Floor Statements

Mr. President, speaking to this resolution, I wish to be clear that it had been my intention to cast a ``no'' vote to proceeding to this nonbinding resolution. The majority, of course, has to muster 60 votes in order to proceed on that particular resolution.

I believe my time will be more productive fulfilling a commitment I have made to lead a trip to Iraq. Without disclosing when or precisely where we will be in the Middle East, I will tell my colleagues that I will be able to personally deliver a message not only to our troops of support of the American people for their mission but also hopefully to deliver a message directly to the Prime Minister of Iraq that we expect him to continue to fulfill the commitments he has made to carry out this new strategy, which has signs of success already, and to learn directly, firsthand from our commanders and troops on the ground, their assessment of how this new mission is proceeding. What the Congress needs to do is to provide assistance and to be able to bring home a report unfiltered through the media of precisely where the conditions stand right now.

While I would have voted no, in effect, I will be voting no by my presence in Iraq.

There are three reasons I oppose the resolution to move forward with this particular nonbinding resolution. First of all, we have been debating almost nonstop this subject of Iraq, now, for several weeks-- both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. So there has been no lack of debate.

Rest assured that Republicans are committed to continuing this debate for as long as the American people believe it is productive. We welcome debate. We also welcome something else: The opportunity to express ourselves in a meaningful way, not simply on a nonbinding resolution. We have no objection to voting on this nonbinding resolution as long as we can also vote on something that is actually more meaningful than that, and that is a resolution that demonstrates we will not withdraw support for our troops. We aim to support them in their mission.

Having been precluded, blocked, for being able to have a vote on that resolution, what we are saying is that we should move forward with the debate, but until the majority leader is willing to provide Members a vote on the resolution for support of the troops, we should not be voting on other resolutions.

I think this is time for Democrats to take a stand. Either you support the troops in the battlefield or you don't, none of this sort of slow bleed and nonbinding resolution debate. The nonbinding resolution obscures your true position. It seems to me, if you merely seem to tell the President you don't like what he is doing, you have plenty of opportunities to do that, but a resolution can have a very deleterious effect on the morale of our troops, on our enemies who see it as a sign of weakness, and perhaps on our allies who wonder if we see the mission through.

If you are serious about stopping this effort because you believe it has failed or cannot succeed, obviously you need to do what Congress has the ability to do and that is vote no on the funding of the troops.

Instead, what we have been told is that in the House of Representatives, after this first step of the nonbinding resolution, there will be a second step, this slow-bleed strategy, a concept that says Congress will begin to micromanage how troops are deployed in the field and around the world and equipment provided to them, and that will determine whether any will receive Congress's continued support.

We cannot condition our support for the troops. They need to know that when we send them into harm's way, they will have everything they need from reinforcements to equipment. This sort of slow-bleed strategy that has been announced over in the House of Representatives is extraordinarily dangerous and deleterious to our mission.

First of all, it seems to me there are some signs of success. This is the first reason I would have voted no on the resolution. We do need to give the new strategy the President has announced a chance to succeed.

There are plenty of stories, and I will have them printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks, about some initial successes-- the Shiite militia leaders appearing to leave their strongholds in Baghdad in anticipation of our plan to increase our activities there.

The powerful Shiite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr has left Iraq, spending his time in Iran away from the danger that might await him if he stayed in Baghdad.

In Al Anbar Province in the west, the tribal sheiks have now significantly begun to align themselves with the United States, as a result of which we have been able to recruit hundreds more police officers who were not possible to recruit in the past.

A real sign is the fact that Sunni and Shiite Arab lawmakers have announced plans to form two new political blocs in Iraq. The Iraqi military is taking a significantly, more robust role, now ordering tens of thousands of residents to leave homes--these are the so-called squatters--that they are occupying illegally, and, instead, saying they will have the original owners of those homes come back. This is important because the people who have been displaced or dispossessed primarily are Sunnis. The Shiite militias came in and kicked them out and allowed squatters in their home.

It is highly significant the Iraqi Government has said, through a LTG Aboud Qanbar, who is leading this new crackdown, that they are going to close the borders with Iran and Syria, they are going to extend the curfew in Baghdad, set up new checkpoints and reoccupy the houses that have been occupied by the illegal Shiites.

Another significant change, they actually raided a Shiite mosque which was a center of illegally armed militias, kidnapping, torture and murder activities and a place where a good deal of weapons had been stored. This, in the past, had not been done. But it is now being done, all as a part of Maliki's commitment to change the rules of engagement and to commit himself to support politically the victories that had been occurring on the ground militarily but which were fleeting because when you capture people and put them in jail, if the politicians get them out of jail the next day, you have gained nothing. We need to give it a chance.

I referred to former Representative Hamilton of the Hamilton-Baker Commission, who said in testimony:

So I guess my bottom line on the surge is, look, the

president's plan ought to be given a chance. Give it a

chance, because we heard all of this. This that you confirmed

. . . the day before yesterday, this is his idea. He's the

supporter of it. Give it a chance.

Second, we need to support this mission and oppose the nonbinding resolution opposed to it because it would send a horrible message not only to our troops and military leaders but to our allies and to our enemies.

General Petraeus, whom I mentioned a moment ago, at his confirmation hearing got this question from Senator Lieberman.

Senator Lieberman: You also said in response to a question

from Senator McCain that adoption of a resolution of

disapproval . . . would not . . . have a beneficial effect on

our troops in Iraq. But I want to ask you, what effect would

Senate passage of a resolution of disapproval of this new way

ahead

that you embrace--what effect would it have on our enemies in

Iraq?

Lieutenant General Petraeus: Sir, as I said in the opening

statement, this is a test of wills, at the end of the day.

And in that regard . . . a commander of such an endeavor

would obviously like the enemy to feel that there's no hope.

Senator Lieberman: And a resolution--a Senate passed

resolution of disapproval for this new strategy in Iraq would

give the enemy some encouragement, some feeling that--well,

some clear expression that the American people are divided.

Lieutenant General Petraeus: That's correct, sir.

Soldiers believe the same thing. From ABC News, on February 13, they asked Army 1SG Louis Barnum what they thought of the resolution. They had strong words. Here is what one said:

Makes me sick. I'm a born and raised Democrat--it makes me

sad.

On the NBC nightly news, January 26, interview of three of our soldiers.

SPC Tyler Johnson said:

Those people are dying. You know what I am saying? You may

support--'oh, we support the troops' but you're not

supporting what they do, what they share and sweat for, what

they believe for, what we die for. It just don't make sense

to me.

SSG Manuel Sahagun:

One thing I don't like is when people back home say they

support the troops but they don't support the war. If they're

going to support us, support us all the way.

There was in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 15, a poignant communication from an Army sergeant whose name is Daniel Dobson. He said:

The question has been posed to me recently what

congressional resolution hurts troops morale the most. No

doubt we would be happy to come home tomorrow. But the

thought is bittersweet. Most servicemembers will tell you the

same thing: There is no honor in retreat . . . and there is

no honor in what the Democrats have proposed. It stings me to

the core to think that Americans would rather sell their

honor than fight for a cause. Those of us who fight [for

peace] know all too well that peace has a very bloody price

tag.

The American people believe this as well. FOX News, according to an opinion dynamics poll in the last couple of days, 47 percent of the American people say it is more likely to encourage the enemy and hurt troop morale compared with 24 percent who think it would make a positive difference to the policy of the United States toward Iraq.

So we better be careful what kind of message is sent through a so- called nonbinding resolution. It would not change the course of what we are doing on the ground in Iraq, but it can certainly affect our enemy and the morale of our troops and our allies.

I conclude by saying it seems to me it would be a huge mistake to proceed to vote only on a resolution which is acknowledged by its proponents as being merely a first step toward a second step of reducing and ultimately removing support for the troops whom we have sent into harm's way. Far better it would be for us to continue this debate at the conclusion of which we would vote on another resolution which would explicitly express our support for our troops and their mission.

To expound in further detail, I oppose this resolution and would vote ``no'' on taking it up without considering other resolutions first, because it would put a halt to the progress which has begun to occur in Iraq since the President announced new strategy. Some examples:

shiite militias leave sadr city

Shiite militia leaders already appear to be leaving their

strongholds in Baghdad in anticipation of the U.S. and Iraqi

plan to increase the troop presence in the Iraqi capital,

according to the top U.S. commander in the country. ``We have

seen numerous indications Shia militia leaders will leave, or

already have left, Sadr City to avoid capture by Iraqi and

coalition security forces,'' Army Gen. George W. Casey, Jr.

said in a written statement submitted to the Senate Armed

Services Committee as part of his confirmation hearing today

to be Army chief of staff.

moqtada al-sadr living in iran

The powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has left Iraq

and has been living in Iran for the past several weeks . . .

With fresh American forces arriving in Baghdad as part of the

White House plan to stabilize the capital, officials in

Washington suggested that Mr. Sadr might have fled Iraq to

avoid being captured or killed during the crackdown.

sunnis battle al qaeda in al anbar

Before tribal sheiks aligned themselves with U.S. forces in

the violent deserts of western Iraq, the number of people

willing to become police officers in the city of Ramadi--the

epicenter of the fight against the insurgent group known as

al-Qaeda in Iraq--might not have filled a single police

pickup. ``Last March was zero,'' said Maj. Gen. Richard C.

Zilmer, the Marine commander in western Iraq, referring to

the number of men recruited that month. With the help of a

confederation of about 50 Sunni Muslim tribal sheiks, the

U.S. military recruited more than 800 police officers in

December and is on track to do the same this month. Officers

credit the sheiks' cooperation for the diminishing violence

in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.

sunnis and shiites move away from sect-arianism

Sunni and Shiite Arab lawmakers announced plans [January

31] to form two new blocs in Iraq's parliament they hope will

break away from the ethnic and religious mold of current

alliances and ease sectarian strife. But though both blocs

said they hoped to eventually draw in members of all ethnic

and religious groups, one initially will be made up entirely

of Shiite Muslim politicians and the other of Sunni Muslims.

iraq military taking a leading role

The Iraqi government on Tuesday ordered tens of thousands

of Baghdad residents to leave homes they are occupying

illegally, in a surprising and highly challenging effort to

reverse the tide of sectarian cleansing that has left the

capital bloodied and balkanized. In a televised speech, Lt.

Gen. Aboud Qanbar, who is leading the new crackdown, also

announced the closing of Iraq's borders with Iran and Syria,

an extension of the curfew in Baghdad by an hour, and the

setup of new checkpoints run by the Defense and Interior

Ministries, both of which General Qanbar said he now

controlled.

iraqi security forces raid shiite mosque

A U.S. military spokesman on Thursday hailed a joint

American-Iraqi raid on Baghdad's leading Shiite Muslim mosque

as proof that the Baghdad security plan is being applied

evenly against all sides of the country's sectarian divide.

In a statement released Thursday, the U.S. military said the

mosque was raided ``during operations targeting illegally

armed militia kidnapping, torture and murder activities.'' It

said the mosque had been used ``to conduct sectarian violence

against Iraqi civilians as well as a safe haven and weapons

storage area for illegal militia groups.'' Sunni Muslims have

reported being held and beaten in the mosque, but little had

been done about it before. The Supreme Council's armed wing,

the Badr Organization, has been accused of kidnapping and

torturing Sunnis. The statement said U.S. forces guarded the

area around the mosque while Iraqi soldiers entered it with

the cooperation of its security guards.

baker and hamilton have urged the senate to capitalize on this progress

Hamilton: So I guess my bottom line on the surge is, look,

the president's plan ought to be given a chance. Give it a

chance, because we heard all of this. The general that you

confirmed 80-to-nothing the day before yesterday, this is his

idea. He's the supporter of it. Give it a chance.

Baker: And let me . . . read from the report with respect

to this issue of the surge, because there are only two

conditions upon our support for a surge. One is that it be

short-term and the other is that it be called for by the

commander in Iraq. President Bush said this is not an open-

ended commitment. Secretary Gates said this is a temporary

surge and . . . General Petraeus is the guy that's to carry

it out and he was the person that originally recommended it.

I also oppose this resolution because I believe it would send a horrible message to our troops and our military leaders, our allies and our enemies.

The majority leader has said that he doesn't think the resolution ``matters'' substantively, and that the politics are all that is important. He said:

Well, it doesn't matter what resolution we move forward to.

You know, I can count. I don't know if we'll get 60 votes.

But I'll tell you one thing: There are 21 Republicans up for

reelection this time.

I believe, contrary to the opinion of the Majority Leader, that the non-binding words in this resolution do matter. Here's why.

General Petraeus Believes the resolution hurts his Mission.

