Floor Statements

Mr. President, we are about to vote on a bunch of amendments. The two amendments on the Democratic side, one having been withdrawn, are designed to do one thing that is straight forward: Instead of focusing our military on the much more--on being engaged in this civil war, they are intended to focus on a limited mission, a much more limited mission that is in our national interest that we can achieve with far fewer troops: Combatting al-Qaida and like-minded terrorist groups and continuing to train Iraqi troops.

I am not crazy about the language in the Feingold amendment. But I am crazy about the fact that we have got to keep the pressure on. The fact is, with every passing day, the situation in Iraq gets worse, and the President refuses to change course, continuing to dig us deeper and deeper and deeper in a hole.

The most important thing we can do, and I compliment the Democratic leaders for this, is keep pressure, keep pressure on the President. Now, why pressure on the President? Quite frankly, he is not going to change. The only way, with all due respect to my Republican friends, is to put pressure on them so they start voting for the troops and not for the President.

The fact is, as a number of my colleagues have mentioned in the news on the Republican side--I will not name any of them--they basically told the President: Mr. President, you have got until September. Well, between now and September, a lot more people are going to die in the midst of a civil war that don't have to die in the midst of a civil war if we change the mission.

So this is all about keeping pressure. So every single day the public picks up the paper and sees that we are trying to change the President's course of action in Iraq. In turn, hopefully, they will speak to their Democratic and Republican Senators and Representatives and say: Make him change.

Because until we get 67 votes, we are not going to be able to change his God-awful war. This war is a disaster. So what my friend, Senator Feingold, is doing is making a very valuable contribution. I am going to vote for cloture so we can continue to debate this issue and continue to put pressure on. Starting to get our troops out of Iraq and getting most of them out by early next year is what we have in the original legislation the President vetoed, which is the preferable way to go, in my view.

But obviously we do not have the votes to overcome that veto, so we are trying to put something else on the table. But as important as beginning to bring our troops home, with a reasonable prospect of ending their presence in Iraq, it is equally important to have a plan for what we are going to leave behind, so we do not trade a dictator for chaos in a region that will undermine our interests for decades.

So we have to have a plan to bring stability to Iraq when we leave, and that requires a political solution. In the interests of time, I will not attempt to discuss that, I will do it at a later date. But I compliment my friend from Wisconsin for continuing to keep the pressure on. This is all about, in my view, getting the 67 votes to be able to override the President's veto and ending this God-awful mess that he has us in and continues to dig us deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the College Affordability and Creating Chances for Educational Success for Students Act of 2007, or College ACCESS Act. It will make a 2-year or 4-year college degree affordable for every student.

The United States is the largest economy in the world, and our skills, our brains, are the foundation of our economic strength. However, if we do not substantially expand access to higher education, we will not be able to count on continued dominance. Consider the facts: China and India both produce twice as many engineers a year as we produce. One out of five U.S. scientists and engineers are foreign- born. An Indian engineer costs only 20 percent of an American engineer. By 2010, the U.S. will produce about 15 percent of the world's science and engineering doctorate degrees. This is down from 50 percent, half the world total, in 1970. High-speed access to information has leveled the playing field, radiologists in India are reading x-rays from American hospitals.

This is a global economy. In a world where America's competitive advantage gap is closing fast, we should be ensuring guaranteeing that every student can pursue higher education. The importance of a college degree has never been greater, but over the next decade 2 million students will forgo college because of cost. The price tag of a degree at a four year public college has risen 35 percent in the last 5 years, the largest increase in tuition and fees in any 5-year period in the last 30 years. We can not approach college as if it is a luxury, rather than a necessity. And we should be worried about the rising costs that are putting college out of reach for more and more Americans. We aren't giving students and their families enough financial support to obtain their educational goals, it is that simple.

We need to act, and we need to act now, and that is why I am introducing the College ACCESS Act. This legislation addresses some of the disparities in our current system with innovative new ways to help Americans pay for college.

First, my College ACCESS Plan fully covers the average cost of tuition and fees at a 2-year public college and covers more than half of the average cost of tuition and fees at a public 4-year college.

Right now, students and their families can take advantage of either the Hope Credit or the tuition and fees deduction, obtaining a maximum benefit of $1,120 or $1,650, respectively. Although these incentives help to make college more affordable, they fall far short of providing the level of relief needed to ensure that all students can afford college.

By replacing the Hope Credit and the tuition and fees deduction with a single $3,000 credit, the equivalent of a $12,000 deduction, and making it refundable, middle class and low income families will get real help with college costs. My College ACCESS tax credit simplifies this process and is indexed annually for inflation. So, when the cost of college goes up, the amount of assistance goes up as well.

Second, my College ACCESS proposal increases Pell Grants. When this program was established, it covered most of the cost of tuition at a 4- year public college. This is no longer the case. Currently, the maximum annual Pell Grant award is $4,310, and the average annual cost of tuition and fees at a 4-year public college is $5,800. Students are seeing their tuition costs rise every year while the levels of Federal funding fail to keep up. This reality is one that more and more students are facing every day, a reality that says, you can go to college, but only if you can afford it, and you won't get much help from us.

My College ACCESS Act seeks to remedy this by raising the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100 for 2007-2008, followed by increases of $300 per year for the next 5 years, for a maximum Pell Grant in 2011-2012 of $6,300.

Finally, the College ACCESS Plan would provide funding for a demonstration program in four states that would commit a maximum Federal Pell Grant award to eligible 8 grade students so they know they're going to get this assistance when they graduate. By using the same eligibility criteria as the National School Lunch Program, students would be identified based on need, and then provided with information on the Pell Grant program, the costs of college, and what Federal and State financial assistance is available to them.

Right now, students don't find out if they are eligible for Federal aid until their senior year, much less how much they will receive. If you've ever put kids through college, like I have, you know that this time frame doesn't allow much leeway for planning ahead. An earlier promise of Federal aid will begin the conversation about college early and continue it through high school. That way, students and their families can visualize college in their future, and this goal can sustain them through the moment they open that acceptance letter.

My mother has an expression that I think rings true in the larger scope of America: ``Children tend to become that which you expect of them.'' I want a country where we expect much from America's children. Our future, and our economic security, depend on it.

I ask unanimous consent that a summary of this bill be included in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to speak in morning business under the time that is allotted to me postcloture.

Mr. President, last week, the Congress sent the President an emergency supplemental spending bill for Iraq. That bill provided every dollar our troops need and every dollar the President requested and then some.

It also provided what a majority of Americans expect and that is they expect a plan to start to bring home American troops, to bring this war to a responsible end, and to not escalate it indefinitely as this President is doing.

In vetoing the bill, the President not only denied our troops the funding they needed, but he denied the American people what they have clearly stated they want: a responsible path out of Iraq. That is what the 2006 election was about. That is what every poll is about. That is what the Senator from West Virginia, whom I see on the floor, and I and others have been saying for some time now. I might add, that is also what I think an awful lot of our Republican colleagues want.

I raised a few eyebrows when I said a month ago that I don't think there are more than a dozen members of the opposition who truly believe this policy of unrelenting escalation with no end in sight in Iraq is one they support. The question is: What do we do in the face of the President's recalcitrance?

We all know, and again I refer to my friend from West Virginia, the most learned person in the Senate--I don't go back as far as he does, but I go back to trying to end the war in Vietnam. I remember how painfully long that process was. Once the whole Nation and the Senate had turned against the war, it was still painfully difficult to end.

So if it were up to me, I would send the same emergency spending bill back to the President and have the votes, with the money for our troops and the plan that is in that legislation to end the war, which the people expect. I would send it back to him again and again and again and again and let him veto it again and again and again and again. Any reasonable person listening to my speaking might ask: Why would you do that, not a fool's errand? I believe the more we keep this front and center, the more we relentlessly push on this President to abandon his flawed policy, the more pressure will be brought upon our colleagues who, in their hearts, know this is not the right policy but are voting with the President instead of with the troops.

