Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act sponsored by Senators Specter and Leahy. The FAIR Act is a bill about American jobs. It will have a substantial effect on a number of jobs at Tennessee manufacturers such as Nissan, Saturn, and Eastman as well as hundreds of their Tennessee suppliers. That is because while it means faster, more efficient resolution of claims for those harmed by asbestos exposure, it also means certainty for manufacturers so that they can spend more of their money investing in their businesses and creating more American jobs.

Americans injured by asbestos are waiting too long and paying too much to adjudicate these claims. According to estimates from the RAND Institute, of the $70 billion expended on asbestos litigation through 2002, nearly 60 percent was spent on attorneys' fees and other transaction costs. Put another way, asbestos victims are only getting a little more than 40 cents of every dollar that is being paid out on asbestos claims. In addition, in many cases, these claimants are waiting more 3 years to collect this compensation as their cases wind their way through the tort system. As a result, many of these victims are not able to cover the costs of medical treatments that cannot be delayed. The FAIR Act will help claimants by capping attorneys' fees at 5 percent--and thereby putting 95 percent of the compensation paid out into the pockets of the victims. It will also ensure that victims get a ruling on their claim within 90 to 180 days from the Department of Labor--not 3 years or more.

Since the 1980s, the number of companies defending themselves from asbestos claims has risen from 300 to more than 8,400. More than 70 companies have gone bankrupt, resulting in more than 60,000 workers losing their jobs and retirees seeing their retirement funds shrink. In Tennessee, according to the 2002 Economic Census, more than 400,000 jobs are in the manufacturing sector. Without this bill, tens of thousands of those jobs may be shipped overseas as companies struggle to afford the enormous payouts that result under the current system.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has considered this issue for more than 20 years. Senator Specter and Senator Hatch before him held numerous meetings with stakeholders and members of the Judiciary Committee. The bill has gone through numerous revisions to accommodate issues raised by parties on all sides. Senator Specter and Senator Leahy have been cooperative, accommodating, flexible, and generous with their time. And they have produced a bill that has garnered support from a broad spectrum of manufacturers, insurers, and claimants.

The FAIR Act may not be perfect, but it will start us on the road toward achieving two critical goals: it allow people injured by asbestos to receive compensation quickly and efficiently, without spending years tied up in the courts and losing a large chunk of their award to attorneys' fees; and it will save jobs by giving American companies certainty with regard to the costs of compensating claimants.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico. First, there is nothing more important, along with the war on terror, than finding a way to keep our jobs from going to China, India, and other countries around the world. They have figured out how to increase their standard of living, and it has to do with brainpower.

What I want to say today is, first, I congratulate Senator Domenici, without whose leadership this would not have gotten to first base. He encouraged Senator Bingaman and I to go to work. He got our meeting with the President. It was he who presided over our homework sessions with the administration. It is he who has taken the leadership with Senator Bingaman on this bill to have 55 cosponsors prior to the President's speech tomorrow night. So I thank him first.

Second, I reiterate where this idea came from. It came not from Senators, not from lobbyists, nor from this or that clique. Senator Bingaman and I asked the people who should know--the experts at the National Academies--sthe answer to this question: exactly what do we need to do to keep our advantage in science and technology over the next 10 years so we can keep our jobs? They answered that question with 20 specific recommendations involving kindergarten through the 12th grade education, higher education, basic research, maintaining an entrepreneurial environment. These are ideas that many Senators on both sides of the aisle have advocated for several years, but the fact that the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Engineering joined together to say ``here is the blueprint'' is the reason this idea has gone so far. What it does is help keep our edge in science and technology.

I am looking forward to the President's remarks tomorrow night. It is my hope that he makes the Augustine report and the whole idea of keeping America on top and keeping our edge in science and technology a focus of his speech and of his next 3 years.

So it is my privilege today to ask unanimous consent on behalf of Senators Domenici, Bingaman, and myself to add as cosponsors Senators Lautenberg, Johnson, McConnell, Snowe, and now Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, who have asked to be added to S. 2197, S. 2198, and S. 2199 as cosponsors, as well as Senator Reed of Rhode Island who has asked to be added as a cosponsor of S. 2197, so that we now have 54 cosponsors of these important pieces of legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from Senator Bingaman and myself, encouraged by Senator Domenici, to the National Academy of Sciences on May 27, 2005, and a two-page summary of the Domenici-Bingaman-Alexander-Mikulski legislation, which has 54 cosponsors, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand the leader may be coming. If he does, I will suspend my remarks to allow him to speak, then I will resume. Are we in morning business?

I rise to make a few remarks on Judge Alito. The Presiding Officer is from the next State over. North Carolina and Tennessee have the same mountains, and he may be familiar with a story we tell at home about the old Tennessee judge.

It is told in one of our mountain counties that the lawyers showed up one morning in the courthouse, all prepared for a 3-day or 4-day trial. They had their litigants and their witnesses and their books. They had done the research. The judge came in, sat down behind the bench, and said: Fellows, we can save a lot of time. I had a phone call last night, and I pretty well know the facts. Just give me a little bit on the law.

The lawyers were pretty disappointed because it was obvious to them that the judge already had pretty well made up his mind about what to do about that case. That is not what they expected. They thought they were coming before a judge--at least one side did--who was impartial and they wouldn't know whose side the judge was on.

When Judge Alito is sworn in, he will take two oaths. The first is the constitutional oath that we Senators took. The second is the judicial oath, which makes a pretty good job description of a Justice on the Supreme Court: I--and he will say his name--do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.

Judge Alito's statements before the Judiciary Committee suggest to me that he understands very well his duty of impartiality under these oaths. He said he will uphold the Constitution. These are his words:

The court should make its decision based on the

Constitution and the law. It should not sway in the wind of

public opinion at any time.