This is from Petraeus' confirmation hearing:

Senator Lieberman. You also said in response to a question

from Senator McCain that adoption of a resolution of

disapproval, . . . would not . . . have a beneficial effect

on our troops in Iraq. But I want to ask you, what effect

would Senate passage of a resolution of disapproval of this

new way ahead that you embrace--what effect would it have on

our enemies in Iraq?

Lieutenant General Petraeus. Sir, as I stated in the

opening statement, this is a test of wills, at the end of the

day. And in that regard . . . a commander in such an endeavor

would obviously like the enemy to feel that there's no hope.

Senator Lieberman. And a resolution--a Senate-passed

resolution of disapproval for this new strategy in Iraq would

give the enemy some encouragement, some feeling that--well,

some clear expression that the American people were divided.

Lieutenant General Petraeus: That's correct, sir. Soldiers

believe the resolution undermines them.

ABC News, Feb. 13:

ABC News recently asked Army sergeants in Ramadi what they

thought of the resolution, and they had strong words.

``Makes me sick,'' said First Sgt. Louis Barnum. [I'm] born

and raised a Democrat--it makes me sad.''

``I don't want to bad mouth the president at all. To me[,]

that is treason,'' said SGT. Brian Orzechowski.

From NBC Nightly News, January 26:

Specialist Tyler Johnson:

Those people are dying. You know what I'm saying? You may

support--``Oh, we support the troops,'' but you're not

supporting what they do, what they share and sweat for, what

they believe for, what we die for. It just don't make sense

to me.

SSG Manuel Sahagun:

One thing I don't like is when people back home say they

support the troops but they don't support the war. If they're

going to support us, support us all the way.

SPC Peter Manna:

If they don't think we're doing a good job, everything that

we've done here is all in vain.

From Fort-Worth Star Telegram, February 15, 2007:

Army SGT Daniel Dobson:

The question has been posed to me recently what

congressional resolution hurts troop morale the most. No

doubt we would be happy to come home tomorrow. But the

thought is bittersweet. Most service members would tell you

the same thing: There is no honor in retreat . . . and there

is no honor in what the Democrats have proposed. It stings me

to the core to think that Americans would rather sell their

honor than fight for a cause. Those of us who fight for

[peace] know all too well that peace has a very bloody price

tag.

The American Public Believes That The Resolution Undermines The Troops

From FOX NEWS quoting an opinion dynamics poll:

47 percent say it is more likely to encourage the enemy and

hurt troop morale, compared with 24 percent who think it

would make a positive difference to U.S. policy toward Iraq.

Finally, this resolution is but the first step in a ``slow bleed'' strategy, and should be rejected for that reason as well.

Democrats claim that they just want an up or down vote on this resolution to send a message to the President, but I fear that the real plan is much more expansive. If this resolution passes, votes to cut off support for our troops and micromanaging the war won't be far behind.

In the other Chamber, Representative Murtha has made it clear that he intends to bleed our troops of support for their mission in Iraq. Speaking about his resolution, Murtha said: ``They won't be able to continue. They won't be able to do the deployment. They won't have the equipment, they don't have the training and they won't be able to do the work. There's no question in my mind.''

Speaker Pelosi essentially endorsed this slow-bleed strategy, according to reports in The Poltico this morning.

Those who believe that this vote is a simple gesture, and that it will be the last word on the ``surge'' from this body, then why did Senator Feingold say on the floor just this morning that the Warner resolution is a ``first step''? Please listen to these additional quotes from some of my Democratic colleagues:

This is from the Foreign Relations Committee, January 24, 2007:

Senator Biden: But there's also one other thing, and I

commit to everyone today, and I will end with this: that

unless the President demonstrates very quickly that he is

unlikely to continue down the road he's on, this will be only

the first step in this committee. I will be introducing--I

know Senator Dodd may today introduce and another may--I know

Senator Obama, Senator Kerry, probably all of you have

binding, constitutionally legitimate, binding pieces of

legislation. We will bring them up.

On ``Meet The Press,'' January 28, 2007:

Mr. Russert: Do you believe that it's inevitable Democrats

will cut funding for the war off?

Senator Schumer: Well, we'll certainly ratchet up the

pressure against President Bush. The bottom line is that this

escalation, for instance, is so poorly received, not just by

Democrats, but by all of the American people. Our first step

will be this sense of the Senate resolution. But it's only

the first step.

From Speaker Pelosi, February 13, 2007:

A vote of disapproval will set the stage for additional

Iraq legislation which will be coming to the House floor.

If our Democratic colleagues don't intend to make this resolution the ``first step'' in a campaign to cut off funding for our operations in Iraq, then why won't they allow a vote on the Gregg resolution?

In summary, debate? Yes. But votes that are meaningful--not just on a critical non-binding resolution but on a commitment of support for our troops and their mission as well.

Madam President, 95 years ago today Arizona became the 48th State in the Union when, on February 14, 1912, President William Taft signed the Arizona Statehood Act.

Today, just as almost a century ago, Americans are drawn to Arizona's economic opportunity, culture, and natural beauty. At the time of statehood, Arizona's population numbered in the hundreds of thousands, but it was growing quickly, from around 200,000 in 1910 to over 330,000 in 1920. Today, it is the Nation's fastest growing State, with a population of more than 6 million.

Tourists flock to the State for its cultural heritage and scenic beauty. Arizona is home to four national parks and many other national monuments and historic sites. Many who visit these sites are heeding the advice of Theodore Roosevelt, who said of the Grand Canyon, ``You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.''

From its days as a rough Wild West territory to the dynamic State it is today, Arizona's beauty and culture has captivated those who have experienced it. I wish the State a happy birthday.

Mr. President, first let me compliment my colleague, Senator Bunning, for a fine statement. I endorse his call for unity. In a time of war, a country needs to be unified, especially when we send our young men and women into harm's way. They need to know we support the mission that we put them in harm's way to try to achieve.

I remember years ago I used to see bumper stickers that said, ``Give peace a chance.'' Today we need to dust off some of those bumper stickers, write a couple of extra words in, and give the President's plan for peace a chance. We are going to have a debate next week among those who believe the President's plan deserves a chance to succeed and those who disagree. I believe the latter position is dangerous, and it would be dangerous to express that point of view with a vote of the Senate in support of a resolution to that effect, especially since it appears people whom we have relied on in the past for advice are also now saying give the President's plan a chance and because events on the ground are beginning to suggest that his plan is already beginning to work.

There has been a great deal of discussion about the Baker-Hamilton report. Critics of the President's plan have frequently held that report up as evidence that we need to take a different course of action. But yesterday, appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former Secretary of State James Baker and former Member of the House of Representatives Lee Hamilton both argued that the President's plan should be given a chance to succeed.

Maybe that surprised the chairman, but here is what they testified. Representative Hamilton:

So I guess my bottom line on the surge is, look, the

President's plan ought to be given a chance. Give it a

chance, because we heard all of this. The general that you

confirmed 80-to-nothing the day before yesterday, this is his

idea. He's the supporter of it. Give it a chance.

That is Lee Hamilton.

Former Senator and Secretary of State Baker said:

. . . the study group set no timetables and we set no

deadlines. We believe that military commanders must have the

flexibility to respond to events on the ground.

And he said, in response to a Senator:

Senator, one of the purposes of the surge, as I'm sure you

have heard from General Petraeus, when you confirmed him, is

to give the Iraqi government a little more running room in

order to help it achieve national reconciliation by tamping

down the violence or pacifying, if you will, Baghdad.

That is the purpose of this strategy.

As I said, there is already evidence, even though the strategy has certainly not been implemented in full, that even the prospect of its implementation is beginning to have an effect. It is clear the Iraqi Government, in its pronouncements, has already begun to sound a lot different to these terrorists than they did in the past, when the Iraqi Government didn't always back up the U.S. efforts. When we would go into an area, we would capture these killers, and a couple of days later they would be back on the street because somebody with political influence in Iraq would see that it happened.

The idea is the Iraqis are now going to take charge and not allow that to happen. And in addition to U.S. troops, there will be twice as many new Iraqi troops helping to make sure it does not happen. Here are a few excerpts from the news media.

From the Washington Post, February 1, 2007:

Shiite militia leaders already appear to be leaving their

strongholds in Baghdad in anticipation of the U.S. and Iraqi

plan to increase the troop presence in the Iraqi capital,

according to the top U.S. commander in the country.

He said:

We have seen numerous indications Shia militia leaders will

leave, or already have left, Sadr City to avoid capture by

Iraqi and coalition security forces,'' Army Gen. George W.

Casey Jr. said in a written statement submitted to the Senate

Armed Services Committee as part of his confirmation hearing

today to be the Army chief of staff.

Already beginning to work. The article continues:

Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr has ordered his militia

not to confront U.S. forces and has endorsed negotiations

aimed at easing the deployment of American troops in his

strongholds, according to Sadrist and other Shiite

officials. This is the idea. In Anbar Province, where the

pressure from al-Qaida has been very strong, there is now

news that the sheiks in Anbar Province are beginning to

work with us. Just one report from the Washington Post of

January 27:

With the help of a confederation of about 50 Sunni Muslim

tribal sheiks, the U.S. military recruited more than 800

police officers in December and is on track to do the same

this month. Officers credit the sheiks' cooperation for the

diminishing violence in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar

province.

We have just mounted a big offensive with the Iraqi military in Najaf, and I quote from a Washington Post story of January 29:

Iraqi soldiers, backed by U.S. helicopters, stormed an

encampment of hundreds of insurgents hiding among date palm

orchards in southern Iraq in an operation Sunday and set off

fierce, day-long gun battles during the holiest week for the

country's Shiite Muslims. Iraqi security officials said that

the troops killed scores of insurgents while foiling a plot

to annihilate the Shiite religious leadership in the revered

city of Najaf.

There is also political movement in the country. Let me quote from a story from the Los Angeles Times of February 1:

Sunni and Shiite Arab lawmakers announced plans Wednesday

to form two new blocs in Iraq's parliament they hope will

break away from the ethnic and religious mold of current

alliances and ease sectarian strife.

There has also been a lot of talk about whether the mission of our forces should be one of which is to help secure the borders. This is something else that the Iraqis have pledged that they need to do, particularly in their relationships with Syria and Iran. Quoting from the same Los Angeles Times story:

Iraq indefinitely halted all flights to and from Syria and

closed a border crossing with Iran as the government prepares

for a security crackdown, a parliament member and an airport

official said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. The

airport official said that flights to and from Syria would be

cancelled for at least two weeks and that service had been

interrupted on Tuesday. Hassan al-Sunneid, a member of the

parliament's defense and security committee, told the AP that

``the move was in preparation for the security plan. The

State will decide when the flights will resume.''

So it is already beginning. No resolution passed here in the Senate is going to stop this new strategy. It appears to already be having some success. My only concern is the disagreement of some of our colleagues that it can't succeed will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, merely because it could embolden our enemies and cause our allies to wonder whether we still have the will to continue until we have achieved our mission in Iraq. But perhaps the message I am most concerned about that these resolutions would send is not only to the enemy and to our allies, but to our own troops and to their families.

There has been quite a bit of discussion of a news report on the NBC Nightly News last Friday, Brian Williams reporting, who specifically called upon Richard Engel, who was in Iraq, to report on what he had found there. I will work through his report, but here is what Engel said:

It's not just the new mission the soldiers are adjusting

to. They have something else on their minds: The growing

debate at home about the war. Troops here say they are

increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the war.

Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism of

what they have been fighting for. Twenty-one year-old SP

Tyler Johnson is on his first tour in Iraq. He thinks

skeptics should come over and see what it is like firsthand

before criticizing.

Here is what SP Tyler Johnson then said on the TV news.

Those people are dying. You know what I'm saying? You may

support--``Oh, we support the troops,'' but you're not

supporting what they do, what they share and sweat for, what

they believe for, and what we die for. It just don't make

sense to me.

Richard Engel then said:

Staff SGT Manuel Sahagun has served in Afghanistan and is

now on his second tour in Iraq. He says people back home

can't have it both ways.

And now Staff SGT Manuel Sahagun is on the camera and says:

One thing I don't like is when people back home say they

support the troops, but they don't support the war. If

they're going to support us, support us all the way.

And then Engel says:

SP Peter Manna thinks people have forgotten the toll the

war has taken.

And SP Peter Manna says:

If they don't think what we are doing is a good job,

everything that we have done here is all in vain.

Engel concludes:

Apache Company has lost two soldiers and now worries their

country may be abandoning the mission they died for.

We cannot send that message to our troops and to their families, that we disagree with the mission we are putting them in harm's way to try to achieve. As these three young men, our finest, have said, speaking to the American people: You can't say you support the troops if you don't support what we are trying to do here, what we might die trying to accomplish.

