Floor Statements

Wi11 the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I would also like to thank my colleagues for working together to craft this temporary emergency program to provide one-time assistance to all displaced school children in public and nonpublic schools. I am also pleased that we were able to develop this legislation in a way that provides financial assistance for all displaced school children without getting into ideological battles.

Of course.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, as you know, Hurricane Katrina had a devastating and unprecedented impact on students and schools not only in the disaster areas, but across the country. There are over 45,000 displaced students enrolled in Texas schools and over 3,900 enrolled in schools in my home State of Tennessee. This is an unprecedented situation, and it requires an appropriate response for students in public and nonpublic schools. But that response must be a temporary, one-time only program to address the particular needs of this situation, and that is what this bill accomplishes. It is not intended to set a precedent for anything except another disaster in which over 370,000 school children are displaced. Katrina did not discriminate among schoolchildren, and neither should we.

Of course.

Certainly. The bill creates one-time only emergency aid for the 2005-2006 school year. The bill explicitly states that the funds provided can only be used for expenses incurred during the current school year, and the entire bill sunsets on August 1, 2006.

Yes.

Yes, that is true.

Yes.

Mr. President, Hurricane Katrina displaced more than 1 million people, at least 20 times more than in any other disaster handled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and 372,000 of those displaced by Katrina are school-aged children, in kindergarten through the 12th grade. According to the U.S. Department of Education, schools in 49 States and the District of Columbia have opened their doors to help these children.

The legislation that Senators Enzi, Kennedy, Dodd and I introduce today will help all of Katrina's 372,000 displaced school children. Katrina did not discriminate among school children, and neither do we. We propose providing up to $6,000 per student during this school year to help States, school districts and schools defray the costs of receiving any child displaced by Katrina. In the case of children with disabilities, the maximum amount will be $7,500 per student. This legislation will help children attending both public and nonpublic schools. Our bill is temporary, one time impact aid, makes no permanent change Federal education laws and will not be extended after this school year. It minimizes costs by making payments quarterly, taking into account the fact that during the year many children are returning to their home communities.

It also requires the Secretary of Education to verify head counts of students eligible for aid, and the States must return to the U.S. Treasury any unused funds. States, as part of their application process, will be able to look at the income of families attending nonpublic schools when determining what aid should be available, although it is my strong hope that in doing this, the States will remember that almost any displaced family is suffering hardship and that burdensome means testing requirements could slow down much needed humanitarian help.

Nine States have received more than a thousand of these displaced students, with the largest number being in Louisiana and Mississippi, the two States most heavily damaged by Katrina. In addition, Texas has enrolled as many as 60,000 students. Houston Independent School District, which has enrolled roughly 4,700 displaced students, has hired 180 new teachers, added 37 new bus routes and ordered about 10,000 new textbooks to accommodate the students. Georgia has accepted more than 9,000 students, Alabama almost 5,400 students, and my home State of Tennessee has enrolled almost 4,000 students.

While most of these children are in public schools, private schools have also been essential to this humanitarian effort. This should not surprise us because in the four Louisiana parishes hit the hardest by Katrina nearly one third or 61,000 of the 187,000 students attended nonpublic schools. According to the Department of Education, immediately after the hurricane, 50,000 students from the Catholic Archdiocese of Greater New Orleans were displaced. In Texas 4,000 of the 60,000 displaced students enrolled in private schools. In Tennessee, about 3,500 were in public schools and 500 in nonpublic schools.

In Baton Rouge according to a report on National Public Radio, immediately after the hurricane there were suddenly 5,000 to 10,000 displaced private school students who had no school to attend. To accommodate them, the Catholic Diocese in Baton Rouge struggled to establish satellite schools--some located great distances away--which these students attended at night.

In Memphis, where so many displaced students have gone, the willingness of private schools to accept these students is an enormous help to overcrowded public schools. The Memphis City schools have enrolled over 650 students and the adjacent Shelby County Public School District has enrolled over 600 new children, a difficult burden in a school system already growing by 1,000 students and one new school building each year. The Memphis Catholic Diocese has enrolled over 250 students to help share the load.

During the last 6 weeks, some of these children are returning home as schools reopen. But severe problems of displacement remain. For example, school officials in Baton Rouge and Livingston, LA, expect to receive a new influx of children moving to shelters in Houston and other locations. The schools in the three hardest hit parishes-- Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines--enrolled 81,196 public and 27,886 private and religious school students. Many of these schools are expected to remain closed for the entire school year.

In additional to helping all of Katrina's displaced school children, in fashioning this proposal we have sought to respect traditional State and local education prerogatives, to meet Federal constitutional requirements, to make the provisions simple enough that this aid could be administered quickly, and to avoid spending more taxpayer dollars than absolutely necessary.

This is how our proposal would work. To begin with, a State would submit to the U.S. Department of Education an

application identifying the number of Katrina displaced students attending public schools, Bureau of Indian Affairs--BIA--schools, and nonpublic schools in that State. The application will also describe the process for establishing and providing payments to student accounts for displaced students at nonpublic schools. After receiving Federal dollars, States would in turn make payments to school districts based upon the number of displaced students temporarily enrolled in public schools or nonpublic schools in that district. These payments would be up to $6,000 annually for each displaced student, except that for students receiving IDEA services the total payment would be as much as $7,500.

In the case of students enrolled in nonpublic schools, school districts would make payments to student accounts on behalf of each such displaced student. The amount of the payment to each of these student accounts would be the same as that for each student enrolled at a public school unless the tuition, fees, or transportation expenses for the nonpublic student are less than $6,000, or $7,500 in the case of a student receiving IDEA services.

This has not been an easy piece of legislation to write because the four of us do not agree on whether or how Federal dollars should follow children to private schools, including religious schools. But we do agree that there must be a one-time, temporary solution to help all of Katrina's displaced children. Therefore, we have found a way to create this one-time temporary impact aid that makes no permanent change in Federal education law and, insofar as we are concerned establishes no precedent--except perhaps for some other hurricane that displaces 372,000 children.

In other words, we have set aside disputing our ideological differences for another day and hope that our colleagues will do the same. We have done this in the spirit suggested by a Washington Post editorial last month which appeared shortly after the hurricane:

Just as it's important not to sneak in an enormous new

federal program for ideological reasons, it's also important

that neither Democrats, teachers unions nor anyone else rule

out for ideological reasons what could be a useful tool for

distributing relief funds. There could be pragmatic reasons

to put displaced students in private or parochial schools:

if, say, school districts are overcrowded, if students have

special needs or if that happens to be where they ended up.

