Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have enjoyed hearing my distinguished friend from Oregon, who is always an effective and enthusiastic advocate. We worked together on many things, and I hope we will on many more things in the future.

I want to talk a little bit about the price of natural gas and how we can get it down. We have an opportunity to do that next week in the Senate. The Senate is considering the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006. It directs new oil and gas leasing in 8.3 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico. It directs the Department of the Interior to begin oil and gas leasing in designated parts of what we call lease sale 181--that is just the name of a geographic area--no later than 1 year after the bill becomes law, and directs leasing in 181 south, an area below the one just described, as soon as practical.

From the revenues that come from that, we will deal with those in the traditional way. First, there is a royalty, and 37.5 percent of the royalty will go to the affected States, which I assume includes Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, and perhaps the Presiding Officer's State of Texas. Then 12.5 percent will go to the State side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund under an arrangement that has been in the law for 40 years, to take some of the money we use from offshore drilling and use it for State parks, soccer fields, city parks. The money goes to the States.

We do a lot of things here in the Senate, and some may sound more relevant than others. But this is legislation next week that will affect blue-collar workers in America, it will affect homeowners, and it will affect farmers. It could affect the price of gasoline. The price of gasoline is set by the world marketplace, as the natural gas price is as well. But the major effect, I think, will be on the price of natural gas. Let me explain for a few minutes why I am talking about natural gas instead of gasoline.

If you stop and think about natural gas, one could easily argue that an extraordinarily high price for natural gas has more of an effect upon the lives of Americans than an extraordinarily high price of gasoline. A year ago, when the price of natural gas was about $15 a unit--to put that into comparison, that would be about the same thing as if gasoline were at $7 a gallon. That would be about the same thing. Now, imagine that. What if gasoline were $7 a gallon across the United States? We would have revolutions from Odessa, TX, to Mountain City, TN, and North and South, and in every direction. People would say: We can't stand that.

Well, we were having a very hard time a year ago with the natural gas prices at $15 a unit. Now, fortunately, they are back down to a little below $7 a unit. But this economy of ours, this United States of America, was built on a natural gas price of about $2. So it is three times as high as we were accustomed to it being.

And what difference does that make? Well, if we pass this legislation next week, we can reduce--or at least begin to stabilize--the price of natural gas, and that helps American workers. A lot of speeches are made here--and the Presiding Officer has heard as many as I have-- saying no more outsourcing. Let's not send jobs overseas. Don't let them go to Germany, India, and China. Why don't we adopt policies that stop that?

Here is a good way to stop jobs from going overseas. There are 1 million jobs in the chemical industry in the United States today. These are good, high-paying jobs. Most of them are blue collar, but many are white collar. These are manufacturing jobs in the United States of America, millions of them. A place like Eastman Chemical in Kingsport, TN, is an example. Eastman Chemical, as far as we are concerned in Tennessee, has been there about as long as the Great Smoky Mountains. My uncle used to work there. In the Appalachian part of Tennessee, where income has never been high, for a long time Eastman has paid a good, high, steady wage to families. It has transformed the area. There are good schools, good roads, strong families, and good communities, with 10,000, 12,000, or 15,000 jobs right there in that area. People drive 50 to 80 miles to go to work. Some have been working there three and four generations. Eastman makes chemicals. Out of what? The major raw material for chemicals at Eastman is natural gas.

The president of Dow Chemical testified before the Energy Committee that natural gas, used as a raw material, accounts for 40 percent of Dow's costs. So if the price of natural gas goes from $2 to nearly $7, as it is today, or to $15, as it was last year, what do you suppose happens? If Eastman is going to expand, or if Dow or another company is going to build another plant, are they going to build it in the United States? No, those jobs will go overseas, and they have been. There are maybe 100 chemical plants being built around the world. Only one is being built in the United States, and the major reason is the high cost of the raw material, natural gas.

So there is the first reason the vote we are having on Monday afternoon at 5:30 makes a difference to the average American and to all Americans. Well, none of us are average. We are all individuals. We like our jobs. There are a lot of jobs at stake, and it is not just the chemical industry that is affected by the high cost of natural gas.

A year ago, the Tennessee Farm Bureau joined me in sponsoring a roundtable on natural gas prices when they were at $15. One of those who was at the roundtable was the president of Saturn. The General Motors Saturn plant came to Tennessee when I was Governor. It is an innovative plant, and we are proud that they chose Tennessee. At the roundtable, the president of Saturn said to me: We have done about all we can, in terms of efficiency, to deal with this incredible cost of natural gas in our automobile plant. After this, it is going to begin to affect the cost of our cars.

If the cost of auto parts suppliers and the cost of automobiles that are manufactured in the United States goes up, the jobs go overseas. If you can put an engine plant in Germany, or some other kind of supplier in Mexico, they will do that because of the high cost of natural gas. So it affects manufacturing.

The Tennessee Farm Bureau was helping me host that roundtable because the high cost of natural gas affects farming. Farming uses a lot of energy and uses a lot of fertilizer. The biggest raw material in fertilizer is usually natural gas. So the price of fertilizer doubles when the price of natural gas goes up like that.

The rising price of natural gas affects millions of Americans-- workers, farmers, and also those who are heating and cooling homes with natural gas. What do you suppose the local gas company does after a while when the price of natural gas goes from $2 to $15? What do you think that will do to your local bill? It is going to go right through the roof. For retired families, for low-income families, the high price of natural gas hurts. So the vote we are having on Monday is about blue collar workers, about farm families, and it is about all the families who heat and cool with natural gas. That is the importance of natural gas prices.

Now, I see my friend from Arkansas here. I assure him that I am not going

to be too extensive in my remarks. I look forward to his. I have a few more things I would like to say.

The second point I want to make is that the bill we are dealing with Monday is part of a comprehensive plan. I have heard a few colleagues come here and say we cannot drill our way out of this big problem we have with oil. They are absolutely right about that. Everybody in this Senate knows that because we spent 10 years working on a comprehensive energy bill--the Energy Policy Act--which we enacted about a year ago after weeks and weeks of debate. It could have been called the ``Natural Gas Price Reduction Act.'' I am not going to stand here and say that bill is the reason the natural gas price has gone from $15 last summer to $7 today, but I hope it helped.

Market forces overrode all of that. But the Energy Policy Act surely put us on the right path, because to reduce the price of natural gas and to begin to stabilize the price of oil and make sure this big country of ours, which uses 25 percent of all of the energy in the world, has a steady supply of reliable, low-cost energy that is clean and as carbon-free as possible, we set this country on a different path by passing that comprehensive energy legislation a year ago, and we started with conservation.