That is why we have to be careful about resolutions in the Senate. Every Senator has an immense capability of expressing his or her point of view. We have all done that. We all continue to do it. We can get before the cameras any time we want to. We can let our folks back home know what we feel. And I dare say there are probably 100 different opinions in this body of 100 people. We all have a little different view of it. And we can tell our constituents what we think.

We certainly can communicate that to the President and people in the military. What we don't have to do is to go the next step and pass a resolution that first of all is nonbinding and has no effect on the implementation of the strategy, which is already beginning and will go forward, but can have a very detrimental effect on our enemies, on our allies, and on our own troops.

When General Petraeus was here testifying before his confirmation, he was asked a question about the resolutions to the effect of would it be helpful, and he said: No, it would not be helpful. Then he went on to talk about the object of war being to break the will of the enemy. He said: This would not help us--it would hurt us--break the will of the enemy, especially in a war like the one we are fighting with terrorists around the globe today--a war of wills.

It is important for us not to send the signal that our will is flagging, that there is great disagreement in our country about the desire to continue. In this war of wills, we should be unified and in support of the mission we are sending our troops to try to accomplish, and in support of the general whom we have confirmed to carry out that mission.

So I hope my colleagues will think very carefully about the words they speak, the actions they take, and reflect on what others will think of what we do here in this body. We are not simply speaking to the President, trying to send him a message. Everyone else in the world will get that message. And as much as we might manipulate the words in a resolution to try to bring 60 Senators all in consensus to what the resolution says, we all know what the headlines the next morning are going to say all around the world if a resolution like this were to pass: ``Senate Declares No Confidence in President's Strategy.'' ``U.S. Senate Goes on Record as Opposing Bush Plan.'' You can write the headline. Those are the words that will resonate around the world.

Let's not make any criticism of the President or his plan become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's be as united as we can in supporting our troops by supporting the mission we are sending them on, hoping it will succeed; if we want, expressing concerns we have about that, but doing so in a way that doesn't undercut the message. We can do both of these things in this great open society. People expect us to have debate about important issues such as matters of war and peace, and we can do that without undercutting the mission here.

I go back to where I started in quoting former Representative Lee Hamilton, cochairman of the Hamilton-Baker commission in his testimony yesterday here in the Senate:

So I guess my bottom line on the surge is, look, the

President's plan ought to be given a chance. Give it a

chance, because we have heard all of this. The general that

you confirmed 80 to nothing the day before yesterday, this is

his idea. He's the supporter of it. Give it a chance.

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

Mr. President, first let me compliment my colleague, Senator Bunning, for a fine statement. I endorse his call for unity. In a time of war, a country needs to be unified, especially when we send our young men and women into harm's way. They need to know we support the mission that we put them in harm's way to try to achieve.

I remember years ago I used to see bumper stickers that said, ``Give peace a chance.'' Today we need to dust off some of those bumper stickers, write a couple of extra words in, and give the President's plan for peace a chance. We are going to have a debate next week among those who believe the President's plan deserves a chance to succeed and those who disagree. I believe the latter position is dangerous, and it would be dangerous to express that point of view with a vote of the Senate in support of a resolution to that effect, especially since it appears people whom we have relied on in the past for advice are also now saying give the President's plan a chance and because events on the ground are beginning to suggest that his plan is already beginning to work.

There has been a great deal of discussion about the Baker-Hamilton report. Critics of the President's plan have frequently held that report up as evidence that we need to take a different course of action. But yesterday, appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former Secretary of State James Baker and former Member of the House of Representatives Lee Hamilton both argued that the President's plan should be given a chance to succeed.

Maybe that surprised the chairman, but here is what they testified. Representative Hamilton:

So I guess my bottom line on the surge is, look, the

President's plan ought to be given a chance. Give it a

chance, because we heard all of this. The general that you

confirmed 80-to-nothing the day before yesterday, this is his

idea. He's the supporter of it. Give it a chance.

That is Lee Hamilton.

Former Senator and Secretary of State Baker said:

. . . the study group set no timetables and we set no

deadlines. We believe that military commanders must have the

flexibility to respond to events on the ground.

And he said, in response to a Senator:

Senator, one of the purposes of the surge, as I'm sure you

have heard from General Petraeus, when you confirmed him, is

to give the Iraqi government a little more running room in

order to help it achieve national reconciliation by tamping

down the violence or pacifying, if you will, Baghdad.

That is the purpose of this strategy.

As I said, there is already evidence, even though the strategy has certainly not been implemented in full, that even the prospect of its implementation is beginning to have an effect. It is clear the Iraqi Government, in its pronouncements, has already begun to sound a lot different to these terrorists than they did in the past, when the Iraqi Government didn't always back up the U.S. efforts. When we would go into an area, we would capture these killers, and a couple of days later they would be back on the street because somebody with political influence in Iraq would see that it happened.

The idea is the Iraqis are now going to take charge and not allow that to happen. And in addition to U.S. troops, there will be twice as many new Iraqi troops helping to make sure it does not happen. Here are a few excerpts from the news media.

From the Washington Post, February 1, 2007:

Shiite militia leaders already appear to be leaving their

strongholds in Baghdad in anticipation of the U.S. and Iraqi

plan to increase the troop presence in the Iraqi capital,

according to the top U.S. commander in the country.

He said:

We have seen numerous indications Shia militia leaders will

leave, or already have left, Sadr City to avoid capture by

Iraqi and coalition security forces,'' Army Gen. George W.

Casey Jr. said in a written statement submitted to the Senate

Armed Services Committee as part of his confirmation hearing

today to be the Army chief of staff.

Already beginning to work. The article continues:

Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr has ordered his militia

not to confront U.S. forces and has endorsed negotiations

aimed at easing the deployment of American troops in his

strongholds, according to Sadrist and other Shiite

officials. This is the idea. In Anbar Province, where the

pressure from al-Qaida has been very strong, there is now

news that the sheiks in Anbar Province are beginning to

work with us. Just one report from the Washington Post of

January 27:

With the help of a confederation of about 50 Sunni Muslim

tribal sheiks, the U.S. military recruited more than 800

police officers in December and is on track to do the same

this month. Officers credit the sheiks' cooperation for the

diminishing violence in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar

province.

We have just mounted a big offensive with the Iraqi military in Najaf, and I quote from a Washington Post story of January 29:

Iraqi soldiers, backed by U.S. helicopters, stormed an

encampment of hundreds of insurgents hiding among date palm

orchards in southern Iraq in an operation Sunday and set off

fierce, day-long gun battles during the holiest week for the

country's Shiite Muslims. Iraqi security officials said that

the troops killed scores of insurgents while foiling a plot

to annihilate the Shiite religious leadership in the revered

city of Najaf.

There is also political movement in the country. Let me quote from a story from the Los Angeles Times of February 1:

Sunni and Shiite Arab lawmakers announced plans Wednesday

to form two new blocs in Iraq's parliament they hope will

break away from the ethnic and religious mold of current

alliances and ease sectarian strife.

There has also been a lot of talk about whether the mission of our forces should be one of which is to help secure the borders. This is something else that the Iraqis have pledged that they need to do, particularly in their relationships with Syria and Iran. Quoting from the same Los Angeles Times story:

Iraq indefinitely halted all flights to and from Syria and

closed a border crossing with Iran as the government prepares

for a security crackdown, a parliament member and an airport

official said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. The

airport official said that flights to and from Syria would be

cancelled for at least two weeks and that service had been

interrupted on Tuesday. Hassan al-Sunneid, a member of the

parliament's defense and security committee, told the AP that

``the move was in preparation for the security plan. The

State will decide when the flights will resume.''

So it is already beginning. No resolution passed here in the Senate is going to stop this new strategy. It appears to already be having some success. My only concern is the disagreement of some of our colleagues that it can't succeed will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, merely because it could embolden our enemies and cause our allies to wonder whether we still have the will to continue until we have achieved our mission in Iraq. But perhaps the message I am most concerned about that these resolutions would send is not only to the enemy and to our allies, but to our own troops and to their families.

There has been quite a bit of discussion of a news report on the NBC Nightly News last Friday, Brian Williams reporting, who specifically called upon Richard Engel, who was in Iraq, to report on what he had found there. I will work through his report, but here is what Engel said:

It's not just the new mission the soldiers are adjusting

to. They have something else on their minds: The growing

debate at home about the war. Troops here say they are

increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the war.

Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism of

what they have been fighting for. Twenty-one year-old SP

Tyler Johnson is on his first tour in Iraq. He thinks

skeptics should come over and see what it is like firsthand

before criticizing.

Here is what SP Tyler Johnson then said on the TV news.

Those people are dying. You know what I'm saying? You may

support--``Oh, we support the troops,'' but you're not

supporting what they do, what they share and sweat for, what

they believe for, and what we die for. It just don't make

sense to me.

Richard Engel then said:

Staff SGT Manuel Sahagun has served in Afghanistan and is

now on his second tour in Iraq. He says people back home

can't have it both ways.

And now Staff SGT Manuel Sahagun is on the camera and says:

One thing I don't like is when people back home say they

support the troops, but they don't support the war. If

they're going to support us, support us all the way.

And then Engel says:

SP Peter Manna thinks people have forgotten the toll the

war has taken.

And SP Peter Manna says:

If they don't think what we are doing is a good job,

everything that we have done here is all in vain.

Engel concludes:

Apache Company has lost two soldiers and now worries their

country may be abandoning the mission they died for.

We cannot send that message to our troops and to their families, that we disagree with the mission we are putting them in harm's way to try to achieve. As these three young men, our finest, have said, speaking to the American people: You can't say you support the troops if you don't support what we are trying to do here, what we might die trying to accomplish.

That is why we have to be careful about resolutions in the Senate. Every Senator has an immense capability of expressing his or her point of view. We have all done that. We all continue to do it. We can get before the cameras any time we want to. We can let our folks back home know what we feel. And I dare say there are probably 100 different opinions in this body of 100 people. We all have a little different view of it. And we can tell our constituents what we think.

We certainly can communicate that to the President and people in the military. What we don't have to do is to go the next step and pass a resolution that first of all is nonbinding and has no effect on the implementation of the strategy, which is already beginning and will go forward, but can have a very detrimental effect on our enemies, on our allies, and on our own troops.

When General Petraeus was here testifying before his confirmation, he was asked a question about the resolutions to the effect of would it be helpful, and he said: No, it would not be helpful. Then he went on to talk about the object of war being to break the will of the enemy. He said: This would not help us--it would hurt us--break the will of the enemy, especially in a war like the one we are fighting with terrorists around the globe today--a war of wills.

It is important for us not to send the signal that our will is flagging, that there is great disagreement in our country about the desire to continue. In this war of wills, we should be unified and in support of the mission we are sending our troops to try to accomplish, and in support of the general whom we have confirmed to carry out that mission.

So I hope my colleagues will think very carefully about the words they speak, the actions they take, and reflect on what others will think of what we do here in this body. We are not simply speaking to the President, trying to send him a message. Everyone else in the world will get that message. And as much as we might manipulate the words in a resolution to try to bring 60 Senators all in consensus to what the resolution says, we all know what the headlines the next morning are going to say all around the world if a resolution like this were to pass: ``Senate Declares No Confidence in President's Strategy.'' ``U.S. Senate Goes on Record as Opposing Bush Plan.'' You can write the headline. Those are the words that will resonate around the world.

Let's not make any criticism of the President or his plan become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's be as united as we can in supporting our troops by supporting the mission we are sending them on, hoping it will succeed; if we want, expressing concerns we have about that, but doing so in a way that doesn't undercut the message. We can do both of these things in this great open society. People expect us to have debate about important issues such as matters of war and peace, and we can do that without undercutting the mission here.

I go back to where I started in quoting former Representative Lee Hamilton, cochairman of the Hamilton-Baker commission in his testimony yesterday here in the Senate:

So I guess my bottom line on the surge is, look, the

President's plan ought to be given a chance. Give it a

chance, because we have heard all of this. The general that

you confirmed 80 to nothing the day before yesterday, this is

his idea. He's the supporter of it. Give it a chance.

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, there are at least two--and I believe only two--amendments that will be pending that are germane postcloture to be considered. The first of those is my amendment No. 209. I will speak to that at this point and then will continue the debate after some other business has been conducted.

Amendment No. 209 to the substitute is an amendment to the Baucus Finance Committee amendment which has been agreed to by the Senate. I will describe the background of that amendment and then the justification for it.

