Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the bridge fund bill that passed the House of Representatives last night. I don't know why it has to be so hard to pass an emergency supplemental to assure that our troops in the field get the money they need to support them in the job we are asking them to do.

The President has asked for almost $200 billion to get us through some point in January or possibly into the spring. But the bill that has come over is roughly in the $50 billion range and it has all kinds of constraints and strings and mandates from the Congress.

Our military strategies should not be determined by events 6,000 miles from the theater where our young men and women have boots on the ground. This bridge fund bill is the latest attempt in a year-long effort to constrain the ability of our generals and our brave men and women in uniform to fight this war effectively.

During the past year, the Senate has been forced to vote 40 times on bills limiting the generals' war strategy. None of those bills passed but one, and it was vetoed.

Since this assembly line of bills started last February, the situation in Iraq has changed so much. General Petraeus has implemented a strategic readjustment that has produced encouraging progress. Last week, U.S. commanders and the Iraqi Government proclaimed that al-Qaida had been routed in every neighborhood in Baghdad, citing an 80-percent drop in the murder rate since its peak.

The British Broadcasting Corporation reports:

All across Baghdad . . . streets are springing back to

life. Shops and restaurants which closed down are back in

business. People walk in crowded streets in the evening,

where just a few months ago they would have been huddled

behind locked doors in their homes.

This is from the BBC.

Some 67,000 Iraqis have joined U.S.-organized citizens watch groups. Roadside bomb attacks have receded to a 3-year low, while finds of weapons caches have doubled in the last year. The progress has been so impressive that General Petraeus has recommended a drawdown of troops because conditions on the ground merit such action.

In the last 10 months, so much has changed in Iraq, and yet on the floor of the Senate, nothing has changed at all. We are still voting on bills for premature withdrawal, not taking into consideration what is happening on the ground, even when victory is in sight.

This is a new day in Iraq, and the Senate should recognize that fact by providing a vote of confidence in our generals instead of threatening to pull the rug out from under them.

If there are Senators who believe the war is lost, they should vote to defund the war instead of threatening to tie the hands of our commanders which would needlessly endanger our troops.

We know from our troops in the field that we must keep our commitment. This war has been costly for America in lives and dollars. The consequences of failure, after all we have spent in our treasure and our young men and women, would be catastrophic. If we abandon Iraq prematurely, it will become a sanctuary for terrorists, and they will launch attacks on the American people.

There is also a real danger that Iraq could become a satellite of Iran. The Iranian Government has a long record of sponsoring terrorism and arming the insurgents who are killing our brave soldiers in Iraq.

For all these reasons, we cannot abandon Iraq. We can leave when the generals say it is safe to leave because Iraq will be stable, that it will not be a terrorist training ground, and that is the only way we can leave Iraq, if we are to uphold the integrity of the United States of America.

We must persevere and succeed in this war, just as generations before us have done when we fought and defeated fascism, communism, and nazism. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and Coast Guard have sacrificed greatly to keep us safe and free, and we must support them in this mission. The mission of a stable Iraq rather than a breeding ground for terrorists must be accomplished.

The bill is coming to the Senate from the House which passed it after a long, arduous debate last night. I urge my colleagues not to do something that would so damage the integrity of the United States of America and hurt our troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan by putting them in danger by underfunding them, by not giving them the vote of confidence they deserve. It would be unthinkable.

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

Mr. President, for S. 2363, the report accompanying this bill is the Statement of Managers as

printed in the conference report to accompany H.R. 3043 as Division B, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss an issue that is important for our country. That is the appropriations bill for Veterans and Military Construction.

The Senate and House Appropriations Committees worked together in a bipartisan way to craft a bill that fully funds the Veterans' Administration and Military Construction for the quality of life of our troops. However, we became bogged down last week because the Senate and House leadership decided they would put forward a combination of bills that have no relationship to each other. The Labor-Health and Human Services bill and the Veterans' Administration-Military Construction bill. Under normal circumstances, that might be fine. We have had omnibus appropriations bills before. But there was one problem. That is, the President had already said he would sign the Veterans bill, but he would veto the Labor-Health and Human Services bill. So the combination of these bills was destined to assure a veto.

The Veterans and the Military Construction legislation should go forward on an expedited basis. I call on this Congress to do that. There is no reason--there is no substantive reason, no commonsense reason--we should delay a bill that has been agreed to by Republicans and Democrats and could easily pass the House and Senate and be sent to the President before the end of this week.

Yesterday we had celebrations all over the country for veterans, saying how much we appreciate their sacrifices and what they have given to our country. Today we come back to work, and we still don't have a Veterans' Administration funding appropriations passed for this year. It is not that the veterans' needs are not going to be funded, because we are in a continuing resolution that assures the basic things will be done. But what isn't going to be done is the new priorities we put in this legislation on a bipartisan basis. We have added more funding for research into protheses, artificial arms and legs, because those are the kinds of injuries our troops are coming home with. They are becoming veterans because, of course, they can no longer serve in Active Duty.

I will digress for one moment and say that when I visit Walter Reed or the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio where young men and women who have come home injured from Iraq and Afghanistan are being rehabilitated, they complain because they are being put out of Active- Duty military. That is the kind of spirit these young men and women have. They will be maimed. They will have lost arms or legs; they will be burned. Yet they will say: Senator, I want to go back. I want to be with my comrades.

Of course, we are going to take care of those young men and women who have sacrificed so much through our Veterans' Administration. We have new priorities in these bills that will put more into research and rehabilitation for these brave men and women. We also have a new burn unit initiative to do more research on our burn victims. Many of our troops come back with mental health problems. We are establishing more research and centers of excellence for post-traumatic stress syndrome in the bill that has been agreed to.

All I am asking this morning is, why not pass this bill right now? We have a formality of calling a new conference committee on the separate bill. That could be done today. We have agreement. There is no reason not to fund these new priorities. I call on the Senate and House leadership to make it happen. There is no excuse. We have new priorities. We have bipartisan agreement.

My message to the leadership is: Let's trust our committee members. Let's trust the leadership on the committees. Democrats and Republicans came together. We increased the President's budget. We increased his request. He said: OK, because he knew how important it was that we fully fund the health care needs of our veterans.

Let me tell you another priority in this bill. We have heard story after story of people leaving the Active Duty, usually because of injuries, going into the veterans system. But what happens? There is a long delay, sometimes months, before the veterans' benefits kick in. These are injured warriors. In our bill, we have funding so those applications can be processed more quickly. We are trying to streamline leaving the Active-Duty military and going into the veterans system. That is in the bill that is languishing this week in Congress.