So it might make sense to attach a sum to each student--

whether it's called a voucher or something else--as long as

that sum is given out in a limited number of places and for a

limited time, certainly not longer than the current school

year.

. . . any solution that would allow students to finish the

year with a minimum of fuss and disruption to themselves and

their families, and that would prevent school districts in

Texas and elsewhere from unduly burdened, should be welcomed.

If each of us maintains our traditional positions, there would be no way to help all of Katrina's displaced children. There was nothing traditional about what happened in Hurricane Katrina. We urgently need to help all children on a one-time, emergency basis.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the remarks of the Senator from Texas I be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask the Chair to inform me when I have 1 minute remaining.

Mr. President, in May, Senator Jeff Bingaman and I, with the encouragement of the Senate Energy Committee Chairman, Pete Domenici, asked the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine the following question: What are the top 10 actions, in priority order, that Federal policymakers could take over the next decade to help the United States keep our advantage in science and technology? That was our question.

To answer the question, the academies assembled a distinguished panel of business, government, and university leaders, headed by Norm Augustine, the former chair of Lockheed Martin. The panel also included three Nobel Prize laureates. The panel took our question seriously, and I intend to do everything within my power to take their recommendations seriously. Tomorrow, the Energy Committee will take the first step in that response by holding a hearing to hear from Mr. Augustine and the Academies. It will be the first opportunity Congress will have to hear their answer to our question.

This hearing is primarily about brainpower and the relationship of brainpower to good American jobs. The United States produces almost one-third of all the wealth in the world, in terms of gross domestic product but has only 5 percent of the world's population. We are a fortunate country indeed. The Academies explained 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.

The United States has taken extraordinary steps to help create this outpouring of trained people and new discoveries that have given us such a disproportionate share of the world's wealth. We have in our country almost all of the world's great research universities. We have a unique array of 36 Federal research laboratories. More Americans attend college than people in any other country, and the colleges they attend are the best in the world. We have had, until at least recently, a system of K-12 education unsurpassed in the world.

Government support for all these enterprises has been massive. In 2001, the Federal Government spent $22.5 billion for university-based research in science and engineering. This year the Government will provide 60 percent of American students with grants or loans to help them attend the college or university of their choice. The Federal Government will spend nearly $17 billion on grants and work-study programs and will provide an additional $52 billion in student loans.

In my last year as Governor of Tennessee, and I am sure it must have been as true in Ohio as well, or nearly true, half of State dollars and a larger proportion of local tax dollars went to support education. Our free-market environment encouraged innovation and enterprise, as well as billions of dollars invested in corporate research. Finally, to top it all off, while we have been outsourcing jobs, we have been insourcing brainpower--572,000 foreign students attend our colleges and universities. One-half of the students in our graduate programs of engineering, science, and computing are foreign students.

There are three reasons I put this question to the National Academies. First, Congress is facing huge budget challenges over the next decade as we grapple with restraining the growth of entitlement spending. I did not want tight budgets to squeeze out the necessary investments in science and technology that create good jobs. Second, as the Augustine report details, there are worrisome reports from all sides in the new competitive world marketplace that the United States will have to make an even greater effort to keep our high standard of living. To put it bluntly, people in India, China, Singapore, Finland, and Ireland know very well that since their brains work similar to our brains, if brainpower is the secret weapon to produce good jobs, then there is no reason they can't have a standard of living more similar to ours. They are working to develop better trained citizens and create their own stream of discoveries.

Third, I wanted to ask this question to those who should know the answer. Members of Congress are not the best ones to guess what the first 10 things we should do are, in the next 10 years, to keep our science and technology edge. This panel represents the best of those brains. Congress is not efficiently organized to deal with broad recommendations such as these. I intend to work with my colleagues to see that all of the recommendations in the report are introduced and given a fair hearing in various committees that have jurisdiction. I see the senior Senator from Missouri and the Senator from Ohio. Both of them have been leaders in this body on this very question of how do we keep our secret weapon, our brainpower advantage, in order to keep good jobs.

But what should happen is that President Bush should make this report the subject of his State of the Union Address and the focus of his remaining 3 years in office. This challenge cries out for executive leadership. This challenge is the real answer to most of our hopes and the solution to most of our big problems. From high gasoline prices to the outsourcing of chemical industry jobs, from the shortage of engineers to the growing number of lower wage jobs, from energy independence to controlling health care costs, this is the challenge that most Americans wish their Government would put up front.

We have begun the discussion with a bipartisan question to the wisest Americans who know the answer. We have a remarkable opportunity now because of the Augustine report, upon which we will have our hearing tomorrow. We will have an opportunity now to act on the recommendations of that report in the same spirit.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the following items: A copy of the executive summary of the Augustine report entitled ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm.'' This is the report of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine--4 recommendations with 20 specific steps that we ought to take over the next 10 years to keep our brainpower advantage so we can keep good jobs. Second, I ask unanimous consent to have printed after that the article by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times, on October 14, called ``Keeping Us in the Race,'' which is his commentary on the Augustine report.

Mr. President, it is an honor to serve in the same body with the Senator from Hawaii, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and with the Senator from Arizona because of his distinguished service in Vietnam. Whenever the Senator from Alaska, a pilot in World War II, who devoted most of his career here to understanding our defense policies, urges caution, I try to listen and pay attention. But I rise today in support of the amendment by the Senator from Arizona to the Defense appropriations bill, and I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, I have listened carefully to the debate about whether it is appropriate for Congress to set the rules on the treatment of detainees. I have listened carefully, but for me the question isn't even close.

The people, through their elected representatives, should set the rules for how detainees and prisoners under U.S. control are treated and interrogated. In the short term, the President can set the rules, but the war on terror is now 4 years old. We do not want judges making up the rules. We Republicans often say we don't like to see judges legislating from the bench. So for the longer term, the people should set the rules. That is why we have an independent Congress. That is our job. In fact, the Constitution says quite clearly that is what Congress should do. Article I, section 8, of the Constitution says that Congress and Congress alone shall have the power to make ``Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.'' So Congress, as the Senator from South Carolina said, has a responsibility to set clear rules here.

