those areas that are easy smuggling corridors. We must make a commitment to ourselves and the American people.

The Senator from Colorado is going to offer an amendment side by side. I read the amendment. It gives the President the authority to authorize sections 4 and 6, which are the status sections, whenever it is in the best interest of the national security of the United States. That is well and good, but that has nothing to do with security on the border. If we don't adopt the Isakson amendment to secure the border, then we will have given a wink and a nod one more time to those who would come here illegally. We will have said to our local governments, school systems, emergency rooms, and law enforcement officers that we don't care.

Mr. President, I think we do care. I urge support for the Isakson amendment to the immigration bill. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. President, I think the distinguished Senators, Mr. Salazar and Mr. Kennedy, who are both Senators and lawyers and understand smoke and mirrors. I think they understand the enforcement of the law. The Isakson amendment calls for us to enforce the laws that have been brought about because of the lack of enforcement, which is why this bill is on the floor of the Senate now.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Chambliss, Cornyn, Alexander, Domenici, and Santorum be added as original sponsors of the Isakson amendment.

Mr. President, I am pleased to recognize for 10 minutes the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn.

I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander.

The Senator is absolutely correct, and the premise is you don't want to create an attraction for more to come until the border is secure and we know we put an end to it.

Mr. President, the Senator from Massachusetts has made the most eloquent statement in favor of this amendment I have ever heard. He put on the record exactly what we raised in title I, section 133, to secure the border. I appreciate his comments.

I am happy to yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss.

Mr. President, I yield 1 minute 30 seconds to the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Thune.

Facts are stubborn figures. Senator Kennedy said we should learn from history. He served in 1986, when we passed a bill that promised border security that did not deliver and granted amnesty that did not deliver, and we ended up quadrupling the number of illegal aliens in the United States.

Facts are also stubborn because every word he said about the Isakson amendment is inaccurate. He did not discuss a single word of the 614 pages, except to say before you grant legal status to people here illegally, we must have border security so we do not repeat the tragedy of 1986.

In Deep South Georgia, we have an old saying: If you want to get the mud out of the spring, you have to get the hog out of the water. The hog in the water in this debate is those who have been trying to obfuscate everything we are trying to say.

Simply, we want the same thing. We want comprehensive reform. That begins with what the President said last night: Border security first. The President said last night that we can do it by 2008. Ask Congress for the money. This is an authorization. I want a commitment.

If we do not commit to the people of the United States of America-- our school systems that are overcrowded, our health care and emergency rooms that are challenged, our civil justice system is challenged--and see to it that we get a border that is secure so we can manage our legal immigration in the future, history will be the teacher that we had in 1986.

Facts are stubborn things. The fact is, the Isakson amendment on this comprehensive reform says what the President said last night, that securing the border first is job one. I submit anything that anyone says that is the opposite means they want to repeat the tragedy of 1986.

I ask my colleagues to sincerely search their heart and soul for their constituents and vote in favor of this amendment. Let's have comprehensive reform that begins with a secure border.

Madam President, I was here about 15 minutes ago, and I learned one inevitable fact: this body is long on rhetoric and oftentimes short on results. In the case of health insurance and health coverage for the American people, we stand at a point in time when we have a chance to produce real results.

I have listened to the arguments over the last couple of days. In fact, I presided last night and got to listen to some of these negative arguments about S. 1955. I wish to try, in a positive way, to talk about the result that it affords and brings to the American people. I want to do it by, first of all, trying to establish credibility.

The reason I say that is, most of us come to the Chamber and speak oftentimes on subjects about which we have had few life experiences. Most of the Members--certainly a majority--have never really been in the private sector. Certainly, a lot have not been independent contractors. None of us right now are in the marketplace for health insurance in America.

For 33 years before coming to the Senate, I ran a small business. I had 200 employees but 800 independent contractors. My employees had medical benefits because we qualified under ERISA. My independent contractors, who were my salespeople, the assets of the company, because of Federal law and IRS treatment, were not allowed to be offered a benefit. They were subject to the free market, to buy spot insurance. They weren't the young and healthy. They were middle age, second- and third-career people, mostly women, and some men. They were very difficult people to cover in the spot market.

As a legislator during those 33 years, while I ran a small business, I did a ton of work on health care. In fact, I was the author of one of the State mandates in Georgia for direct access for dermatological coverage. I did so for a passionate reason: I am the survivor of a melanoma. My doctor caught it in time, and it was removed in time, and I am here today. I have great respect for that mandate for direct access.