I call on our leadership to do the right thing. Let's put politics aside. We can take up the Labor-Health and Human Services bill in due course. But today we have a bill with bipartisan agreement that requires a mere formality of calling the conference committee, having the House pass it, the Senate pass it, and sending it to the President. We can celebrate a joint bipartisan victory with Congress and the President coming together. That is what the American people expect. That is what they are looking for in Washington. When we see the approval ratings of Congress and the President so low, why don't we try a new approach? Why don't we do something everyone can celebrate? That is, fund our veterans and military quality-of-life issues this week. It can be done. I call on the congressional leadership to do it. The President has said he will sign it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the conference report. I am following my chairman of his subcommittee. I hope very much that we will be able to take up this bill, which is our subcommittee, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, separately, as everyone, I believe, knows in their heart is the right thing to do.

This bill is a bill that has been agreed to. We have worked on a bipartisan basis. We very quickly came to a conclusion in the conference on the Military Construction and Veterans' Administration bill. In fact, the President said right out that he would sign the bill, even though it is almost $4 billion more than he had requested, because he understands the urgency of both bills--Veterans' Administration and the Military Construction--and he knows that it is important to do it right away. So he said right up front that he would sign our bill. But he also said right up front that he would not sign the Labor and Health and Human Services bill. So there would be no reason--no common sense or substantive reason--to combine these two bills.

It is incomprehensible to me that the leadership in the House decided to do this. In fact, they also put the Defense appropriations bill as a part of the Labor and Health and Human Services bill, but the Democratic chairman of the Defense bill agreed with the Republican ranking member, and they were able to take the Defense bill out.

For the very same reason, we should be taking the Veterans-Military Construction bill out from under the bill the President has said he will veto. The President will sign the Defense bill and the Military Construction-Veterans

bill. Why not have this Congress come together and accomplish something? Two major parts of our Government--it happens that it is the two parts that fund our warriors who are in the field, in harm's way right now--those could be signed right away. Why not do it? I hope the Congress will come to its senses and move in a bipartisan way, swiftly, to do this very thing.

Let me talk about the bills themselves. Military construction: With the impending return of troops resulting from the current overseas rebasing effort through BRAC and the global war on terror, our service men and women are in a time of great transformation. The military construction section of our bill provides $21 billion for construction projects to support these moves and bring our troops home. I cannot emphasize enough that we must stay on schedule. It is important that the military services receive the facilities they need to bring our troops home, where they have better training facilities, a better quality of life for themselves and their families. From operational building to many childcare centers, we have necessary facilities in the bill to do that. Servicemembers, families, and local communities across our country are counting on us.

Now, Congress set a deadline of 2011 for BRAC to be implemented. Yet we see Congress is dragging its feet in the funding requirements to implement the BRAC. We have given the Department their mandate. We must follow through with the money needed. Many of us have visited bases in Europe, Korea, and throughout the world. We know there are training constraints in many of those bases; that our service men and women are not able to stay in training. Sometimes it is a constraint in airspace. Sometimes it is an environmental problem. Sometimes it is a constraint in ground space and artillery space, so that we can be fully trained when we go into harm's way.

The reason the Department of Defense made the announcement after our Congress passed the overseas basing commission amendment to the Defense authorization bill--the reason the Department of Defense announced that 70,000 troops would be brought home from Germany and Korea is because they agreed that the training constraints would make it impossible for us to keep our troops fully trained for the combat into which they will be going. So it is important that we fund this, that we do it on a timely basis, and that we move swiftly on the military construction part of the bill.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the other part of this unit. I know there is a concern over total discretionary spending in all of the appropriations bills. But the President has said he will sign this bill. With the money appropriated, the Department of Veterans Affairs will be able to address the needs of over 7 million veterans who count on us to provide the funds necessary for medical care, medical facilities, research, extended care facilities, and even cemeteries. The appropriations increases in the bill are in areas I support.

We will always do what is necessary to take care of our veterans and their health care needs. The research of the Veterans' Administration into prosthetics, severe trauma, and traumatic brain injury is cutting edge. Increasing resources in these programs is a good investment for our Nation's veterans and our Nation's future. We are asking the VA to expand research in several areas, including post-traumatic stress syndrome, gulf war illness, prosthetics, and geriatric care. These are the types of injuries the warriors of today are sustaining. These are the warriors in the war on terror. These are the injuries we should be looking for the very best ways to treat, and also the way to rehabilitate our injured warriors with better prostheses, better artificial arms and legs, so they can have a more normal life because they have given so much for our country.

I think every Member of Congress shares the desire to fairly compensate, medically treat, and honor our veterans. The Veterans' Administration provides the health care to address the illnesses or disabilities, physical or mental, including those illnesses that might manifest themselves decades after military service, which is something we also see happening. We always have, and always will, take care of our Nation's veterans. Every veteran should know we are committed to nothing less.

Mr. President, this Congress has shown its resolve time and again to care for our men and women in uniform, as well as the more than 7 million veterans. We owe them our gratitude. We will do our part to take care of them. I ask that we work together to put our servicemembers and veterans first, to do what is best for them and our country.

Mr. President, I will make the point of order at the appropriate time to separate these two distinct bills. The Veterans-Military Construction bill and the Labor-Health and Human Services bill are separate bills. We have separate committees, and we have dealt with the two committees separately. There is no reason to put them together, particularly when the President has said he will sign the Veterans- Military Construction bill, and he will veto the Labor-Health and Human Services bill.

Why do we delay and put our military service men and women and their families and our veterans in a situation where they are in limbo? Why not pass the bill separately because the bill is ready to go? We have worked in a bipartisan way to assure that it is.

There is no common sense nor substantive reason to put these bills together. So I will leave it up to others to determine why the leadership in the House would have lumped these bills together. I will also say that I respect the Defense Appropriations Committee chairman and ranking member for coming together on a bipartisan basis to take their bill out because that is exactly what should have happened. I hope we will do the same thing for our military veterans and our service men and women who rely on the construction projects and military construction to provide the housing, training facilities, childcare centers, and health care centers, which are necessary for them and their families to have the quality care they so richly deserve for what they are doing for our country right now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to make the rule XXVIII point of order at this time and for Senator Harkin to make the motion to waive, but that all debate time under the previous order be preserved.