But the spirit of this amendment is really one that I still hope the White House will decide to embrace. In essence, as has been pointed out, the amendment codifies military procedures and policies-- procedures in the Army Field Manual and procedures regarding compliance with the Convention Against Torture signed by President Reagan. These amendments uphold or codify policies and procedures the administration says we are following today and intend to follow moving forward.

As the Senator from Arizona pointed out, his amendment would do two things: One, prohibit cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees. It is in specific compliance with the Convention Against Torture that was signed by President Reagan. The administration says we are already upholding that standard when it comes to treatment of detainees, so this should not be a problem.

Secondly, the McCain amendment states simply that the interrogation techniques used by the military on detainees shall be those specified by the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation. The military, not Congress, writes that manual. We are told that the technique specified in the manual will do the job. Further, it is under revision, as has been pointed out, to include techniques related to unlawful combatants, including classified portions that will continue to give the President and the military a great deal of flexibility.

If the President of the United States thinks these are the wrong rules, I would hope he would submit new rules to Congress so that we can debate them and pass them. I made this same suggestion in July, but no alternative rule has been suggested so far. I am one Senator who would give great weight to the President's views on this matter.

This has been a gray area for the courts over time. In this gray area, the question is, Who should set the rules? In the short term, surely the President can. In the longer term, the people should, through their elected representatives. We are their elected representatives. It is time for us to act. It is time for us to set the rules. We do not want courts legislating from the bench and writing the rules. That leaves us to do our job.

In summary, it is time for Congress, which represents the people, to clarify and set the rules for detention and interrogation of our enemies. If the White House would prefer different rules, I hope the President will tell us what rules and procedures he needs to succeed in the war on terror.

If the argument is whether it is appropriate for Congress to set clear standards, I believe Congress should set standards and will vote to support the amendment of the Senator from Arizona.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 20 minutes as in morning business.

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Alexander pertaining to the introduction of S. 1815 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, Senator Cornyn and I are introducing legislation to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act. The legislation would be called the Strengthening American Citizenship Act.

Over the next several weeks, this body will be engaged in a debate about immigration reform. It is an essential debate which we must have in order to honor our commitment to the rule of law. I believe that real immigration reform must encompass three important steps.

First, we must secure our borders. Senators Cornyn, Kyl, McCain, and Kennedy have introduced differing legislation with that goal in mind.

Second, we need to create a legal status for foreign workers and foreign students who come here. Cornyn-Kyl and McCain-Kennedy also address the question of workers. Later this month, I intend to introduce legislation to ensure that our immigration system creates an appropriate legal status for and welcomes the more than 550,000 foreign students who study at our universities and who, incidentally, contribute to our high standard of living by doing so.

But there is a third step to any real immigration reform. After we secure our borders, after we create a legal status for foreigners who work here and study here, the third indispensable step is to help prospective citizens become Americans. That is why today I am introducing the Strengthening American Citizenship Act. I am pleased to be joined by Senator Cornyn in this effort.

The Strengthening American Citizenship Act helps legal immigrants who are prospective American citizens to learn our common language, our history, and our way of Government in the following ways: First, providing $500 grants for English courses; next, allowing prospective citizens who become fluent in English, not just basic in English, but fluent in English, to apply for citizenship 1 year early; next, providing for grants to organizations to provide courses in American history and civics; authorizing the creation of a new foundation to assist in those efforts; codifying the oath of allegiance to which new citizens swear when they are naturalized; asking the Department of Homeland Security to carry out a strategy to highlight the moving ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens; and finally, establishing an award to recognize the contributions of new citizens to our great Nation.

This bill is about fulfilling the promise of our national motto that is written right above you, Mr. President, on the Senate wall: ``E Pluribus Unum,'' one from many. It is in the most visible place in the Senate Chamber. As a nation of immigrants, that motto--from many, one-- is very important to us. While our unique history makes us a diverse nation, we are still one American Nation. How do we do that? How do we as Americans take all of the magnificent diversity that is the United States and mold it into a single nation? We can be one nation because we are united by principles expressed in our founding documents, such as liberty, democracy, and the rule of law, and not by our multiple ancestries. We are united by our common language, English, and by our history of constantly struggling to reach the high ideals that we have set for ourselves as a nation.

Part of that American history is welcoming new immigrants to join our Nation. We are unique in the world in our attitude toward welcoming others. America is different because under our Constitution becoming an American can have nothing to do with ancestry. That is because America is an idea, not a race. An American can technically become a citizen of Japan, in rare cases, but would never be considered Japanese. But if a Japanese person wants to become a citizen of the United States, he or she must become an American.

Recently, I was privileged to witness as 99 immigrants from 46 different countries became Americans. It was on a Constitution Day ceremony. I have attended naturalization ceremonies in Nashville and across my State many times in the past. It is a moving experience that I recommend to all of my colleagues.

This naturalization ceremony a few weeks ago was a special one held at the Jefferson Memorial. The same ceremonies are held in courthouses across the country. I watched those 99 new

Americans swear an oath of allegiance to this country. It is a powerful oath where they renounce allegiance to their former country and swear allegiance to ours and to the Constitution. It is the oath we will finally enshrine in law in this bill.

That oath is a part of our history. It dates back to the founding of our Nation almost 230 years ago. Those 99 new Americans who took that oath at the Jefferson Memorial a few weeks ago were basically taking the same oath George Washington gave to his soldiers in revolutionary times.

On May 12, 1778, as brave Americans were fighting for our freedom, George Washington himself, and his general officers, signed a very similar oath as they were camped at Valley Forge. Let me read a part of Washington's oath. This is a copy of the oath Washington took. The Archivist of the United States brought it to me. There is Washington's own signature. We can imagine the circumstances and imagine the times. It was in the early stages of the Revolutionary War. Things were not going very well. These soldiers were camped at Valley Forge and this was the oath Washington himself took and that he gave to his officers and required them to sign.

I, George Washington, Commander in chief of the Armies of

the United States of America, do acknowledge the United

States of America, to be Free, Independent and Sovereign

States, and declare that the people thereof owe no allegiance

or obedience to George the Third, King of Great Britain; and

I renounce, refuse and abjure any allegiance or obedience to

him; and I do swear that I will to the utmost of my power,

support, maintain and defend the United States...

That is how George Washington and his officers swore allegiance to our country, and it has set the standard for American citizens from that time forward. Every American should learn about that standard.