As some of the people who have spoken--in fact, many on the other side have talked about the horrible thing this bill does by not including all of the mandates required of all of the States in this country. And the ads we see in some of the periodicals we read portend we are removing the possibility of people to have coverages that are mandated in their States. Let me address that and make the record straight.

Currently, in the United States, there are 109 mandated medical coverages in the 50 States and the District of Columbia. My State of Georgia has 39. This bill doesn't preclude any of those from being offered, but it doesn't mandate that they be offered, and it doesn't allow small businesses to associate across the Nation, form a large enough risk pool to be competitive in the marketplace and be able to compete and provide insurance to the American people who do not have insurance.

The first fantasy that has been purported as fact is that this bill takes away mandates. It doesn't take a mandate away from a single person who has it. What it does is give people who don't have any insurance at all the chance to get good, solid, basic health care, and when they get it, when they make their purchase decision, this requires they make that decision by being shown, at the same time they are presented with a basic policy, a policy that contains all the mandates contained in the five most populous States in the country. The consumer gets the choice that right now they do not have.

For the other side to allege we are taking away benefits, what we are doing is providing opportunity to folks who have no opportunity. I defy you to be 45 years old, a working carpenter with a wife and two kids, out in the marketplace trying to buy spot insurance. Can you buy it? Sure, if you want to pay $2,000, $2,500 a month, a price you can't afford to pay and put food on the table and shelter as well. So what do they do? They fly without coverage. When they get sick and they are really sick, they go to emergency rooms, and they end up raising the cost of health care to everybody, which raises the cost of health insurance to everybody.

What this bill does and what Chairman Enzi has done, which is the genius of it, it brings forth the ability of small businesses and people who cannot afford the coverage to go into the marketplace and buy health insurance.

On the mandate issue, there is no question that some of the insurance that will come out of this process will not include every mandate, maybe not all of the mandates, maybe not half the mandates. But what it will include is good, basic health care, and if a family that doesn't have good, basic health care coverage now all of a sudden has it, what happens? They start practicing better health. They start having more wellness. They start seeing physicians before they are sick rather than after they are sick and in pain. What happens is, we have more wellness, more preventive health care, and we have a lower cost of health care in this country to all the Americans who have coverage.

For the other side to say that what we are trying to do is take benefits away from people is disingenuous and wrong. We are trying to preserve the benefits of people in America, and to the 45 million who don't have any, we are trying to give them the opportunity.

For those who think the State knows best and therefore we ought to mandate they can't do this, they are denying choice of the most basic need in the United States of America, and that is the choice for a man and a woman and their children to be covered in the medical needs they have.

I can tell you that I spent most of my time running my business trying to make sure there was some access to affordable health care for those independent contractors to whom I could

not legally provide it. Over the 20 years I ran the company, it became more and more difficult. And over those same 20 years, the cost of health insurance went higher, higher, and higher. It went higher because the mandates became more and more difficult to provide to those individuals, in part because of the State mandates as well.

This opens a new door. It opens hope and opportunity for 45 million Americans. It gives us the chance to cover maybe 11 million, maybe 12, maybe 13. Senator Burr thinks 900,000 in North Carolina. The number I have heard for Georgia is the same. But whatever the number, S. 1955 offers hope and opportunity for affordable health insurance and better health care to millions of Americans. It takes away mandates from no one and ensures that the customer always has the choice of buying the product and the coverage they want and they can afford.

Chairman Enzi and the committee have done a great service to the American people. It is time for this Senate to do great service to their constituents. Give them a chance to have access to affordable, accessible health insurance for the 45 million Americans who do not have it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor in the Record the 150th Anniversary of Berrien County, GA.

Berrien County was created in 1856 from Coffee, Irwin and Lowndes counties. It was named for a great Georgian, John McPherson Berrien, a U.S. Senator who also served as President Andrew Jackson's Attorney General. From the area labeled on early Georgia maps simply as ``Pine Barrens,'' because of its vast acreage of pine trees, Berrien County has become one of the top agriculture-producing counties in Georgia and the Southeast. Known as the ``Bell Pepper Capital of the World,'' Berrien County farmers also have made significant contributions in the production of cotton, corn, peanuts, livestock, and especially tobacco.