Judge Alito has said that the Constitution applies to everyone:

No person in this country is above the law. That includes

the President and it includes the Supreme Court.

He said he won't allow his personal views to compromise his impartiality. He also said:

I would approach the question with an open mind and I would

listen to the arguments that were made.

The other side has taken an unusual position. They keep asking, Whose side is he on? Is he on the side of the rich or of the poor, the big or the little, the Black or the White, business or labor? Is he on the side of the easterner or the westerner? For us to know whose side he is on would violate his oath. He can't tell us that. The American people know that.

I had the privilege of being Governor of my home State. In that process, I appointed 50 judges. I never asked a single one of them whose side they were on. I appointed Democrats and Republicans. I appointed the first African American judges, and the first women to be circuit court judges. I didn't ask them where they stood on abortion or the death penalty. I tried to find out about their character, about their intelligence, about how they would treat people before them, about their respect for law and their understanding of our country. I have been proud of those 50 appointees.

I am disappointed that some in this Chamber would keep asking of Judge Alito and other nominees of the President, Whose side is he on? Is he on the side of the rich or the poor, of the big, of the little? He must take an oath of office that says he will not be on anybody's side and that when the lawyers come before him to argue a case, they don't know where he is going to come down except that he is going to come down according to his oath, according to the law.

Americans have shown that they know better. I had the privilege of being elected to the Senate in 2002. That was an issue in my election: Did the people of Tennessee want to confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, people who would interpret the law, not make it up as they go along? The people of Tennessee don't want a judge who takes sides before the case is argued.

I said a few months after I arrived here that I would not participate in a filibuster of any President's nominee. I might vote against them for one reason or another, but I wouldn't participate in a filibuster. Each one of them deserves an up-or-down vote. I am looking forward to casting this vote.

I would like to express my great respect for the woman Judge Alito will succeed. Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. She was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. She has distinguished herself there by her intelligence, her independence, and scholarship. She has been a wonderful representative for our country. She is a great symbol for other men and women, reminding us that American history is a work in progress and that we had a long way to go when she was appointed, as we still do.

She tells a wonderful story of how, when she graduated from Stanford Law School, she applied for a job with a Los Angeles firm. Even though she graduated near the top of her class, she was told they only had places for women as secretaries. A few years later, a partner in the same firm was the Attorney General of the United States, and he called her and asked her to fly to Washington from Arizona so that he could talk with her about being President Reagan's appointee to the Supreme Court. She has come a long way, and she has helped our country come a long way. As we consider Judge Alito, we certainly salute Justice O'Connor.

I look forward to casting my vote for the confirmation of Judge Alito. His resume reads like a resume any of us who were once in law school dreamed we could have: his degree from Yale, his work as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, as Assistant to the Solicitor General, as U.S. Attorney, nearly 16 years of service on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and receiving a unanimous ``well qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association, which is the highest possible rating. He has based his opinions and dissents on sound

legal arguments. He appears to be unswayed by the particular details of the case that are irrelevant to the legal issues at stake. He seems to understand that he is not to be on anybody's side, that he is supposed to enforce the law impartially and respect the Constitution. In short, Samuel Alito has demonstrated judicial temperament suitable for a nominee.

I believe he will serve with distinction. I am pleased to support his confirmation as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, today I join with Senators Domenici, Bingaman, Mikulski, and more than 25 other senators, in introducing the Protecting America's Competitive Edge (PACE) Act--a package of three bills to enhance American brainpower.

America is now playing in a tougher league. China and India are competing for our jobs. The best way to keep those jobs in America is to maintain our brainpower edge in science and technology.

The story of this bill really began last May, when Senator Jeff Bingaman and I, with the encouragement of Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, asked the National Academies this question: ``What are the ten top actions, in priority order, that Federal policy makers could take over the next decade to help the United States keep our advantage in science and technology?''

To answer the question, the Academies assembled a distinguished panel of business, government, and university leaders headed by Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, that included three Nobel Prize winners. They took our question seriously. We asked them for 10 recommendations; they gave us 20 when they released their report in October.

In October, the Energy Committee held a hearing to learn more about those recommendations from Mr. Augustine and the Academies. It was the first opportunity Congress had to hear the Academies' answer to our question.

Following those hearings, Chairman Domenici, Senator Bingaman, and I convened a series of ``homework sessions'' with members of the Academies, outside experts, and some officials in the Administration. These off-the-record sessions allowed Senators and Administration officials to grapple with the Academies' recommendations and consider how best to implement them.

Last November, Norm Augustine led a dinner discussion hosted by Senator Frist with about 30 Senators on the report's recommendations right here in the Capitol. And then, in December, Senators Domenici, Bingaman, and I met with President Bush where he graciously listened to our ideas. The President was very engaged and knew these issues well.

Now, as the Senate begins its session for the year, we are introducing this legislation to implement the recommendations of the Augustine Report. Next week, when the President addresses the nation in his State of the Union address, it is my hope that he will make this a focus of the address and his remaining three years in office.

This bill is all about brainpower and the relationship of brainpower to good American jobs.

The United States produces more than 25 percent of all the wealth in the world (in terms of GDP)--but has only 5 percent of the world's population. We are a fortunate country indeed. The Academies explain this phenomenon in this way: ``. . . as much as 85 percent of measured growth in U.S. income per capita is due to technological change.''

This technological change is the result, in the report's words, of an outpouring ``of well trained people and the steady stream of scientific and technological innovations they produce.''