Since I was elected to this body in 2002, I have been working to ensure that American children learn American history and civics. With the help of Democratic leader Senator Reid and many other Senators on both sides of the aisle, we passed legislation in December of 2003 to establish residential academies for teachers and congressional academies for students of American history and civics. Some are residential academies to help teachers and outstanding students learn more about these important subjects so they can pass it on to their students and classmates.

This year, I hope to pass a bill with Senator Kennedy to provide for improved testing of American history so we can determine where history is being taught well and where it is being taught poorly so improvements can be made. We also know that when testing is focused on a specific subject, States and school districts are more likely to step up to the challenge and improve performance. So we are beginning to make progress in reaching out to our children so that they understand what this country is all about.

There is another group of Americans we must also reach: New Americans. Last week, there was a report in Florida of a 27-year-old Guatemalan man who posed as an 18-year-old so he could attend public high school and learn English there. So we know immigrants are eager to learn our common language. That is why I, with Senator Cornyn, am introducing this bill to help legal immigrants who are prospective American citizens to learn our common language, our history, and our way of governing.

The Strengthening American Citizenship Act will, No. 1, provide education grants up to $500 for English courses to immigrants who declare intent to become American citizens. They might use these grants to take a class from a local nonprofit organization or a community college. It would also allow citizenship applicants who speak fluent English to meet the residency requirement after 4 years of living in the United States, rather than 5.

Secondly, our legislation would help prospective citizens learn more about the American way of life. It would do it in these two ways: One, establishing a foundation to support the activities of the Office of Citizenship, which is within the Department of Homeland Security, so that organizations that want to support and cooperate in efforts to reach out to prospective citizens can do so.

Second, it would provide for grants to organizations to provide classes in American history and civics. While new citizens are required to demonstrate a knowledge of American history and government in a test, helping them access a history or civics class will allow many to gain a richer understanding of our country and, by doing so, to feel more at home in the United States.

The third major area this legislation covers would be to codify this oath of allegiance which began with George Washington's oath at Valley Forge. The oath today is written only in Federal regulations, not in the law. This would give the oath the same standing as the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem.

Finally, we should celebrate our new citizens. Our legislation would instruct the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop and implement a strategy to raise public awareness of naturalization ceremonies. These ceremonies, which happen virtually every day in the United States, embody what it means to become an American. Every U.S. citizen, not just those from foreign countries, ought to see one. It is my hope that more of these ceremonies will be held in prominent locations and televised on C-SPAN.

We also would establish an award for citizens who have been naturalized within the last ten years and have made an outstanding contribution to the American nation. Our new citizens are often our best citizens, and this bill would give the President this responsibility so that we can recognize how new Americans play a critical role in the progress of our country.

We are a nation of immigrants. Almost all of us can trace our ancestry to some part of the globe quite far from here. Over the coming weeks this body will debate how to reform our immigration system. I believe comprehensive reform must include three things: No. 1, securing our borders; No. 2, creating a legal status for foreign workers and foreign students whom we welcome here; and, No. 3, helping prospective citizens become Americans.

The Strengthening American Citizenship Act fulfills that third objective. Comprehensive immigration reform must include efforts to help new Americans become a part of our national family.

Mr. President, Senator Cornyn and I are introducing legislation to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act. The legislation would be called the Strengthening American Citizenship Act.

Over the next several weeks, this body will be engaged in a debate about immigration reform. It is an essential debate which we must have in order to honor our commitment to the rule of law. I believe that real immigration reform must encompass three important steps.

First, we must secure our borders. Senators Cornyn, Kyl, McCain, and Kennedy have introduced differing legislation with that goal in mind.

Second, we need to create a legal status for foreign workers and foreign students who come here. Cornyn-Kyl and McCain-Kennedy also address the question of workers. Later this month, I intend to introduce legislation to ensure that our immigration system creates an appropriate legal status for and welcomes the more than 550,000 foreign students who study at our universities and who, incidentally, contribute to our high standard of living by doing so.

But there is a third step to any real immigration reform. After we secure our borders, after we create a legal status for foreigners who work here and study here, the third indispensable step is to help prospective citizens become Americans. That is why today I am introducing the Strengthening American Citizenship Act. I am pleased to be joined by Senator Cornyn in this effort.

The Strengthening American Citizenship Act helps legal immigrants who are prospective American citizens to learn our common language, our history, and our way of Government in the following ways: First, providing $500 grants for English courses; next, allowing prospective citizens who become fluent in English, not just basic in English, but fluent in English, to apply for citizenship 1 year early; next, providing for grants to organizations to provide courses in American history and civics; authorizing the creation of a new foundation to assist in those efforts; codifying the oath of allegiance to which new citizens swear when they are naturalized; asking the Department of Homeland Security to carry out a strategy to highlight the moving ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens; and finally, establishing an award to recognize the contributions of new citizens to our great Nation.

This bill is about fulfilling the promise of our national motto that is written right above you, Mr. President, on the Senate wall: ``E Pluribus Unum,'' one from many. It is in the most visible place in the Senate Chamber. As a nation of immigrants, that motto--from many, one-- is very important to us. While our unique history makes us a diverse nation, we are still one American Nation. How do we do that? How do we as Americans take all of the magnificent diversity that is the United States and mold it into a single nation? We can be one nation because we are united by principles expressed in our founding documents, such as liberty, democracy, and the rule of law, and not by our multiple ancestries. We are united by our common language, English, and by our history of constantly struggling to reach the high ideals that we have set for ourselves as a nation.

Part of that American history is welcoming new immigrants to join our Nation. We are unique in the world in our attitude toward welcoming others. America is different because under our Constitution becoming an American can have nothing to do with ancestry. That is because America is an idea, not a race. An American can technically become a citizen of Japan, in rare cases, but would never be considered Japanese. But if a Japanese person wants to become a citizen of the United States, he or she must become an American.

Recently, I was privileged to witness as 99 immigrants from 46 different countries became Americans. It was on a Constitution Day ceremony. I have attended naturalization ceremonies in Nashville and across my State many times in the past. It is a moving experience that I recommend to all of my colleagues.

This naturalization ceremony a few weeks ago was a special one held at the Jefferson Memorial. The same ceremonies are held in courthouses across the country. I watched those 99 new

Americans swear an oath of allegiance to this country. It is a powerful oath where they renounce allegiance to their former country and swear allegiance to ours and to the Constitution. It is the oath we will finally enshrine in law in this bill.