During the summer when the tobacco markets opened, hundreds of families would come to the county seat of Nashville to market their crop and, in turn, purchase much needed items from area businesses with the money earned from that year's crop. Nashville has two historic buildings on the National Register of Historic Places--the old jail and the Berrien County Courthouse.

In addition to Nashville, Berrien County includes the great towns of Alapaha, Ray City, and Enigma.

It gives me a great deal of pleasure, and it is a privilege to recognize on the floor of the U.S. Senate, the contributions of Berrien County to the State of Georgia. I congratulate this great county on its 150th anniversary.

I commend the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, on the offering of this amendment for the emergency supplemental. This is so important.

We went through 2 weeks of debate prior to the Easter recess where we ended up doing nothing on the issue of immigration and illegal immigration. We did nothing because there was a fear in this country and there is a fear in this Senate that no matter what we do, if we do not fix the borders first, secure the borders first, there is no way whatever to have true, meaningful immigration reform legislation.

The distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Budget, in his original budget document and now again in this amendment, is proposing exactly what the United States of America must do; that is, appropriate the money to fulfill the promises to secure the border so we can gain control of our immigration system and return to a system where people come to this country to work and to enjoy new lives and prosperity legally, where our borders are secure and our Nation is more secure.

I rise for a moment to point out that this amendment in and of itself to this emergency supplemental is, without question, the most significant component to the issue of illegal immigration and gaining control of our borders. I urge all of my colleagues in this Senate, when this amendment comes to a vote, to vote in favor of it. Only through appropriating the money and actually spending the money to make the investment, to improve the eyes in the skies in terms of unmanned aerial vehicles, to improve the boots on the ground, to more Border Patrol officers--the only way to do it is not with promises of authorizations but with the commitment of appropriations.

I commend the Senator from New Hampshire. I thank the Chair for the time. I urge all Senators to vote in favor of this amendment to secure the borders of the United States of America.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, today we resume consideration of the border security bill. After an hour of debate equally divided and the leaders' remarks, we will proceed to a cloture vote on the motion to commit, which is the Hagel-Martinez language. This will occur at approximately 9:45 this morning. This will be the first of several votes we will have today. If cloture is not invoked, we will immediately proceed to the second cloture vote on the underlying bill. If cloture is not invoked on the underlying bill, we will turn to the cloture motions that were filed on the defense nominations. We confirmed two nominations last night, and we hope we will be able to reach agreement on the remaining few. Senators are alerted that we will have a busy morning and should stay close to the Chamber. I thank my colleagues for their cooperation before we recess for the Easter break.

Mr. President, I will take a minute. On Thursday of last week, I offered in this Senate amendment 3215 which is pending after the amendment by the distinguished Senator from Arizona, the Senator from Texas. On Friday, when the majority of the Senate went home and there were no votes, I stayed in this Senate for 3 hours and presided in order for Senator Bingaman and Senator Alexander to offer their amendments. We had last week a spirit of cooperation in this Senate to ensure that suggestions and amendments of the Members would be dealt with as expeditiously as possible. The Senate stayed in session on Friday to accommodate Democrats and Republicans alike with the understanding we would proceed in regular order this week.

To blame the Senator from Arizona for being obstructionist is totally incorrect. The fact is, there are other amendments following his that would equally be objected to by the distinguished minority whip. So we are frozen at this time because there is a lack of spirit of cooperation in order to consider issues that are important to the people of the United States of America on what I consider to be the most important domestic issue in the United States of America.

So singular blame on any one individual such as Mr. Kyl is not only inappropriate, it is not right.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to pose a question to the distinguished minority whip. Last Thursday, I offered amendment No. 3215, which is second in line after the Kyl amendment. I have listened intently to the distinguished Senators from Illinois with regard to the objections they have expressed to the Kyl amendment. I have not heard them say what their objection is to amendment No. 3215.

I ask the Senator from Illinois this question: Amendment No. 3215 is a simple amendment, which says that any provisions of this act which grant legal status to someone who is here illegally do not take effect until such time as the Secretary of Homeland Security has certified to the President and the Congress that our borders are reasonably secure.

Now, I would like to hear what objection someone would have to the United States of America living up to its responsibility of securing our borders?

Reclaiming my time, my response to the Senator would be that I am not an attorney, but I spent 33 years in the real estate business. I saw the term ``reasonable attorney's fees'' on more documents than the law would allow. I never met an attorney who could not describe what reasonable attorney's fees meant. I think we can find a lot of people in the Senate who understand that.

I yield the floor.