I must admit straight up, this is about building pressure. We are going to need 67 votes to end this war--67 votes in the Senate. So that means, although I had a great conversation with Tim Johnson last night--I might say, he sounded wonderful--although that means until Senator Johnson comes back, we need 17 Republican Senators to change their minds. That is why we have to keep pushing. We have to let the President demonstrate time and again that he is totally out of touch with what our troops need, what the American people want, and where America's interests lie. In a sense, this reminds me a little bit of Richard Nixon. He seems divorced from reality. He seems divorced from what is going on around him. I don't quite understand it. I have been here 34 years. It reminds me of Nixon during Watergate.

Here we had the Attorney General testify before our Judiciary Committee with a terrible appearance, and the President says he did wonderfully. The President says the war is going well. The President said the response to Katrina initially was great. There seems to be a disconnect here. So the only thing I know to do is to continually force him to demonstrate again and again, until he changes his mind, how out of touch he is, to build pressure in the Congress.

The truth is, votes matter. We need the votes to stop this war because I am convinced this President has made a decision with his Vice President to keep this from completely blowing up and hand it off to the next President. The problem is, in the meantime, a lot of people are going to lose their lives--a lot of Americans and a whole lot more Iraqis. But I recognize, as I said, the reality that it takes 60 votes to send the same supplemental back to the President, as it would take 60 votes to formally deauthorize the war, as my friend from West Virginia is attempting to do, as I and Carl Levin talked about, and we introduced legislation similar to that, to deauthorize the war and reauthorize a more limited mission. We need, though, 60 votes. It is just as people talk about cutting off funding, we still need 60 votes. It would take, obviously, 67 votes then to overcome a Presidential veto.

The reason I say this is we all are frustrated on this floor. Right now, we don't have those votes. We don't have the votes right now to send back the same supplemental.

What should we do next? In my view, first, anything we send back to the President must and will provide every dollar the troops need. As long as we are on the frontlines, I will vote for the money to protect them. That money must include funding for additional Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, so-called MRAPs.

The amendment I offered was overwhelmingly adopted. The vast majority of deaths and injuries are from roadside bombs. They are responsible for 70 percent of our casualties in Iraq. These new V-shaped hull vehicles that will take the place of heavily armored humvees have a four to five times greater prospect of protecting troops inside those vehicles. They can literally cut our casualty rates by two-thirds.

As a matter of fact, depending on what we do send back to the President, it is my intention, if somehow we make no progress, to take this money out for those vehicles and move it separately because it literally, literally, literally can change the lives of our soldiers in the field. Our military wants them; our soldiers need them.

Defense Secretary Gates said MRAPs are ``the highest priority acquisition program. Any and all options to accelerate the production and fielding of this capability should be identified, assessed, and applied.'' I am happy to hear him say that because originally they didn't ask for this money to fast-forward the funding of these vehicles. The Secretary is right. I think it would be unconscionable not to get as many of these new vehicles as possible in the field as fast as possible.

Second, if we don't have the votes now for a hard timetable, which is what is in the bill that was vetoed, a hard timetable that came out of the language Senator Levin and I worked on putting in the bill, if, in fact, we don't have the votes now for that hard timetable to start getting our troops out of Iraq, any bill we send back to the President must limit dramatically the mission of the troops in Iraq.

We must get our troops out of the middle of this sectarian civil war that we cannot end militarily. Having 15,000, 20,000, 30,000 troops in a city of 6,200,000 people knocking on doors in the middle of a civil war is just foolhardy. Instead, we should focus our military on a much more limited mission that is in the national interest, that we can achieve with fewer troops, and that is doable; that is, training the Iraqi Army, preventing al-Qaida from occupying territory in parts of Anbar Province, and--and--force protection.

If we limit the mission in that way, the President will not be able to justify keeping 160,000 troops in Iraq, especially at a time when our military is dangerously overstretched, threatening the readiness of our troops and the ability to retain those now serving, to recruit those who may wish to serve in the future, and--and--to provide a National Guard at home that is needed for natural disasters at home, as we have recently seen in Kansas.

Just this week, we have seen how overstretching is hurting us at home. When a tornado wiped 80 square blocks of Greensburg, KS, off the map, the State's National Guard was slow in responding. Why? Because much of its manpower and equipment is in Iraq.

Across the country, our Governors have been warning for months that their National Guards are not prepared for the next local disaster because they are tied down overseas; or, even if they are home, because they took their equipment overseas when they were deployed and were unable to bring it back, they are ill prepared in terms of manpower and/or equipment. So if we limit the mission of our troops in Iraq to a more rational mission, the President will have to start bringing troops home now, with or without a hard timetable.

He will have to start listening to our Governors. He will have to start listening to our troops and their families who have told so many of us about the strain of going back to Iraq on third and fourth tours, about being ordered to stay longer each time they go, about not having the year at home between deployments that they were promised. He will have to start listening because he won't have an excuse not to.

Third, if we can't get a hard timeline into this emergency spending bill, we should add it to the next bill we vote on, and to the one after that, and to the one after that. We have to be relentless. Sooner or later, our colleagues will stop voting with the President and start backing what the American people want: a responsible end to this war.

Until we have the votes to force the President to change course, we have to keep the pressure on for change every single day. That is what I have been doing, and that is what I will continue to do until this policy levee that the President has erected breaks.

The fact is, the fundamental strategy under which the President has operated is flawed. The idea that through force we are going to be able to establish a strong central democratic government in Baghdad is simply not possible. It is simply not possible. It is not going to happen in the lifetime of any Member of this Senate.

Starting to get our troops out of Iraq, and getting most of them out by early next year, is the first step toward bringing this war to a responsible end. Just as important, we have to have a plan for what we leave behind so we do not trade a dictator for chaos in Iraq and the region that undermines our interests for decades.

I don't want my son going to Iraq, but I also don't want my grandson going to that part of the world in the next 15 years. How we leave and what we leave behind will impact on that second question. We have to have a plan to bring stability to Iraq as we leave, and that requires a political solution. Everyone--everyone--from the President on, says there is no military solution to Iraq; there is a political solution only. But he hasn't offered a political solution.

I know my colleagues have heard me talk about my plan for a political settlement in Iraq for more than a year now. It calls for separating the warring factions, giving them breathing room in their own regions, as their constitution provides, with control over the fabric of their daily lives--such as police protection, education, marriage, jobs, religion--and a limited central government that would be responsible for distributing oil revenues, which should be the glue that holds this country together, responsible for the army and responsible for the borders.

Every passing day makes my plan, the Biden-Gelb plan, more urgent and more relevant. Look at what is happening in Ramadi, where al-Qaida has a stronghold. The administration rightly points to some successes in getting Sunni tribal leaders to turn on al-Qaida in Iraq and getting thousands of young Sunni men to sign up for the Ramadi police force and protection forces. Listen carefully to how this happened, as described by the Los Angeles Times:

Fed up with the insurgents' killings and their acts of

intimidation in Ramadi, the Sunni sheiks came to the

coalition in September to tell the U.S.-led force that they

were ready to cooperate and would urge their tribes to supply

recruits for the Iraqi army and police. Even the most

optimistic U.S. colonel was not prepared for the flood of

recruits once the sheiks got the word out that joining the

Army, police, and provincial forces had their approval.

Recently, 1,500 Iraqi youths showed up to enlist in the

police, more than the recruiters could take.

Continuing to quote.

Another change that helped recruiting was a policy

introduced in February promising recruits from Al Anbar that

they would be based close to home if they enlisted. Within 2

days of that switch, 400 youths had signed up.

So you have Sunnis joining the police and army in their own regions, staying in their regions to deal with Sunni extremists in the midst of their own region, and becoming part of the anti-al-Qaida solution.

What is that all about? It is what I have been saying for a long time: give them local control and they will have the prospect of bringing this country to a peaceful settlement. That is a whole lot better than having them take the fight to the Shiites and becoming part of the sectarian nightmare.