That oath is a part of our history. It dates back to the founding of our Nation almost 230 years ago. Those 99 new Americans who took that oath at the Jefferson Memorial a few weeks ago were basically taking the same oath George Washington gave to his soldiers in revolutionary times.

On May 12, 1778, as brave Americans were fighting for our freedom, George Washington himself, and his general officers, signed a very similar oath as they were camped at Valley Forge. Let me read a part of Washington's oath. This is a copy of the oath Washington took. The Archivist of the United States brought it to me. There is Washington's own signature. We can imagine the circumstances and imagine the times. It was in the early stages of the Revolutionary War. Things were not going very well. These soldiers were camped at Valley Forge and this was the oath Washington himself took and that he gave to his officers and required them to sign.

I, George Washington, Commander in chief of the Armies of

the United States of America, do acknowledge the United

States of America, to be Free, Independent and Sovereign

States, and declare that the people thereof owe no allegiance

or obedience to George the Third, King of Great Britain; and

I renounce, refuse and abjure any allegiance or obedience to

him; and I do swear that I will to the utmost of my power,

support, maintain and defend the United States...

That is how George Washington and his officers swore allegiance to our country, and it has set the standard for American citizens from that time forward. Every American should learn about that standard.

Since I was elected to this body in 2002, I have been working to ensure that American children learn American history and civics. With the help of Democratic leader Senator Reid and many other Senators on both sides of the aisle, we passed legislation in December of 2003 to establish residential academies for teachers and congressional academies for students of American history and civics. Some are residential academies to help teachers and outstanding students learn more about these important subjects so they can pass it on to their students and classmates.

This year, I hope to pass a bill with Senator Kennedy to provide for improved testing of American history so we can determine where history is being taught well and where it is being taught poorly so improvements can be made. We also know that when testing is focused on a specific subject, States and school districts are more likely to step up to the challenge and improve performance. So we are beginning to make progress in reaching out to our children so that they understand what this country is all about.

There is another group of Americans we must also reach: New Americans. Last week, there was a report in Florida of a 27-year-old Guatemalan man who posed as an 18-year-old so he could attend public high school and learn English there. So we know immigrants are eager to learn our common language. That is why I, with Senator Cornyn, am introducing this bill to help legal immigrants who are prospective American citizens to learn our common language, our history, and our way of governing.

The Strengthening American Citizenship Act will, No. 1, provide education grants up to $500 for English courses to immigrants who declare intent to become American citizens. They might use these grants to take a class from a local nonprofit organization or a community college. It would also allow citizenship applicants who speak fluent English to meet the residency requirement after 4 years of living in the United States, rather than 5.

Secondly, our legislation would help prospective citizens learn more about the American way of life. It would do it in these two ways: One, establishing a foundation to support the activities of the Office of Citizenship, which is within the Department of Homeland Security, so that organizations that want to support and cooperate in efforts to reach out to prospective citizens can do so.

Second, it would provide for grants to organizations to provide classes in American history and civics. While new citizens are required to demonstrate a knowledge of American history and government in a test, helping them access a history or civics class will allow many to gain a richer understanding of our country and, by doing so, to feel more at home in the United States.

The third major area this legislation covers would be to codify this oath of allegiance which began with George Washington's oath at Valley Forge. The oath today is written only in Federal regulations, not in the law. This would give the oath the same standing as the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem.

Finally, we should celebrate our new citizens. Our legislation would instruct the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop and implement a strategy to raise public awareness of naturalization ceremonies. These ceremonies, which happen virtually every day in the United States, embody what it means to become an American. Every U.S. citizen, not just those from foreign countries, ought to see one. It is my hope that more of these ceremonies will be held in prominent locations and televised on C-SPAN.

We also would establish an award for citizens who have been naturalized within the last ten years and have made an outstanding contribution to the American nation. Our new citizens are often our best citizens, and this bill would give the President this responsibility so that we can recognize how new Americans play a critical role in the progress of our country.

We are a nation of immigrants. Almost all of us can trace our ancestry to some part of the globe quite far from here. Over the coming weeks this body will debate how to reform our immigration system. I believe comprehensive reform must include three things: No. 1, securing our borders; No. 2, creating a legal status for foreign workers and foreign students whom we welcome here; and, No. 3, helping prospective citizens become Americans.

The Strengthening American Citizenship Act fulfills that third objective. Comprehensive immigration reform must include efforts to help new Americans become a part of our national family.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 6 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, earlier this week the Washington Post reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was making plans to ``reimburse churches and other organizations that have opened their doors to provide shelter, food and supplies to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.''

I understand FEMA's good intentions here, but we need to be very careful. There may be extraordinary circumstances when FEMA may need to rent buildings that might happen to belong to a church or mosque or synagogue. And I understand that under both Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, there have been appropriate ways to provide charitable choice and to fund faith-based organizations. I support that. I am currently working with Senators on both sides of the aisle on our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on legislation to help all of Katrina's 372,000 displaced schoolchildren, including some who are enrolled in private and even religious schools. But the kind of reimbursement described in the Washington Post article makes me want to waive three yellow flags and two red ones.

One obvious concern is constitutional. The first amendment says that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' Paying churches for work they choose to undertake as churches raises obvious questions. That is not my major concern. My major concern is making sure that we honor what it has always meant in America to be a volunteer, to be charitable, and to respect our religious traditions.

When Jesus fed the loaves and the fishes to the multitude of 5,000, he didn't send the bill to Caesar. As Americans with a strong religious tradition, we believe in helping our neighbors. In the book of Mark, Jesus tells us to ``love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength'' and to ``love their neighbor as thyself.'' This idea of loving and caring for our neighbors is not limited to Christianity. Jesus himself drew the commands to love God and love our neighbor from the Old Testament in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. I don't ever remember reading: ``Love God, love your neighbor, and send the bill to Washington for the expenses.''

From pioneer days, volunteering and helping our neighbors has been an essential part of the American character. No other country in the world has anything similar to what we have in their traditions. They do not give as we give. They do not have that same spirit. It is one of the things that makes this a unique country. Our forefathers would be dumbfounded to think that if a neighbor's barn burned down and the community joined together to rebuild it, that they would expect a check from Washington, DC to pay them back.

In that same Washington Post article, Reverend Robert E. Reccord of the Southern Baptist Convention helped put this in balance when he said:

Volunteer labor is just that: volunteer. We would never ask

the government to pay for it.