Mr. President, I raise a point of order under Senate rule XXVIII, paragraph 3, that the text of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and related agencies bill, H.R. 2642, which constitutes division B of the conference report for H.R. 3043, is new matter as it was not contained in either the House- or Senate-passed bills.

Mr. President, I rise to speak against the waiver of the point of order--the waiver being the motion from the Senator from Iowa. I agree in part and disagree in part with the acting chairman of the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs Subcommittee.

Mr. President, two bills were passed by the Senate--one for Labor- Health and Human Services and one for Military Construction-Veterans Affairs. They are two separate bills because they are very different in nature. They cover very different areas. There was nothing in the bills that was the same. They are separate subjects, and they should be passed in the regular order.

I have heard criticism on the Senate floor and also in the conference committee of the President of the United States, as if he had told Congress not to combine these bills. The President never said any such thing. The President did exactly what I would expect a President to do in his relations with Congress and its understanding of the role of our two different branches of government--executive and legislative. The fact is, Congress chose to take two separate bills and put them together. All the President did was exactly what he should have done. He advised Congress that he was going to veto the Labor-Health and Human Services bill because it was nearly $12 billion over his budget request. When Congress said: OK, Mr. President, we are going to combine the bill that you have notified us you are going to veto with a bill that you have notified us you will sign, which is the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bill, the President merely said: I have said I am going to veto the Labor-Health and Human Services bill, and I am putting Congress on notice. Congress can make the decision about how it wants to send the bills forward. The President can inform Congress of what he is going to do, which I think, frankly, is an advantage in that he has told us. The worst thing would be if he didn't tell us, if he just surprised us after we had worked in good faith on these bills. But he is not surprising us. He is telling us this is what he is going to do, and if we decide to play a game by putting two bills together, when he has told us he is going to veto one of them, the consequence will be that both bills are vetoed instead of just one.

Let's not put the President in this debate. The President is doing exactly what he should do. The Congress should do what is right. Congress knows the funding for military construction and the veterans is crucial, that there are new things in this bill that are not currently able to be funded. And the sooner we get this bill to the President, the sooner he can sign it, and we can provide these new priorities.

Where I agree with my distinguished acting chairman of the committee is that the bill is a good bill. We have come together in a very bipartisan way. We have worked out our differences, and we didn't have differences on the Senate side. We worked together on a very solid bill. We worked out our differences with the House on a bipartisan basis. The President agreed with us that it is a good bill. We all recognize that some of the best parts of the bill would be lost if there were another continuing resolution for Fiscal Year 2008.

Delaying base-closing commission implementation: As a Congress, we have required the Department of Defense to complete the implementation of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission report by 2011. Every day, every week, every month that we delay the BRAC funding is going to delay that implementation process. It is very important that we give our troops who are going to be coming back from bases in Germany and Korea the housing, the health care facilities, and the childcare centers that will provide a quality of life for our military personnel and their families. We owe them that, Mr. President.

We could send this bill to the President before the end of the week and make sure they have that funding. It is our responsibility to do it. It is our responsibility to do it in the regular order, when the regular order will give us a Presidential signature. It will also provide new research, new treatments, and added facilities for our veterans. We know our veterans are suffering from different kinds of injuries than in previous wars. We know we are saving more lives, but a higher percentage of our wounded veterans are returning home with burns, loss of limbs, traumatic brain injuries, and mental health problems. We know that. So we provide for that in this bill. We have done it in a bipartisan way. We have provided more treatment, more facilities, more emphasis, and more research on post-traumatic stress syndrome, traumatic brain injuries, better prosthetics, artificial legs and arms that are lost by the bombs being used by the insurgents. All of that is in this bill, which could go through on its own in the regular order and be signed by the President.

One of the things we have heard from our veterans month after month after month is how long it is taking them to get through the system from when they leave military service to begin receiving their benefits and even to enter into the VA health care system. It is ridiculous for them to wait months and months when we should have a seamless transition. What our bill provides is more employees to cut that backlog and give these new veterans who are coming into the system the opportunity to have a seamless transition. That is in the bill.

If we pass a CR, this year's priorities would not be in it. The bill contains funds to implement the recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission. The Dole-Shalala Commission is the Commission that was appointed by the President to look at the best way to improve the care and service we provide to Active Duty Military and veterans who have returned from battle. They made recommendations. They did a thorough study. These are two great Americans: Donna Shalala and Robert Dole. They came up with recommendations, and we begin to fund them in this bill.

Mr. President, why wouldn't we pass this bill as a stand-alone measure when we know it is going to be vetoed if it is combined with the Labor-Health and Human Services bill? It does not pass the smell test to combine these bills when there is no reason to. In the original House action, they combined Health and Human Services with Defense and Military Construction and Veterans. The Defense bill was separated out because the chairman and the ranking member agreed that it had no business under Labor-Health and Human Services. That bill, by agreement, was separated out. We didn't get that agreement on Military Construction. So now we are faced with having a point of order, under the newly passed rule by the Democratic majority, that says you cannot put something in a conference report that has not passed either House in that bill.

So the point of order is going to succeed. We all know it is going to succeed. Why do we play this game? It is a game that is going to affect veterans and military personnel and their quality of life. There is no reason, there is no substantive reason, and there is no logical reason.

I urge my colleagues, let's vote unanimously to separate these bills, send the MILCON and Veterans bill to the House and ask them to quickly appoint conferees. The bill is agreed to. We have hashed out the differences. We can still get this bill to the President before Veterans Day. What a great accomplishment for this Congress, what a great way to say the President and the Congress are in agreement on something. I think the American people are looking for that. We see that the ratings of Congress and the President are at an all-time low. Why not give the American people some confidence that we can accomplish something together for the good of the people? It is very easy, very clear that this is a bill the President says he will sign. Let's send it to him. There can be no logical reason not to.

I urge my colleagues to come together on a bipartisan basis and stop the game playing, especially with our veterans and our military families who are depending upon the new initiatives in this bill to be done, and we have the power to do it. Let's do our jobs.

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

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

Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the SCHIP bill, but also to say we should not be voting on this legislation right now. This is a time and an issue on which our bipartisan Congress, with a bipartisan consensus, can sit down with the

President and his staff and come to a conclusion that will continue a program that has been very effective. However, that is not what we are faced with today. Today we are faced with voting on the exact same bill--not the exact same bill, almost the exact same bill--that we voted on and the President vetoed only 2 weeks ago.

Now, I voted for the first bill. I think it was a good bill. It had many good features. But I expected, when the President's veto was sustained in the House, the House leadership would take a step back, meet with the President's staff, work something out, and go forward with something new--a new try.