Most of this good fortune comes from the American advantage in brainpower: an educated workforce, and our technological innovation. The United States has the finest system of colleges and universities on earth, attracting more than 500,000 of the brightest foreign students. No country has national research laboratories to match ours. Americans have won the most Nobel prizes in science and registered the most patents. We have invented electricity, the computer chip, and the internet.

As one scientist noted, we don't have science and technology because we're rich. We're rich because we have science and technology.

Yet we worry that America may be losing its brainpower advantage. American experts who travel to China, India, Finland, Singapore, Ireland, and elsewhere come home saying, ``Watch out.''

The Augustine Report found that we are right to be worried: Only 6 percent of American college-age students earn degrees in the natural sciences or engineering, trailing students in China and India and a dozen other countries, many of which have doubled or tripled their degree output over the last decade. For the cost of one chemist or engineer in the United States, a company can hire five chemists in China or 11 engineers in India. China is spending billions to recruit the best Chinese scientists from American universities to return home to build up Chinese universities.

The report also found signs that we are not keeping up: U.S. 12th graders performed below the average of 21 countries on tests of general knowledge in math. In 2003 only three American companies ranked among the top 10 recipients of new U.S. patents. Of 120 new chemical plants being built around the world with price tags of $1 billion or more, one is in the United States and 50 are in China.

To maintain America's global leadership in research and development, the Augustine Report made twenty wide-ranging and urgent recommendations for U.S. schools, universities, research, and economic policy that include: Recruit 10,000 new science and math teachers with 4-year scholarships and train 250,000 current teachers in summer institutes. Create a new coordinating office to manage a centralized research infrastructure fund of at least $500 million per year. Provide 30,000 scholarships and graduate fellowships for scientists. Increase federal funding for basic research in the physical sciences by 10 percent a year for 7 years. Give American companies a bigger research and development tax credit so they will keep their good jobs here instead of move them offshore. Create a new agency in the Department of Energy modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to conduct breakthrough R&D, that will lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Some may wince at the price tag--$9 billion in the first year, and then it edges upward over the full seven year period. I believe the cost is low, relative to the benefits. Maintaining America's brainpower advantage will not come on the cheap.

This year, one third of State and local budgets go to fund education. More than 50 percent of American students have a Federal grant or loan to help pay for college. The Federal Government spends nearly $30 billion per year on research at universities and another $34 billion to fund 36 national research laboratories.

Just last year, Congress spent $85 billion to fight the war in Iraq, $71 billion for hurricane recovery, and $352 billion to finance the national debt. If we fail to invest the funds necessary to keep our brainpower advantage, we'll not have an economy capable of producing enough money to pay the bills for war, social security, hurricanes, Medicaid, and debt.

The legislation we are introducing today has strong bipartisan support. It is our hope President Bush will make it a focus of his State of the Union Address and of his remaining 3 years in office--and that future candidates for president will make it the center of their campaigns. Aside from our national security, there is no greater challenge than maintaining our brainpower advantage so we can keep our good paying jobs and strengthen our economy. That is the surest way to keep America on top.

I hope my colleagues will join us in this critical effort to protect America's competitive edge.

Mr. President, today I join with Senators Domenici, Bingaman, Mikulski, and more than 25 other senators, in introducing the Protecting America's Competitive Edge (PACE) Act--a package of three bills to enhance American brainpower.

America is now playing in a tougher league. China and India are competing for our jobs. The best way to keep those jobs in America is to maintain our brainpower edge in science and technology.

The story of this bill really began last May, when Senator Jeff Bingaman and I, with the encouragement of Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, asked the National Academies this question: ``What are the ten top actions, in priority order, that Federal policy makers could take over the next decade to help the United States keep our advantage in science and technology?''

To answer the question, the Academies assembled a distinguished panel of business, government, and university leaders headed by Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, that included three Nobel Prize winners. They took our question seriously. We asked them for 10 recommendations; they gave us 20 when they released their report in October.

In October, the Energy Committee held a hearing to learn more about those recommendations from Mr. Augustine and the Academies. It was the first opportunity Congress had to hear the Academies' answer to our question.

Following those hearings, Chairman Domenici, Senator Bingaman, and I convened a series of ``homework sessions'' with members of the Academies, outside experts, and some officials in the Administration. These off-the-record sessions allowed Senators and Administration officials to grapple with the Academies' recommendations and consider how best to implement them.

Last November, Norm Augustine led a dinner discussion hosted by Senator Frist with about 30 Senators on the report's recommendations right here in the Capitol. And then, in December, Senators Domenici, Bingaman, and I met with President Bush where he graciously listened to our ideas. The President was very engaged and knew these issues well.

Now, as the Senate begins its session for the year, we are introducing this legislation to implement the recommendations of the Augustine Report. Next week, when the President addresses the nation in his State of the Union address, it is my hope that he will make this a focus of the address and his remaining three years in office.

This bill is all about brainpower and the relationship of brainpower to good American jobs.

The United States produces more than 25 percent of all the wealth in the world (in terms of GDP)--but has only 5 percent of the world's population. We are a fortunate country indeed. The Academies explain this phenomenon in this way: ``. . . as much as 85 percent of measured growth in U.S. income per capita is due to technological change.''

This technological change is the result, in the report's words, of an outpouring ``of well trained people and the steady stream of scientific and technological innovations they produce.''

Most of this good fortune comes from the American advantage in brainpower: an educated workforce, and our technological innovation. The United States has the finest system of colleges and universities on earth, attracting more than 500,000 of the brightest foreign students. No country has national research laboratories to match ours. Americans have won the most Nobel prizes in science and registered the most patents. We have invented electricity, the computer chip, and the internet.

As one scientist noted, we don't have science and technology because we're rich. We're rich because we have science and technology.