At my church in Nashville, Westminster Presbyterian, where I am an elder, we took up a collection for the victims of Katrina and raised about $80,000 in cash. We then filled up the parlor in the church with other things that we were told they needed in southern Mississippi. We loaded up a truck with diapers and Clorox and other necessities, and our associate pastor went down there with that truck for a few weeks to help people in need. Are we now supposed to send the Federal Government a bill for the food and the supplies and three weeks of the pastor's salary? Of course not. No one in our church expects that, nor should they.

So churches and synagogues and mosques and religious organizations that are being good neighbors aren't looking for a Government handout. They are looking to lend a hand. We should respect them. We should thank them. We should honor them. They are performing an invaluable service. We encourage them by providing tax incentives for charitable giving. But we should also remember that virtue is often its own reward and that some rewards are in heaven, and we should be very careful before we start reimbursing churches for their charity.

I ask unanimous consent that the article from the Washington Post to which I referred be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, my constituents have been asking me, ``Who will President Bush nominate for the second Supreme Court vacancy?'' The question reminds me of a story about a punter from California who went all the way to the University of Alabama to play for Coach Bear Bryant. Day after day, this punter would kick it more than 70 yards in practice. Day after day, Coach Bear Bryant watched the punter kick it 70 yards and said nothing. Finally the young kicker came over to the coach and said: Coach, I came all the way from California to Alabama to be coached by you. I have been out here kicking for a week, and you haven't said a word to me.

Coach Bryant looked at him and said: Son, when you start kicking it less than 70 yards, I will come over there and remind you what you were doing when you kicked it more than 70 yards.

That is the way I feel about President Bush and the next Supreme Court nominee. My only suggestion for him would be respectfully to suggest that he try to remember what he was thinking when he appointed John Roberts and to do it again. Especially for those of us who have been trained in and who have respect for the legal profession, it has been a pleasure to watch the Roberts nomination and confirmation process. It is difficult to overstate how good he seems to be. He has the resume that most talented law students only dream of: editor of the Harvard Law Review and a law clerk to Judge Henry Friendly.

I was a law clerk to Judge John Minor Wisdom in New Orleans, who regarded Henry Friendly as one of the two or three best Federal appellate judges of the last century. In fact, we law clerks used to sit around and think about ideal Federal panels on which three judges would sit. Sometimes Judge Wisdom and Judge Friendly would sit on the same panel, and we tried to think of a third judge. There was a judge named Allgood. We thought if we could get a panel of judges named Wisdom, Friendly, and Allgood, we would have the ideal panel.

So Judge Roberts learned from Judge Friendly. Then he was law clerk to the Chief Justice of the United States. Add to that his time in the Solicitor General's Office, where only the best of the best lawyers are invited to serve; then his success as an advocate before the Supreme Court both in private and in public practice. Then what is especially appealing is his demeanor, his modesty both in philosophy and in person, something that is not always so evident in a person of superior intelligence and such great accomplishment. Then there are the stories we heard during the confirmation process of private kindnesses to colleagues with whom he worked.

Judge Roberts' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee demonstrated all those qualities, as well as qualities of good humor and intelligence, and an impressive command of the body of law that Supreme Court Justices must consider. Those televised episodes, which I took time to watch a number of, could be the basis for many law school classes or many civics classes. Judge Roberts brings, as he repeatedly assured Senators on the committee, no agenda to the Supreme Court. He understands that he did not write the Constitution but that he is to interpret it, that he does not make laws--Congress does that--but that he is to apply them. He demonstrates that he understands the Federal system. It is not too much to say that for a devotee of the law, watching John Roberts in those hearings was like having the privilege of watching Michael Jordan play basketball at the University of North Carolina in the early 1980s or watching Chet Atkins as a sessions guitarist in the 1950s in Nashville.

One doesn't have to be a great student of the law to recognize there is unusual talent here.

If Judge Roberts' professional qualifications and temperament are so universally acclaimed, why do we now hear so much talk of changing the rules and voting only for those Justices who we can be assured are ``on our side''? That would be the wrong direction for the Senate to go. In the first place, history teaches us that those who try to predict how Supreme Court nominees will decide cases are almost always wrong. Felix Frankfurter surprised Franklin Roosevelt. Hugo Black surprised the South. David Souter surprised almost everybody. In the second place, courts were never intended to be set up as political bodies that could be relied upon to be predictably on one side or the other of a controversy. That is what Congress is for. That is why we go through elections. That is why we are here. Courts are set up to do just the opposite, to hear the facts and apply the law and the Constitution in controversial matters. Who will have confidence in a system of justice that is deliberately rigged to be on one side or the other despite what the facts and the law are?

Finally, failing to give broad approval to an obviously well- qualified nominee such as Judge Roberts--just because he is ``not on your side''--reduces the prestige of the Supreme Court. It jeopardizes its independence. It makes it less effective as it seeks to perform its indispensable role in our constitutional republic.

For these three reasons, Republican and Democratic Senators, after full hearings and discussion, have traditionally given well-qualified nominees for Supreme Court Justice an overwhelming vote of approval. I am not talking about the ancient past. I am talking about the members of today's Supreme Court, none of whom are better qualified than Judge Roberts. For example, Justice Breyer was confirmed by a vote of 87 to 9 in a Congress composed of 57 Democrats and 43 Republicans. Justice Ginsburg was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3 in the same Congress. Justice Souter was confirmed by a vote of 90 to 9 in a Congress composed of 55 Democrats and 45 Republicans. Justice Kennedy was confirmed by a vote of 97 to 0 in a Congress composed of 55 Democrats, 45 Republicans. Justice Scalia, no shrinking violet, was confirmed by a vote of 98 to 0 in a Congress composed of 47 Democrats as well as 53 Republicans. Justice O'Connor was confirmed by a vote of 99 to 0 in a Congress composed of 46 Democrats and 53 Republicans. And Justice Stevens was confirmed by a vote of 98 to 0 in a Congress composed of 61 Democrats and 37 Republicans. The only close vote, of those justices on this Court, was for the nomination of Justice Thomas, following certain questions of alleged misconduct by the nominee. Thomas was confirmed by a vote of 52 to 48. However, even in that vote, 11 Democrats crossed the aisle to support the nominee.