It makes sense for our troops to be in Anbar, helping local Sunnis defeat al-Qaida. That is what we should limit their mission to. It does not make sense for them to be going door to door in Baghdad, a city of 6.2 million people, and getting caught in the crossfire of a self- sustaining civil war. It makes sense for us to focus on a political settlement by bringing problems and responsibilities down to the local level, giving each group an opportunity to advance its interests peacefully, not with bombs and death squads but with a political compromise.

It does not make sense to send more and more troops into Iraq in pursuit of a strategy that has virtually no prospect for success. The administration hopes the surge will buy time for Prime Minister Maliki's government to

get its act together. But there is no trust within that government, no trust of the government by the people it purports to serve, and no capacity on the part of the government to deliver the services or security that is needed. There is little prospect that the government will build that trust and capacity any time soon.

In short, the most basic premise of the President's approach, and that of some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle, is that the Iraqi people will rally behind a strong central government that looks out for their interests equally and is fundamentally fair. That whole notion, I have been saying for over 4 years, is fundamentally flawed. It is not achievable. So instead of escalating this war with no end in sight, we have to start bringing our troops home with the goal of getting most of them out by early next year.

As the President rails against those of us who have been proposing that, I remind him his former Secretary of State Baker, his father's former Secretary of State Eagleburger, were part of a commission that said we should get our troops out by March of 2008. The British, in Basra, did essentially what I am suggesting. They redeployed their troops out of the cities, did not engage in the civil war, and began to draw them down. Are they abandoning?

Instead of escalating this war, we have to start to bring our troops home, and we have to help Iraq make the transition to the decentralized federal system that is called for in their constitution. Making federalism work for all Iraqis is a strategy that can still succeed and allow our troops to leave without leaving chaos behind.

This war must end, but it is still within our power to end it responsibly. That is a mission that can unite Americans and protect our interests, and that is a mission that is long overdue.

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

Mr. President, today I wish to honor Wes Wilkins, of Middleton, DE, who will on May 2, 2007, receive the Dr. Gary Burch Memorial Award, given annually to the railroad worker who has done the most to improve the safety of railroad passengers. For more than 30 years, Wes has worked on our Nation's railroads. As one of Amtrak's most talented and innovative maintenance of way employees, he helped design the Switch Exchange System and provided input on every operational procedure involved with this new system of switching. The result of his talent helped to ensure reliable and safe train travel on virtually every mile of track between here and Boston, as well as across the Nation. Wes also formed the Production and Construction Safety Committee, whose purpose is to help ensure safe practices throughout Amtrak's Production Unit, which oversees installations. He is known for his countless hours of double- and triple-checking, of traveling to trouble spots, and of helping teach others about safety. His ability to operate almost every piece of maintenance equipment Amtrak uses and his success in instilling safety in the minds of his coworkers make him quite worthy of this award. As someone who rides Amtrak to work, I can testify to the importance rail transportation plays in providing affordable, reliable, safe transportation and I feel safer knowing someone like Wes is working on the front lines. Delaware is home to two of Amtrak's most important maintenance shops, and I congratulate all of the Amtrak employees of Delaware who helped Wes earn this award. Wes should be proud of all he has done to make this possible and I wish him the best as he continues a distinguished career of public service.

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

Mr. President, I will proceed in morning business. I believe I have time allotted to me.

Mr. President, President Bush has spent the last 2 weeks talking up the ``progress'' we are making in Iraq and talking down the Democrats and some of our Republican colleagues for trying to bring this war to a responsible end. But sometimes that is a problem because you have to deal with the facts. The facts are not as the President wants them to be but as they exist on the ground. The fact is, the President is totally out of touch with reality. He is out of touch with the American people and with America's interests in the region.

I have been here a while, and I can say I have never seen a President as isolated since Richard Nixon. The President appears to be totally removed from reality. He tells us that Attorney General Gonzales has done a great job, when anybody who watched it views it as one of the least impressive appearances of an Attorney General. He tells us that the President of the World Bank, an American, is doing a great job, oblivious to the damage being done to America's reputation around the world. And against the advice of some of the most gifted military men and women in a generation,

he has adopted a policy in Iraq that is a disaster.

The President argues that the surge is succeeding, but with every welcome development he cites there is an equally unwelcome development that gives lie to the claim that we are making any progress. For example, while death squad violence against Iraqis is down in some Baghdad neighborhoods where we have surged, suicide bombings have increased by 30 percent over the last 6 weeks. Violence is up dramatically in the belt ringing Baghdad. The civilian death toll has increased 15 percent from February to March. When we squeeze a water balloon in one place, it bulges somewhere else. Moqtada al-Sadr has not been seen, but he has been heard, rallying his followers with anti- American messages and his thugs to take on American troops in the south. Last week, he pulled his ministers from the coalition government, and intelligence experts believe his militia is simply waiting out the surge.

Closing markets to vehicles has precluded some car bombs, but it also has prompted terrorists to change tactics and walk in with suicide vests. The road to the airport to Baghdad may be safer, but the skies above it are more lethal; witness the ironic imposition of ``no-fly zones'' for our own helicopters.

Tal Affar is the most damaging evidence of the absolute absurdity of this policy. The President cites it as progress.

Architects of the President's plan called Tal Affar a model because in 2005 we surged about 10,000 Americans and Iraqis to pacify the city. Then we left, just as our troops will have to leave the Baghdad neighborhoods after calm is established, if it is.

But what happened in Tal Affar? It was the scene of some of the most horrific sectarian violence to date. A massive truck bomb aimed at the Shiite community led to a retaliatory rampage by Shiite death squads, aided by Iraqi police. Hundreds were killed. The population of Tal Affar, which was 200,000 people just a year or two ago, is down to 80,000.

There is an even more basic problem with the President's progress report, and it goes to the heart of the choices we now face in Iraq. Whatever tactical progress we may be making will amount to nothing if it is not serving a larger strategy for success. The administration's strategy has virtually no prospect for success, and his strategy, in a nutshell, is the hope that the surge will buy President Maliki's government time to broker the sustainable political settlement that our own military views as essential, and that is premised upon the notion of a central government in Baghdad with real power.

But there is no trust within the government, no trust of the government by the people it purports to serve, and no capacity on the part of the government to deliver security or services. There is little, if any, prospect that this government will build that trust and capacity any time soon.

How many times have colleagues heard, beginning in January, how there is an oil agreement, that they have gotten that deal? Has anybody seen that deal, after we heralded it time and again as essential to pulling this country together?

In short, the most basic premise of the President's approach--that the Iraqi people will rally behind a strong central government, headed by Maliki, in fact will look out for their interests equitably--is fundamentally and fatally flawed. It will not happen in anybody's lifetime here, including the pages'.

If the President won't look at a program that is different than he is now pursuing if his plan doesn't work, what will he do? History suggests there are only a couple of ways, when there is a self- sustaining cycle of sectarian violence, to end it, and it is not to put American troops in the middle of a city of 6.2 million people to try to quell a civil war.

Throughout history, four things have worked. You occupy the country for a generation or more. Well, that is not in our DNA. We are not the Persian Empire or British Empire. You can install a dictator, after having removed one. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony for the U.S. to do that after taking one down. You can let them fight it out until one side massacres the other--not an option in that tinder box part of the world. Lastly, you make federalism work for the Iraqis. You give them control over the fabric of their daily lives. You separate the parties, you give them breathing room, and let them control their local police, their education, their religion, and their marriage. That is the only possibility. We can help Iraq change the focus to a limited central government and a Federal system, which their constitution calls for. I cannot guarantee that my strategy will work, but I can guarantee that the road the President has us on leads to nowhere with no end in sight.

We have to change course to end this war responsibly. That is what we are trying to do in Congress. Later this week, we will send to the President an emergency supplemental bill on Iraq that provides every dollar our troops need and more than the President requested. It also provides what the majority of Americans expect and believe is necessary: a plan to start to bring our troops home and bring this war to a responsible end, not escalate it indefinitely.

If the President vetoes the emergency spending bill, he is the one who will be denying our troops the funding they need. He is the one who will be denying the American people a path out of Iraq. The President's double talk on Iraq is reaching new heights of hypocrisy. I don't say that lightly.