Under current law, small businesses can expense $100,000 of qualified business investments in the first year that the property is placed into service. Because the level is indexed for inflation, the 2007 expensing limit is $112,000. But after 2009, the expensing limit drops back down to $25,000 a year, clearly an insufficient amount. Recognizing this, the Baucus Finance Committee amendment would extend the increased expensing levels through 2010. That is only a 1-year extension. Amendment No. 209 extends it through 2012, which is the same period of time that the work opportunity tax credit has been extended under the Finance Committee amendment. Section 179 of the Tax Code, which allows small businesses to elect to deduct all or part of the cost of certain qualifying property the year that it is placed into service, would work through the year 2012 rather than 2010, as under the Finance bill.

We know that this immediate expensing has been critical to supporting economic growth. We, also, know that small businesses account for about 60 percent of the cost that is imposed as a result of the increase in the minimum wage that is in the underlying bill. As a way to try to help small businesses overcome the costs we are imposing on them, we have talked to them. They are pretty unanimous in the view that the one thing we could do that best helps them be able to afford this is to extend the small business expensing under section 179.

The reason we need to extend it a longer period of time is because of the certainty they need. When they are planning on making improvements to their business and they know they can expense that when they put that improvement in place, in force, then they will proceed to do what is in the economic best interest of their business. But if their plans are restrained by the Tax Code, then we are not enabling them to fulfill their fullest potential in making the business decisions that create jobs. The key of this particular program is that it is a job creator. That is why almost all of us would like to see this extended as far as we can. I don't think there is any real dispute about that. As I said, the Kyl amendment to the Baucus substitute would simply extend this increased small business expensing through the year 2012, the same extension as is given the work opportunity tax credit.

For the sake of illustration, you can see that on this chart, the work opportunity tax credit is extended through the year 2012, and as a result of the Finance Committee bill into 2013. The other expensing provisions or depreciation provisions that were in the Finance Committee bill are only extended through the end of the first quarter of next year, except for section 179, which currently goes through the end of 2009, and the Finance Committee bill takes it through 2010.

What this amendment would do is take it through 2012, the same period as the work opportunity tax credit under the Finance Committee bill.

The chairman of the committee argues that the small business tax relief package should be balanced between the expensing and depreciation provisions and the work opportunity tax credit. As I noted, that is extended for 5 years, while section 179 is extended for only 1 year. Small business expensing has always enjoyed strong bipartisan support. I don't think there is any reason now to treat this issue as a political issue or a partisan issue and to try to put it in competition with the work opportunity tax credit. They can move forward together.

That is especially the case because section 179, unlike the work opportunity tax credit, is targeted at small businesses. Not only is expensing limited to $112,000, but current law actually reduces that amount for property that costs over $400,000, which is also indexed. Meaning that section 179 is simply not useful to large businesses that are in the business of purchasing things for far more than $400,000. But we know, in pure dollar terms, the work opportunity tax credit primarily benefits larger businesses. In fact, testimony before the Finance Committee was that 95 percent of the credits go to either C or S corporations. Since the bulk of the cost of imposing the minimum wage is on small businesses, since section 179 expensing is the primary way we can help small businesses, and since the value of the work opportunity tax credit primarily helps the bigger businesses, it seems to us that the proper balance is to extend both of them through 2012, and section 179, under our amendment, would be brought to that point.

One more word about the investments that small business makes because this is instructive. According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, 63 percent of small business owners will make capital improvements over any 6-month period, and this could include acquiring new equipment, buying new vehicles, new furniture, expanding existing facilities, maybe even buying a new facility. They need to acquire new equipment and facilities to expand their businesses and create jobs. That is the point of section 179. It enables job creation. That is probably the best antidote to the cost imposed by increasing the minimum wage.

As many experts have pointed out, one of the fallouts from increasing the minimum wage is that some smaller businesses simply hire fewer people. Some even reduce the number of hours their entry-level workers work or even lay people off. The benefit of section 179 that everyone has recognized is it enables the small businesses to grow, to create jobs, and, therefore, the potential downside of increasing the minimum wage is offset, in effect, and never occurs because the jobs are created by virtue of section 179 and other benefits.

Everybody recognizes that allowing first-year expensing is what makes it easier for small businesses to make investments. Business income is overstated because we require businesses to depreciate investments over a period of time instead of deducting the entire cost all at once. But the business must buy an entire machine or building all

at once, which ties up funds that otherwise would be available to earn income. So allowing the immediate expensing of the $112,000 worth of business investment frees up funds that small business owners can use to grow their businesses, and those owners are likely to reinvest the money back into their business because they are entrepreneurs. This increased business investment benefits the entire economy. It is the job creator.

Small business represents 99.7 percent of all employers. It employs over half the private sector employees. They pay 44.3 percent of the total U.S. private payroll. This is a very big factor in our economy. Small businesses generate 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs, according to statistics over the last decade, and create more than 50 percent of nonfarm private gross domestic income. Extending the increased limits through 2012 will provide greater stability for these small business owners. The best answer is to actually make the increases permanent, but that is not what this amendment does. It extends it to the same period of time that the work opportunity tax credit is.

Most people would recognize that this is wise, that it is good policy, and that my amendment, therefore, takes us a substantial step in the right direction.

The question before was whether the budget would require that there be a separate so-called pay-for, a permanent tax increase that would offset the cost of this temporary tax extension. There have been various types of pay-go since the statutory pay-go was enacted in 1990. The point of order was enacted in 1993. Statutory pay-go, which expired in 2002, was enforced by OMB, but Congress always enacted legislation to avert it. But contrary to popular belief, the Senate has a pay-go rule in effect right now. It was first created in 2003. The current pay-go rule provides a 60-vote point of order against any new mandatory spending or new tax cuts that exceed specified levels. This is called the pay-go scorecard. Those levels are set in the budget resolution, and the current scorecard set in the 2006 budget resolution, which was the last budget agreed to by the House and Senate and the one applicable here, currently allows no unoffset tax cuts or mandatory spending from 2006 to 2010. But it does allow up to $268 billion in offset tax cuts or mandatory spending from 2011 to 2015, without triggering a point of order. There is no point of order against this amendment because of the current scorecard and the way this amendment would work.

The problem with any version of pay-go is that the CBO assumes all entitlement programs live forever, regardless of whether a program must be reauthorized. But tax cuts that must be reauthorized are not included in the baseline. Pay-go does not apply to appropriations. So that is why there is no pay-go point of order against this amendment because the Baucus substitute already extends section 179 small business expensing to 2010. It includes the necessary offsets to cover 2010, and our amendment extends that same expensing through 2011 and 2012, years in which the pay-go scorecard has more than sufficient allocation to cover any revenue that Joint Tax projects will not be collected in those years.

I think all of the ends are tied up here. This is something that most of us would like to see done. It would help the small businesses that will bear the brunt of the expected passage of the minimum wage increase. We have a way to extend the most useful of the tax deductions, this expensing for small business, through 2012. That does not require any new permanent increases in taxes to offset the cost. It seems to me that this is very wise public policy. It doesn't have to be partisan. It would be good policy for us to extend this.

I urge my colleagues, when we have an opportunity to vote on this amendment, to support it, or if there is a motion to table it, to vote against the motion to table.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, unless the Senator from Wisconsin wishes to speak, I will proceed. I believe we have about 14 minutes remaining on our side. I would like to use at least some of that time to clear up a couple points that were made earlier in the debate. I am speaking on the amendment No. 209, which is my amendment to extend the period of time that so-called section 179 small business expensing would be effective. Instead of cutting off at 2010, it would be the same period of time that we extended the work opportunity tax credit; namely, 2012. The obvious reason being that businesses would have more time within which to plan these additions or improvements to their business and would be able to count on what the Tax Code treatment would be and, therefore, would be more likely to make the investment and, therefore, create more jobs and, therefore, be able to absorb the cost of the minimum wage that will be imposed by the legislation before us.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Alexander be added as a cosponsor to amendment No. 115 and that Senator Specter be added as a cosponsor both to this amendment, No. 209, and to No. 115.

Madam President, the Senator from Massachusetts made a couple of statements I need to correct. One was that this amendment would cost $45 billion. I do not know how he arrived at that figure. Even if you add up all of the amendments I have proposed at one time or another on this bill, they don't add up to $45 billion.

The amount that this amendment would, in effect, cost to take section 179 through the year 2012 would be about $2.1 billion over 10 years. That is more than absorbed by the authority that we have under the budget from last year, which is $278.6 billion. So there doesn't have to be an additional offset. There doesn't have to be an additional pay- for. The cost for extending section 179--what we are doing with this amendment--is entirely subsumed in the budget we passed last year. That is why it is not subject to a point of order and why a mere majority vote will determine whether it moves forward.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, by the way, the minimum wage increase will impose about $5 billion worth of new costs on businesses each and every year. Most of that will be on small businesses. The extension of this relief will benefit those very small businesses that are going to have to absorb this additional cost.

When the Senator from Massachusetts said earlier, ``We have debated over the period of the last few days tax breaks for corporate America,'' I want to be very clear, that is not the tax break I am talking about. The tax break for corporate America is the tax break the majority of the Democrats on the Finance Committee have provided in the form of the work opportunity tax credit.

Testimony before our committee confirmed that 95 percent, approximately, of the value of the WOTC, work opportunity tax credit, goes to bigger businesses, S and C corporations, because they have the wherewithal to set up the complicated accounting mechanisms for the work opportunity tax credit legislation to actually work. Very few of the small businesses are benefited by that tax relief. But almost all of the small businesses are benefited by the tax relief that I have proposed. So I respectfully correct my colleague from Massachusetts.

What I am proposing doesn't benefit the big corporations. That is what is already extended under the bill through the year 2012. What we are doing is extending through the year 2012 these benefits for the small businesses--specifically, the section 179 expensing. How does that work? As I explained this morning, by definition, section 179 allows businesses to write off an amount that is right now $112,000, when they spend that much money on a new piece of equipment or add on their business. If they spend more than $400,000, they cannot use this particular provision.

The bottom line is that this is for the small business, it is not for big business. So it is simply incorrect to say that the proposal that is before us now, to be voted on shortly, benefits big corporations. They cannot, by definition, take advantage of this particular provision of the Tax Code.

Again, why are we seeking to do this? All of us on the Finance Committee agreed that we needed to provide some tax relief to small businesses because small businesses would bear the brunt of the new expense of the minimum wage. So the committee unanimously extended various provisions of the Tax Code. It extended this section 179 for another year, recognizing its importance. All my amendment does is extend it another 2 years, so that it will conform with the same period of time that the work opportunity tax credit goes to and, thus, provide some balance between the big businesses, which get the work opportunity tax credit relief, and the small businesses, which primarily rely on the section 179 tax relief.

Section 179 is probably the most used of the tax provisions because all small businesses can take advantage of it whenever they add value to their particular business. It is for this reason that several organizations have endorsed this proposal of mine and, in fact, have communicated with us that they intend to key vote this amendment. So when you are voting on my amendment, if you vote to table my amendment, you are going against the recommendations of the following groups: National Federation of Independent Business, NFIB; Food Marketing Institute; Printing Industries of America; International Franchise Association; and Society of American Florists.

You can see that these are the kinds of businesses that can take advantage of this section of the Tax Code. So anybody who votes to table this amendment, as I said, will be going against the recommendation of these particular groups.

I urge my colleagues--this has never been a partisan issue. Section 179 is supported by Democrats and Republicans and Independents. Our committee action was unanimous. There is no reason this has to become a partisan issue. There is no question of pay-for. We already, in the budget from last

year, the scorecard, as they call it, have revenue available to offset the modest increase of $2 billion that a 2-year extension would entail in this particular amendment. So I see no reason for anybody to vote against it and, most especially, to table this amendment.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the motion to table.

Madam President, might I inquire how much time is now available on both sides of this issue?

All right. It is also my understanding that time not used is to be counted off equally against both parties; is that correct?

Oh, I see. As the proponent of the amendment, I hope that I will be able to close the debate. But given the fact that there is 6 minutes remaining on my side, if there is nobody from the majority side to speak to this, then I will continue the conversation, at least until someone arrives.

One of the other arguments is that by extending this through 2008, we have provided enough certainty to small businesses that they could go ahead and make the investment, plan the renovation or buy the piece of equipment, or whatever that might be. The bottom line is that any amount that we extend in these tax provisions enables businesses to plan better. If we extend it 1 year, as the committee did, then at least businesses can look out 1 year. But as we all know, in the business environment, a 1-year horizon is very short. That is why, just as we extended the work opportunity tax credit through 2012, it makes sense to extend the small business expensing through the year 2012 as well. Any additional time that businesses can know what the tax consequences of their purchases or expenses are is an advantage to them and will enable them to create the jobs, as I said, that will offset the costs of the minimum wage.