If almost all Republican Senators can vote for Justice Ginsburg, a former counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, and a nominee who also

declined, as Judge Roberts occasionally did, to answer questions so as not to jeopardize the independence of the Court on cases that might come before her. If every single Democratic Senator could vote for Justice Scalia, then why cannot virtually every Senator in this Chamber vote to confirm John Roberts?

I was Governor for 8 years in Tennessee. I appointed about 50 judges. I looked for the qualities that Judge Roberts has so amply demonstrated: intelligence, good character, respect for the law, restraint, and respect for those who might come before the court. I did not ask one of my nominees how he or she might vote on abortion or on immigration or on taxation. I appointed the first woman circuit judge, as well as men. I appointed the first African-American chancellor and the first African-American State supreme court justice. I appointed some Democrats as well as Republicans. That process, looking back, has served our State well. It helped to build respect for the independence and fairness of our judiciary.

I hope that we Senators will try to do the same as we consider this nomination for the Supreme Court of the United States. It is unlikely in our lifetime that we will see a nominee for the Supreme Court whose professional accomplishments, demeanor, and intelligence is superior to that of John Roberts. If that is so, then I would hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will do what they did for all but one member of the current Supreme Court and most of the previous Justices in our history and vote to confirm him by an overwhelming majority.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 12 minutes.

Please indicate when 2 minutes are remaining.

Mr. President, I will talk this morning about helping all of Katrina's displaced schoolchildren. Each weekend when I go home to Tennessee, the people who elected me teach me about how we should be doing our jobs in Washington, DC. This is not a lesson they shout from the rooftops. It is a lesson they live by their own example, and we would be wise to follow.

Two weeks ago in Maryville, my hometown, it was Al Gore flying a planeload of evacuees from New Orleans into one of Tennessee's most Republican counties. Nobody asked about anybody's politics. Everybody just pitched in to help.

Last weekend, members of the church where I am an elder, Westminster Presbyterian Church in Nashville, sent $80,000 and a truckload of clothes and Clorox to southern Mississippi. ``The Presbyterians are here,'' one grateful Mississippi man relayed to his friends on his cell phone to say, ``and they have Clorox.'' When the Clorox was passed out, nobody asked if anybody was a Presbyterian.

And now this Sunday, the headline in the Tennessean, the Nashville newspaper, was:

Private schools Welcome Those Displaced by Katrina.

According to the newspaper:

A growing number of private schools in Middle Tennessee [in

the Nashville area] . . . have volunteered to help students

displaced by Katrina. Many of them are also waiving or

drastically discounting tuition and fees for these students

and some also accept evacuees from public schools.

Continuing the quote, ``These children are in crisis. They have been displaced, but they have found a home,'' said the principal of Father Ryan High School who has accepted 20 students and is trying to accommodate every student who shows up.

Father Ryan High School is waiving the $6,880 tuition, the $350 activity fee, and the $500 in books for displaced students it simply calls ``transfers.'' ``It's not all about money,'' said the principal. ``There is no amount of money that equals being family,'' he said.

Public schools, by law, have to accept all children. And Tennessee's public schools have made room for more than 3,000 of Katrina's displaced school children.

Our public schools have been greatly helped by these private schools, who do not have to accept anybody. In Tennessee, private schools have accepted at least 400 students, and probably many more.

``We couldn't sit quietly and do nothing. We felt a need to reach out,'' said the headmaster of Webb school in Bell Buckle, which is waiving the $29,500 room and board for up to 30 students. ``No one flinched. Everybody just responded with, what can we do to help?'' said the headmaster at Webb school in Bell Buckle.

Especially in Memphis and Shelby County, where so many displaced students have gone up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, the willingness of private schools to accept these students is a huge help to overcrowded public schools.

In Baton Rouge, according to a report this morning on National Public Radio, there are 5,000 to 10,000 of these displaced private school students who have no school to attend. To accommodate them, the Catholic Diocese in Baton Rouge is struggling to establish satellite schools, some located great distances away, which these students will have to attend at night.

These private schools that reach out are filling a huge need because the four Louisiana parishes hit the hardest had nearly one-third, or 61,000, of their 187,000 students in private schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

That is the story and the lesson from Tennessee.

The story in Washington last weekend, unfortunately, was different. According to Saturday's Washington Post, when the President proposed temporary emergency disaster legislation that would help all of Katrina's 372,000 displaced school children during the rest of this school year, the Senator from Massachusetts and some teachers' unions objected. Senator Kennedy said:

I am extremely disappointed that [the President] has

proposed this relief using such a politically charged

approach. This is not [the] time for a partisan political

debate on vouchers.

I absolutely agree with that last sentence. This is not the time for a partisan political debate on vouchers.

This is the time for those of us in the Senate to do what Tennesseans and Americans all across our country are doing: opening our arms and asking what we can do to help all displaced children not just some school children.

As the Presiding Officer knows so well, Katrina displaced 20 times more families than any natural disaster in the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Mr. President, 372,000 of those displaced persons are children who were just beginning the K-12 school year, and 73,000 more are college students.

The President has proposed $2.6 billion in funding for students in elementary and secondary schools and colleges. Under the President's proposal, colleges and universities would receive $1,000 for each displaced student enrolled; no person in an affected area in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama would have to pay interest on their student loans for the next 6 months; public school districts would receive up to 90 percent of the State's per-pupil expenditure, up to $7,500 per student; and $488 million would go to help displaced students who attend private schools.

The President is not throwing out a lifeline to just some displaced students. He is trying to help them all. The private schools in Tennessee are not turning their backs. They are opening their arms. Katrina did not discriminate among children and neither should we. The only politically charged approaches around here are coming from those who oppose helping every child.

For Heaven's sake, this is not the beginning of some big, new voucher program. It is the beginning, hopefully, of a big, new 1-year effort to help children who are in desperate trouble. The best way to do it, in most cases, is simply to let the money follow the child or the person who needs help.

We have already approved vouchers that follow displaced persons for housing in this exceptional case. Food stamps are vouchers, and they are helping in this exceptional case. No one is suggesting a displaced mother cannot take her Federal daycare voucher to a Catholic daycare center in these exceptional cases. No one is suggesting we cannot pay Boston College or Harvard University $1,000 for enrolling a displaced student who was set to attend Loyola or Xavier in New Orleans.

Scholars agree there is no constitutional issue here. So are we going to stand here and argue about old ideologies and leave these displaced children standing on the levee because the only doors that are open to them for this 1 year happen to be to a private school?