That is not what we have in this bill before us. That is why I voted against the motion to proceed. I believe we needed more time to craft a bill that would be more acceptable to the President and could have the bipartisan consensus to pass and go to the President for signature. That is not what happened.

Instead, the House turned around and very shortly passed almost the same bill. Eighteen Republicans voted for virtually this bill. We also signed a letter saying to our Senate and House leadership: Please work with the President to come up with a compromise.

The President has said he would like a compromise. He has said he would like to move forward. I think there is a very strong middle ground because the bill that is before us is a vast step beyond the program as it has been in place, and I think we could still do a lot more coverage. We could cover more children; we could cover more families with a bill that is not quite as far reaching as the one that is before us today. Even though I support the one that is before us today--and I will continue to do so--I do want a good-faith effort to come to a compromise that everyone can support.

The bill does continue the program we have started. It provides, today, insurance for over 300,000 children in Texas. It also includes an important provision that protects Texas's ability to cover more children with health insurance. During the SCHIP debate, I worked with members of the Senate Finance Committee to ensure the legislative changes did not harm Texas's ability to fund the program, and we were successful. That language was in the original bill, and it is in the bill that is before us today.

However, I do think it is important we move forward in a way that will achieve success. I want to make sure a fast-growing State such as Texas does not lose the money it does not use in any 1 year in the next year and the following year. That was my concern because many of the fast-growing States do not use their money this year, but they will need it next year or the year after because there is a stronger effort to sign up the children who are eligible. That was accomplished in this bill. That is one of the key reasons I support it because I do think it is an efficient use of our taxpayer dollars to cover children so they are not going to be more seriously ill because they have not had the preventive medicine that coverage in Medicaid or SCHIP--which is the next step above Medicaid--can provide. That is a worthy goal for our Congress.

I am going to vote for the bill today. But I do hope this signal is heard; that is, we would ask the leadership in the House and the leadership in the Senate to sit down with the President's staff to work out an agreement where we can all support this bill that will continue the very important mission of SCHIP to give a safety net to children who are above the Medicaid level but still 200 percent or 300 percent at most above poverty and give them an opportunity.

I think some of what has been talked about as compromise is quite good, quite sound, quite creative, such as you go to 250 percent above the poverty level, but between 250 percent and 350 percent you give tax credits for families to cover themselves with private insurance. You help them. You subsidize their ability to stay in the private market.

We do not want a big government program. We do want to cover SCHIP and Medicaid through government auspices, but we want to not supplant the private insurance that many people in the 250 percent to 350 percent above poverty level already have access to. But if those people who do have access to health care because they work in a company that provides this opportunity choose not to take it because they are going to get a free government program, that does not do anyone any good. It is not going to increase the number of children who are covered by insurance because they would have given up health insurance in order to go on a government program. That is not what we are after. We are after increasing the number of children covered. We are after, also, keeping the basis of our private health insurance healthy in our country.

So, Madam President, I thank you for allowing this debate to go forward. I thought we should have negotiated a little longer, but we are not. So we are now going to have cloture on the bill itself. I will support that cloture, and I will support the bill. But I do not want the same bill to come back a third time. I expect sincerity on the part of Congress and the President to come forward with something new that would be closer to a bipartisan agreement where we can all declare success, and the beneficiaries of this success will be the poorer children of our country.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Jersey for giving me this time and for being a longtime advocate of Amtrak but not only the eastern corridor Amtrak. The Senator from New Jersey has worked diligently for a national system. The reason we have a need for a national system is because it is national. The national system connects other routes to each other. If we had funded Amtrak in the same way we funded and helped other modes of transportation, we would have a bigger ridership because we would have better on-time delivery. The bad on-time delivery has caused a drop-off in ridership. This does not mean we should abandon the national system.

I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this bill. Senator Lott has been another longtime champion of a national system. There are 41 cosponsors of this bill. We have worked together to make sure we don't only subsidize the eastern corridor. I have said all along, it is national or nothing for me. I believe in a national passenger rail system, one that connects our country from coast to coast. My vision is that we have a track going across the northern part of the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the southern part from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and then from the top to the bottom of our country, from the northernmost point down to the tip of Florida and the tip of California. That is a national system. It would have a track that also splits the middle of the country from Chicago down to Texas. From there, we have the capability to have State systems that would emanate from that skeleton.

It is important that we stay together. It would be easy to say: Well, the northeastern corridor does own its own tracks, and therefore it is more efficient, and why don't we just cut off the rest of the country and subsidize that? That is not a national system. I

could not in good conscience support only a northeastern line. My constituents would be robbed of the Texas Eagle and the Sunset Limited lines, and there are other States that have legitimate needs as well. If we actually had done better by Amtrak all these years, we would require fewer subsidies.

I am pleased to support the bill, but I do not support the Sununu amendment. It isn't that I don't think his heart is in the right place. He is trying to save money because Amtrak is subsidized. We don't deny needed highways in the rural parts of our States. All of our Federal highway money is divided. It goes into rural areas. Why would we deny Amtrak service to other parts of the country that don't have the ridership mainly because of the on-time service not being dependable?

In 2003, a public opinion poll showed an overwhelming 85 percent of participants supported Amtrak, $2 billion worth of funding for Amtrak. We need a better system. We are working for a better system.

The bill before us is a well-debated, well-adjusted bill that isn't everything the Senator from New Jersey wants. It is not everything the Senator from Mississippi wants. It is not everything this Senator from Texas wants. But I know that if we have a national system, it is an important alternative mode of transportation for our country. We need highways. That is the bread-and-butter transportation system for the country. We need air transportation, and we do provide an air traffic control system to support that. A national rail passenger train is another mode that, in the event of an emergency, is a very helpful mode of transportation. After 9/11, when our air traffic system was shut down, people went to Amtrak. We needed that for the emergency. I believe we would be able to have much more in Amtrak if we funded it at a level where it would have better service and if we could get freight rail to work with us to actually help us alleviate some of the congestion they cause on their freight lines. We could work this out if we had rail support for Amtrak. It is important that we do that.