Yet we worry that America may be losing its brainpower advantage. American experts who travel to China, India, Finland, Singapore, Ireland, and elsewhere come home saying, ``Watch out.''

The Augustine Report found that we are right to be worried: Only 6 percent of American college-age students earn degrees in the natural sciences or engineering, trailing students in China and India and a dozen other countries, many of which have doubled or tripled their degree output over the last decade. For the cost of one chemist or engineer in the United States, a company can hire five chemists in China or 11 engineers in India. China is spending billions to recruit the best Chinese scientists from American universities to return home to build up Chinese universities.

The report also found signs that we are not keeping up: U.S. 12th graders performed below the average of 21 countries on tests of general knowledge in math. In 2003 only three American companies ranked among the top 10 recipients of new U.S. patents. Of 120 new chemical plants being built around the world with price tags of $1 billion or more, one is in the United States and 50 are in China.

To maintain America's global leadership in research and development, the Augustine Report made twenty wide-ranging and urgent recommendations for U.S. schools, universities, research, and economic policy that include: Recruit 10,000 new science and math teachers with 4-year scholarships and train 250,000 current teachers in summer institutes. Create a new coordinating office to manage a centralized research infrastructure fund of at least $500 million per year. Provide 30,000 scholarships and graduate fellowships for scientists. Increase federal funding for basic research in the physical sciences by 10 percent a year for 7 years. Give American companies a bigger research and development tax credit so they will keep their good jobs here instead of move them offshore. Create a new agency in the Department of Energy modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to conduct breakthrough R&D, that will lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Some may wince at the price tag--$9 billion in the first year, and then it edges upward over the full seven year period. I believe the cost is low, relative to the benefits. Maintaining America's brainpower advantage will not come on the cheap.

This year, one third of State and local budgets go to fund education. More than 50 percent of American students have a Federal grant or loan to help pay for college. The Federal Government spends nearly $30 billion per year on research at universities and another $34 billion to fund 36 national research laboratories.

Just last year, Congress spent $85 billion to fight the war in Iraq, $71 billion for hurricane recovery, and $352 billion to finance the national debt. If we fail to invest the funds necessary to keep our brainpower advantage, we'll not have an economy capable of producing enough money to pay the bills for war, social security, hurricanes, Medicaid, and debt.

The legislation we are introducing today has strong bipartisan support. It is our hope President Bush will make it a focus of his State of the Union Address and of his remaining 3 years in office--and that future candidates for president will make it the center of their campaigns. Aside from our national security, there is no greater challenge than maintaining our brainpower advantage so we can keep our good paying jobs and strengthen our economy. That is the surest way to keep America on top.

I hope my colleagues will join us in this critical effort to protect America's competitive edge.

Mr. President, today the Senate approved the Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005. I voted in favor of this bill because it is the first comprehensive deficit reduction legislation approved by the Senate since 1997, and it will save $39.7 billion over the next 5 years. This is an important first step toward containing the unsustainable growth of entitlement programs and putting us on the road to a balanced budget.

None of us is happy about everything that is included in a big bill like this. One area in which I am disappointed is language reauthorizing the welfare reform program, also known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF. This is a program that needs to be reauthorized on a more permanent basis, instead of the temporary extensions that have been approved year after year.

In thinking about reauthorization of welfare reform, I believe three things need to happen. First, States need more authority to decide what will work best in their State. Second, States need more flexibility to allow educational activities to count toward work hours. I have been told by TANF offices in Tennessee that if they can get TANF recipients into school, they do not see them on the welfare rolls again. Third, we need more money for child care. If the TANF program is going to require poor parents--including single mothers--to work, these parents must have safe child care for their children. Last year, I supported--and the Senate passed by a vote of 78 to 20--an amendment to increase child care funding by $6 billion. This bill only includes a $1 billion increase for child care.

Unfortunately, the welfare reform language included in the deficit reduction bill falls short in all three of these areas. I would have preferred that the Senate hold a full debate on TANF reauthorization, with Senators able to offer amendments. However, I understand that the Senate conferees felt that the deficit reduction bill represented the best chance of reauthorization after years of delay and temporary extensions.

In the coming year, I look forward to working with Chairman Grassley and other colleagues to craft legislation that addresses some of these shortcomings and continues the successful transformation of the TANF program that began with enactment of the landmark welfare reform law in 1996.

Reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent to follow the distinguished Senator from Vermont.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, the majority leader has said that after the first of the year we would turn our attention to immigration, and well we should. Some estimates show that 10 to 20 million people living in the United States may be here illegally. Whatever one may think about immigration, one has to start with the idea that our Nation is based on a few principles, and one of the most important of those principles is the rule of law. This is a problem we need to address and the American people have a right to demand we address. The buck stops here. This is not something Governors can deal with or school districts can deal with. It stops here.

Not long ago in Nashville I gave a speech in which I attempted to say I believe there are three parts to a comprehensive solution to immigration, the kind of comprehensive solution President Bush has talked about. Part No. 1 is border security. I had no more said the words ``border security'' than the whole room rose and began to applaud; they were not interested in the rest of the story. I would like to say a word today about the rest of the story, what our immigration debate needs to include in addition to border security.

Let me turn to a lesson we are learning from across the ocean, from Great Britain and France. Last month, the British Government instituted a citizenship test that immigrants to Britain must pass before becoming British citizens. When he announced a number of related measures regarding British citizenship last August, Prime Minister Tony Blair said:

People who want to be British citizens should share our

values and our way of life.

These new rules were spurred by the terrorist attack in London last July in which four young men, three of whom were British-born children of Pakistani immigrants and the fourth who was a Jamaican immigrant, bombed the London subway system. In addition to taking new security precautions, the British Government recognized the need to ensure that immigrants to their country, and especially those who become citizens, integrate into British society and demonstrate loyalty to their newly adopted homeland.