On April 16, the President claimed that setting a timetable to start bringing our troops home would ``legislate defeat.'' Just 2 days after that, 2 days later, his own Secretary of Defense had this to say:

The push by Democrats to set a timetable for U.S.

withdrawal from Iraq has been helpful in showing Iraqis that

American patience is limited . . . that this is not an open-

ended commitment.

Then, in arguing against the supplemental, the President claimed that by sending him a bill he would somehow be forced to veto, the military would run out of money for Iraq in mid-April--which is not true, by the way--and as a result, he would have to extend the tours of duty of the troops already in Iraq.

Extending those tours, the President said, ``is unacceptable.'' ``It's unacceptable to me, it's unacceptable to our veterans, it's unacceptable to our military families, and it's unacceptable to many in this country.''

Unacceptable? The very next day, the administration announced its plans to do the ``unacceptable'' and extended the tours of every American ground troop in Iraq by 3 months.

Talk about hypocrisy: Telling us the path out of Iraq is a way which is forcing him to veto a bill that will require him then to extend tours because of that veto and that is unacceptable, and the very next day he extends the tour of every person on the ground. Once one gets over the hypocrisy, that announcement is an urgent warning that the administration's policy in Iraq cannot be sustained without doing terrible long-term damage to our military.

If this administration insists on keeping this many troops in Iraq until next year, we will have to send soldiers back for third, fourth, and fifth tours, extend deployment times from 6 months to a year for marines, from 12 months to 16 to 18 months for the Army. The military will also be forced to end the practice of keeping troops at home for at least 1 year between deployments, to fully mobilize the National Guard and Reserve, and to perpetuate this backdoor draft.

This President is breaking--is breaking--the military. We don't have to guess at the impact on this relentless readiness, its impact on retention and recruitment. This month, we learned that recent graduates of West Point are choosing to leave Active-Duty service at the highest rate in more than three decades. This administration's policies are literally driving some of our best and brightest young officers out of the military.

Instead of working with Democrats in Congress in a way forward, this President, divorced from reality, is accusing us of emboldening the enemy and undermining our troops. I have a message for you, Mr. President: The only thing that is emboldening the enemy is your failed policy. Mr. President, the only mission you have accomplished is emboldening the enemy with your failed policy.

Instead of escalating the war with no end in sight, we have to start bringing this to a responsible conclusion. If the administration insists on keeping this many troops next year, we are in serious, serious jeopardy.

I conclude by saying that I believe it is my obligation as a Senator--and I hope the obligation of everyone else--to keep relentless, unending pressure on this President to come to grips with reality, to continually push every single day to say: Mr. President, stop; stop this policy of yours.

It is my hope, even though he is likely to veto this bill, that we will keep the pressure on and ultimately convince at least a dozen of our Republican colleagues it is time to stop backing the President and start backing the troops. It is time, Mr. President, to begin to responsibly bring this war to an end.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to honor one of the great inspirations to the young people of my hometown, Bishop Aretha E. Morton, who will be retiring this week from the Tabernacle Full Gospel Baptist Cathedral in Wilmington.

On this day, 48 years ago, she preached her trial sermon; 24 years later she was ordained, becoming the first woman to pastor a Baptist Church in Delaware. She has now served longer than any pastor in her church's almost 90-year history.

She also made history in 1993 by becoming the first woman, and the first African-American, to be a chaplain for the Wilmington Fire Department.

Around Wilmington, where everyone knows Bishop Morton, she is affectionately called ``Mother''--and for good reason. She has spent her career reaching out to my city's youth, inspiring students to achieve and offering something that those in trouble don't have enough of--hope.

For all of us in this Chamber, she is an example of what the country needs more of right now, someone with a lot of love in her heart, who teaches tolerance and respect.

I wish Bishop Morton the very best and hope that she has more time to spend with her children, Lorraine Gaskins and Dr. Donald Morton, seven grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Mr. President, this Sunday communities across the globe will mark Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. As we mourn the millions who were lost at the hands of the Nazis, how can anyone justify denying victims and historians access to files documenting the Nazis' atrocious acts?

Yet, that is exactly what is happening. Last December, I wrote to the ambassadors of nine countries about an issue of utmost importance--the opening of the Bad Arolsen Holocaust archives.

Unfortunately, the response from many of these countries has been disappointing. Thousands of Holocaust survivors, historians, and researchers are still being denied access to files that tell the story of unspeakable crimes committed by the Nazis. Many of the files are about the survivors themselves; still, they cannot view them.

The story of how this unacceptable state of events came about goes back 60 years. After the Allies won the Second World War, they took possession of millions of files and documents, penned by the Nazis themselves, which chronicled every aspect of their horrific Final Solution. To maintain this catalogue of atrocities, the Allies established an archive called the International Tracing Service, in the town of Bad Arolsen, Germany. Today, Bad Arolsen contains some 30 to 50 million pages that record the individual fates of over 17 million victims of Nazi persecution.

The Tracing Service was established to unify families and help survivors learn the ultimate fate of their lost loved ones. Yet, access to the records remains severely limited and very few survivors have ever been allowed direct, much less prompt access. The justification for this delay was supposedly privacy concerns, logistical problems associated with making the records widely accessible, and fears of new legal claims. None of these can justify the tragic result--thousands of elderly survivors have passed away in recent years, never knowing what happened to their families, even though the answer may be sitting on a shelf in Germany. This is simply tragic.

Eleven countries serve on the International Commission that supervises the Tracing Service. Last May, after years of delay, they commendably agreed to make these archives public for the first time. They also agreed to place digitized copies at Holocaust research centers in other countries, but only after each of the 11 countries-- the United States, Israel, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom--completed their own ratification procedure. In light of the advanced age of the remaining survivors, all committed to make ratification an urgent priority, with the goal of concluding the process by the end of 2006.

But as of December, when I wrote my letters, only the United States and Israel had ratified the agreement. Since then, the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Netherlands have joined the United States and Israel in completing ratification. However, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg have not done so.

Today, I am submitting a Senate Resolution calling on the Senate to join people around the world in observing Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, commending the countries that have completed ratification of the agreement to make the Bad Arolsen archives public, calling on those countries yet to complete ratification to do so immediately, and calling on the International Commission to approve immediate distribution of electronic copies of the documents from Bad Arolsen to research centers around the world, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, so that survivors will be able to document their experience, and learn the fates of their lost loved ones.

Last fall, the Government of Iran hosted a conference; its absurd and outrageous premise was that the Holocaust did not occur. At a time when dangerously deluded efforts to deny the Holocaust are on the rise, how can we keep the Nazis' own records from proving their horrors to the world? And how can we deny the Nazis' victims--who have suffered enough for a thousand lifetimes--the truth they so clearly deserve?

Yom Hashoah reminds us of one of the greatest evils that has ever befallen the human race, and it mourns the millions who were lost as a result of that evil. The countries of the International Commission have an opportunity to do a little good by shedding light on that evil. That is the best way they could observe Yom Hashoah this year.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 739.

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

This amendment is very straightforward. This amendment moves up $1.5 billion into the supplemental from the 2008 budget. The effect will be, it will add an additional 2,500 MRAP vehicles into the field faster. These are the vehicles with the V-shaped hull. This increases the security of our troops inside these vehicles--who are now riding in humvees--three to four times.

What it will mean is it is an opportunity to provide 10,000 to 30,000 of our troops four times more protection than they now get riding around in the humvees when they are attacked by IEDs. That is tens of thousands of Americans who won't be severely injured or killed.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Chief of Staff of the Army both have said they need this money moved up so they can get these additional vehicles into the field earlier. I cannot think of a better way to explain this amendment than using the words of the Commandant of the Marine Corps when I spoke to him yesterday.

He said: Senator, this is the highest moral imperative I have as a Commandant of the Marine Corps.

I hope we will move this money up. I hope we will pass this amendment. It literally, not figuratively, will save lives.