In 2005, SAFETEA-LU authorized more than $40 billion on our highways for fiscal year 2009. The Senate will take up an FAA bill later this year that will invest $17 billion in aviation annually. We just sent the President a water resources bill authorizing $23 billion over the next 2 years. There is always a different standard for Amtrak. Amtrak is asking for, in this bill, $2.1 billion a year. I don't know why Amtrak is a stepchild. If we have the resources necessary to make it a system that serves the whole country, it would be an environmentally effective, efficient system that would operate to not only provide transportation needs in rural parts of the country, where you can have buses that go into very small communities and feed into an Amtrak station, but the service would improve. The on-time delivery would improve. For the kinds of subsidies we need, that we are authorizing in this bill, it should be a national system, not a northeastern corridor system. That is what is fair for the country. It is right for the country.

Always in the Senate since I have been here, our Amtrak supporters have been national-or-nothing Amtrak supporters. I have supported the northeastern corridor. My friends on the northeastern corridor have supported a national system. Even in the hardest times, we have kept the system together. If we do that, we will see that the States will step in and do more, as California and some of the Western States have done, to their credit. We will have more private lines, more mass- transit lines, such as we have coming into Dallas, feeding into the Amtrak station, making it more used. In Texas, 250,000 passengers used the Texas Eagle and the Sunset Limited last year. It is a very important mode of transportation. The more we can do to make it efficient and effective, the better off we will be.

The Sununu amendment would wreck the national system. I hope we will reject that, even though I respect my colleague from New Hampshire. I know his heart is in the right place. I want to work with him to make Amtrak more efficient, but dropping national lines is not going to make it more efficient.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I was so pleased the Senator from New Jersey talked about the Sunset Limited because the Sunset Limited, which is the first line that would be eliminated under the Sununu amendment, connects California all the way through the southern part of the country, all the way through Texas. It goes through San Antonio and Houston, then over to New Orleans, through Mississippi, Alabama, and it ends in Florida. In Florida, you connect to go all the way up the northeastern corridor. If you take out the Sunset Limited--that is our intercontinental rail line all the way across the country on the southern side--you are taking out a major part of the connection to our national system. I hope the Senator from New Jersey is correct that we will not have a national system, if you take out the whole intercontinental southern half of it. I applaud him for bringing that out.

Does he think if we took out that whole southern system, the Sunset Limited, that it would enhance Amtrak? Would it enhance the eastern seaboard? Would it enhance all the investment California has made all the way up to California and into the States of Oregon and Washington? Would that be something that would help the system?

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: How much time is left on the other side?

Mr. President, I was really trying to have an opportunity to ask Senator Durbin a question and have a colloquy. I don't want to take from your time on that. I ask if I could have a colloquy with Senator Durbin on his time?

Mr. President, I appreciate what the Senator from Illinois has said because I do believe there is a compromise approach to the DREAM Act that could have bipartisan support. As has been mentioned on the floor, there is no opportunity that has been laid out for a substitute to be considered. But the Senator from Illinois has given me his word. I have been working on something that I think would take us on the right path. This is such an important piece of legislation, and I do think this is isolated from the entire immigration issue because there----

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute on both sides.

Mr. President, there are young people who have been brought to this country as minors, not of their own doing, who have gone to American high schools, graduated, and who want to go to American colleges. They are in a limbo situation. I believe we should deal with this issue. We should do it in a way that helps assimilate these young people with a college education into our country. They have lived here most of their lives. If we sent them home, they wouldn't know what home is. There is a compassionate reason for us to try to work this out. But I will say, if we cannot work on a bipartisan amendment, we

will have another vote, as has been promised. I will vote against the Durbin bill. But if we can work on a bipartisan solution, we should try.

I join Senator Bond in his recognition of the challenges that Labor-HHS appropriations presents, and I sincerely appreciate the continued efforts of my colleagues to emphasize the importance of increased funding for CHGME. I support an increase in funding for CHGME to $307 million, and I thank the chairman and ranking member for their support in trying to increase funding in conference.

The number of children throughout our country is rapidly increasing, and we must provide the necessary funding to train pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists at a pace that reflects the child population growth. For example, from 2000 to 2006, the number of children in my home State of Texas increased by an astounding 501,800, and the projected increase of children in Texas from 2006 to 2010 is over 346,000. CHGME funding helps provide access to pediatric medical services and ensures the needs of children are addressed with specialized health care.

CHGME is essential to ensuring that pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists in cardiology, emergency care, gastroenterology and other fields receive the necessary medical training to provide the best level of care to our children. In Texas, 60 percent of pediatric residents and 84 percent of pediatric subspecialists are trained at children's hospitals, and CHGME funding supports children's hospitals. Without this funding, we risk facing a national decline and ultimate shortage in the number of physicians that have received the specialized training to treat our smallest and youngest patients.

I support an increase in funding because CHGME strengthens each State's ability to retain pediatricians after completion of the residency program. Of the residents and fellows trained by CHGME hospitals, nearly 60 percent remain to practice in the State in which they completed their pediatric residency. In some States, this percentage is even higher.

Texas and the Nation depend heavily on children's hospitals to care for critically and seriously ill children, as well as the low-income children in their communities. Increasing CHGME funding is an investment in children's health. For these reasons, I proudly join my colleagues in emphasizing the importance of this issue, and I hope we can increase the funding for CHGME when we conference with the House of Representatives.

Mr. President and colleagues, I hope very much we will not adopt this amendment. We are already looking at a 5-year gap between 2010 when the shuttle goes out of existence and 2015 when the crew-returned vehicle comes online. That is a security risk for the United States. If we adopt this amendment, we are going to lengthen the time that America cannot put anyone in space. Russia can, China will probably be able to, India may be able to, but not America. That is a security risk I am not ready to take, and I hope my colleagues will defeat this amendment.

Madam President, I rise to speak on an amendment Senator Mikulski and I have worked on for a long time. After we lost the space shuttle Columbia over Texas and we were so involved in the cleanup of that tragic accident, all of us--Senator Shelby, Senator Mikulski, Senator Nelson from Florida, many of us--did try to make sure we had the funding that was needed, first of all, for a comprehensive review of what happened. We did have an incredibly good product from the Commission that was put together that did determine the cause. We did fund that at $100 million. But the added safeguards and safety measures that were required by that study and the Commission report were not funded.

As Senator Mikulski said, we are about $2 billion to $3 billion in the hole. We cannot allow that to happen because here we are on the 50th anniversary of Sputnik and it is another sputnik moment. When all of us in America were shocked that Russia had put up the first spaceflight, we were left to say: Why weren't we first?

Today, 50 years later, we are looking at a 5-year gap from the end of the space shuttle before the crew-return vehicle will be on line to put American astronauts back in space. That is another Sputnik moment.