France is similarly facing a period of self-examination on integrating immigrants and the children of immigrants following the 2- week violent civil unrest that spread across many of France's poor suburbs last month. That violence resulted in 126 policemen being injured, 9,000 cars burned, and $250 million in damages, according to the French Government.

Like their British neighbors across the English Channel, the French are trying to figure out how to integrate this dissatisfied population--the children of Muslim immigrants--into French society. According to the French Ambassador:

[T]hese teenagers feel alienated and discriminated against

both socially and economically. They don't want to assert

their differences. They want to be considered 100-percent

French.

We should learn a lesson from our friends across the ocean. As we in the Senate begin to debate our immigration policy next month in the Senate, we would be wise to consider their quandary. Too often discussions on immigration reform begin and end with securing our borders. Securing our borders is step No. 1, but there are two additional, essential steps to any comprehensive solution to our immigration problems.

Step No. 2, once we have secured our borders, is to create a lawful status for those whom we welcome to work here and those we welcome to study here. We should remember who we are. This is a nation of immigrants. President Franklin D. Roosevelt began one of his addresses, ``My fellow immigrants.'' Once we secure the borders, once we deal with the rule of law problem, we need then to remember step No. 2, which is that we have millions of people whom we welcome to work here in all aspects of our society. They need a legal status that respects our rule of law. We welcome the 572,000 foreign students who come here to study. We hope many of them stay here. They are helping to create a higher standard of living for us. If they go home they become ambassadors for American values. Recently, Dr. Steven Chu, an American who was the cowinner of the 1997 Nobel prize in physics, pointed out to me that 60 percent of Americans

who have won the Nobel Prize in physics are immigrants or the children of immigrants.

That is a second point--a lawful status for workers, and a lawful status for students and researchers, whom we want to come here. We want them here because their being here helps raise our standard of living.

The third part that is essential to comprehensive immigration reform is an examination of how we help new immigrants to this country become American.

In short, we need to have a discussion about fulfilling the promise to the national motto that is right above the head of the Presiding Officer: E pluribus unum; from many, one. How do we do that? We do that by reminding ourselves that while we have all of this magnificent diversity in this country, that is not our greatest accomplishment. Our greater accomplishment is that we have turned that magnificent diversity into one nation; that while we are proud of where we came from, we are prouder of where we are. We are united by principles, not race. We are united by a common language, English, and by our history of constantly struggling to reach high ideals which our Founders set for us as a nation.

We welcome new immigrants to join in that struggle toward becoming Americans. We have an advantage, therefore, over our European friends. We have been doing this through our whole history. We are unique in our world in our attitude toward welcoming others. We are different because under our Constitution, becoming an American can have nothing to do with ancestry. America is an idea, not a race.

One can see that in the various naturalization ceremonies which occur in courthouses all around this country, as new citizens raise their hands and take an oath that George Washington first administered to his officers at Valley Forge when he declared that he had no allegiance or obedience to King George III, and he renounced, refused, and abjured any allegiance or obedience to him, and swore he would support, maintain, and defend the United States. That is what George Washington and his officers said. That is the standard for every American citizen who comes to this country.

Once we secure our borders, once we establish a lawful status for workers and for students we welcome here, then we should set about helping prospective citizens become American.

Senator Cornyn and I have introduced a bill that we hope will be included as part of comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Our bill, the Strengthening American Citizenship Act, would do the following: provide $500 grants for English courses; allow prospective citizens who become fluent in English to apply for citizenship 1 year early; provides for grants to organizations for courses in American history and civics, and authorize the creation of a foundation to assist in those efforts; codify the oath of allegiance that George Washington gave to his officers and took himself, and which is substantially administered to every new citizen today; direct the Department of Homeland Security to carry out a strategy to highlight the moving ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens; and establish an award to recognize the contributions of new citizens to our great Nation.

Real immigration reform must encompass all three important steps: First, securing our borders. Second, a legal status for guest workers and guest students. Third, I hope I have reminded us of the importance today of remembering that motto we see when we are here in the Senate chamber that indispensable to immigration reform is helping prospective citizens become American.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a statement I made to the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education on December 9, 2005, in Nashville.

Mr. President, Secretary Spellings has appointed this commission to look at the future of higher education. Other than the war against terror, keeping our brain power advantage so we can create new jobs here in the United States and keep our jobs from going to China, India, Finland, and Ireland, is the biggest challenge we face as a nation.

I made a statement before the Commission on the Future of Higher Education that it adopt the recommendations of the National Academies' ``Augustine Report'' and urge the President to make it a focus of his State of the Union Address. The report recommends 20 steps to keep that brain power advantage, and was written by a distinguished panel of business, government, and university leaders headed by Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin.

I also urged the commission to make certain that we deregulate higher education; to make certain that the President appoints an adviser to coordinate all of the Federal Government's responsibilities for higher education; to urge Congress to overhaul Medicaid so States may properly fund higher education; to put a spotlight on the greatest disappointment in higher education today, our colleges of education; and, finally, to put a spotlight on the greatest threat to broader public support for funding of higher education, the growing political one-sidedness which has infected most campuses in an absence of true diversity of opinion.

I salute Secretary Spellings and her distinguished commission. I look forward to their recommendations. There could not be a more important subject to our country's future for them to consider than how do we take this remarkable system of higher education that we built in this country--the best in the world--and strengthen it so it can play a pivotal role in helping Americans keep good-paying jobs in the United States.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I believe the Senator from Rhode Island had an inquiry.

Three minutes.