We need to be more aggressive about conservation, and there may be a conservation bill that we ought to enact later this year or next year. We also aggressively moved to encourage nuclear power because nuclear power produces 20 percent of all of the electricity in America and 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity in America. That means it is our major weapon against global warming. If my friend and fellow Tennessean, Al Gore, were to do a sequel to ``Inconvenient Truth'' and call it ``Inconvenient Truth II,'' it would be about nuclear power. That is the solution to global warming.

So, first, we encouraged conservation. Then we began what is turning out to be a renaissance of interest in nuclear power.

Third, the Energy Policy Act included incentives for clean coal. We have a lot of coal. So if we make more electricity by nuclear power and more electricity by coal and we conserve to begin with, then there is less demand for electricity made from natural gas and the price goes down. Almost all of our new electric powerplants over the last 10 years were made by natural gas. That is like burning antiques in the fireplace to heat your home. That is a pretty dumb way to go about the business of producing electricity.

Let's conserve, build nuclear powerplants, encourage the use of clean coal, recapture the carbon, deal with global warming, reduce the price of natural gas, and that is not all. We also made it easier in the bill last year to import liquefied natural gas from overseas. That is a complicated process. We don't want to get into the same shape in natural gas that we are with oil, where we get most of it from overseas, but we can increase imports of LNG. Bringing it into terminals here and piping it into our system helps increase our supply, and that lowers the price and, apparently, that has begun to work.

Renewables help. There are some things we can do in that area. We can make ethanol from corn. We can make biodiesel from soybeans. I held a roundtable in Tennessee on biodiesel the other day. I even heard in a hearing that a factory is opening in Oak Ridge that will make ethanol from coal. We can make fuels from other sources, but we need a lot of fuel for cars and trucks, and we need a lot of fuel for electricity in this country that uses 25 percent of all of the energy in the world.

One thing we did not do last year was take any significant step to increase the supply of natural gas that comes from the United States. I think any logical person would say if you are going to take a comprehensive look at the high price of gasoline and the high price of natural gas and its affect upon Americans, you would want to include increasing the supply while we are transitioning to other forms of energy production. This is going to take us 5 or 10 years. In the meantime, we don't want to pay $7 for gasoline and $15 for natural gas. One way to do it is to increase our supply.

That is why we are voting on Monday on deep sea exploratory drilling in one of the most promising areas in the world for more natural gas. That is what we call Lease Sale 181. Someone said on the Senate floor there wasn't much gas down there. I heard the Senator from Louisiana say the following, and I believe this is true: It is enough to heat 6 million homes for 15 years.

It is six times the amount of the liquefied natural gas that we are importing today in the United States. That is a lot of gas. It is more oil than we import from Saudi Arabia, our principal supplier of overseas oil. It is more oil reserves than Wyoming and Oklahoma combined.

So in our great big economy, where we use 25 percent of all the energy in the world, it may only be a small part of our overall needs, but it is a lot when you think about heating 6 million homes for 15 years. And I suspect that if we move ahead aggressively to tap this new supply of natural gas and oil, it will help to stabilize the price of natural gas and might even move it down a little and help the blue collar worker, the farmer, and the homeowner.

Some say that energy independence is not a real goal. I don't agree with that. What I mean by energy independence is that the United States will not ever again be held hostage by some other country. It doesn't mean we won't buy oil from Mexico or natural gas from Canada. But we don't want to have to do that if we don't want to. So that is why, in the comprehensive Energy bill last year, we accelerated research for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and gave incentives for hybrid cars. We want to reduce our dependence of oil overseas and transform our economy permanently. We don't want to drill our way out of the problem. We all know we can never do that.

Over the next 5 or 10 years, we'd better make sure we use the oil and natural gas we have available in this country if we want people to be able to drive their cars, work their farms, keep their jobs, and pay their bills. That is what we will be voting about Monday at 5:30.

We have been extremely careful with the environmental impact of this bill. I am very proud of Senator Domenici and others for what they have done on this issue. These rigs will be 125 miles away from Florida. You can only see about 20 miles out to sea. So that is a long way out. They are out of the way of airplanes and military craft. The technology we have means there is more natural leakage of oil from the sea floor than from all these rigs out there. So the environmental damage is minimal. Plus, we are going to take half the revenues from this drilling and use it for environmental purposes. I think that is great. Mr. President, 37\1/2\ percent goes for wetlands and other areas in the Gulf Coast heavily damaged by hurricanes, and 12\1/2\ percent is an outdoor recreation and conservation royalty. It is not a lot of money, but it begins to say that we are going to have an environmental benefit. It is a balanced formula that a majority of Senators can easily support.

Mr. President, this is a focused bill. This is a little left over work that we didn't get done last year when we passed a comprehensive piece of energy legislation that put that ``freight train'' energy policy moving slowly down the track in the right direction, toward large amounts of clean, low-cost, reliable, domestic-produced energy.

We had in that bill conservation, nuclear power, clean coal, and we made it easier to import natural gas. We had extensive support for renewables, but we didn't do anything about domestic supply. This finishes the job. So that is why this is a focused bill.

There are many other great ideas about energy, and whenever we subject ourselves to an energy debate, it will take us a long time because we have many good ideas and opinions. But from time to time, we need to take a focused idea about which there is emerging consensus and do it.

Two years ago, you could not even mention the idea of offshore drilling here. Last year, we had a majority of votes in the Senate for it, but we could not get to 60. This year, we got 86 votes on the motion to proceed, and we have a broad bipartisan consensus. I suspect in future years we will find other ways to permit, say, Virginia, for example, if it chooses, to permit drilling for oil and gas in certain areas offshore where

the rigs cannot be seen, and use some of those revenues from drilling to create a trust fund for education, use them to lower taxes, or use them to improve the coastlines of Virginia. I know if I were Governor of a coastal State, I would do that in a minute. I would rather not have an income tax, and I would rather have the best and biggest trust fund for my university system. That is exactly what Virginia could do, but we are not doing that here. We will address that when there is a consensus about it. There is a consensus about this.

As we move toward the end of the week and as people begin to think about what the Senate is doing that affects their lives, if you are a manufacturing worker in this country, we are going to affect your life at 5:30 on Monday afternoon. If you are homeowner paying your bill for 105-degree heat with natural gas, we are going to affect our life at 5:30 on Monday afternoon. If you are a farmer and have seen the price of fertilizer double, we are going to affect your life at 5:30 on Monday afternoon. We are going to vote for you if we vote for the energy security bill on Monday.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, is there a limit on the amount of time I may speak?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, 2 years ago, the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Johnson, and I introduced a bill we called the Natural Gas Price Reduction Act. We did that to give focus to the energy debate. We were hearing a lot about the price of gasoline. Gasoline prices were high and remain high because of the huge supply and demand around the world. We know that. We know that is going to continue for a while, most likely. We know that China is growing. We know that India is growing. We know that the United States and our huge economy uses 25 percent of all the oil in the world. And so the supply and the demand are going to require that the price of oil, therefore gasoline, is going to be high for a while.