Are we going to rely on Russia after 2010 to put American astronauts in space? I hope not. I hope America never loses its commitment to be the first in technology, in knowing what can be done, in exploring issues we haven't even thought about because we know how much that exploration has already done for our country.

In fact, what has happened is exactly as Senator Mikulski just explained. The accounts for NASA have been drained. We have drained from science, we have drained from the Hubble telescope, and we have drained from other aeronautics research to fund the Columbia accident report and safeguards, and we have not moved forward for the crew- return vehicle.

It is estimated that if we can get this billion dollars and if we can fully fund the accounts that have been bled, we could chop at least 2 years off that gap.

We are talking about a technological and educational issue at a time when India and China are doing more and more exploration into space, and we

are talking about a national security issue that the United States would not have the capability for 5 years to put an American astronaut in space.

Who can forget the beginning of the war against terror when we were putting missiles, guided through satellites, into windows from 2 miles away because we have that capability we have gained from the exploration in space. In addition, if we look at the science and innovation we must continue to pursue to make the investment in the space station worthwhile and to keep our commitment to our international partners, we have to be willing to put the amount that is required from America with our international partners into the space station. That, too, has been robbed.

Just think, last month Senator Mikulski and I went to a signing between the National Institutes of Health and NASA of an agreement that the National Institutes of Health would be a partner in the international space station lab, that it would begin to do some of the far-reaching medical research that could only be done in the space station because of the microgravity conditions, and NIH signed the agreement. Are we going to continue to rob the accounts for scientific research at a time when we are on the cusp of doing the research about which we have been talking--research into breast cancer, research into osteoporosis--where we can see the cells grow because there is no gravity that is pulling against the growth?

What about Dr. Samuel Ting, the Nobel laureate from MIT who testified before our committee? I am the ranking member--former chairman--of the NASA, space, and science subcommittee. He came to our committee and wowed all of us with the potential for scientific research on the space station. He is a Nobel laureate in physics. He said cosmic rays are the most intense in space. On the space station, we can begin to find what cosmic rays do in that intensity and perhaps even begin to find a new energy source from being able to harness those cosmic rays and create a form of energy which he says can only and best be done on the space station.

I ask my colleagues, in a time when we are all trying to find ways to cut back on expenditures that are not necessary, to look at this amendment carefully because it is an investment in the future. It is an investment to make sure our technology transfers are continued. As an example, look at the items on Earth that have been discovered or enhanced by space research: international TV broadcasts, pacemakers, automatic insulin pumps, car phones, CAT scans, infrared thermometers, long-range weather forecasting which has revolutionized not only our agriculture industry but the ability to predict hurricanes. We have so many quality-of-life issues that have been enhanced or discovered because we were willing to do this research.

I ask my colleagues to look at this investment. Do we want to see this go to the Chinese or to India or to Russia, or do we want to continue to make sure that America is the creator, America is the innovator, that it is Americans who take the discoveries and turn them into products that can change our lives, especially in medical science?

I ask my colleagues to look at what we have gained in superiority in defense because we have invested in space. Yet, at a time when we are at war, when we know we have used the satellites to the most effective point they have ever been used for intelligence gathering, for the ability to do intelligence gathering without harming Americans, without putting Americans in a plane because we can take from the satellites the information so that the pilot is not in danger of being shot down because there is no pilot. We can gather intelligence, we can retain our superiority and technology and creativity, but it will take the investment. If we are going to pay for an emergency out of operating funds, we are eating our seed corn.

Madam President, surely America and our Congress and this Senate understand that issue. The leadership of the appropriations and authorizing committees, Senator Mikulski, Senator Shelby, myself, and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, are the four chairmen and ranking members of the relevant committees. All of us have asked to meet with the President to talk about this priority that we must continue exploration in space and determine how we would go forward in a bipartisan way to assure America's leadership in this important endeavor. I hope the President will support this amendment, will meet with us to have a joint effort to do this amendment.

The President himself has already laid out the vision. He has said we are going to put people on the Moon again, we are going to establish a base on the Moon, and from there we are going to go to Mars. The President has laid out the vision, but we must have the capability to fulfill the mission by having the scientific research that will keep us in the technological lead by continuing to make sure we are looking at all of the energy sources we can use, by creating the medical capabilities that can only be done in the microgravity conditions.

I join with so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in asking that we adopt this amendment, that we get 60 votes, if that is what we need, to assure that this goes forward, not as another appropriation but as an investment to assure that America's leadership continues.

Madam President, I wrote a piece for the Hill, which is one of the local Capitol magazines. It goes into more detail about why this is so very important.

I ask unanimous consent to have the article printed in the Record.

Madam President, I urge my colleagues to support the Mikulski-Hutchison amendment that has bipartisan support of all of the four members of the relevant committees' leadership. I hope together we can take this step to assure America's leadership.

I yield the floor.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I commend Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby for the work they have done on the amendment that just passed. This is a major step in the right direction to assure that America stays in the forefront of space technology, of the research, of the quality of life that we have gained from being the first in space. I commend Senator Mikulski--I have so enjoyed working with her--and Senator Shelby for working with us in support of the amendment that was just added to the bill.

Amendment No. 3233, as Modified

Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the nomination of Judge Jennifer Elrod to serve on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Back in July, I was proud to introduce Judge Elrod, a fellow Texan, at her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Judge Elrod is a highly accomplished judicial nominee, with a distinguished record as a state court judge and as a practicing attorney. I am confident she will capably serve as a federal appelate judge for the Fifth Circuit.

Judge Elrod has shown her judicial capability in the 190th District Court in Houston, TX, where she currently presides. At present, she manaages a docket of over 1,000 cases, and leads all Harris County civil district judges in the number of jury cases tried to verdict since 2005.

Prior to serving on the bench, Judge Elrod practiced at Baker Botts LLP, a top national firm, where she worked for 8 years on litigation matters including antitrust, employment law, commercial litigation, toxic tort, general civil litigation, and personal injury defense. She also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Sim Lake in the Southern District of Texas.

Judge Elrod's outstanding intellect is evidenced by her exceptional academic credentials, graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School, and magna cum laude with distinction from Baylor University in Texas.

Judge Elrod has long been dedicated to pro bono service and charitable causes, and she is the former chair of the Gulf Coast Legal Foundation, the largst provider of pro bono legal assistance to indigent people in the Texas gulf coast region. She was recently commended by the Texas Access to Justice Commission for her service in facilitating the advocacy skills of lawyers who represent poor and low income Texans.

Judge Elrod has also been an active member in both the Texas State Bar and the Houston Bar Association, with particular service in the areas of Continuing Legal Education and the Administration of Justice.