While my friend, the Senator from Connecticut, is on the floor, I would like to change the subject for just 2 or 3 minutes and talk about the issue of babies born prematurely, an area he and I have been working on together. Premature infants are 14 times more likely to die in the first year of their lives. This is Prematurity Awareness Month. Tomorrow is Prematurity Awareness Day. It is the No. 1 cause of infant death in the first month of life in the United States. Premature babies who survive may suffer lifelong consequences, including cerebral palsy, mental retardation, chronic lung disease, vision and hearing loss. Half the cases of premature birth have no known cause, and any pregnant woman is at risk.

That is why the Senator from Connecticut and I have introduced the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers Who Deliver Infants Early Act, which we call the PREEMIE Act. It expands research into the causes and prevention of prematurity and increases education and support services related to prematurity.

I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be added to our legislation in honor of Prematurity Awareness Day, which is tomorrow: Senators Bennett, Bingaman, Clinton, Bond, Cochran, Collins, Hagel, Inouye, Lieberman, Lugar, Obama, Lautenberg, Lincoln, and Talent.

The March of Dimes is our partner, a strong advocate for the PREEMIE bill. It is leading the prematurity campaign. It will sponsor a symposium on prematurity research here in Washington, DC, on November 21 and 22.

I ask unanimous consent to add the name of the Senator from South Carolina.

It calls for a Federal research plan. I thank our colleagues for joining us in this effort. We hope the legislation will pass Congress this year.

With the permission of the Senator from Rhode Island, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Connecticut have a minute to make his comments on the legislation.

This week we have honored the memory of Rosa Parks, a woman whose quiet stand for her individual rights reverberated across this country.

We often discuss how far we have to go as a country in terms of race relations. Thinking of Rosa Parks reminds me how far we have come. In 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, African Americans in the South could not eat in the same restaurants, go to the same colleges, sleep in the same motels, be cared for in the same hospitals or compete on the same sports teams as other Americans.

Rosa Parks' actions that day in Montgomery helped spark a movement that changed our country forever for the better. Condoleezza Rice, one of the bright minds leading our country today, rightly noted at the memorial service in Alabama, ``. . . that without Mrs. Parks, I would not be standing here today as Secretary of State.''

Rosa Parks and those who took up the call inspired me, too. As editor of the student paper at Vanderbilt University, I wrote editorials urging desegregation of that school in 1962.

We made great progress in those days, as we continue to do today. Our Nation has always been a work in progress, ever since our Founders signed the Declaration of Independence declaring that ``all men are created equal.'' We're still working to achieve that noble goal of recognizing our equality. But thanks to Americans like Rosa Parks, we've come a long way.

Rosa Parks' courage has earned for her a noble place in the history of our Nation's struggle for equal opportunity. We will miss her.

Mr. President, I appreciate what the Senator from Nevada is seeking to do, but let me see if I can put his amendment in a broader perspective.

I agree, as a general rule, we ought to prevent the Government from directly competing with the private sector for a variety of reasons, but the E-Language Learning System is a unique case, and we ought to treat it as such. There are three reasons.

This is not just some program somebody cooked up and put in the budget; this is a program that was initiated directly by President Bush as a result of a summit meeting with President Jiang Zemin in China in October of 2001. This was a President Bush and Jiang Zemin summit proposal from 2001.

The President announced the intent of our Government to implement this program at the APEC summit in Shanghai after meeting with President Jiang. Secretary Powell reiterated the importance of the program at the APEC summit 1 year later.

We do a lot of talking around here about the importance of public diplomacy, how do we do a better job getting the American image, the American voice, the American culture and values seen around the world. This is an important part of our public diplomacy since it will help Chinese children learn English and learn more about the United States of America.

Of all of the foreign ``aid'' we have ever promoted since World War II, the most effective has been in education where their students study here or our students study there. This can be utilized to help American children learn Chinese and other critical foreign languages in the future, something that is important to our national security, according to the Hart-Rudman Report and the 9/11 Commission Report.

This is the first and most important point, this agreement between the President of the United States, George W. Bush, and the President of China. It is in our national interests.

The other two points, quickly. There has been some argument that the contract awarded to implement this program that was agreed upon by the Presidents of our two nations is somehow unfair. It is important for my colleagues to know that this contract was openly competed and conforms to the research and development requirement of the STAR schools legislation following the same rules followed on similar programs for the last 17 years. It

was awarded in open competition to Northrop Grumman and subcontracted to a company called Little Planet, a company in Nashville, TN. That is how I happened to know about it.

Some of the unhappy companies, I am told, met with the Department of Education to talk about how to cooperate with the program and are now complaining. Mr. President, $2.5 million of the taxpayers' dollars have already been spent in this program, more than one-third of the total contract. So we will be pulling the plug and wasting $2.5 million of taxpayers' dollars a third of the way through a program that was agreed to by the President of the United States and President Jiang Zemin of China and flushing the money right down the drain.

Finally, this fairly awarded contract was the result of the agreement between the leaders of our country and China and is being managed so it will help, not hurt, the private sector. In an effort to prevent unfair competition with the private sector, the Department of Education tells me it has agreed to share the results of its research to promote further development of the language software. In fact, the Department hopes the private sector will ``adopt [the program's] unique and advanced feature that [the Department is] researching and carefully testing, including authentic voice recognition, gaming, and research- based learning environments delivered through low-cost web-based technology.'' So the goal is, in the long run, to help the private sector.

In conclusion, while the amendment is well-intentioned, and I understand the Senator's point, it is the wrong approach. It is wrong because it stops a program agreed to by the leaders of two countries, a commitment that is in our national security interest, a commitment that is part of our public diplomacy. It was arrived at fairly. It was competed. A third of the money has already been spent. And the Department of Education has agreed to share the results of its research with the private sector.