I yield the floor, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, the island of Cyprus has a longstanding reputation as a place of natural beauty and rich history. It is now emerging as a potential source of energy as well. Developed responsibly, oil and gas deposits under the island's southern continental shelf could provide an alternative source of hydrocarbons at a time when many European countries are struggling to diversify their energy supplies. If this ambition is realized, Cyprus could play an important role in promoting regional energy security.

The Government of the Republic of Cyprus, ROC, is working to establish partnerships with foreign companies and countries in an effort to bring these energy resources online. This process is being needlessly complicated, however, by individuals in Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot community who are discouraging foreign partners from working with the ROC. In view of this behavior, I believe it is important to affirm the ROC's right to search for and develop resources located under Cyprus' continental shelf.

Under international law, there is no question about the legality of the Cypriot Government's activities. The legal principles at issue are codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which Cyprus is a party. The ROC has entered into agreements delineating its Exclusive Economic Zone, EEZ, with Egypt and Lebanon and the areas under consideration for development are well within these boundaries. There is simply no juridical basis to dispute Cyprus' claims or actions.

I hope that both Ankara and leaders of the Turkish Cypriot community will cease their efforts to obstruct the exploration of Cypriot waters. Strong-arm diplomacy aimed at scaring away potential Cypriot business partners will only delay the peaceful reunification of Cyprus--and with it the day when all Cypriots can benefit from the island's energy resources.

I want to reiterate my longstanding call for both Cypriot communities to push forward with the technical talks and negotiations that I believe can reunify the island. However, in doing so, I want to caution that attempts to interfere in Cyprus' legitimate energy exploration activities will only complicate negotiations to end the estrangement of the island's peoples.

The country of Cyprus has long been a key partner for the United States, and our friendship rests on the bedrock

of shared democratic values. In a global energy market dominated by authoritarian regimes, I believe it is important for Cyprus to push forward with plans to survey its energy assets. I sincerely hope that other parties will respect Cyprus' right to pursue this undertaking.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity today to introduce an important piece of legislation to improve the ability of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide medical care for our Nation's Armed Forces and veterans. We are currently finishing up a debate in the Senate on additional war time funding for Iraq. As in past years, we are trying to mitigate the damage caused by the failure to properly plan for and manage the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's fall. I have spoken many times about how damaging this lack of planning has been to our efforts in Iraq and to our standing in the world.

For the past two months, the spotlight has shone on another administration failure in this war: the shameful conditions our wounded soldiers face as outpatients navigating the military health system when they return from Iraq or Afghanistan. This is another example of gross mismanagement and a strained system. To alleviate the strain on this system, I am offering legislation today--the Effective Care for the Armed Forces and Veterans Act--to improve the care that members of the Armed Forces and veterans receive at Walter Reed and other military medical facilities.

The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that some of the reasons for concern at Walter Reed do not occur in the future. As the living conditions for outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center indicate, moving to private contracts for maintenance at military medical facilities can cause problems. After a private contract was awarded for maintenance and upkeep of buildings on the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a maintenance crew of approximately 300 was whittled down to 50 by the time the contract went in to effect. Many of the terrible living conditions in Building 18 that we read about in the Washington Post were a direct result of delays in building repair and maintenance because of a shortage in manpower. To prevent this situation from occurring again, this legislation calls for public- private competitions of maintenance services at military medical complexes to stop while our country is engaged in military conflicts. It also calls for a General Accountability Office review of contracting-out decisions for basic maintenance work at military facilities.

Other problems discovered at Walter Reed are directly attributable to shortages resulting from pressures to cut budgets for military medical services. These cuts cannot be tolerated at a time when military medical services are needed to treat servicemembers who have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. As such, this legislation would require medical command budgets to be equal to or exceed the prior year amount while the nation is involved in a major military conflict or war.

Another issue that the conditions at Walter Reed brought up is whether or not the facility should be closed as the Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended. The Commission recommended building new, modern facilities at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda and at Fort Belvoir to improve the overall quality of care and access to care in this region. Military leaders have indicated that the planned closure has limited their ability to attract needed professionals to jobs at Walter Reed and there have been concerns raised whether adequate housing for the families of the wounded has been properly planned. To deal with that, this legislation requires the Department of Defense to submit to Congress within one year a detailed plan that includes an evaluation of the following: the desirability of being able to guarantee professional jobs in the D.C. area for two years or more following the closure in order to foster a stable workforce; detailed construction plans for the new facilities and for new family housing; and the costs and benefits of building all of the needed medical treatment, rehabilitation, and housing before a single unit is moved.

Another major problem and source of frustration for injured soldiers is the length of time it takes to receive a disability determination. In order to hasten the disability determination process, we need to ensure that the Department of Defense has information systems capable of communicating with those in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA has been a leader in implementing electronic medical record keeping, but we have to improve the capability of the Department of Defense to send electronic medical records to the VA to speed up the disability determination process. Making the disability determination system more efficient can reduce the stress on the soldiers and their families going through the determination process.

Caseworkers are also critical. They schedule appointments and make sure wounded servicemembers get the rehabilitative and follow-up care they need. As more and more soldiers and marines come home wounded, many military caseworkers are overwhelmed. To improve the care given to servicemembers, this legislation requires a minimum ratio of case managers to patients of 1 to 20, that case managers have contact with recovering servicemembers at least once a week, and that case managers be properly trained on the military's disability and discharge systems so they can better assist patients with their paperwork.

Currently, many combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have service-related mental health issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Many have labeled TBI the ``signature injury'' of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. It is estimated that as many as 10 percent of those serving or who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have brain injuries. That

would mean about 150,000 of the 1.5 million soldiers and marines who have served in Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom have suffered a brain injury. In many cases, these injuries are not diagnosed because there is not an external wound. Depending on the severity of these injuries, returning soldiers can require immediate treatment or not have symptoms show up until several years later. This legislation calls for every returning soldier to be screened for TBI. While the VA has announced plans to do this, it needs to happen in active-duty military medical facilities too. In addition, the legislation calls for a study on the advisability of treating TBI as a presumptive condition in every service's disability evaluation system, as well as the VA disability evaluation system.

We often hear about the 25,000 soldiers and marines who have been wounded in these wars--but that figure grossly underestimates the demand that the VA health care system faces. Since our country was attacked on September 11, 2001, more than 1.5 million soldiers have been deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations. Of these, 630,000 are now veterans and, according to the Department of Defense, more than 205,000 have already received medical treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs. A recent Harvard study on the long-term costs of treating these new veterans estimates that by 2012 more than 643,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will be using the VA system, an almost three-fold increase of what the system faces now. With a significant backlog of claims currently existing, the system is in desperate need of an upgrade. To address this concern, my legislation directs the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to submit to Congress a plan for the long-term care needs for veterans for the next 50 years.

It is our highest obligation to heal the hundreds of thousands of brave men and women who will bear the physical and emotional scars of these wars for the rest of their lives. Those of us who have the privilege of serving in Congress must act now to improve the medical care we provide to our Armed Forces and veterans.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing The American Automobile Industry Promotion Act of 2007 to jump-start next generation battery technology development in the United States and extend incentives to American-made highly efficient vehicles.

This legislation authorizes $100 million a year for 5 years to advance new battery technology--an amount double the administration's current budget request. On a national and international level, we must do whatever it takes to help our domestic auto manufacturers remain competitive.

Right now, the Japanese dominate the market for lithium ion batteries because they invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing this technology and in supporting their domestic industry. And, the Koreans and the Chinese are not far behind. American auto manufacturers are playing catch-up and we need to move quickly.

Specifically, I am proposing to support the development of advanced electric components, systems and vehicles, by providing funds for battery research to national laboratories, small businesses, and institutes of higher learning. The bill will also establish, through a competitive selection process, an Industry Alliance of private, U.S. based, for-profit firms whose primary business is battery development. The Industry Alliance would be an advisory resource on short and long term battery technology development.