Madam President, I don't know of anybody who opposes the extension of section 179. The committee itself extended it for 1 year. I don't know why there would be partisan debate about extending it for another 2 years. I think we can all agree that would represent good policy. The relatively modest expense of this $2.1 billion, in terms of theoretical lost revenue, is more than compensated for by the $278 billion in offset tax authority from the years 2011 and 2015 under the budget we passed last year. So there is no point of order and there is no reason, on a purely fiscal basis or balanced budget basis, to vote against this.

Everybody knows it is good for small business. Adding 12 years for planning purposes for the business to purchase the equipment or add to the building is simply an improvement over existing law and enhancing of the small business's ability to create more jobs, expand their business and, frankly, to contribute to the great economic growth that we have right now.

So I don't understand any of the reasons a Member of this body would want to oppose this particular amendment. I am not doing this for any purpose other than to try to support these small businesses. That is why the NFIB and the others are so supportive of my amendment. I would think that in this time when we wanted to start out the year in a bipartisan way, this is a provision that has strong bipartisan support; it always has. I just don't understand why anybody would not want to extend it for 2 years, especially when the costs of doing so are already offset in the budget that we passed last year.

Again, I urge my colleagues to oppose the motion to table this amendment.

Madam President, let me first inquire how much time both sides have remaining.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Let me use the last minute of my time, and then I will yield to the leader.

Madam President, I simply wanted to respond to the point the chairman of the committee just made, which is that this is not offset. The reason there is no pay-go point of order against this amendment is because the Baucus substitute already extends section 179 small business expensing through 2010 and includes the necessary offsets to cover 2010. This amendment merely extends that through 2012, years in which the pay-go scorecard has more than sufficient allocation to cover any revenue that Joint Tax projects would not be collected in those years. That is why there is no point of order and why we believe this is a fiscally responsible way to assist small business.

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

Mr. President, my understanding is that the pending business is amendment No. 115.

Mr. President, I will briefly describe this amendment. It extends for an additional period of time three provisions of the Tax Code that relate to smaller businesses that the Committee on Finance agreed should have this tax relief and provides for a more balanced bill in terms of the extension of the tax provisions. It deals with leaseholds and restaurant renovations, new restaurant construction and owner-occupied retail. It is identical to an amendment the Senate tabled last week except that it drops the revenue offset since Senator Baucus had identified that offset as the primary problem he had with the amendment.

Specifically, it would extend three provisions of the Small Business and Work Opportunity Act of 2007 through the end of 2008. The three provisions are the 15-year recovery period for leasehold improvements in restaurant renovations, as current law provides they run through the year 2007; 15-year recovery for new restaurant construction, which is a new provision; and another new provision, 15-year recovery period for retail improvements.

My chart shows what we have done in the Committee on Finance and what I am proposing here. These are the three provisions covered by the amendment before the Senate at this time. We have added the two new provisions in green for new restaurants and retail, and we have extended the leasehold and restaurant provision by 3 months. All three of these would expire at the end of March of next year. What we do in this amendment is extend them through the end of the year. The reason should be obvious: For businesses to plan ahead, they need a little bit of lead time. To provide only a 3-month extension, for example, is not very much tax relief.

We all acknowledge that the point of this relief in the first place, which the committee unanimously agreed to, was to help small business be able to offset the cost of the minimum wage increase. If we are going to do that, it should be meaningful. This amendment simply extends from a 3-month period to the end of the year and extends the two new provisions as well through the end of 2009.

Let me describe each of these three provisions.

The leaseholds and restaurant renovation provision under current law are depreciated over a 15-year period, but this treatment only applies to property placed in service by the end of 2007. The amendment that came out of the Committee on Finance, the Baucus Committee on Finance substitute, would extend this 15-year recovery period by 3 months for property placed in service by March 31, 2008.

Under the two new provisions, new restaurant construction, there is currently no law provision allowing for accelerated depreciation of new restaurant construction, and the Baucus Committee on Finance substitute provides to correct this problem with a 15-year recovery period for such new restaurants. It is an important and necessary change, but it only, under the Committee on Finance bill, provides the treatment from the date of enactment through March 31, 2008.

And the same thing for owner-occupied retail. There is currently no provision allowing for accelerated depreciation of improvements made to owner-occupied retail space. The Baucus Committee on Finance provides a 15-year

recovery period for improvements made to such spaces, thus putting these establishments on the same footing as leasehold. The bill provides this treatment from the date of enactment through March 31, 2008.

The committee had recognized the importance of these depreciation periods for owner-occupied retail, new restaurant construction, and leaseholds and restaurant renovations. There is no dispute about that, no debate about that. The only question is how far the relief should be extended.

While obviously everyone appreciates in this case the 3-month extension, it is hardly enough to be able to say to these small businesses: We solved your problem; we put a big burden of paying for the minimum wage increase on you, but we have enabled you to offset that by depreciating your property more quickly and being able to plan for your future construction needs. Clearly, that provision does not do the trick. Even these two new provisions, as welcome as they are, only extend the relief through March of next year. Again, what my amendment does is extend it through the end of the year. That is all it does.

Let me illustrate the importance of the tax provisions that the Finance Committee passed and which we are seeking to extend by this amendment.

If you stop and think about it, the policy justification for a 39- year depreciation recovery period for new construction of a restaurant, for example, makes no sense at all. How many of you know of any restaurant that has not done a thing to the restaurant for 39 years? If you are in the restaurant business, you have to constantly upgrade your facilities. Certainly, your kitchen facilities have to be upgraded. And new construction and renovation should obviously be treated the same way.

Under this bill, they are given a 15-year depreciation schedule. Now, that is the same depreciation schedule as for convenience stores, of course--a direct competitor of quick-service restaurants. They can use the 15-year depreciation schedule for all construction, new or renovation. Under their provision of the Tax Code, it is permanent law, so we do not have to extend it each year.

So what the Finance Committee has done is to try to bring some sense of balance and fairness into the code to treat like properties in a like way. If you are a fast-food restaurant, it does not matter whether you are a convenience store or regular restaurant, whether you build the place new or you simply spend the money to renovate, the expense of what you have done should be depreciated over the same period of time.

Fifteen years is probably too long, but that is the period that has been selected. It should be the same for all. By allowing restaurateurs to deduct the cost of renovations and new construction on this shorter schedule, many more restaurant owners will be in a position to grow their business and to continue to create more jobs. That is the key to offsetting the expenses of the minimum wage.

By definition, encouraging more new restaurants to be built means more new restaurant jobs. That is a tautology. This is important because the restaurant industry is uniquely impacted by a minimum wage increase. Of the nearly 2 million workers earning the minimum wage, 60 percent work in the food service industry. Furthermore, the last time Congress increased the minimum wage, 146,000 jobs were cut from restaurant industry payrolls, according to information from the industry. That is why this provision I am offering today is so important. The very people who are going to bear the impact--namely, the workers in restaurants, who could see their jobs evaporate as a result of passage of the minimum wage increase--will find that their job is going to be OK when their restaurant can expand or build a new restaurant, thus creating more new jobs.

Instead of having to lay people off in order to pay the increased minimum wage, the businesses will be able to create more jobs and, therefore, everyone would be able to be employed by them. This is the theory. The Finance Committee agrees with the theory by adopting these two new provisions and extending the existing provision for 3 months. But as I said before, it did not do the job well enough.

This is very modest relief and hardly gives a restaurant, for example, the confidence it can continue to make improvements and receive the favorable tax treatment, the 15-year writeoff provision we are providing in the law. That is why it is important to continue to extend it. It would be nice if it were permanent, as it is for convenience stores. That is what it should be. It would be nice, as under the work opportunity tax credit, if it went out through the year 2012 or 2013. That would be nice. We are simply taking it to the end of the year 2009. That is not too much to ask to help these small businesses.

Let me just note a couple of the objections that came from the chairman. The first had to do with so-called balancing of the work opportunity tax credit and the tax relief for small businesses. Now, the work opportunity tax credit, as you can see with this red line on the chart, the committee bill went to the end of 2012. And these others only go through March of 2009. That is hardly balanced. Moreover, all of these provisions have always attracted bipartisan support.

It is not like the work opportunity tax credit is a Democratic provision and the retail improvements are a Republican provision. We have all supported both provisions. Both make sense. We understand that. So it is not like somehow there has to be a partisan reason to support this but not support this, or this or this, as shown on the chart. We do not need partisan politics injected into this debate. So there is no reason now to politicize these issues, characterizing them as Republican or Democrat.

It is obvious the bill is not balanced. Even if you assume there should be some balance, the work opportunity tax credit, as I noted, is extended for 5 years, while the accelerated depreciation for leasehold and restaurant improvements is extended for a 3-month period.

As I noted before, the primary objection of the chairman before was over the offset. I understand that. It was a somewhat controversial offset. Of course, in the committee, when I offered this amendment, the chairman said unless I had an offset, it would be declared out of order. So we looked for and thought we had an offset that would be approved. But it turned out the chairman did not like that offset. That was his primary objection to this provision. So we will simply remove that offset and provide that we will extend the provisions for another 9 months through the end of 2009, without an offset of any tax increase.

But let me just make this point. We are talking about a very temporary extension of an important tax provision. This leasehold and restaurant provision has been in existence now for some time. We are extending it all of 3 months. Yet under the theory of those who say it has to be offset by a new tax increase, we would have to permanently find a source of revenue that would pay for this 3-month extension. That is a perversion of the pay-go concept. It is inappropriate, especially for provisions that generate jobs.

We should not have to pass a permanent tax increase in order to be able to fund a temporary provision of the Tax Code that helps to create new jobs. As I said before, when you build a new restaurant, you are creating new jobs. That is obvious. And when you create new jobs, you can better afford to hire the people who would be at the minimum wage, 60 percent of whom are in the restaurant business, and there is a job there for them.

So it makes sense to extend these provisions. The work opportunity tax credit, as beneficial as it might be, does not create new jobs. So if anything, you would want to balance with more emphasis on these three provisions than you would under the work opportunity tax credit.

So I guess the bottom line of this is that the reason for objecting to this provision, based on the lack of an offset, does not make sense in terms of practical economics, given the fact that the provisions that we would extend in 2008 are job creators and would create the very jobs that people earning the minimum wage could then move into.

Without the creation of these new jobs, some businesses are going to have to lay people off, and there will not be

jobs for them. This would provide for those jobs.

Mr. President, I guess the bottom line is this: We have seen, unfortunately, the debate over these amendments break down along primarily party lines. I think that is very unfortunate because a small business owner can be a Republican, a Democrat, or anybody else. They create the bulk of jobs in our society. They pay a huge amount of the taxes. They will be the ones most hard hit by the increase in the minimum wage.

If we pass a minimum wage increase with bipartisan support, it seems to me we should follow the leadership of the Finance Committee in extending these tax provisions in a bipartisan way. And when we only extend a provision for 3 months, to me, it is not a good-faith recognition of the problem we have placed on that small business by the imposition of the minimum wage mandate. We need to keep faith with those businesses by providing a longer extension of the tax provisions that benefit them in a way that enables them to pay for this minimum wage increase. That is how we would be keeping faith with these small businesses.

So I hope we can eschew the partisanship that has characterized the previous votes, we can appreciate the importance of extending these provisions which, after all, were created in a totally bipartisan way in the Finance Committee, and we can recognize it is possible to both raise the minimum wage for low-income workers and help create new jobs for them with these tax provisions.

I hope when it comes time to consider a motion to table this particular provision that my colleagues will vote against a motion to table or support the provisions if we have the opportunity for an up- or-down vote.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time under the previous quorum call and this quorum call and any future quorum call be equally divided between the two sides.

Mr. President, I join my colleague, the Senator from Texas, in urging the Senate to think very carefully about passing what appears to be a nonbinding resolution, but what, in fact, has dramatic consequences.

It is true that a nonbinding resolution would not change the policy of the President; he is the Commander in Chief. He has decided on a new strategy after consultation with a lot of people, and that new strategy is now being implemented in Iraq as we speak.

The Senate, last Friday, confirmed GEN David Petraeus to carry out that policy. By the way, it seems quite incongruous we would, on the one hand, confirm General Petraeus, pat him on the back, and say: Go do the mission in Iraq--by the way, we disagree with the mission. That is one of the bad messages that is sent.

I would like to talk a little bit more about the sending of messages with the nonbinding resolutions. That is obviously what the proponents of the resolutions would like to do. They have talked about sending a message. Mostly they are trying to send a message to the President. Of course, any Senator who wants to talk to the President has that capability. We do not need to send messages to the President publicly in areas that cause harm. We should think about the consequences of such a message to our enemies, to our allies, and most especially to the troops that we send in harm's way.