I hope my colleagues will oppose this amendment and support it because it is in the national security interest of our country.

China is a pretty big country. There are several hundred million children there who might have an opportunity to learn English.

If our President, George W. Bush, in a meeting with the leader of China, thinks it is a good idea to bid out a $9 million contract to improve the ways we help Chinese children learn English, if he believes that is in our national security, I don't think we ought to pull the plug on it a third of the way through it. There is plenty of opportunity for the private sector in the United States to help hundreds of millions of Chinese children learn English, and I hope they will do that.

I hope my colleagues will vote against this amendment.

Mr. President, it would be my purpose to introduce an amendment that would increase funding for title I to the level President Bush has recommended. I propose that we set aside the pending amendment so that I may introduce that amendment. Perhaps we could vote on those two amendments.

Certainly.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his courtesy of allowing me--and the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Connecticut--allowing me 10 minutes to speak.

Mr. President, I am here in support of the budget point of order of the Senator from Pennsylvania to the Byrd amendment. Let me see if I can say in just a few minutes why I support that.

I would like to ask the Chair if he will let me know when I have 1 minute remaining.

Mr. President, the question is funding for the title I program, Federal funding for our public

schools across the country that helps disadvantaged children. It is a very important program. I heard the Senator from West Virginia describe the importance of it. I agree with him about the importance of the program, but to try to put things into perspective, let me make a few points.

First, the Senator from West Virginia, if I am not mistaken, is suggesting we spend $5 billion more, $2.5 billion a year on this important program. But he has not found some other place in the budget to reduce the spending. So this is $5 billion beyond the budget, and this comes at a time when all of the committees of the Senate have been working hard on deficit reduction. In the agriculture committee, in the education committee, in almost every committee, we are working at deficit reduction. Because we are at war, because we have had three terrible hurricanes, because we have new homeland security needs, and because entitlement spending--mandatory spending--is growing out of control, we are all trying to do a good job of living better within our means. So we are working to have a deficit reduction of $35 billion, and this would add another $5 billion in the opposite direction.

The second point I would like to make to put this into perspective is that, as important as this program is, the Federal Government is not the principal source of funding for K-12 education. We only spend 7 or 8 percent. States don't spend money for national defense by and large, and we don't spend much money for K-12. We spend 7 or 8 percent. The State and local governments have the major responsibility for our elementary and secondary schools.

The third thing I would like to mention to put things in perspective is that money isn't everything. The top five State spenders in terms of dollars, total dollars for kindergarten through the 12th grade, have the widest achievement gaps between White students and Minority students, Hispanic students and African-American students. For example, in Massachusetts, a State which spends about $9,500 per student, there is a 33-percent gap between White and Minority students. In Connecticut, which spends even more, more than $10,000 per student, there is also a significant gap between White and Minority students. So even the States that spend the most money do not get the best results. Money is not everything.

Another point to put this in perspective: we are spending more on education in our country today than at any time in history--more than we did when we had a surplus, more than we did when we were not at war, more than we did when we didn't have big hurricanes and a terrorist attack and homeland security concerns. And Federal increases for K-12, even though they are a smaller part of the pie, have gone up more rapidly than State increases over the last several years.

For example, in Tennessee, my home State, there is $50 million a year, $25 million of it new money, for teacher training, to help teachers become highly qualified.

Now, that is a lot of money. Those are Federal dollars. It would be enough money to give every teacher about an $858 pay increase a year. So the State could choose to use that money to help all of those teachers go to the community college or some other program to become better trained teachers, or the State could use those Federal dollars to give every Tennessee teacher an $800 pay raise based on some merit program. So there is a lot of new Federal money.

The other argument that I heard a great deal about was that we are not funding up to the level of authorization. Mr. President, that is a convenient political argument, but let us think about what we mean by that. I do not have the figures--I wish I did--of how much money we have authorized to be spent for all the programs of the federal government. But if we spent all the way up to that authorization, which thankfully we don't, there would not be enough printing presses in Washington, DC, to print that much money. We almost never spend up to the authorization for every defense program or for health or for HIV/ AIDS or for any other part of the Federal budget. We have set an authorization level as sort of a top, a maximum, and then we appropriate every year what we can afford to spend based upon the needs that we see.

So the idea that we are not appropriating to the authorization level is not a valid basis upon which to cast this vote. Also, I think it is important to note that there is a lot of money already appropriated by the Federal Government that is unspent. The Department of Education has some figures on that. The most conservative estimate is that prior to this year, so not even counting money appropriated in this fiscal year, there is 1.7 billion Federal dollars that we have appropriated to State and local governments for schools that is waiting to be spent, which raises the question: Shouldn't we be cautious about how much more we spend?

Now, the budget that we are acting on would add $100 million to title I, bringing the number up to 12.8 billion Federal dollars, or a 47- percent increase since the last year of President Clinton. That is a big increase, and just to put this in perspective again, I have this chart. I think to be fair about it we would have to say President Bush, this President, and the Congress with which he has served in the last 2 years, have been good friends to title I.

During President Clinton's time in office, 8 years, the increase was $2.4 billion. President Clinton cared about education. I know that; I served with him when he was Governor. We worked together on those things with other Governors, too. And he felt it was important over his 8 years to increase title I by $2.4 billion. I salute him and those past Congresses for having done that. But if we are going to salute him and those past Congresses, I think we ought to pat ourselves on the back a little bit, and this President, because in this President's first 4 years he increased funding by $4 billion. And so did the Congress. So it is $4 billion for the first 4 years of Bush, $2.4 billion for the 8 years of Clinton.