The new research initiative will have four major areas of focus: (1) Research and Development including battery technology, high-efficiency charging systems, high-powered drive-train systems, control systems and power train development, and nanomaterial technology for battery and fuel cell systems. (2) Demonstration. The initiative also creates a demonstration program which would devote resources toward demonstration, testing and evaluation of hybrid electric vehicles for many different applications including military, mass market passenger and SUV vehicles. (3) Education. The initiative will support curriculum development in secondary, high school, as well as higher education institutions that focus on electric drive systems and component engineering. (4) Testing. Finally, the initiative would work with the EPA to develop testing and certification procedures for criteria pollutants, fuel economy, and petroleum use in vehicles.

In addition to research and development for the lithium ion battery, the American Automobile Industry Promotion Act will also set a national standard for biodiesel, a cleaner-burning fuel made from natural and renewable sources; and expand tax credit eligibility for consumers who purchase more fuel-efficient diesel vehicles. Today's diesels are cleaner than their predecessors, are in compliance with EPA emissions standards, and are 30 percent more fuel efficient than an equivalent gasoline engine. Specifically, the bill expands the emissions requirements to qualify for a tax credit for various weight diesel vehicles, increasing the number of American-manufactured more fuel efficient diesel vehicles that qualify. This provision would expire in four years, at which time all highly efficient vehicles will have to meet higher emissions standards to qualify for the tax credit.

Now is the time to act. It's not too late, but we do not have the luxury of waiting. If we are ever to be truly competitive in the global auto market and free from our dependence on foreign oil, we must move forward on all fronts.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I introduce today with my colleagues Senators Specter, Brownback, and Leahy the Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act of 2007, which takes direct aim at reducing recidivism rates by improving the transition of offenders from prison back into the community. As this bill reflects, preventing recidivism is not only the right thing to do, it makes our communities safer and it saves us money.

Today, we have over two million individuals in our Federal and State prisons and millions more in local jails. Our Federal and State prisons will release nearly 650,000 of these offenders back into our communities this year. A staggering \2/3\ of released State prisoners will be rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years of release.

It's not difficult to see why. These ex-offenders face a number of difficult challenges upon release. The unemployment rate among former inmates is as high as 60 percent; 15-27 percent of prisoners expect to go to homeless shelters upon release; and 57 percent of Federal and 70 percent of State inmates used drugs regularly before prison. This addiction and dependency often continues during incarceration.

Unless we address these problems, these individuals will commit hundreds of thousands of serious crimes after their release, and our communities will bear the human and economic cost. If we are going to reduce recidivism and crime, we simply have to make concerted, common- sense efforts now to help ex-offenders successfully reenter and reintegrate into their communities.

The Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act of 2007 confronts head-on the dire situation of prisoners reentering our communities with insufficient monitoring, little or no job skills, inadequate drug treatment, insufficient housing, lack of basic physical and mental health services, and deficient basic life skills. Through commonsense and cost effective measures, it offers a second chance for ex-offenders, and the children and families that depend on them, and it strengthens our communities and ensures safe neighborhoods.

The Second Chance Act provides a competitive grant program to study current approaches to reducing recidivism rates. It also provides grants for the development and implementation of comprehensive substance abuse treatment programs, academic and vocational education programs, housing and job counseling programs, and mentoring for offenders who are approaching release and who have been released. To ensure accountability, the bill requires grantees to establish performance goals and benchmarks and report the results to Congress.

The bill authorizes $192 million per year in competitive grant funding. This represents an investment in our future and an acknowledgement of the problem we face. We must remember that the average cost of incarcerating each prisoner exceeds $20,000 per year, with expenditures on corrections alone having increased from $9 billion in 1982 to $60 billion in 2002. That's more than a six-fold increase, and the costs keep going up.

A relatively modest investment in offender reentry efforts today is far more cost-effective than the alternative--building more prisons for these ex-offenders to return to if they can't reenter their communities and are convicted of further crimes. An ounce of prevention, as the saying goes, is worth a pound of cure.

I'm proud today to join with Senator Specter, Senator Brownback, and Senator Leahy in introducing the Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act and ask that our colleagues join with us in this vital effort. The safety of our neighbors, our children, and our communities depends on it.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity today to introduce an important piece of legislation to improve the ability of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide medical care for our Nation's Armed Forces and veterans. We are currently finishing up a debate in the Senate on additional war time funding for Iraq. As in past years, we are trying to mitigate the damage caused by the failure to properly plan for and manage the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's fall. I have spoken many times about how damaging this lack of planning has been to our efforts in Iraq and to our standing in the world.

For the past two months, the spotlight has shone on another administration failure in this war: the shameful conditions our wounded soldiers face as outpatients navigating the military health system when they return from Iraq or Afghanistan. This is another example of gross mismanagement and a strained system. To alleviate the strain on this system, I am offering legislation today--the Effective Care for the Armed Forces and Veterans Act--to improve the care that members of the Armed Forces and veterans receive at Walter Reed and other military medical facilities.

The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that some of the reasons for concern at Walter Reed do not occur in the future. As the living conditions for outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center indicate, moving to private contracts for maintenance at military medical facilities can cause problems. After a private contract was awarded for maintenance and upkeep of buildings on the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a maintenance crew of approximately 300 was whittled down to 50 by the time the contract went in to effect. Many of the terrible living conditions in Building 18 that we read about in the Washington Post were a direct result of delays in building repair and maintenance because of a shortage in manpower. To prevent this situation from occurring again, this legislation calls for public- private competitions of maintenance services at military medical complexes to stop while our country is engaged in military conflicts. It also calls for a General Accountability Office review of contracting-out decisions for basic maintenance work at military facilities.

Other problems discovered at Walter Reed are directly attributable to shortages resulting from pressures to cut budgets for military medical services. These cuts cannot be tolerated at a time when military medical services are needed to treat servicemembers who have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. As such, this legislation would require medical command budgets to be equal to or exceed the prior year amount while the nation is involved in a major military conflict or war.

Another issue that the conditions at Walter Reed brought up is whether or not the facility should be closed as the Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended. The Commission recommended building new, modern facilities at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda and at Fort Belvoir to improve the overall quality of care and access to care in this region. Military leaders have indicated that the planned closure has limited their ability to attract needed professionals to jobs at Walter Reed and there have been concerns raised whether adequate housing for the families of the wounded has been properly planned. To deal with that, this legislation requires the Department of Defense to submit to Congress within one year a detailed plan that includes an evaluation of the following: the desirability of being able to guarantee professional jobs in the D.C. area for two years or more following the closure in order to foster a stable workforce; detailed construction plans for the new facilities and for new family housing; and the costs and benefits of building all of the needed medical treatment, rehabilitation, and housing before a single unit is moved.

Another major problem and source of frustration for injured soldiers is the length of time it takes to receive a disability determination. In order to hasten the disability determination process, we need to ensure that the Department of Defense has information systems capable of communicating with those in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA has been a leader in implementing electronic medical record keeping, but we have to improve the capability of the Department of Defense to send electronic medical records to the VA to speed up the disability determination process. Making the disability determination system more efficient can reduce the stress on the soldiers and their families going through the determination process.

Caseworkers are also critical. They schedule appointments and make sure wounded servicemembers get the rehabilitative and follow-up care they need. As more and more soldiers and marines come home wounded, many military caseworkers are overwhelmed. To improve the care given to servicemembers, this legislation requires a minimum ratio of case managers to patients of 1 to 20, that case managers have contact with recovering servicemembers at least once a week, and that case managers be properly trained on the military's disability and discharge systems so they can better assist patients with their paperwork.

Currently, many combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have service-related mental health issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Many have labeled TBI the ``signature injury'' of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. It is estimated that as many as 10 percent of those serving or who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have brain injuries. That

would mean about 150,000 of the 1.5 million soldiers and marines who have served in Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom have suffered a brain injury. In many cases, these injuries are not diagnosed because there is not an external wound. Depending on the severity of these injuries, returning soldiers can require immediate treatment or not have symptoms show up until several years later. This legislation calls for every returning soldier to be screened for TBI. While the VA has announced plans to do this, it needs to happen in active-duty military medical facilities too. In addition, the legislation calls for a study on the advisability of treating TBI as a presumptive condition in every service's disability evaluation system, as well as the VA disability evaluation system.