She is two-time recipient of the President's Award fo Outstanding Service to the Houston Bar Association, and she was awarded the outstanding Young Lawyer of Houston in 2004 by the Houston Young Lawyers Association.

I am honored to support the confirmation of Judge Jennifer Elrod because she meets the high standards to which we hold all judicial nominees.

She has an impressive record of public service, work ethic, integrity, and she will bring great honor to the Federal bench.

I encourage my colleagues to approve her nomination.

We must also fill the other two vacancies on the Fifth Circuit.

The President has nominated two highly accomplished individuals, Catharina Haynes, and Leslie Southwick, to fill those vacancies--and they deserve a fair and speedy confirmation process.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the Biden amendment, and I hope we are going to proceed with a vote on this amendment. I am an original cosponsor. I appreciate what Senator Biden has brought forward. He has talked about the semiautonomous region in Iraq for a long time--for over a year. Mr. President, so have I. I, too, have written an op-ed piece that says let's look at a long-term solution. I think we saw from General Petraeus in the last couple of weeks that we should be so proud of our military and what we have done to give security to the Iraqi people. It is not perfect, and it is not finished, but it is so much better than it has been before. Violence is down.

Mr. President, everybody who has been to Iraq, including myself and most Members of the Senate, can see clearly that American forces securing Iraq is not a long-term solution. We must have an Iraq that has an economic and a political solution. I don't think you can have a political solution if you don't have an economy, if people don't have jobs, if they cannot start small businesses, if they cannot take their children to school. You are not going to be able to have a long-term solution without the building of an economy and a political base. That is why I support this amendment, why I am an

original cosponsor with so many Republicans and Democrats coming together.

When I hear some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talking about their view of the war, I differ with them about what we should do militarily. But I do think all of us are coming together to say we should have a long-term solution with fewer American troops in a support role, not a frontline role. The way to do that is to have an economy and political stability.

That is what I think the Biden amendment would suggest. We are not telling the Iraqi people what to do. They passed their own law to implement it. They have a much longer history there than we do. I think we should continue to promote this as a solution. I think we need to do a few other things in conjunction with this. I think we should work more closely with Iraq's neighbors. I think the Bush administration is doing that now. I think the Secretary of State is doing a great job of bringing the neighbors in and saying: You have a stake here, and certainly it is in everyone's interest in the region to have a stable Iraq that is not a terrorist breeding ground.

That should be pursued with the idea that they could also be helpful in regions that would work in a semiautonomous way. It is federalism with states that have their own self-governance.

Dr. Henry Kissinger, in an appearance before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said:

I am sympathetic to an outcome that permits large regional

autonomy. In fact, I think it is very likely that this will

emerge out of the conflict that we are now witnessing.

Secretary Kissenger went on to say, in a Washington Post op-ed last week:

It is possible that the present structure in Baghdad is

incapable of national reconciliation because its elected

constituents were elected on a sectarian basis. A wiser

course would be to concentrate on the three principal regions

and promote technocratic, efficient and humane administration

in each. . . . More efficient regional government leading to

substantial decrease in the level of violence, to progress

towards the rule of law and to functioning markets could

then, over a period of time, give the Iraqi people an

opportunity for national reconciliation.

Mr. President, our efforts in the Balkans are instructive here. A little over 10 years ago, from 1992 to 1995, the war in the Balkans left 250,000 people dead and millions homeless. The Dayton Peace Accords ended that conflict. The agreement retained Bosnia and Herzegovina's international boundaries and created a joint multiethnic and democratic government charged with a very narrow power--to conduct foreign, diplomatic, and fiscal policy. That is the overarching national government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

There is a second tier of government there now, comprised of two entities that are roughly equal in size. The Bosniak/Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian Serb-led Republica Srpska. The Federation and the Srpska governments oversee most government functions. Since the Dayton Peace Accords was signed, the guns of Bosnia have been silent. More than a million people have returned to their prewar homes. The success in Bosnia has enabled the number of U.S. troops in the region to decline substantially.

At the end of 1995, there were 20,000 U.S. combat troops in the Bosnia region. I visited those troops seven times. The first time I went into Bosnia it was undercover. We had on flack jackets and helmets because the Serbs were shooting from the hills. In 2006, there were 600 American troops in Bosnia. Today, there are no combat troops in Bosnia.

Mr. President, I think this should be a model for Iraq. I think we could have a national government that divides the oil royalties, that has the diplomatic function that represents Iraq internationally, and the national government could be a mixture, as it is today. But then you would have semiautonomous regions. We talked about it. You have Kurdistan in the north, the Shia area in the south, and the middle doesn't have to be one region. I have heard the disagreements about the ability to put that middle into one region because there are Shia and Sunnis in neighborhood to neighborhood. It will be more difficult, but it is also the best opportunity for a long-term solution.

So why not have smaller units across the middle of Baghdad? Why not have some smaller government with an educational system, with the religious sect that is the majority in that sector?

Mr. President, it is so important that we produce more options. Many of the best scholars in this country, the best writers in newspapers in our country, and many of the best diplomats in our country have said this is a potential solution. Some people in this category have said this isn't our first choice. Our first choice is to be a national government that is mixed--that works. That is all of our first choice. But that isn't the choice we have.

We have to recognize that we could not mold a country so quickly after thousands of years of strife along ethnic grounds. So we have to step back, in my opinion, and ask what could work to stabilize this country so that an economic and a political solution will work. With all of the people who are now saying this is an option that should be on the table, I hear people saying, in the end, that is probably the way it is going to be. That is where I come in and say: In the end? Wait a minute. We have a chance to push for leadership now. We have a chance to bring the others in the region together now, so that the American troops who have done such a wonderful job will have two victories. One is that their mission will be accomplished in the right way; two, all of the sacrifices they have made will not be for naught. We cannot walk away from Iraq. We cannot say it is too tough, we are going to surrender. That would make all of the sacrifices that have been made irrelevant. We cannot do it that way. But we do have a potential solution that can save American lives in the future by cutting down the violence right now, by saying if we can step back into a support role because Iraq is emerging as an economic, political, and stable country, then we will have done right by our American troops. We will have done the right thing for future generations of Americans because we will have stood our ground against terrorists taking over Iraq, and we will do it expeditiously.