Now, one may say, well, this was after No Child Left Behind was enacted; it should have gone up. And that is correct, it should have gone up. I was not here when that happened, but the Congress looked at that and said we made a new commitment. We need additional dollars for title I. We need additional funds for IDEA. We need additional funds for teacher training. We need additional funds for some of the things we have asked the States to do. So we have increased funding for title I over 4 years by 47 percent--over 5 years.

So including this budget, title I would be up to $12.8 billion, or 47 percent since the last year of President Clinton.

I am here today agreeing with the distinguished Senator from West Virginia that title I is an immensely important program. I am proud of the fact that the Congress and President Bush have over the last 4 years increased it by $4 billion. That builds on significant increases in title I that have been approved by Congress during the time of President Clinton and even before that. It may be that as time goes on and we see the need, and we are not in the middle of a war and we don't have three hurricanes of Titanic proportion and homeland security becomes less of a risk, we will have more money available. But in these times I believe the proper thing to do is to devote this amount of money to title I and support the budget point of order of the Senator from Pennsylvania.

I thank the Chair, and I thank the Senators for giving me this opportunity to speak before the vote.

Mr. President, I join the majority leader in the resolution that I have cosponsored honoring the Grand Ole Opry on its 80th birthday.

I ask unanimous consent to bring on the Senate floor this piece of demonstrative evidence which I hold in my hand and to which I will refer in a moment.

Those of us of a certain age will recognize this straw hat with a garland of flowers and a price tag that says $1.98 as the kind of hat that Minnie Pearl wore on the Grand Ole Opry on Friday and Saturday nights every year for about 40 years. Most of the time, Minnie Pearl was the Grand Ole Opry, along with Roy Acuff. She welcomed people with: Howdy, I'm so proud to be here. I didn't say it the way she would always say it. Thousands and thousands of Americans sat on the uncomfortable wooden pews in the back of the Ryman Auditorium and later at the Opry to watch this radio show. One of those was a young man from Minnesota named Garrison Keillor, who, in the 1970s, sat back there and imagined the show which we call today ``The Prairie Home Companion.''

A couple weekends ago, I was the guest announcer on the Grand Ole Opry. They didn't trust me with the Goo Goo candy bar commercial or with the 7 p.m. show which is nationally televised, so I was on at 8. But I did get to do the Martha White flour commercial and to introduce Porter Waggoner three times.

There is nothing quite like the Grand Ole Opry. There are 3,400 people out there every Friday night, every Saturday night, now sometimes on Tuesdays. Flashbulbs are popping. Everybody is having a good time.

There was Jimmy C. Newman from Louisiana who next year will be on the Grand Ole Opry for 50 years. There was Susan Haynes, the daughter of my law school roommate. This is her first year on the Grand Ole Opry. There was Carol Lee and Nora Lee, the back-up singers. They have been there a long time, too.

At 7 o'clock, there was Vince Gill who ended his hour-long session with a piece of jazz music. The Grand Ole Opry is getting more diversified. There was Keith Bilbrey backstage interviewing people. He was explaining what Charlie McCoy, the great harmonicist, once said about the four stages of being a country music star which sound a lot like being a politician. Stage No. 1 is, Who is Charlie McCoy? Stage No. 2 is, Get me Charlie McCoy. Stage No. 3 is, Get me somebody who sounds like Charlie McCoy. And stage No. 4 is, Who is Charlie McCoy?

The Opry was started so that the National Life and Accident Insurance Company could sell debit insurance. They got a big tower in Nashville. I think it is 50,000 watts. So all the people who were on little radio stations came to Nashville so they could be on the big radio station.

That is when Roy Acuff and Chet Atkins and Archie Grandpappy Campbell and Dolly Parton all moved from east Tennessee to Nashville. If you understand how important the Alamo is to Texas, you will understand how important the Grand Ole Opry is to Tennesseans, not just Tennesseans but many Americans, the 3,400 who every Friday and Saturday night have gone to thousands and thousands of these radio shows.

No one represented the Opry in its spirit better than Minnie Pearl. There is a photograph of Minnie in dressing room No. 1 backstage, which was Roy Acuff's dressing room until he died, which was the dressing room that Vince Gill was using on the night I was there as the guest announcer. There on the wall was a picture of a young Minnie Pearl in the early 1940s with this hat or a hat similar to this one.

Where did this $1.98 price tag come from? I heard the story that night for the first time. Minnie was performing on the Opry. She pinned a garland of flowers to her hat. And during her performance, this price tag wiggled down and started dangling from her hat. She left it there for the next 40 years as a reminder that anybody can make a mistake and it is all right to make one.

Minnie Pearl was a talented woman who wanted to be Katharine Hepburn. As she said, that was already taken. She set a standard of conduct and style for the Grand Ole Opry that lasts and persists until today, and that style was simply that she was just a very nice person. She would sign the last autograph; she would say hello to anyone; she would pay a call on a Grand Ole Opry family member who was sick; she would see the last fan who had waited for 2 hours after the show.

Minnie Pearl told me one time: I have gotten to the point in life where I have decided if people are not nice, they are not so hot in my book no matter how big they are.

So in the spirit of Minnie Pearl and all of the thousands of Americans who have created and enjoyed the Grand Ole Opry, happy 80th birthday, Grand Ole Opry.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I join the majority leader. The President has made a wise decision.

I respectfully say, in choosing Sandy Mattice, by scholarship, by experience, by integrity, by background he should be an excellent judge.

I should say, also, that he follows an excellent judge, Al Edgar. We are contemporaries. We grew up at the same time, same age, in towns close to one another.

Sandy Mattice has big shoes to fill, but he will fill them well; he is well-qualified. I salute the President for his outstanding appointment and I join the majority leader in expressing my pride in the nomination and look forward to his confirmation.