We often hear about the 25,000 soldiers and marines who have been wounded in these wars--but that figure grossly underestimates the demand that the VA health care system faces. Since our country was attacked on September 11, 2001, more than 1.5 million soldiers have been deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations. Of these, 630,000 are now veterans and, according to the Department of Defense, more than 205,000 have already received medical treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs. A recent Harvard study on the long-term costs of treating these new veterans estimates that by 2012 more than 643,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will be using the VA system, an almost three-fold increase of what the system faces now. With a significant backlog of claims currently existing, the system is in desperate need of an upgrade. To address this concern, my legislation directs the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to submit to Congress a plan for the long-term care needs for veterans for the next 50 years.

It is our highest obligation to heal the hundreds of thousands of brave men and women who will bear the physical and emotional scars of these wars for the rest of their lives. Those of us who have the privilege of serving in Congress must act now to improve the medical care we provide to our Armed Forces and veterans.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing The American Automobile Industry Promotion Act of 2007 to jump-start next generation battery technology development in the United States and extend incentives to American-made highly efficient vehicles.

This legislation authorizes $100 million a year for 5 years to advance new battery technology--an amount double the administration's current budget request. On a national and international level, we must do whatever it takes to help our domestic auto manufacturers remain competitive.

Right now, the Japanese dominate the market for lithium ion batteries because they invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing this technology and in supporting their domestic industry. And, the Koreans and the Chinese are not far behind. American auto manufacturers are playing catch-up and we need to move quickly.

Specifically, I am proposing to support the development of advanced electric components, systems and vehicles, by providing funds for battery research to national laboratories, small businesses, and institutes of higher learning. The bill will also establish, through a competitive selection process, an Industry Alliance of private, U.S. based, for-profit firms whose primary business is battery development. The Industry Alliance would be an advisory resource on short and long term battery technology development.

The new research initiative will have four major areas of focus: (1) Research and Development including battery technology, high-efficiency charging systems, high-powered drive-train systems, control systems and power train development, and nanomaterial technology for battery and fuel cell systems. (2) Demonstration. The initiative also creates a demonstration program which would devote resources toward demonstration, testing and evaluation of hybrid electric vehicles for many different applications including military, mass market passenger and SUV vehicles. (3) Education. The initiative will support curriculum development in secondary, high school, as well as higher education institutions that focus on electric drive systems and component engineering. (4) Testing. Finally, the initiative would work with the EPA to develop testing and certification procedures for criteria pollutants, fuel economy, and petroleum use in vehicles.

In addition to research and development for the lithium ion battery, the American Automobile Industry Promotion Act will also set a national standard for biodiesel, a cleaner-burning fuel made from natural and renewable sources; and expand tax credit eligibility for consumers who purchase more fuel-efficient diesel vehicles. Today's diesels are cleaner than their predecessors, are in compliance with EPA emissions standards, and are 30 percent more fuel efficient than an equivalent gasoline engine. Specifically, the bill expands the emissions requirements to qualify for a tax credit for various weight diesel vehicles, increasing the number of American-manufactured more fuel efficient diesel vehicles that qualify. This provision would expire in four years, at which time all highly efficient vehicles will have to meet higher emissions standards to qualify for the tax credit.

Now is the time to act. It's not too late, but we do not have the luxury of waiting. If we are ever to be truly competitive in the global auto market and free from our dependence on foreign oil, we must move forward on all fronts.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I introduce today with my colleagues Senators Specter, Brownback, and Leahy the Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act of 2007, which takes direct aim at reducing recidivism rates by improving the transition of offenders from prison back into the community. As this bill reflects, preventing recidivism is not only the right thing to do, it makes our communities safer and it saves us money.

Today, we have over two million individuals in our Federal and State prisons and millions more in local jails. Our Federal and State prisons will release nearly 650,000 of these offenders back into our communities this year. A staggering \2/3\ of released State prisoners will be rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years of release.

It's not difficult to see why. These ex-offenders face a number of difficult challenges upon release. The unemployment rate among former inmates is as high as 60 percent; 15-27 percent of prisoners expect to go to homeless shelters upon release; and 57 percent of Federal and 70 percent of State inmates used drugs regularly before prison. This addiction and dependency often continues during incarceration.

Unless we address these problems, these individuals will commit hundreds of thousands of serious crimes after their release, and our communities will bear the human and economic cost. If we are going to reduce recidivism and crime, we simply have to make concerted, common- sense efforts now to help ex-offenders successfully reenter and reintegrate into their communities.

The Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act of 2007 confronts head-on the dire situation of prisoners reentering our communities with insufficient monitoring, little or no job skills, inadequate drug treatment, insufficient housing, lack of basic physical and mental health services, and deficient basic life skills. Through commonsense and cost effective measures, it offers a second chance for ex-offenders, and the children and families that depend on them, and it strengthens our communities and ensures safe neighborhoods.

The Second Chance Act provides a competitive grant program to study current approaches to reducing recidivism rates. It also provides grants for the development and implementation of comprehensive substance abuse treatment programs, academic and vocational education programs, housing and job counseling programs, and mentoring for offenders who are approaching release and who have been released. To ensure accountability, the bill requires grantees to establish performance goals and benchmarks and report the results to Congress.

The bill authorizes $192 million per year in competitive grant funding. This represents an investment in our future and an acknowledgement of the problem we face. We must remember that the average cost of incarcerating each prisoner exceeds $20,000 per year, with expenditures on corrections alone having increased from $9 billion in 1982 to $60 billion in 2002. That's more than a six-fold increase, and the costs keep going up.

A relatively modest investment in offender reentry efforts today is far more cost-effective than the alternative--building more prisons for these ex-offenders to return to if they can't reenter their communities and are convicted of further crimes. An ounce of prevention, as the saying goes, is worth a pound of cure.

I'm proud today to join with Senator Specter, Senator Brownback, and Senator Leahy in introducing the Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act and ask that our colleagues join with us in this vital effort. The safety of our neighbors, our children, and our communities depends on it.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Madam President, I apologize for my formal dress. Like many here, including, I suspect, the two Senators from Washington, I am supposed to be attending the correspondents dinner tonight.

I am informed that my amendment will actually be called up tomorrow as part of a series of votes. I would like to speak tonight as I have been told there will not be adequate time tomorrow.

For my colleagues' information, the amendment I will be discussing is No. 739. I ask unanimous consent to add as cosponsors Senator Byrd of West Virginia, Senator Bond, Senator Pryor, Senator Kennedy, Senator Durbin, and Senator Kerry.

Madam President, I wish to begin by stating very simply that this amendment is literally, not figuratively, a matter of life and death. I have been here for many years. I have never begun a discussion of an amendment--and I have sponsored some serious amendments and pieces of legislation--by saying something as graphic and drastic as this is literally a matter of life and death. But it is. This is not hyperbole. This is not an exaggeration.

What my amendment will do is allow the military to put 2,500 more mine resistant ambush protected vehicles--known in the military by its acronym, MRAP--in the field by the end of this year.

Now, let me explain what I am talking about. First, I want to point out that the committee acknowledged the need for these vehicles and included $2.5 billion in this bill. But what I propose in this amendment is forward-funding money from next year's 2008 budget into this supplemental. In that way, we can build more of these vehicles which have one purpose--the specific purpose of saving lives, American lives.

The fact is, as most of my colleagues know, 70 percent of American casualties in Iraq are caused by improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Many of my colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, have been to Iraq. They have had the same experience I have in my seven trips-- visiting field hospitals. There, you see amputees and people with serious head injuries who, because of the incredible skill and triage capability of our military doctors and nurses, are able to be kept alive. Most of those injured at Walter Reed and at Bethesda naval hospital are victims of these devices, sadly now familiar to all Americans from the nightly news. We have tried very hard--although this administration has done so belatedly--to better equip our troops to withstand IEDs. God forbid they find themselves victim of an IED attack, but if they do, we want them to be able to survive.