We don't need to talk about this anymore. The Iraqis have adopted it in their constitution. They have adopted the implementation of the legislation. With some leadership among all of its neighbors in the region, along with the United States and our allies who have given so much in this cause, we can protect future generations of Americans from attacks. We will have built a stable country, which is what we said we wanted to do when we went in to take out Saddam Hussein, who was abusing his people.

Mr. President, some may call for surrender, but that is not the answer. The answer is to promote a real solution that is a long-term solution; that is, allowing the Iraqis to draw their own regions, where they can grow an economy and a government that works along the Bosnian model, and we will be able to stay strong and do the right thing and listen to what people are saying. But that doesn't mean we have to wait and say, oh, that is what is going to happen in the end. Well, how many American lives are going to be lost between now and the end? Let's allow our American troops to take the support role instead of the frontline role, as General Petraeus has started so ably. Let's do what is right for the Iraqi people and the Middle East region as well because a terrorist haven is not in anyone's interest.

I urge my colleagues to support the Biden amendment of which I am a cosponsor, along with a solid Republican and Democratic list of Members who are willing to stand up and say we want this war to end honorably, we want to complete the mission honorably, and we can do it in the right way. And that is to allow them to create their government, which would have a national overlay. The time is now, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I just ask the Senator, if he will yield briefly, is it possible that I may make a 2-minute statement after Senator Brownback, and then I will come back on Monday as well?

Mr. President, thank you. Monday, I will make longer comments. I am a cosponsor of this amendment. I have said for a long time it is my belief that if we could allow the sectors of Iraq to have their own semiautonomous government, like is now in the northern part with the Kurds--and the southern part is mostly Shia--I think we could really begin to see economic stability, as well as political stability.

Of course, we all know we should have oil revenue that would go to all of the people of Iraq, fairly allocated. But I think we have seen in Bosnia a lessening of tensions when there is a capability for the security forces, the educational and the religious sects to have their own ability to govern within themselves. If we can get economic stability, which is largely untalked about in the United States, I think that would bring the political stability along.

So I commend Senator Biden. I have written on this as well. Senator Brownback and I have talked about this in many forums. It is important that we look at not only the great success we are having, which General Petraeus reported on, we are stabilizing the country on the security side. We are keeping our commitments. We are going to be able to do it with fewer Americans and bring the Iraqi troops forward, but it will not stabilize Iraq. We must have economic and political security. So I thank the chairman, and I thank Senator Brownback. I will speak again Monday. It is the most important sense of the Senate that we can have on this bill. Thank you.

Amendment No. 2997 to amendment No. 2011

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Is the floor open for debate?

If I could be the first recognized after the unanimous consent.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about this bill and to bring

up an issue that I think is going to become more and more apparent as a problem for our Interstate Highway System. I had hoped to offer an amendment that would attempt to begin to solve this problem, but the managers have resisted having authorization on an appropriations bill, and I understand their concern. However, this is an issue that must be dealt with. If we cannot deal with it on an appropriations bill, hopefully, next year we can begin to discuss the alternative for the next authorization of highway funds, and certainly, it is a universal issue that must come up.

This is the issue. There is more and more interest in putting tolls on highways. Well, I think if a local government or State government wants to have a toll highway, they should go through all of the processes--a vote of the people, or a vote of the elected officials--so the elected officials are accountable to do that.

Our Interstate Highway System was created in the Eisenhower administration for the purpose of having a free highway system that would connect our country all the way from the West to the East, from the North to the South. It was for security purposes but also for commerce.

The highway fund was created because the Western States were small and they did not have the capability to raise the funds to build their highways. Many States are donor States and have built these highways-- especially out in the West. State leaders are now trying to take these Federal highways and put tolls on them and use those highway tolls for other purposes--in some cases, for mass transit; in some cases, it would be going into other State projects.

I think this is a dangerous precedent. It is dangerous to start taking highways built with Federal taxpayer dollars and put tolls on them and, in some cases not even reimburse the Federal taxpayers. I still think it would be wrong to allow the buyback of a Federal highway by a State and then for the State to put a toll on it. In some cases, we are looking at tolls being put on an entire freeway--not just one lane but the entire freeway.

In fact, I think if you want to toll a lane on a Federal highway to build a new lane to add to the number of free lanes that are there, that would be acceptable. I also think you have some avenues to use the right-of-way that is in place to toll and build a new freeway with that toll. But to take an existing interstate highway and toll every lane, when it has already been paid for by the Federal taxpayers, is absolutely wrong, and we must have a vehicle to address this issue.

Now, I have talked to the chairman of my State highway commission, and he has suggested that this might be an option that Texas wants to do. I object strenuously to Texas doing that, and I am going to do everything I can to keep our Texas taxpayers from paying for another opportunity to use a road that they have already paid for. I am going to resist that. But the chairman of the highway commission did make a very important point, and that was, just tell us what the rules are. There are not rules that lay out how we can address the transportation issues in the States, and I think every State is probably facing this problem. He was honest enough to say just give me the rules, tell me what I can do, and we will work with that.

Of course, a donor State such as ours is sensitive to the fact that we don't get back one dollar for every dollar that is put into the highway system. I think we have done a better job at a time when we start looking at parity in the highway fund, and I think a fair conclusion would be that the Interstate Highway System has been built and let's make sure that every State now has the ability to use its own taxpayer funds to build its own roads. I think parity should be the end result, and I think we should be there now. Unfortunately, for a lot of history and a lot of nostalgia about the Interstate Highway System, that is not a fight that we can have today. It is not a fight that we will be able to solve tonight.

I do want to bring to the attention of the Senate the fact that we should not allow, on a piecemeal basis, one highway segment at a time, to all of a sudden wake up and find that we don't have an Interstate Highway System that is in place as it was created to be--a free highway for the citizens of this country to be able to travel anywhere in our country on an interstate system that works. We are going to wake up to this scenario if we allow what is happening right now to continue unabated. So I am going to do everything I can in my power to see that this scenario does not occur. I am going to do everything in my power to see that Texans do not have tolls put on our Federal highway system. I think we need a policy that would be nationwide, so that every taxpayer who has already paid for these roads would not be tolled again for the ability to go and use those roads. We are not going to solve that problem tonight, but it is going to be a major effort I will make in the future to solve this problem. I ask the authorizing committee, when they do reauthorize the highway program, which will have to be reauthorized within the next 2 years, to address this issue with an eye toward equity, with an eye toward protecting our taxpayers and, most important, with an eye toward keeping the original intent and mission of the Interstate Highway System--to have a free Interstate Highway System that works for our country and does indeed complete the United States of America both in security and commerce.

I yield the floor.