We wanted to shift the focus to natural gas, which we didn't hear about as much at that time, because natural gas prices in this country had gone from the lowest in the world to the highest in the world. This was a huge problem for our country.

High gasoline prices are a big problem every day. Natural gas prices are a bigger problem every day. They are a bigger problem for farmers who have seen their fertilizer costs go up. They

are a bigger problem for homeowners as they pay to heat and cool their homes, and they see their bills go up. They are a bigger problem for blue collar workers in this country, such as the 1 million blue collar and white collar men and women--Americans in good-paying jobs--who work in the chemical industry. These are the kinds of jobs about which we all make speeches. We don't want them to be outsourced. We don't want their jobs to go overseas.

If a chemical plant uses natural gas as a raw material--meaning, for example, as Dow Chemical testified before our Energy Committee that 40 percent of the cost of its product was natural gas--and if the price of natural gas is $14 or $15 a unit in the United States compared to $2 or $3 a unit in some other part of the world that has a good, reasonable economy, guess where that chemical plant is going to end up. It is going to be there, not here. Guess where those 1 million jobs are going to be. They are going to be there, not here.

That is why of the 70 or 80 new chemical plants being built around the world, only one of them is in the United States. There are several reasons for that, but the main reason is the high cost of natural gas.

So for the farmer, for the blue collar worker, for the homeowner, the high price of natural gas is a great big problem. We saw that 2 years ago, and so Senator Johnson and I offered our bill to try to lower the price of natural gas.

Energy policy is like a big freight train. It is hard to get started, it takes a long time to get going, and then it is hard to stop.

So the Energy Policy Act that the Congress adopted in a bipartisan way a year ago, which included a great many of the parts of our Natural Gas Price Reduction Act, is just beginning to have some effect. But today as we talk about this deep sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, it is important that we put it in the context of the whole picture because this is the whole picture: If we want to reduce the price of natural gas in the United States and lower the cost of home heating and cooling bills, and lower the cost of fertilizer for farmers, and if we want to keep those chemical jobs and other jobs in the United States, then there are several things we need to do.

The first thing we need to do is conservation, and the Energy Policy Act of a year ago had an important section on conservation.

The second thing we need to do is produce large amounts of electricity in some way other than using natural gas. Using natural gas to produce electricity is like burning the antiques in your backyard to make a fire. But most of the new electric powerplants have been using natural gas over the last 10 or 15 years.

The Energy Policy Act had important new sections to encourage the use of nuclear power, which supplies 20 percent of our power while producing no mercury, no sulfur, no hydrogen, and no carbon. It is 70 percent of our carbon-free energy. That affects global warming.

So the first way to reduce the cost of natural gas is conservation. We provided for that.

The second way was to encourage nuclear power, and there has begun to be a renaissance of nuclear power production in the United States.

The third thing we did was to encourage the production of power from clean coal. Fifty percent of our electricity comes from coal. We have a lot of coal. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal--we all say that--but it is dirty. It does produce mercury, it does produce nitrogen, it does produce sulfur, and it does produce carbon. So we need clean coal, and eventually we need to capture the carbon, put it in the ground to store it somewhere, and we need large amounts of energy.

We also had significant dollars in support of renewable energy, whether it was for fuels or for electricity. We also made it easier to import natural gas through LNG terminals from around the world, which we are going to have to do for a while. We also made it easier to refine. All of those things had to do with natural gas. But one thing we didn't do was increase our supply of natural gas at home.

But we have come a long way. Two years ago, you couldn't even talk. You couldn't have a polite conversation on the Senate floor about offshore drilling because it was an unmentionable word. People would run out of the room as if you said something bad. But, last year, when the Energy Policy Act came up, we had a majority of votes on this floor for an offshore drilling provision that would have permitted a State such as Virginia, for example, to drill for gas and oil--with the rigs so far off the coast you couldn't see them--and give a share of the revenues to Virginia, which it might use for education or to lower taxes or for coastal beach refurbishment, and put the rest in the Federal Treasury. That is a pretty good idea, but we couldn't get it passed because here it takes 60 votes to overcome objections from a minority of senators.

We also had the perfectly obvious idea of enlarging the area of drilling in the area called Lease Sale 181 in the Gulf of Mexico, deep sea drilling for natural gas which we are talking about today, but we weren't able to do that a year ago. So what this piece of legislation does--at a time when high natural gas prices still are problems for the homeowner, the blue-collar worker, and the farmer in this country--is to give the most immediate relief we can in terms of supply. It doesn't take the place of conservation. It doesn't take the place of nuclear power. It doesn't take the place of coal or renewable energy or LNG or all of these other things we authorize--but it adds to that, and we ought to do it. Lease Sale 181 means that the four gulf producing States will have a chance to share in the revenues that come; that is coastal assistance in this area damaged by the hurricanes.

Twelve and a half percent of the revenues will go to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, so every State will have that for city parks, soccer fields and other things. That is an appropriate use. The remaining half of the revenues will go to the Federal Treasury.

So I am delighted that this bill has come to the floor. I was delighted with the large vote we had this morning--86 votes--to move ahead. I am very hopeful that with the cloture vote on Monday, we will have more than 60 votes.

I believe this is important for the American people to know that sometimes senators stand up and say: Well, why are we debating this issue or that issue? I see the assistant Democratic leader on the Senate floor. Sometimes I hear the assistant Democratic leader saying things like: Why are we talking about this issue or that issue? Why aren't we talking about gasoline prices or natural gas prices? Mr. President, we are. This legislation is about natural gas prices, this is about blue-collar workers, this is about farmers, and this is about homeowners. This is the way we increase the supply and lower the price.

It is that simple: produce energy here instead of bringing it in from the Middle East or some other part of the world.

Senator Domenici deserves an enormous amount of credit for working on this bill, as do Senator Martinez, Senator Landrieu, Senator Vitter, and many others. The bill is a limited, sensible step in the right direction. I would like to see us go further and give Virginia the opportunity if it wishes to have offshore drilling, but that would disrupt the consensus we have here, and I don't want to disrupt that consensus.

So it is very important that the American people know that as we continue the debate this week and then come back here Monday and vote, we will be voting on the surest way to increase the supply of natural gas in this country. That will make it more likely for the 10,000 workers at Eastman Chemical in east Tennessee that their jobs will stay in east Tennessee instead of moving to Germany, and that the farmers' jobs will stay in west Tennessee instead of moving to Brazil, and that the homeowners will be able to turn on their heat in the winter and turn up their air-conditioner in the summer and still be able to afford it. That is exactly what this is about. A vote for this legislation is a vote for the blue-collar worker, for the farmer, and for the homeowner, and a vote against it is a vote against the blue-collar worker, against the farmer, and against the homeowner. That is pretty simple. That is pretty straightforward. We have several days to think about it.