Think for a moment about the consequences of a message that says that we disagree with the President's strategy, we disagree with the mission, and we don't believe that any more troops should be involved or that the United States should remain in Iraq beyond a very limited period of time. The message that sends to our enemies is a devastating one.

As General Petraeus testified before the Senate Committee on Armed Services, war is about breaking the will of your opponent. He feared the consequences of such a resolution which he said would not be helpful because it would send a signal to our enemies that we don't have the support in the United States Government necessary to break the will of the opponent.

These terrorists well understand this is a contest of wills. Can they outlast us? Osama bin Laden thinks we are the ``weak horse,'' as he puts it, and he is the ``strong horse''; that we left Vietnam, that we left Lebanon, that we left Somalia, and we will leave Iraq before the job is done as well. And he believes that. So there is a test of wills going on. And if the enemies come to believe they can outlast us, that their will is stronger than ours, then it is very difficult to defeat them in this war against terrorism.

The message it sends to our allies is we are not necessarily a reliable ally. Certainly, to people in the neighborhood--the people in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and elsewhere--you can imagine they would quickly begin to hedge their bets because of the neighborhood in which they live. If we are going to leave, and they have to continue to live with these bad actors, then, as before September 11, you will see them begin to hedge their bets and provide support for, in one way or another, terrorists who live in that neighborhood. That is against the national security interest of the United States.

The message that is sent to our troops is perhaps the most devastating because it says: We have sent you on a mission, and yet we do not believe in the mission. We are putting you in harm's way. You may, in fact, die trying to complete your mission, but it is not a mission that we believe in.

Think about the message that sends to the troops and to the families.

Very interestingly, last Friday, ``NBC Nightly News'' had an interview with three soldiers from Iraq talking about this very point. It was in the Brian Williams newscast. He called on Richard Engel, reporting from Baghdad, who had interviewed these three soldiers. I think what they had to say should instruct us. He talked about the new mission they were on, and he said:

It's not just the new mission the soldiers are adjusting

to. They have something else on their minds:

This is David Engel, the reporter, speaking--

the growing debate at home about the war. Troops here say

they are increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the

war. Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism

of what they've been fighting for. Twenty-one-year-old

Specialist Tyler Johnson is on his first tour in Iraq. He

thinks skeptics should come over and see what it's like

firsthand before criticizing.

Then, this is what SPC Tyler Johnson said:

Those people are dying. You know what I'm saying? You may

support--``Oh, we support the troops,'' but you're not

supporting what they do, what they share and sweat for, what

they believe for, what we die for. It just don't make sense

to me.

Engel then said:

Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun has served in Afghanistan and

is now in his second tour in Iraq. He says people back home

can't have it both ways.

Then SSG Manuel Sahagun said:

One thing I don't like is when people back home say they

support the troops but they don't support the war. If they're

going to support us, support us all the way.

Finally, Engel said:

Specialist Peter Manna thinks people have forgotten the

toll the war has taken.

SPC Peter Manna said:

If they don't think we're doing a good job, everything that

we've done here is all in vain.

Engel closed his report saying:

Apache Company has lost two soldiers and now worries their

country may be abandoning the mission they died for.

That is the message we send to our troops: that they may be dying in vain, that they may be putting their life on the line in vain because we do not support the mission we put them in harm's way to accomplish. That is a devastating blow to morale.

Just imagine what you would do if you were the parent or the spouse of one of those soldiers who got killed and came to believe the mission we had sent them on was no longer a mission that we supported, and yet we continue to keep them in harm's way.

My view is, if you think this war is lost or that we cannot win it, that you have the courage of your convictions and vote to cut off the funds and bring the folks home right now before any more die. But if you believe, as the President does, that we must not leave Iraq a failed state, that there is still an opportunity there to succeed, and that his plan deserves a chance to succeed, then we should not support resolutions that send a different message.

That is why I want to urge my colleagues to think very carefully before supporting any of these resolutions which may be nonbinding on the President but, nevertheless, have severe consequences to our enemies, to our allies, and to the troops we put into harm's way. This is serious business we are about. We need to consider it seriously and not undercut the troops we put in harm's way.

Mr. President, if I may respond to the Senator, I would like to get in, and I will ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes. I don't know where Senator Sessions is. I gather it would be fine if he is delayed for 5 minutes. I don't know what Senator Cornyn's intentions are.

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

I am sorry. I thought I would be recognized now. Excuse me.

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

Mr. President, I, too, am anxious to get on to the debate about the resolutions that deal with Iraq. I will speak to that for 10 minutes.

My position is clear. I think we ought to give the President's strategy a chance to work. We asked him to come up with a new strategy. He has done so, and it seems to me that it is our responsibility as a Senate to give that a chance to work or to provide an alternative--not an alternative to leave but an alternative to win. There are plenty of ways to leave. We can begin leaving now and have it done in a year. We can leave in 6 months. We can leave to the border but not beyond. There are a lot of different ideas about how to leave, but an alternative is not how to leave but how to win.

The President has presented such a strategy and I believe we ought to give it a chance to work.

Resolutions that are nonbinding nevertheless have consequences. They can't change the policy that is already being effected, the strategy in Iraq, but what they can do is send very powerful messages. First, they can send a message to our enemies. It seems to me the last message we want to send to the enemy is that the Congress does not support the mission in Iraq. Obviously that emboldens the enemy. That is what GEN David Petraeus said in his testimony before the Armed Services Committee last week. It sends a message to our allies that we are not in it to the end, and they begin to wonder whether they should start hedging their bets.

By the way, it sends a message to a country such as Iran, which is already beginning to offer, now, to in effect take our place in Iraq: They will do the training of troops, they will do the reconstruction if the Iraqis will simply invite them in. That obviously would not be in our best interests, not to mention the Iraqis' best interests.

Most importantly, a resolution such as this sends a message to our troops. It is a very powerful message and a very negative one. It is a message that in effect says we support you, but we don't support your mission. We are sending you into a place where you could well die, but we don't support the cause for which you are dying. We don't think you can win. As a matter of fact, I have more respect for those who advocate voting on whether we should continue to support the effort monetarily--the legitimate function of the Congress, to cut off the funds if we don't like the war--than I do for those who simply want to ``send a message.'' At least the others would be willing to have the courage of their convictions, that if this is not a winnable war, we better stop it now as opposed to simply trying to send a message.

Let me tell you what this message does. Last Friday night I was watching the NBC ``Nightly News.'' Brian Williams was the broadcaster, and he called on Richard Engel, reporting from Iraq, to talk about what was going on there. Richard Engel talked about the Stryker Brigade, Apache Company, setting out on a mission to find bases for U.S. troops. I will quote what he said in the report.

He said:

It's not just the new mission the soldiers are adjusting

to. They have something else on their minds: The growing

debate at home about the war. Troops here say they are

increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the war.

Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism of

what they've been fighting for.

He goes on to say:

Twenty-one-year-old Specialist Tyler Johnson is on his

first tour in Iraq. He thinks skeptics should come over and

see what it's like firsthand before criticizing.

And here is what Specialist Tyler Johnson said:

Those people are dying. You know what I'm saying? You may

support--``oh we support the troops,'' but you're not

supporting what they do, what they share and sweat for, what

they believe for, what we die for. It just don't make sense

to me.

Back to Richard Engel:

Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun has served in Afghanistan and

is now on his second tour in Iraq. He says people back home

can't have it both ways.

And then Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun says the following:

One thing I don't like is when people back home say they

support the troops but they don't support the war. If they're

going to support us, support us all the way.

Engel then says:

Specialist Peter Manna thinks people have forgotten the

toll the war has taken.

And Specialist Peter Manna says:

If they don't think we are doing a good job, everything we

have done here is all in vain.

Engel concludes the report by saying:

Apache Company has lost two soldiers and now worries their

country may be abandoning the mission they died for.

Richard Engel, ABC News, Baghdad.

That report struck me. I immediately talked to my wife about it, and I said those three soldiers have said more eloquently than I and my colleagues have, than we have, in making the point that you can't have it both ways. You can't both support the troops and oppose the mission we are sending them on, putting them in harm's way. And can we say that their colleagues who died did not die in vain if the Senate goes on record saying we don't support your mission?

This is the conflict that has to be in the minds of the families of those who are putting their lives on the line and the very soldiers and marines who are doing the same.

Last Friday, this Senate confirmed GEN David Petraeus to take command of that theater, and there were all kinds of expressions of support for him. He is, indeed, one of the finest military officers ever to come before the Senate for confirmation. No one said otherwise. Yet at the same time we are talking about passing a resolution that would say to him: We don't believe in the mission we have just sent you on.

He testified he needed more troops in order to carry out the mission and that he supported the President's new strategy, one component of which is to add some troops so that he has the capability, in conjunction with the new Iraqi troops, to stabilize and pacify the city of Baghdad as well as the Al Anbar Province, which is currently being threatened by al-Qaida terrorists. He said he needs those new troops. Yet Congress would go on record as saying we do not believe you should have those new troops.

Again, at least some number of my colleagues, maybe half or thereabouts on the other side of the aisle, would cut off the funding for the troops in order not just to send a message but to end the involvement. At least that is a position that has action attached to it. I disagree with it, but simply sending the message by sending David Petraeus on the way, patting him on the back, saying, ``Go do a good job but, by the way, we don't believe in the mission,'' it seems to me is starting off on the wrong foot.

He said something else in his testimony that I thought was telling. He said: Wars are all about your will, your will and your enemy's will.

When asked a question by Senator Lieberman, he said passage of these resolutions would not be helpful, among other things, because you need to break the enemy's will in a conflict, in a war. This kind of resolution would inhibit his ability, General Petraeus's ability, with our great military, to break the enemy's will to fight. How can you break the enemy's will to fight when the people who are allegedly running the war back home have already signaled that they think it is lost and it is simply a matter of bringing the troops home, and that the mission is not supported by a majority of the Senate?

Resolutions, even if they are nonbinding, have consequences. In this case the consequences are detrimental, to our enemy, to our allies, and to our soldiers and their families.

We have some solemn responsibility here, but none is more serious than putting our young men and women in harm's way. All of us want to bring them home safe and sound. We all understand when we vote for that, people are going to die. Everyone who does that does so with a solemn responsibility. We are all looking for a way also to end the conflict so no more have to die. But the reason we authorized this in the first place was because we understood there was a mission to perform. Even those who disagree with the reasons to begin with appreciate the fact that we cannot leave Iraq a failed state. I think virtually everybody in this body would agree with that proposition. We cannot leave Iraq a failed state. The consequences, not just to the Iraqis and to the other people in the region but to United States security, would be devastating.

Something else on which most people agree is that the Iraqis are not currently in a position to pacify Baghdad and Al Anbar Province all by themselves. They need our help. That is what the testimony before the committees was last week.

If they need our help, if we all agree we can't leave Iraq a failed state, if General Petraeus is saying we need some time and some troops to get this job done in conjunction with a significant change in the way the Iraqis are approaching the war--finally backing us up now when we say we want to go into these areas and not just clear them but hold them, keep the bad guys in jail, the ones who have not been killed, for example--if we agree with all those things, then it seems to me the last thing the Senate should be doing is considering a resolution which would say we disagree with the mission, we disagree with the President's strategy, we don't think we should be sending any more troops, and we want to begin a process of withdrawing from Iraq.

When the debate time comes, I am anxious to have it. The American people deserve a debate. I heard a message yesterday that the American people had spoken. Indeed they did. I had an opponent who said we should withdraw from Iraq. Yet I won the last election, saying we needed to stay there until the mission was completed, and I even supported the addition of more troops if that were necessary. In the case of Arizona, I think people have spoken.

The reality is, however, I think it is a mixed message. They would all like to get out as quickly as possible, but if you ask them, Do you think we should leave before the mission is accomplished, do you think we should leave even though there is the strong probability of a failed Iraqi state, do you think we can say we support the American troops but we don't support the mission, I think we would disagree with that proposition.

It is up to us as leaders to lead. That means to let them know we support not just them but their mission, that we want to see it accomplished, and we will not undercut that mission or their support by passing a resolution that disapproves of the new strategy.

I hope my colleagues will agree we have to give this strategy a chance to work.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee.

I say to the Senator, do I understand there is a Member on his side who would like to give some brief remarks?

We are ready to offer the amendment. I thought what I could do is get it pending, and then if someone wants to make some remarks.

Mr. President, as soon as the staff brings it to me, I will send it to the desk.

There is an amendment I sent to the desk earlier, and I will briefly describe it. It simply extends the provisions in the Finance Committee bill that provide tax assistance to small business in terms of expensing, depreciation, leasehold improvements, and so on, from the period of March 31 of next year through the end of next year. So it extends those provisions an additional 9 months. That legislation is pending at the desk.