MRAP vehicles provide four to five times more protection to our troops than up-armored HMMWVs. That statement, that these MRAPs provide four to five times more protection than up-armored HMMWVs, is not my estimate. That is the judgment of our military leaders. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, GEN James Conway, with whom I spoke as recently as this afternoon, wrote on March 1 to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said:

Multi-National Forces--West [that is, the Marines in Iraq]

estimates that the use of the MRAP could reduce the

casualties in vehicles due to IED attack by as much as 80

percent.

He went on further and said that even though the MRAP is not expeditionary:

It is, however, the best available vehicle for force

protection.

He concluded by saying:

Getting the MRAP into the Al Anbar Province is my number

one unfilled warfighting requirement at this time.

Let me repeat that:

Getting the MRAP into the Al Anbar Province is my number

one unfilled warfighting requirement at this time.

He went on to tell me today that although there is some disagreement in terms of priorities within this building, he was speaking to me from the Pentagon, he said, ``I believe this is a moral imperative.''

How many generals with four stars or three or two or one on their shoulders have you heard use that phrase? How often is something so fundamental it is called ``a moral imperative''? This is a man who is heading back out to Iraq soon. He is talking about protecting his kids, his troops.

On my last trip into Anbar Province last summer, I went to Fallujah. I met with the commanding Marine general and roughly 30 to 40 of his commanders and noncommissioned officers. I was taken outside a building to see what they were trying to do to diminish the casualty rate of American forces required to patrol Fallujah. They showed me what they called a rhino, a big vehicle, looks like a Caterpillar bulldozer with a great big proboscis on it, a great big arm that is used when an IED is identified, to disarm it. It was interesting. I observed for the first time--maybe others knew about it--the hull. The bottom of it looked like a ship out of water. It had a V-shaped bottom. A humvee, like your SUV or your automobile, has a flat bottom. In a humvee, even if it is reinforced, it is still flat. The rhino had a V-shaped bottom or floor. I asked why. They said it made them much more blast resistant and it could protect the troops inside. That is the first time I heard about this concept. They did not have MRAPs yet, but they had this rhino, a much bigger vehicle for a different purpose.

As I talked to them, I remember asking the question, why aren't we building more of these things? You know, the folks on the ground, these kids and many not so young women and men who are climbing into these coffins, know that even in an up-armored vehicle if they are struck, deadly force may be exerted, scrambling their brains or outright killing them. The number one requirement of the Commandant of the Marine Corps is to get more of these vehicles. I respectfully suggest to all who care--and every one of us cares about the fate of the troops--if there is any place we should not consider the cost-- emphasize again, not consider the cost--it is when there is a consensus that what we are purchasing can save lives. We have made no sacrifice in this country to fight this war except for the families of those who have gone to the war. We should not hesitate to save the lives of those who are sacrificing because of cost.

A couple of my colleagues off the floor, none of whom are on the floor at this moment, have told me it might not be cost effective because the military is working on a new vehicle. Give me a break. Cost effective? I wonder how many people asked, when we were talking about the invasion of Normandy in World War II: You know, we better be careful. We may build too many landing craft. We might have some left over. What are we going to do with them after the war?

We have no higher obligation than to protect those we send into battle. We have received a pretty good dose of this administration's willingness to send people into battle not prepared. Rumsfeld's famous comment: You go with the Army you have, not the Army you like or need. That is paraphrasing him from a couple of years ago. When we find a way to protect people better in battle, then it seems to me we have an overwhelming obligation to act.

Let me explain the specifics of the MRAP. Each vehicle can hold 4 to 12 troops. Like the rhino, these vehicles have raised steel, V-shaped hulls and chassis. The raised hull is valuable because it gives the blast more time to expand, lessening the impact. The V-shape pushes the blast up the sides of the vehicle and away from the occupants. With an up-armored HMMWV or any humvee, the flat bottom sends the blast through the floor right into the occupants. In addition, the vehicles have side armor and bulletproof glass, and they also have tires that can be driven when flat.

Ever since the military began using MRAPs in Iraq, the requirement has grown, as commanders realize how much better they are at protecting their personnel. In May of last year the requirement was only 185. By July, it had risen to 1,185. By November, it had risen to 4,060. By February of this year, after the supplemental request was submitted, it rose to 6,738. One month later, the requirement went up again to the current level of 7,774. At this point every one in the military agrees, we need 7,774 MRAPs.

The Marines are the executive agents for this program, meaning they are

managing it for themselves and the other services. Every service has a need for the vehicle for explosive ordinance units as well as regular patrols. The Marines need 3,700 of them. The Army needs 2,500. The Air Force needs 697. The Navy needs 544, and the Special Operations Command needs 333. The cost of 7,774 MRAPs is $8.4 billion. This administration's current plan is to spend $2.3 billion this year and $6.1 billion next year. But I believe we can and must do much better, and so do the Marines. If we simply put more funds up front, spend them in the supplemental rather than allocate them a year later in the 2008 budget, the same money that we are going to spend anyway next year, if we move it up, we can accelerate production drastically.

Some have said the extra production capacity does not exist. Again, speaking to the Commandant of the Marine Corps today, he indicated that there are eight companies they are dealing with and he has confidence that they can build all they can purchase, all they can afford. That is also what the Chief of Staff of the Army thinks.

On March 14, General Peter Schoomaker told the Appropriations Committee that with the MRAPs, ``We can build what we get the funds to build. It is strictly an issue of money.''

Let's assume the Commandant of the Marine Corps and General Schoomaker are wrong. Let's assume they have made a mistake. Let's assume we can't build as many as the money we give them. So what. So what. We are not talking about building a highway on time. We are talking about an informed judgment by the United States military, to build not a new weapons system, but to build a new protection system for their forces.

I respectfully suggest, if we are going to err on one side or the other, for God's sake, for a change, let's err on the side of doing something that will protect American fighting women and men.

Quite frankly, if the Marines believe we can do it, then my money is on the Marines getting it right. If General Schoomaker says he needs it, and more money will get the vehicles, then I take him at his word. I would rather take a chance, and I believe the American people would also, to protect more Americans under fire than not.

What does this mean specifically? Well, by adding $1.5 billion, which my amendment does, to the supplemental today, the Marines will have $4 billion to work with. Based on their estimates, that will mean 2,500 vehicles get to the field 6 months sooner than under the current plan. You may say: What is 6 months? Ten of thousands of lives is what 6 months is. Figure it out: Four to twelve people in 2,500 more vehicles. Add up the numbers. That's 10,000 to 30,000 Americans. Look at the casualty rates that come from IEDs striking up-armored HMMWVs. Do the math, and tell me if their lives are not worth taking a financial risk to protect.

If we move this money forward, on October 1 of this year, instead of having only 2,000 MRAPs, we would have 4,500 in the field. On January 1, 2008, instead of 3,500 MRAPs, we would have 6,000 in the field. By February, we would fulfill the entire requirement, instead of waiting until next July. We are still going to spend $8.4 billion, but spending it faster will make a major difference.

If you want to be callous about this, it would also save the American taxpayers a whole lot of money because for every one of those injured soldiers who comes back--to put it in Machiavellian terms--who needs a lifetime of medical care, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars committed per casualty.

I can find no logical argument for delaying this.

Let me end where I began. This is a matter of life and death. Madam President, 2,500 more vehicles means literally that 10,000 to 30,000 more Americans will have a four to five times greater chance of surviving a hit with an IED while on patrol than exists today if we do not act. Madam President, 10,000 to 30,000 Americans will not be added to the casualty and death numbers if we move this money up.

To use the phrase of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, at 3 or 4 o'clock today, on the phone with me:

This is a moral imperative.

I agree. It is a moral imperative that we protect these troops as soon as possible.

So tomorrow, when I have my 1 or 2 minutes to speak to this issue before we vote, I will urge all my colleagues to vote for this amendment.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.