I am delighted to see that there are Democrats and Republicans for this. I

hope the large number of votes we saw in favor of cloture this morning continues.

We have a big economy, which means we have big energy needs. Yes, we want the conservation we put into law a year ago. We want this renaissance of nuclear power. We want clean coal with carbon recaptured. We want renewable power, we want LNG from overseas, and we want other things. We want more refining capacity. But supply is a part of the picture, and the legislation we are debating today is the most obvious example of increasing supply.

I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this legislation. I am delighted with the way the leadership has presented it to the Senate. It will help the country. I hope the blue-collar workers, the farmers, and the homeowners are listening because this debate and this vote will be about them and their future and their pocketbooks.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if the----

The answer is 20 percent of all our electricity in the United States and 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity is produced by nuclear power.

Mr. President, earlier this week, I introduced the America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids Act, S. 3682, on behalf of President Bush. I was joined in introducing this legislation by Senators Ensign, Gregg, and Santorum. This bill provides meaning to the promise of the No Child Left Behind Act by giving low-income families whose children are stuck in low-performing schools the same opportunities other families already enjoy.

President Bush proposed the America's Opportunity Scholarships Program as part of his fiscal year 2007 budget. The bill authorizes $100 million in competitive grants to State and local educational agencies or private nonprofit groups to provide low-income students in low-performing schools with scholarships to attend the school of their choice or receive tutoring. Thousands of eligible students would receive up to $4,000 in scholarship funds to apply to tuition and costs at the school of their choice or up to $3,000 worth of intensive tutoring to help them improve their academic achievement.

Eligible low-income students are those who attend schools in ``restructuring,'' which means they have missed their student achievement goals under No Child Left Behind for 6 years in a row. The U.S. Department of Education reports that in the 2004-2005 school year, 1,065 schools were identified for restructuring. Preliminary estimates suggest that an additional 1,000 schools will be identified for restructuring in the 2005-2006 school year.

Parents want the best possible schools for their children. A recent survey by the Educational Testing Service showed that 62 percent of public school parents either transferred a child out of one school into a better school or have decided where to live based on the schools in that district. This bill offers a way out for students whose families don't have the money for tuition or the luxury of moving.

For those who think school choice is not important, I ask you to consider what you would do if the government or circumstances said you had no choice in the matter. Imagine what would happen if we passed a law that said that no American parent could choose a school for their child, and instead the government assigned each child to a specific public or private school. There would be a revolution in this country by middle- and upper-income parents who want to preserve their right to choose what is best for their child's education.

Low-income parents are increasingly voicing a demand for the same quality educational options that wealthier families have. In Milwaukee, WI, low-income families' demand for better choices led to the creation of a citywide private school choice program in 1990. Today, Milwaukee is one of the most vibrant education marketplaces in the Nation, and parents can choose from traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools. Here in Washington, DC, frustrated low-income parents led an active campaign to establish the DC School Choice Incentive Program, which increases educational options for low-income students, including scholarships to attend private schools. Over 2,600 applications were received for 1,200 available scholarships in 2004, the first year of that program. This school year, 1,713 students are enrolled at the private school of their choice. Their parents report significant improvements in their children's academic performance, behavior, and prospects for the future.

Our Nation gives families choices in educational institutions nearly everywhere but in grade school and high school. After World War II, the GI bill enabled veterans to attend the educational institutions of their choice--public or private, secular or nonsecular. Today, Federal dollars for higher education still follow students to the school of their choice. It is this choice--along with autonomy and competition-- that has made our system of higher education the best in the world. We also allow Federal funding to follow preschoolers to the childcare program of their choice.

Unfortunately, we have gotten in a rut with K-12 schools. We have created local monopolies where dollars flow directly to schools with little or no say from parents. The ones paying the highest price are the poor children of America.

America's opportunity scholarships are a way out for families who have waited too long. I hope my colleagues will support this important legislation so we can help our neediest children achieve a brighter future.

Mr. President, embryonic stem cell research has enormous promise for lifesaving treatments that may help cure juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, spinal injury, and other debilitating diseases. That is why I will vote today for the House-passed legislation that allows Federal funding of research on stem cells derived from excess embryos at fertility clinics that would otherwise be discarded.

President Bush has already said that Federal funds may be used in some cases for research on some stem cell lines derived from fertilized eggs. This bill will increase the number of stem cell lines available for research.

With the help of fertility clinics, some perspective parents use fertilized eggs to help them have children. The excess eggs that these parents don't use often are thrown away. I support using some of these fertilized eggs under carefully controlled conditions with the consent of the donors for potentially lifesaving research.

I will also vote for two other bills this afternoon. The first bill encourages stem cell research that does not involve the destruction of embryos, and the second bill bans fetal farming--the practice of creating fetuses solely for research purposes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the attached bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the attached bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate the 2005 winners of the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility, which recognizes companies that have successfully used flexibility to meet both business and employee goals. The Sloan Awards are presented by the When Work Works initiative, which is a project of the Families and Work Institute in partnership with the Center for Workforce Preparation, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Twiga Foundation. The When Work Works initiative is sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

I would like to draw your attention to the Sloan Awards because I think these companies are to be commended for their excellence in providing workplace flexibility practices which benefit both employees and employers. Achieving greater flexibility in the workplace--to maximize productivity while attracting the highest quality employees-- is one of the key challenges facing American companies in the 21st century.

During the inaugural phase of the Sloan Awards in 2004-05, businesses in the following eight cities were eligible for recognition: Brooklyn, NY; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Detroit, MI; Durham, NC; Long Beach, CA; Providence, RI; and Salt Lake City, UT. The Chamber of Commerce in each city hosted an interactive business forum to share research on workplace flexibility as an important component of workplace effectiveness. In these same communities, businesses applied for, and winners were selected for, the Sloan Awards through a process that included employees' views as well as employer practices.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the inaugural winners of the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility. These businesses are to be commended for their excellence in providing workplace flexibility.

In Long Beach, CA, the winners are Dun & Bradstreet, PeacePartners, Inc., and Ward's Furniture.

In Chicago, IL, the winner is Accenture.

In Detroit, MI, the winners are Accenture, Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company, Brogan & Partners Convergence Marketing, Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, Plexus Systems LLC, and Rossetti.

In Brooklyn, NY, the winner is Urban Monster.

In Durham, NC, the winners are the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau and Durham Family Court.

In Providence, RI, the winners are Atrion Networking Corporation, Citizens Financial Group, Inc., KPMG, LLP, North Star Marketing, Quality Partners of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Housing, Rhode Island Legal Services, Inc., and Sojourner House, Inc.