Amendment No. 205 to Amendment No. 100

Mr. President, at this time, I send to the desk the legislation which adds to that the element that provides for the pay-for or the tax provisions that will ensure this is revenue neutral. So I send this amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, I can further describe the amendment, and we can discuss it, debate it, when the chairman is ready to do that or there is no one who intends to speak. I hope we can get this amendment voted on as soon as possible today.

Yes.

Mr. President, I direct a question to the chairman of the Finance Committee. Did he need to do some intervening business before I speak?

It is my understanding that under a previous order, I have 10 minutes to speak. I will speak on the amendment that until just a moment ago was pending, amendment No. 205, which is my amendment to this minimum wage bill to extend provisions of the Finance Committee bill from March 31 of next year through the end of next year.

The committee decided in its wisdom--and I note that it was a unanimous vote out of the committee, a bipartisan vote--that there were certain small business tax provisions that should be extended to help small business pay for the minimum wage increase we would be mandating by this bill. Most of the jobs are small business jobs that would be affected by the minimum wage. In fact, about 60 percent of those jobs are in the restaurant industry.

As a result, the Finance Committee took several provisions of existing law and created a couple of new provisions that enable these small businesses to write off their leasehold improvements or their owner improvements either in a shorter period of time than they had been previously allowed under the code or, in the case of new improvements, a 15-year period which would be consistent for all these entities, whether they be restaurants or leasehold improvements or other new construction. This makes sense under the Tax Code since one needs to conform a new building that is built with leasehold improvements. If you are talking about a restaurant, for example, what you build in terms of new counters or new kitchen facilities is going to be the same for both. The writeoff period should be the same, a consistent 15-year period in this case. Certainly the Presiding Officer can appreciate the need to be able to make improvements to a restaurant kind of facility and be able to write those improvements off in a meaningful time under the Tax Code.

This was not a matter of debate. The members of the Finance Committee agreed unanimously that this was good policy. But the policy was only extended through the end of March of next year. The reason was that the committee was committed to offsetting the cost--that is to say the loss of revenue to the Treasury--with some other way of raising revenue to equal that revenue which was lost. The so-called pay-for requirement, requiring members of the committee to find a way to pay for the tax loss, inhibited my amendment which would have extended these provisions for an additional 9 months through the end of the year.

We now have found ways to pay for this additional extension and to simplify it. What my amendment does is to take these same provisions that are in the Finance Committee bill and extend them, not just through the end of March of next year but through the end of December next year. That obviously allows businesses to be able to plan better, and if they can plan better, they can help to add to their facilities, create new facilities, create new jobs. And, of course, what we ought to be doing to enable small businesses to pay a minimum wage increase is to be creating more business, more jobs earning more income so they can afford to pay this minimum wage.

Another reason I offered the amendment was that there is an imbalance in the Finance Committee product. One provision out of the Finance Committee actually was extended for a period of 5 years. This is the work opportunity tax credit. This is mostly--in fact, one witness said about 95 percent of the value of this work opportunity tax credit is enjoyed by big businesses because they can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants to figure out how to comply with the provision. So this work opportunity tax credit--the value of that is mostly something that is enjoyed by the bigger businesses. That provision was extended 5 years.

All of these provisions to help the small businesses were only extended through March of next year. We believed that was very much out of balance. My amendment doesn't impact this 5-year extension of the work opportunity tax credit, but what it does do is at least it brings these other tax benefits up to the end of next year rather than just the end of March of next year. So we make it slightly more beneficial for small businesses and therefore somewhat improve their ability to pay for the minimum wage increase.

I would argue that something like we have done here, that is, a temporary extension of a tax benefit, should not have to be ``paid for'' with a permanent change in tax policy. That makes no sense. But the chairman of the committee ruled my amendment would have been out of order without such a so-called pay-for, so I withdrew the amendment in committee and now have reoffered it with a pay-for. It is change in permanent tax policy.

At this moment, my staff is meeting with the staff of the committee chairman and ranking member on the committee to see if there is some way we can agree to pay for this modest extension with tax policy on which we can all agree and not have to have a debate about. If we can do that, obviously that would be my preference, and perhaps we can have a vote that can be accommodated here very quickly. If staff is not able to agree on what that pay-for is and we have to go forward with the one I offered, we certainly want to do that. We want to have that vote as soon as possible this afternoon. I will briefly describe what it is. There may be some slight error in the way I describe it because I will, instead of reading it, explain it the way I understand it.

Currently, the Tax Code would allow a discrimination between certain kinds of--different people receiving free tuition at a university, for example. If you work for a company and that company says: We will send your child to school free, we will pick up the tuition, you have to pay the tax on that benefit, it is a taxable benefit to you. Let's say the tuition cost is $10,000, and your company gives you the $10,000 to pay

for your child, though you have to pay the taxes on that. But if you are a university professor and your child wants to go to school, in many cases, the school waives the tuition for your child. Right now, you don't have to pay the tax on that. That is clearly discriminatory. The Joint Tax Committee has recommended in a report that deals with the so-called tax gap several provisions or loopholes that need to be closed. This is one of those so that the Tax Code would treat everybody the same. If you have tuition waived at a school, for example, it doesn't matter whether you are the principal of the school, a teacher, or you are an employee of another corporation that is paying for it; in any event, the tax treatment is the same: You would be taxed on that particular benefit. That is a fairer treatment than the current code. As I say, it was recommended by the Joint Tax Committee as part of this tax gap series of recommendations to enable the Internal Revenue Service to collect taxes fairly and try to ensure that when the code is administered, it treats all taxpayers the same.

As I said, if there is a concern about that and the majority would like to work with us to try to find a different way to offset the cost of our modest provision, we would be delighted to work with them. I appreciate the willingness of the chairman of the committee to do exactly that.

So if I could summarize, in my own words, all my amendment does is to take the provisions of the Finance Committee bill that passed out of the committee unanimously, that extends for small businesses certain tax benefits through the end of March of next year and extend those through the end of next year, December 31 of next year. That is the sole effect of the amendment. I think it is something we can all agree is good policy and would help to pay for the minimum wage increase we are imposing on the small businesses of our country.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the minimum wage increase would impose $4 billion in new costs on the private sector in 2009 and $5.7 billion in 2010, with the increased costs extending at roughly $5 billion each year. Small businesses would incur the bulk of these costs, with restaurants subject to 60 percent of those costs.

Therefore, it is responsible to combine the minimum wage increase with tax provisions that will help these small businesses weather the financial blow of the increase. That's why I am introducing my amendment to extend three tax incentives that are designed to encourage business investment and job creation in areas where the impact of the minimum wage increase will be felt most.

There are three provisions. The first amends current law and is a 15- year recovery period for leasehold improvements and restaurant renovations. The second, new provision, is a 15-year recovery period for new restaurant construction. The third, also new, is a 15-year recovery period for retail improvements

The base bill extends current law by 3 months, through the first quarter of 2008. My amendment extends the time-period during which renovations to leaseholds or restaurants must be completed through the end of 2008 will enable more businesses to plan renovations that will help them improve and expand their business operations.

Regarding my provision on restaurant construction, there is no policy justification for providing a 39-year depreciation recovery period for new construction, but giving renovations the 15-year treatment. The floor, walls, or restrooms installed in a new building are the same quality as full-scale renovations and will suffer the same wear and tear. Further, convenience stores--a direct competitor of quick service restaurants--are allowed to use a 15-year depreciation schedule for all construction this treatment is permanent law for convenience stores. Ideally, all of the accelerated depreciation provisions we are considering should be permanent too. By allowing restaurateurs to deduct the cost of renovations and new construction on a shorter schedule, many more restaurant owners will be in a position to grow their businesses and continue to create more jobs. By definition, encouraging more new restaurants to be built means more new restaurant jobs. This is important, because the restaurant industry is uniquely impacted by a minimum wage increase. Of the nearly 2 million workers earning the minimum wage, 60 percent work in the food service industry. Further, the last time Congress increased the minimum wage, 146,000 jobs were cut from restaurant industry payrolls, according to the industry.

Regarding the provision on retail improvements, The Small Business and work Opportunity Act of 2007 provides 15-year recovery period for improvements made to owner-occupied retail spaces, thus putting these establishments on the same footing as the leasehold improvements through the first quarter of 2008. The Kyl amendment would extend it through the end of 2008. Again, extending this treatment through 2008 makes it more likely businesses can take advantage of the incentive.

Some have asked questions about the offset for these provisions. Although I don't believe we need an offset, this one does the following: It eliminates the present--law exclusion from gross income and wages--meaning income and payroll taxes for qualified tuition reductions under section 117(d) of the Tax Code. The proposal would be effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2006.

I don't question whether a university or prep school wants to provide free tuition as an employment perk for a professor or chancellor. But it makes little sense that the rest of the taxpayers in this country have to subsidize that free tuition. Senators must clearly understand, if a small business wanted to give its employees' children free tuition at the local college, amounts over $5,000 would be a taxable benefit. And that is the right tax policy. To allow a college to provide the same benefit and have it competely tax-free is unfair. And again, this amendment does not eliminate the free tuition benefit.

Finally, let me reiterate that if we are going to increase the minimum wage, it must be combined with responsible tax relief to ensure that we maintain our strong and growing economy. Mr. President, the scale of this tax relief does not represent what we should be passing today. This is a modest proposal, and I urge my colleagues to approve it.

Amendment No. 207 to Amendment No. 100

Mr. President, in 10 minutes we will have a vote on an amendment which I offered earlier that merely extends the small business Tax Code provisions that came out of the Finance Committee, which were adopted unanimously, from March 31 of next year through December 31. Everybody recognized that if we could afford to do it, we wanted to extend them as long as we could, but the funds were there simply to extend it through March 31. No small business can plan on that short of a timeframe. So I think everybody would agree it is good policy.

In the committee, we agreed it was important to extend these benefits. These are primarily the writeoff periods for small business leasehold improvements, restaurants, and so on. Restaurants are about 60 percent of the people who will be receiving the benefits of the minimum wage increase and, therefore, these tax benefits clearly are important to them.

It is totally paid for. I hope my colleagues will be willing to extend these provisions from March 31 of next year through December 31 of next year.

I reserve the remainder of my time and yield to Senator Grassley.

Mr. President, please understand that one of the things my friend from Montana said is not correct. We are not taking away the $5,000 benefit that exists for everybody who provides for tuition to be tax free. That remains. We are not touching that. All we are saying is that it ought to be the same for the son or daughter of a college professor as the son or daughter of the manager of the pizza shop. The only one who gets the tuition tax break that is tax free is the son or daughter of the college professor. But if you work for a small business and your boss decides to send your child to school, pay the tuition for that child, you could still get that tuition, but you have to pay the tax consequences of that; that is a taxable benefit. There should be no differentiation between working for a small business or a big business, for that matter, or being the son or daughter of a college professor.

That is what the bipartisan Joint Tax Committee said. This is totally unfair. It is part of the closing of the tax gap because of the unfairness between one small group of our society and everybody else. All this does is equalize the tax treatment of the employer providing the tuition free for the student. That pays for what everyone recognizes is a very important extension of the small business provisions of the Finance Committee from March 31 of next year through December 31 of next year.

I urge Members to vote against the motion to table the amendment.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I seek recognition for the purpose of laying down an amendment and not speaking to it. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside for that purpose.

Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment that deals with extending some current provisions and adding additional provisions to assist small businesses to pay for a minimum wage increase, should one be adopted. I will speak to this later. I appreciate others allowing me to lay it down.

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

Mr. President, I wish to address recent changes in the situation in Iraq and the possibility that resolutions of disapproval to the President's new strategy will be offered in the near future--a possibility which I believe would be very dangerous to the success of our military efforts.

I will make three points this afternoon.

The first is that it is important for us to give the newly announced strategy of the President an opportunity to succeed. That makes sense not only because everyone recognized that the President needed to announce a new strategy--he has done that, and it seems to me he should be accorded that courtesy--but also because, from a military standpoint, it is the only thing that makes sense.

The key to the new strategy announced by the President is not the addition of new troops. We have had far more in terms of numbers of troops in Iraq than the increase that will be provided by this latest plan. No, the primary change in the strategy is the actions of the Iraqi Government--in particular, Prime Minister al-Maliki's commitment to begin doing things we wanted him to do a long time ago but which he was unwilling to do--to hold people after being arrested rather than releasing them on the streets, to allow curfews and checkpoints to work, to allow the control of the Mahdi army, which is under the leadership of Sadr, the Shiite leader in Iraq, who has confronted al- Maliki and his government.