In Dallas, TX, the winners are Accenture, CareerLink Companies, Center for Housing Resources, Inc., Community Council of Greater Dallas, Lee Hecht Harrison, McQueary Henry Bowles Troy, LLP, Medical City Hospital, Texas Instruments, and TravisWolff & Company, LLP.

In Salt Lake City, UT, the winners are ARUP Laboratories, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, McKinnon-Mulherin, Inc., and Radius Engineering Inc.

2005 was the inaugural year for these awards. Building on the success of the first year, Phase II of the When Work Works initiative will extend the number of participating communities to 17 in 2006 and 24 in 2007. Again, I congratulate the 2005 winners and look forward to the expansion of this exciting initiative.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators Frist, Warner, and Allen in offering a Senate resolution that celebrates the 150th anniversary of the twin cities of Bristol, TN, and Bristol, VA.

Hanging on the wall of my Washington office near my desk is a painting of Bristol by George Smith called ``State Street at Seventh Avenue.'' This painting, which was completed around 1890, depicts the shared road that links the twin cities of Bristol and which serves as the State line between Tennessee and Virginia. State Street Church can be seen on the left side of the painting, the First Presbyterian Church is in the distance on the right, and the city saloon appears at the bottom. Thanks to continuing efforts in Bristol to preserve structures of historical significance, some of these buildings and many like them can still be seen there today.

The twin cities were incorporated in 1856, the same year the Virginia and Tennessee Railroads reached Bristol. A second railroad arrived four years later. From that point on, the population grew steadily as Bristol emerged as an important transportation and commercial hub.

Today, Bristol is known for a different type of transportation. Since 1961, the Bristol Motor Speedway has been host to NASCAR races and its fans. The Speedway, which began as drawings scratched on the back of envelopes and brown paper bags, can now seat over 160,000 fans at its races. The ``World's Fastest Half-Mile'' is acclaimed worldwide, and I have enjoyed visiting the Speedway myself.

But Bristol is more than just a transportation hub. It is the birthplace of country music--as declared by Congress in 1998.

The roots of country music in Bristol can be traced to the influences of Scotch-Irish immigrants in the mountain regions of Tennessee and Virginia--including my own ancestors--coupled with the unique hymns of Negro spirituals and work songs. A number of early Appalachian instruments that helped spawn this new American form of music can be found on the walls of my Washington office.

In 1927, Ralph Sylvester Peer arrived in Bristol hoping to produce a commercial recording of these unique mountain sounds. That's how the recordings

known as the Bristol Sessions were born, launching the careers of country greats like the Carter Family, the Stonemans and Jimmie Rogers. Those sessions are often billed as ``the Big Bang'' that started the development of modern and marketable country music.

Bristol, TN, and Bristol, VA, may be two cities but they share a common spirit. You can't help but feel that spirit each time you visit, as I have had the pleasure of doing many times over the years. Nothing says it better than the Bristol Sign, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Stretching across State Street and linking the States of Virginia and Tennessee, it declares Bristol ``A Good Place to Live.''

Mr. President, I extend my warmest wishes to the people of Bristol as they celebrate the twin cities' sesquicentennial this year.

Mr. President, of all my colleagues, I suppose that in 1996 I was the one most hoping that Bob Dole would not retire from the Senate. That was because I was doing my best to defeat him in the New Hampshire Presidential primary. If I had, Bob had told several friends he was ``going back to the Senate.'' Well, Pat Buchanan beat both of us by a few percentage points, and Bob beat me. Within a few weeks, I was back in Tennessee at a press conference endorsing Bob Dole and presenting him with one of my red and black plaid shirts. ``I hope it's his last one,'' Bob's friend Howard Baker was heard to mutter, referring to my shirt.

I should have known better. In my first Iowa poll in June of 1995, pollster Whit Ayres said, ``Governor, this is the professional challenge of my career. The poll says, `Dole 54, Alexander 3, margin of error 4 percentage points.''' The end result in the caucuses 6 months later was a good deal closer, but Bob Dole won because he had earned for himself the unofficial title of ``President of Iowa.'' Iowans liked his spare talk, his good humor, his war record, and his middle-America brand of politics.

So did and does the rest of America. Not everyone comes out of a Presidential race more admired than when he or she went in. But Bob Dole did. He ran three times, the last time securing the Republican nomination. And, I would judge, he is even more admired today than he was 10 years ago when he retired from the Senate.

Bob Dole is an emblem of America's greatest generation. He and our colleague Elizabeth are together one of our country's most admired couples. When we think of him, and of them, we think of what is best about public service in America and about our country itself.

Mr. President, will the Senator from Alaska yield for a question?

Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Alaska would agree that as he goes through the history of countries that have been torn apart by war, including our country in the Civil War and Japan, after the Second World War, and the processes of reconciliation, whether South Africa might not be an example. And is it not true that Nelson Mandela's courage and his ability to create a process of reconciliation and forgiveness was a major factor in what has been a political miracle in Africa, where White and Black people now are able to live together in a democracy? Is not that process of reconciliation one of the most admired processes in the last century? Nelson Mandela, the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize just for this sort of gesture, would he not fit into the series of examples that the Senator from Alaska used a few moments ago?

Mr. President, I first came to the U.S. Senate 40 years ago next year, not as a Senator but as a legislative assistant. Senator Kennedy was here then in his second term. Senator Byrd had been in the Congress since 1953. I was working for Howard Baker, the first Republican Senator to be elected from Tennessee.

I noticed over the years how he and Senator Byrd became good friends. The strength of that friendship was demonstrated in 1980 when the Republicans gained control of the Senate--which surprised virtually everyone, gaining 12 seats. Among the shocks that would occur is that Howard Baker, who was then the Republican leader--he refused to call himself the minority leader, but the Republican leader--was to become majority leader and Robert Byrd, who was the Democratic leader, would have to be the minority leader.

I remember two stories Senator Baker tells about that incident which had a lot to do with shaping what happened in the Senate shortly after that.

Senator Baker went to see Senator Byrd, and as I have been told, he said: Bob, I wonder if you would be willing to keep your office. Well, that got him off to a good start with Bob Byrd. I am sure that incident must have caused the Senate to work much more smoothly over the next few years. Senator Baker kept the minority leader's office and expanded it, and Senator Byrd kept the majority leader's office even though he was the minority leader.

But the second thing that happened was this: The new majority leader, Howard Baker, said to the stepping down majority leader, Bob Byrd: Bob, I would like to make an arrangement with you. Senator Byrd said to Senator Baker: What is that, Howard? He said: I would like to make an arrangement about surprises. I will not surprise you if you won't surprise me. According to Senator Baker, Senator Byrd replied: Let me think about it. They got back together the next day, and Bob Byrd gave Howard Baker his word: No surprises. According to Senator Baker, that word was never broken during the entire time Senator Baker was the majority leader and Senator Byrd was the minority leader. I am sure the Senate and this country benefitted greatly because of the trust those two men, who usually had very different opinions on issues, had with one another.

The other thing I would like to say about Senator Byrd is this: I came to the U.S. Senate as a Senator many years later, the same year the Presiding Officer came from Texas. It was in 2003 when we were sworn in, and that was exactly a half century after Bob Byrd came to the Congress. Each of us in our class made what I believe we still call maiden speeches--our first speech on the subject that was most important to us. The subject that was most important to me--and still is--is what it means to be an American, concepts that unify our country. I find it absolutely remarkable how our country, among all others, has accumulated this magnificent diversity but has found a way to bind it into a single country based on a few fragile principles that are found in our founding documents and by our common language and by our saga of American history.

There is no one in the Senate--even though many of us try--no one in the Senate who understands and expresses that better than Senator Robert C. Byrd. He understands what it means to be an American. He votes that way. For example, when the No Child Left Behind Act came up in the Senate before I was elected to this body, the legislation focused on reading and math. Senator Byrd insisted that the Senate bill include a $100 million authorization for the teaching of what he called traditional American history. Our seniors in high school are scoring lower on U.S. history than on any other subject. In other words, our high school seniors don't score lowest on math or science; they score lowest on U.S. history. Those are the worst scores our seniors have. In focusing on the need to do a better job of teaching history to young Americans, Senator Byrd is making an effort to make sure we remember where our country came from.

When I made my maiden speech and then introduced a modest bill to try to create summer academies for outstanding teachers and students of American history in 2003, Senator Byrd came to the floor. Senator Byrd cosponsored the bill, and then he showed the great compliment to me of showing up at the hearing before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to testify for the bill. As I said, it was my first year in the Senate; it was his 50th year in Congress.

So I congratulate him for his service. I congratulate him for his relationship with other Senators, his word being his bond, as it was in the example with Senator Baker, and I admire his work in helping to remind us in this body and all of us in this country of what it means to be an American. That will be one of his lasting legacies.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I wish to express my support for a full and permanent repeal of the death tax. This is an issue of tax fairness. The death tax can consume up to half of the deceased owner's estate. Many assets that are subject to the death tax were already taxed during the life of the deceased through income taxes, property taxes and other levies. Imposing another tax on someone's estate at the time of his or her death is a grossly unfair form of double taxation.

In 2001, Congress passed a phase-out of the estate tax with full repeal effective in 2010. If Congress does not act soon, the law will revert back to where it was prior to 2001, placing an enormous tax burden on family-owned farms and small businesses. Some families would be forced to sell the farm or business they have just inherited to pay the enormous death tax bill. This goes completely against the American dream of working hard, growing a business and some wealth, and leaving the fruits of your labor to your children.

Some argue that death tax repeal only would benefit the very wealthy. During this debate we have heard names like Bill Gates and Donald Trump. However, the death tax has a major impact on a lot of Americans who aren't household names. For example, I want to talk about Clint Callicott from Williamson County, TN. Clint's family farmed on land in Williamson County that his father owned and then Clint inherited. The farm's value began to increase due to economic growth and development in the county, so at the time his father passed away the land was worth over $1 million. Clint was forced to sell the family farm against his wishes in order to pay the large death tax, and the Callicott family had to relocate to another county.

This unfortunate story illustrates the negative effect the death tax can have on family farms and small businesses, and this example is only one of many. In Alcoa, TN, Dick Daugherty and his wife tried to plan for the impact of the death tax in the early 1990's by hiring a very expensive estate lawyer. Their hope was to preserve their family farm for their children, and they went so far as to take out an insurance policy with significant premiums to ensure there would be enough cash when the time came to pay the death tax bill. However, today the value of the farm land has increased so much due to development in the Alcoa area that--despite their best efforts to plan ahead--it now looks unlikely that the Daugherty sons will be able to afford to hold on to the land that has been in their family since 1871.

Clearly, there is something wrong with a tax system that forces people off the land that has been in their family for generations. And it is just as wrong when the tax system makes it harder for family- owned small businesses to succeed. According to one study, less than 30 percent of these small businesses survive to a second generation and only about 13 percent continue to a third generation. These small businesses face enough hurdles as it is without Uncle Sam imposing yet another obstacle in the form of the death tax.

Supporters of keeping the death tax claim that repeal would be too costly for the Treasury. However, over the last 10 years the death tax only has accounted for about 1.3 percent of all Federal tax revenue. In addition, the ``costs'' of repeal have been overstated because estimates fail to account for estate planning and compliance costs, the tax revenue lost when a farm or business ceases operation due to the death tax burden, or the economic growth and job creation that would be generated by freeing up capital for investment.

I mentioned the burden of estate planning and compliance costs, and wanted to share another example from my home State of Tennessee. The Anderson Family operates a crop and beef cattle farm. Mr. Anderson recognized the need for estate planning and formed a family partnership that allowed him to pass on his farm assets to his children during his lifetime. This plan is likely to minimize the impact of the death tax, and will increase the chances that the Anderson children will be able to hold onto the family business. However, the considerable legal and accounting costs involved in forming this partnership could have been better utilized elsewhere in the family business.

It is staggering to note that as much as $847 billion over the last several decades has been diverted from the economy for estate planning and compliance costs, according to a Joint Economic Committee study. Estate planning can cost individual families as much as $150,000. This money could be put to better use if it were invested in creating jobs growing our economy. According to the Heritage Foundation, it's estimated that the Federal death tax alone is responsible for the loss of between 170,000 and 250,000 potential jobs each year.

We want a tax system that encourages growth and prosperity, not one that acts as a job killer. However, anticipation of the death tax's impact on one's heirs causes many people to stop working at an earlier age, to reduce

the amount of saving and investing, and to cut back on their entrepreneurial activities. Once these Americans reach a certain age, there is less incentive to further build up the estate because that simply increases the tax burden for the loved ones they leave behind.

That is not the right message to send. We should encourage the creation of jobs, new ideas, and new investment in our country. We should encourage our citizens to continue to strive for the American dream of working hard, building up their assets, and passing them on to future generations.

I am disappointed that efforts to repeal the death tax have been blocked in the Senate for the last few years, and I hope Congress will enact a full and permanent repeal.

How much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. President, I ask the Chair to notify me when 10 minutes has lapsed.

Mr. President, I wish to begin as I began yesterday, by expressing my respect for the Senators from Hawaii, and it is genuine, it is a genuine respect. I also wish to begin by making it absolutely clear that there is no question about whether Hawaiians, including Native Hawaiians, are Americans. Hawaiians, including Native Hawaiians, are Americans, as good Americans as any Americans, and that is why this bill is a bad bill.