It appears this new strategy is beginning to work even after only a few days of its announcement. People have asked: Can we trust al- Maliki? The answer is that no one knows. But actions speak louder than words. Apparently, he has made good--at least initially--on his commitment to confront the Mahdi army and to stop Sadr and that army from continuing the sectarian violence against Sunnis in Baghdad. Apparently, there have been a lot of arrests made, and the United States is going to be able to now conduct the type of hold operations, after they have cleared an area, that would be necessary to create stability for an ultimate peace in Iraq.

So the first point is we do need to give this new strategy a chance to succeed. The very early returns suggest that it just might be having that effect.

In addition, it is important for us to be able to regain control of the Anbar Province. Almost a third of the western part of Iraq is under attack by al-Qaida and other terrorists who mean to create their own little fiefdom--called a caliphate--in that part of the country. Clearly, we cannot allow al-Qaida to have a terrorist base in Iraq. The additional battalion of marines who are committed to clearing this area is critical to the stability in Iraq and the defeat of the terrorists there.

The second reason we should give this strategy a chance is that the nonbinding resolution which has already been offered and will apparently be brought before the Senate within a week or so is wrong for two reasons: First of all, it presents no credible alternative, and secondly, it is dangerous. It presents no credible alternative, just mere criticism. Albeit in a nonbinding way, it is still criticism without any kind of an alternative.

The resolution itself doesn't contain an alternative except the following: ``The primary objective of the United States''--I am really listening at this point--``strategy in Iraq''--I am looking for a verb here but instead here are the four words--``should be to have the Iraqi political leaders make the political compromises necessary to end violence in Iraq.''

``Should be to have'' them. Well, if I had a magic wand, maybe I could make this happen. But the reality is that it is not the lack of political compromise, it is the lack of peace that is enabling them to make the political compromise. As long as the Mahdi army is controlling Sadr City and Sadr is confronting al-Maliki and fomenting violence-- Shiite and Sunni and vice versa--the political compromises are going to be impossible to make. That is why the President and al-Maliki understood you have to first create peaceful conditions, change the conditions on the ground. If the Mahdi army is going to have death squads foment this kind of violence, you will never have those political compromises. If al-Maliki can control Sadr and eliminate the threat, political compromise is possible. So there is no alternative to the President's strategy in the nonbinding resolution that was filed.

Secondly, it would be dangerous. To pass a nonbinding resolution in the United States is for effect. What is the effect? Well, the effect theoretically is to try to get the President to change policy. This strategy isn't going to change in the near term. Troops are on the way. Al-Maliki made his commitment and is apparently making good on the commitment, so the new strategy is working out right now. So a nonbinding resolution passed in a week or two is not going to change this. Instead, its effect is a pernicious one. What kind of a message does it send, first of all, to our troops that Congress doesn't support what the President and they are trying to accomplish here; that the Congress thinks we should be going in some other direction, albeit there is no alternative being presented, just in a resolution of criticism? What kind of a message does it send to the allies that the President's policy is going to be undercut to the point that it will not be carried out, and therefore they better begin to hedge their bets? And most important, what message does it send to our enemies? Can they simply decide that in a matter of time, support for the President's policies will have diminished to the point that they won't have to concern themselves with this new strategy anymore if they can wait it out, and they will have an opportunity for success? So it is not going to work, No. 1, and secondly, it is dangerous.

That brings me to the third and final point. It seems to me that those people in favor of sending a message without presenting an alternative have an obligation to consider what will occur if the President's policy doesn't succeed. Almost everybody recognizes that the Iraqi Army is not able to defend this country and create a peaceful stability in the country at this point.

So the question is: What would happen if we leave Iraq a failed state? Most agree, and the intelligence community has recently testified, that it would be disastrous, not only for the people in Iraq but for our allies in the region and for our long-term national security interests, both because of the ability of al-Qaida and other terrorists to consolidate their gains in the area and use that as a place from which to operate, and secondly, because all of the momentum we have gained in getting support, more or less, from countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan--all of the countries in the region--that have helped in the war against the terrorists will switch the other way as they realize America will not stay in the fight, that they have to begin hedging their bets with the other powers in the region which include the sectarian killers and the terrorists.

What is the consequence of a failed Iraq? It seems to me that for those who present no alternative other than Iraq needs to get its act together and provide for its own security, a policy which I don't know of anyone who agrees would succeed at this point in time, if that is not going to succeed, then what is the consequence of a failed Iraq and what is the consequence of the President's strategy failing?

It all gets back to what I said in the beginning, and that is, it seems to me all Americans should want this strategy to succeed. Why would anyone want the strategy to fail? Just to prove a political point? That doesn't make sense when we have young men and women in harm's way and a lot riding on it not just for Iraqis but also for our national security. We should all want this strategy to work. We should do everything in our power to help make it work, and that begins by giving the plan a chance and not criticizing it before the strategy even has a few days to work out. That is why the possibility of a resolution, which is highly critical of the President's strategy and suggests a different course of action, a timeline for leaving, is the wrong strategy.

What is that alternative in terms of timeline? It simply reads as follows:

The United States should transfer under an appropriately

expedited time line responsibility for internal security and

halting sectarian violence in Iraq to the Government of Iraq

and Government security forces.

That is the alternative, in an appropriately expedited timeline. That is no alternative at all. That doesn't direct anybody to provide for security in Iraq on any faster basis than we are already attempting. I have heard no one criticize our training of the Iraqi forces or finding or suggesting there is some other way to train them in a better way, in a faster way. It takes time. We are doing the best we can.

The general who was in charge of creating that program, General Petraeus, will be our general in charge again. I think, by all accounts, he did a terrific job of setting up the program. We know it takes a certain amount of time to train these Iraqi forces. We know the country is not in a position to defend itself at this point. Why would we want to set ourselves on a course to leave when we know they cannot defend themselves?

The truth is, for the time being, we are going to have to remain there to help secure the peace in Iraq, and that means we ought to give the President's policy a chance to succeed, and all of us hope it will succeed.

Mr. President, on January 15, our Nation commemorated the birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Every year we pay tribute to the life of this great American. But, in honoring Dr. King, we celebrate more than his life; we celebrate the legacy of his words and deeds, and the virtues that he embodied.

Today, we remember Dr. King because he represents the best of the American spirit: someone who is compassionate, devoted, courageous, and hopeful. His compassion drew him to the plights of the poor and oppressed, and his devotion led him to champion their cause. His courage led him to act on this devotion, countless times placing himself in harm's way. Indeed, it was because of his courage that he fell to an assassin's bullet in 1968. And, his hope sustained him, even in the face of bitter racism.

All of these virtues--compassion, devotion, courage, and hope-- propelled

Dr. King to the esteemed place he occupies today.

Perhaps Dr. King's most enduring virtue was his hope. It surely was on display when he delivered his most famous oration. In 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, gazing out at the Washington Monument and beyond to the Capitol, he delivered his ``I Have a Dream'' speech, which is familiar to all Americans.

As Dr. King looked upon these impressive symbols of America, he reflected upon the glaring shortcoming of our democracy. For all its successes, America had failed to realize the truth put forth in our Declaration of Independence: ``that all men are created equal.'' Amid these monuments to the promise of America, he told hundreds of thousands of the Nation's greatest injustice: racial inequality. Yet he still maintained hope, speaking in terms dreams and freedom.

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act became law the following year. Despite these legislative gains, Dr. King realized that achieving equality of opportunity required something much greater, and far more difficult, than mere legislation. It required a change in the hearts and minds of citizens.

Despite this challenge, his optimism did not waver. In 1967, he appeared on ``Meet the Press'' where he was asked if he believed ``the American racial problem can be solved.''

``Yes, I do,'' he replied. ``I refuse to give up. I refuse to despair it in this moment. I refuse to allow myself to fall into the dark chambers of pessimism, because I think in any social revolution, the one thing that keeps it going is hope.''

King's hope survived him, and today we are closer to the world that he envisioned.

We honor historical figures not merely because they achieved or said great things. We honor them because their lives continue to offer insight that we might use to improve our world.

``[T]he goal of America is freedom,'' he wrote as he sat in a Birmingham, AL, jail cell. Only a man with great hope and faith in the triumph of good could write those words in those circumstances. It is with similar hope that we as Americans should proceed today, whatever the challenges that confront us.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to join with Senators Ensign, Feinstein and Reid to introduce the Lower Colorado River Multi- Species Conservation Program Act. This bipartisan legislation is designed to protect and maintain wildlife habitat on the lower Colorado River and to provide assurances to the affected water and power agencies of Arizona, California, and Nevada that their river operations may continue upon compliance with the underlying program. This bill is nearly identical to legislation I introduced late last year with Senators Ensign, Feinstein, and Reid.

The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, otherwise known as the MSCP, is a comprehensive, cooperative effort among 50 Federal and non-Federal entities in Arizona, California, and Nevada whose purposes are to 1. protect the lower Colorado River environment while ensuring the certainty of existing river water and power operations; 2. protect threatened endangered wildlife under the Endangered Species Act; and 3. prevent the listing of additional species on the lower Colorado River.

To accomplish these goals, the MSCP will create more than 8,100 acres of riparian, marsh, and backwater habitat and implement additional measures to protect 26 endangered, threatened and sensitive species. The program covers approximately 400 miles, including the full-pool elevations of Lake Mead to the United States-Mexico Southerly International Boundary.

The program costs will be spread over 50 years, and split 50-50 between the Federal Government and the non-Federal entities covered by MSCP. Arizona and Nevada will each bear 25 percent of the non-Federal costs and California will bear 50 percent of the non-federal costs.

Although implementation of the program began in April 2005 under the U.S. Department of the Interior's existing authority, legislation is needed to protect the substantial financial commitments that the non- Federal parties are making to species protection . To that end, the bill 1. expressly authorizes appropriations to cover the Federal share of the program costs; 2. directs the Secretary of the Interior to manage and implement the MSCP in accordance with the underlying program documents; and 3. provides a waiver of sovereign immunity to allow the non-Federal parties to enforce, if necessary, the underlying program documents. The waiver, however, does not allow an action to be brought against the United States for money damages.

Late in 2006, the House Committee on Resources, Subcommittee on Water and Power held a comprehensive field hearing in Arizona on the MSCP Act. The hearing highlighted the significance of the program to Colorado River users in Arizona, California, and Nevada and demonstrated the strong support for the legislation. Unfortunately, Congress adjourned before it could take action on the bill. We hope for its swift passage in the 110th Congress.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to join with Senators Ensign, Feinstein and Reid to introduce the Lower Colorado River Multi- Species Conservation Program Act. This bipartisan legislation is designed to protect and maintain wildlife habitat on the lower Colorado River and to provide assurances to the affected water and power agencies of Arizona, California, and Nevada that their river operations may continue upon compliance with the underlying program. This bill is nearly identical to legislation I introduced late last year with Senators Ensign, Feinstein, and Reid.

The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, otherwise known as the MSCP, is a comprehensive, cooperative effort among 50 Federal and non-Federal entities in Arizona, California, and Nevada whose purposes are to 1. protect the lower Colorado River environment while ensuring the certainty of existing river water and power operations; 2. protect threatened endangered wildlife under the Endangered Species Act; and 3. prevent the listing of additional species on the lower Colorado River.

To accomplish these goals, the MSCP will create more than 8,100 acres of riparian, marsh, and backwater habitat and implement additional measures to protect 26 endangered, threatened and sensitive species. The program covers approximately 400 miles, including the full-pool elevations of Lake Mead to the United States-Mexico Southerly International Boundary.

The program costs will be spread over 50 years, and split 50-50 between the Federal Government and the non-Federal entities covered by MSCP. Arizona and Nevada will each bear 25 percent of the non-Federal costs and California will bear 50 percent of the non-federal costs.

Although implementation of the program began in April 2005 under the U.S. Department of the Interior's existing authority, legislation is needed to protect the substantial financial commitments that the non- Federal parties are making to species protection . To that end, the bill 1. expressly authorizes appropriations to cover the Federal share of the program costs; 2. directs the Secretary of the Interior to manage and implement the MSCP in accordance with the underlying program documents; and 3. provides a waiver of sovereign immunity to allow the non-Federal parties to enforce, if necessary, the underlying program documents. The waiver, however, does not allow an action to be brought against the United States for money damages.

Late in 2006, the House Committee on Resources, Subcommittee on Water and Power held a comprehensive field hearing in Arizona on the MSCP Act. The hearing highlighted the significance of the program to Colorado River users in Arizona, California, and Nevada and demonstrated the strong support for the legislation. Unfortunately, Congress adjourned before it could take action on the bill. We hope for its swift passage in the 110th Congress.