Hawaiians became U.S. citizens in 1900. They have saluted the American flag. They have paid American taxes. They have fought in American wars. The distinguished senior Senator from Hawaii has won the highest honor our Nation gives to an American warrior. In 1959, 94 percent of Hawaiians reaffirmed that commitment to become Americans by voting to become a State. Like citizens of every other State, Hawaiians vote in national elections.

My argument is that since Hawaiians have chosen to become Americans and distinguish themselves as Americans, that is the reason we should not move forward to allow a small group of Hawaiians, who live in every State in the Nation, to form a new government, a sovereign entity, which would be empowered to negotiate, as was said yesterday on this floor, the question of secession from the United States, the question of transfer of land to this new entity, the question of the transfer of money to this new entity, and the question of civil and criminal laws to this new entity.

When we began this discussion, many Senators were saying: Wait a minute, you are mischaracterizing this bill; it is not about sovereignty, it is not about land and money, it is not about race. But I think we have clearly established--and I believe it is a fair characterization of what the Senator from Hawaii has just said--that it is about sovereignty. It is clearly about race because you can't be a member of this new government unless you have Native Hawaiian blood; it may be only a drop of blood. So it is based on race. So the only possible argument to justify doing what no group of American citizens would ever be allowed to do in the United States is that this is just another Indian tribe, just another tribe. I want to address that in just a moment.

United States law, of course, does recognize Native American tribes, and the contention here today, from the Senators from Hawaii, is that this is just another tribe. That is a different contention than the State of Hawaii made a few years ago, in 1998. There, in the case of Rice v. Cayetano, the brief of the State of Hawaii said, ``the tribal concept has simply no place in the context of Hawaiian history.'' This is what the State of Hawaii said in 1998 before the Supreme Court.

Yesterday the Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General of the United States wrote a letter to the majority and minority leaders of the U.S. Senate saying that the administration strongly opposes this piece of legislation. It first discusses the constitutional objection to creating a race-based government, which clearly violates our Constitution and turns that original motto of this country, ``from one, many,'' upside-down. The letter from the Assistant Attorney General goes on to say:

While this legislation seeks to address this issue by

affording federal tribal recognition to native Hawaiians, the

Supreme Court [of the United States] has noted that whether

native Hawaiians are eligible for tribal status is a ``matter

of dispute'' and of considerable moment and difficulty.

The Assistant Attorney General goes on:

Given the substantial historical structure and cultural

differences between native Hawaiians as a group and

recognized federal Indian tribes, tribal recognition is

inappropriate for native Hawaiians and would still raise

difficult constitutional issues.

I ask unanimous consent to have the letter from the Assistant Attorney General printed in the Record.

As to the charge the U.S. Civil Rights Commission didn't review this carefully, I will ask unanimous consent to have a letter to Senator Cornyn printed in the Record. It is from a member of the Commission, Peter N. Kirsanow, writing in his individual capacity, who details the careful attention, he says, that the Commission gave to the legislation.

He says, in addition, ``I maintain that it is the worst piece of legislation the commission has reviewed during my tenure.''

I ask unanimous consent to have that letter printed in the Record.

Mr. President, what do we have here on the issue of ``just another tribe''? Under the United States law, as we have said several times, there are specific requirements for the recognition of an Indian tribe. The U.S. Government does recognize those tribes. But it has not created any tribe. This would be the creation, the establishment of a new sovereign government.

Here is what the law says:

The tribe must have operated as a sovereign for the last

100 years.

Native Hawaiians have not. It says:

Tribes must be a separate and distinct community.

Native Hawaiians are not. They live in every State of the United States of America; 160,000 live outside of Hawaii. Only 20,000 live on the Native Hawaiian homelands.

It further says:

A tribe must have had a preexisting political organization.

The Native Hawaiians did not. That is why, I suppose, the brief of the State of Hawaii acknowledged in the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1998, ``The tribal concept simply has no place in the context of Hawaiian history.''

In the history of our country, as it grew and developed, there have been many wrongs. The men who wrote our Constitution, setting our high goals, were only men. And women didn't even have the right to vote in the United States until 100 years ago. Those who wrote the Constitution locked out the press. The press would say today that is a wrong. Those who wrote the Constitution, many of them, owned slaves. That was a terrible wrong.

But our history is filled with reaching high goals to address and correct those wrongs, and doing it as a Nation, as Americans, all of us together. We are proud of our nationalities, of where we come from. But when we become Americans, as Hawaiians did when they became a State in 1959, we pledge allegiance to the United States of America. This bill would create a new competing government. That is what is wrong with this bill. It is the wrong way to right whatever wrongs may have happened in Hawaii.

It is my hope that my colleagues will vote no on this bill. Perhaps there are other ways that the Congress can help the distinguished Senators from Hawaii address wrongs which may have existed in Hawaii. But if that motto means anything, ``E pluribus unum,'' and if the constitutional prohibition against making distinctions based on race means anything, then we should not be authorizing a new sovereign government capable of negotiating secession, land, money, civil and criminal penalties--admission to which is only based upon race. The U.S. Department of Justice, the Supreme Court, the State of Hawaii itself--all have said this is not a tribe. Hawaiians are proud Americans,

which is why this bill should be rejected.

Mr. President, there is a fundamental shortcoming to this bill that can't be corrected by small amendments. There is no question that this legislation would--and I believe for the first time in our history--create a new, separate, independent race-based government within the borders of the United States of America. The only argument that could possibly justify such an offense to our constitutional tradition and our original motto, which says that when we became Americans we are proud of where we came from but we are prouder of being Americans, is that Native Hawaiians are just another Indian tribe. But the government of Hawaii itself, in a brief in the Supreme Court in 1998, said: ``The tribal concept simply has no place in the context of Hawaiian history.''

The Department of Justice, in a letter yesterday to the majority leader, with a copy to the minority leader, said: ``Tribal recognition is inappropriate for native Hawaiians and would still raise difficult constitutional issues.''

I have outlined in my remarks how Native Hawaiians do not constitute just another tribe. There may be wrongs to address, but this is the wrong way to right a wrong.

I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, one of the parliamentary mysteries of the Senate is that we are now about to move, as was reported, to the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act. Some might wonder why. I was presiding, as the Senator from Minnesota is now, earlier in the week. I heard an eloquent speech by a Senator from the other side of the aisle, the Senator from Vermont, who said we ought to ``focus on solutions to the high [gasoline] prices, something that hurts people in your state and mine, the rising cost of health care . . . the ongoing situation in Iraq. . . . We're not going to talk about any of those things,'' said the Senator from Vermont, from the other side of the aisle.

Yet as a result of efforts there, on that side of the aisle, we are now moving ahead to the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act,

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

Mr. President, I said earlier that I think we will hear on the Senate floor many times during this debate about the enormous respect we have for our two colleagues from Hawaii and how much we would prefer not to disagree with them. I think it is fair to say that this bill would not have a chance of being seriously considered on the floor if it weren't for our respect for them.

Despite that respect, I have to say, after hearing the Senator from Hawaii, this bill is worse than I thought. Many of my colleagues in the Republican caucus have come to me and said this is not about sovereignty or about race. The Senator from Hawaii made very clear that this is about sovereignty. He said in his own words that this is a bill to create--he says ``restore''--let's just say establish--a new government within the United States of America, and admission to that government is based upon race. So you cannot pass this bill off and say it is not about sovereignty. It is about sovereignty. There is no difference of opinion about that between the Senator from Hawaii and me.

He said specifically that the first objective of this legislation is to establish a process to establish a government which would have a government-to-government relationship with the United States. That is a sovereign government composed of American citizens who would now become part of a new government because they might be a small percentage Native Hawaiian, and certain benefits would come to them. So it is about sovereignty and race.

Why is that a problem? Let me add that the Senator from Hawaii referred to this new sovereignty as their government. But we have one government. That's why there are Americans, just like my family, which is Scotch-Irish American, like those of African descent who are Americans, and like those of every descent who are Americans, who share in our government.

That is what is special about this country. Of course we admire our diversity. What a great strength diversity is. No country is more diverse. We are a land of immigrants. Out of that

great mix comes our strength. But there is one greater strength, and that is taking all of that diversity and making one country of it.

How do we do that? We do it in an extraordinary way that goes all the way back to Valley Forge, when George Washington administered an oath to his officers that said:

I renounce, refuse, and abjure any allegiance or obedience

to the king, and I swear that I will, to the utmost of my

power, support, maintain, and defend the United States of

America.

Now, new citizens of this country have ``become Americans'' ever since then by taking that same oath. In the immigration bill we passed a couple weeks ago, we codified that oath. So every year, a half million people come here from countries such as Bangladesh, China, France, and every part of the world. They don't come to salute India or speak the language of China or to adopt the principles of France. They respect where they came from, and they are proud of it, but they become Americans. We don't do it based on race. We don't do it based on ancestry. We do it based upon a few principles in our founding documents. One of those is that we don't discriminate based upon race or ancestry, and another great principle is E pluribus unum, which this bill would turn upside down.

So this is not a bill which should be passed just because we greatly respect our colleagues, which we do. But Hawaiians are Americans. Tennesseans are Americans. Oklahomans are Americans. Hawaiians have been American citizens since 1900. In 1959, they voted 94 percent to become a State, to be Americans. When you become American, you renounce your allegiance to some other government and pledge allegiance to the United States of America. If we don't do that, we take step toward being a sort of United Nations instead of a United States.

I hope my friends, who have looked at this bill and said: We love our colleagues and this doesn't seem like a very important bill, so let's do it for them, will look at the assault upon a tremendously important principle embedded in this bill. It is about sovereignty. It is about land and money. It is about race. It is not the same as what we did in Alaska. Native Hawaiians are not just another Indian tribe. We don't create Indian tribes; we recognize Indian tribes. This is not an Indian tribe under the language of our laws.

I am afraid that what has happened here is that in 1998, the Supreme Court of the United States made a decision and they said Native Hawaiians could not have an organization if the voting membership was based upon being Native Hawaiian because the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution says you cannot vote based on race. So this is an attempt--it is a breathtaking attempt--to establish a new nation within the United States of America.

I suppose there might be a lot of aggrieved people in the United States who might like to establish a nation. This Nation isn't without pain. We have stories from our beginning, whether it is Native Americans, whether it is African Americans, whether it is Mormons who may have felt mistreated, murdered in State after State, whether it is one religion today--maybe it is Hasidic Jews or an Amish group. There are a great many people who, in our history, may not have been properly treated. But an understanding of American history is that it is a great saga of setting high goals for ourselves and then always moving toward those goals. We never reach them. We say ``all men are created equal,'' but we have never been. The men who wrote that owned slaves. But what have we done? We have systematically, over our history, chipped away, moving ahead, falling back, fighting a great Civil War, saving the Nation, waiting another hundred years before African Americans could sit at a lunch counter in Nashville, always moving toward that goal. Most of the debates in this Senate are about establishing high goals-- pay any price for freedom, equal opportunity, E pluribus unum. Those are our goals, and we never reach them, but we always try for them.

What is our goal here? Our goal is that we should hope that every single citizen in this wonderful State of Hawaii be equal--if there ever were a multiethnic, diverse State, it is Hawaii. It is a wonderful example of our diversity. According to the 2000 census, 40 percent of Hawaiians are of Asian descent, 24 percent are White, 9 percent say they are Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders, 7 percent claim to be Hispanic, 2 percent Black. Twenty-one percent report two or more racial identities. There is much diversity of which Hawaiians are proud and of which we are proud. What unites them? What unites us all is that we have become Americans. We are proud of where we came from, proud of our ancestry, but prouder to be American.

There may be some issues that need to be addressed. We can find ways to address them. There may be some wrongs that need to be righted. Certainly, Native Hawaiians would want to renew their culture and their customs and their language. All of us do that. I go to my family reunion of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians every summer. I have been to the Italian-American dinner here in Washington, DC. I never went to an event where there was more emotion or Italianness. But the greatest emotion came when the Italian Americans stood up and pledged allegiance to the United States. They didn't have a problem saying: We are proud to be Italian, but we are prouder to be American. So how could we be seriously discussing on the floor of the Senate establishing for 400,000 Americans who live there, I think from almost every State of this country, a new government based on race to which they would be privileged and the rest of us could not be a part of? That is not American. That might be the United Nations, but it is not the United States. It is not consistent in the most basic ways with the history of this country.

So I hope that my colleagues, who have considered this legislation as maybe not too important, as something that should be done primarily out of respect for our two distinguished friends from Hawaii, will look at this carefully and not be lulled in by comments that this isn't about sovereignty. I think Senator Akaka was very candid and very direct when he said the first objective of this bill was to establish a process to create an entity which would have a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

Mr. President, this is a dangerous precedent. It is the reverse of what it means to be an American. We have other issues that should come to the floor before this. I hope colleagues will think carefully before moving ahead on this piece of legislation.

I see the Senator from Alabama has arrived.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, although I share some of the concerns of the senior Senator from Massachusetts, I voted against tabling the McConnell amendment because I believe we need a voter identification card to reduce voter fraud. I support an appropriate identification card for Americans but did not support the REAL ID Act because I was concerned it would impose an unfunded mandate on the States and that the deadline for compliance was unattainable for most States. I still hold those concerns, but it is clear now that the REAL ID is to become the Federal standard. I hope the Senator from Kentucky and others will work to address these concerns in conference--and during the appropriations process--so that a realistic deadline can be set and sufficient funding provided to the States so that they may comply with this federal mandate.