At the end of World War II, a grateful Nation enacted the GI bill, giving veterans scholarships for college. A lot of veterans had these vouchers for college but no high school degree. So thousands of veterans took their GI vouchers to Catholic high schools to earn their high school diploma. That did not create a big, new voucher program for high schools, this will not either. This is a one year exceptional disaster relief program for kids from the gulf coast who desperately need help.

The public schools are brimming over. They need help from private schools. I hope those who are objecting to helping all displaced school children will think again. We can have our debates about vouchers next year when the floodwaters subside and the schools are open again. Right now we need to be throwing out every lifeline we can for all of Katrina's displaced schoolchildren, not just some.

Mr. President, in Time magazine this week, there is a story on this subject. It quotes Andrew Rotherman, a codirector of a think tank here and a former Clinton education adviser. Mr. Rotherman, who is not a fan of public school vouchers, says:

As a temporary initiative to help families in exceptional

circumstances, it's reasonable.

He is talking about the President's proposal. He says:

But if they use this disaster as a beachhead to establish a

longstanding voucher program in the Gulf region, it would be

wildly inappropriate.

I would agree. This is a temporary initiative to help families in exceptional instances.

Time goes on to say:

For evacuees, the constitutionality of assistance matters

far less than the assistance itself. The day before Katrina

hit, Albert and Anne Betz moved with Jane Todd, 10, and Owen,

7, out of soon-to-be-drowned Pass Christian, Miss., and into

a condo in Sandestin, Fla. Back home, Anne had taught at the

children's private Episcopal school, but the couple heard

that the best schools near Sandestin were public and were

happy with the one to which their kids were assigned. Within

days, however, Anne received a letter from the Walton County

School District stating that the onslaught of evacuees had

caused overcrowding, and her children would have to study

elsewhere. Now they are bused daily to one school, only to be

placed on a second bus to another. At this point, all Anne is

asking for is normality. ``It does not matter if it's private

or public school,'' she says. ``The most important thing is

my children's happiness.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the entire article from Time, and also the story from Sunday's Nashville Tennessean about the generosity of private schools all across Tennessee. I hope the example they are setting will be a good lesson for all of us in this Chamber.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, on Thursday, at 3 o'clock, the Education Subcommittee of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will be holding a hearing on helping all of Katrina's displaced schoolchildren, with the hopes that we can come up with a temporary exceptional way to do this, not as a way of establishing a long-term change in Federal policy, but as a way of helping all schoolchildren today who were displaced by Katrina who need help--whether they are going to public schools or private schools.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today in North Carolina, the Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, delivered remarks that announced her intention to create a commission to take a comprehensive look at postsecondary education in the United States. I am here to say that Secretary Spellings is on exactly the right track with her new commission. The idea is an excellent one and long overdue. While the United States has been conducting a lot of debates--many in this Chamber--about outsourcing jobs, we have been very successfully insourcing brain power. Insourcing brain power has been our secret weapon for job growth. It is the main reason we have 5 percent of the world's population and about one-third of the world's money. Our unrivaled system of colleges and universities, together with our national research laboratories, have been our magnet for attracting and keeping home the best minds in the world who have, in turn, helped provide the new jobs produced by science, who have, in turn, helped provide half the new jobs since World War II. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that one-half of our new jobs since World War II have come from advances in science and technology. This secret weapon for jobs' growth is at risk if we do not take several urgently needed steps. Taking a comprehensive look at the Federal role in higher education is a good first step. This should have happened years ago. In fact, my greatest regret, as Secretary of Education under the first President Bush, is that I did not volunteer to be the point person in higher education in the Federal Government. Almost every Federal agency regulates some aspect of higher education. Last year, the Federal Government, all

across the board, spent about $63 billion on all forms of postsecondary education. That includes grants, as well as what call the Pell grants, student loans, money for research, the cost to the Federal taxpayers of the student loans I mentioned. But despite that great interest and despite the fact that nearly every Federal agency is involved, not just the Department of Education, there is no one Federal official charged with giving the President an overview of higher education.

There was a time 12 years ago--and the Presiding Officer, because of his interest in higher education, may remember this--that the Department of Defense was concerned about being overcharged by many of the universities in the amount of overhead the universities were spending in order to do Department of Defense-sponsored research. That was a legitimate concern, but someone other than the Secretary of Defense should have been in the room advising the President about that because these universities, which were having to cough up money to pay back the Federal Government, which perhaps they should have, we needed to make sure, in our national interest, that we did not damage these great research universities that we have because those great research universities have been a major part of giving us the science and technology edge that gives us our standard of living. That is what I mean by saying there has been no one person in the Federal Government appointed by the President to look at the whole range of activities in postsecondary higher education, and there should be.

I am chairman of the Energy Subcommittee, a committee upon which the Presiding Officer serves. With the consent of our committee chairman, Senator Domenici, Senator Jeff Bingaman and I--Senator Bingaman is the ranking Democrat on the Energy Committee--have asked the National Academy of Sciences to recommend steps that the Nation should take over the next 10 years so that we can keep our edge in science and technology while we are grappling with tough budget issues. Those hearings will begin in October. The hearings that Senator Bingaman and I intend to conduct on keeping our edge in science and technology should complement the work of the commission that Secretary Spellings has established to take a comprehensive overview of higher education.

Our colleges and universities are at risk for several reasons. I am not suggesting that we suddenly have an emergency crisis. I am suggesting that we would be wise to look down the road to make sure we don't have a crisis. I believe we not only have the best colleges and universities in the world. I believe we have almost all of the best colleges and universities in the world. When you add to that the unique national research laboratories which we have, such as the Oak Ridge laboratory or Sandia or a couple of dozen of those that we have, we have an unparalleled research capacity.

Here are the reasons our colleges and universities may be at risk if we don't pay close attention:

No. 1, State funding, the principal basis of support for higher education traditionally grew only 6.8 percent during the last 5 years. State Medicaid costs are squeezing State budgets. If this trend continues, the result will be lower quality higher education and much higher student tuition. I brought with me two charts to illustrate what I am talking about. Here is a chart on trends in higher education nationally over the last 5 years since 2000. State spending on Medicaid is up 35.6 percent over those 5 years. State spending on higher education is up 6.8 percent over the 5 years. And tuition at a 4-year public university is up 38 percent over the 5 years. That is the State picture.

At the same time, the Federal Government has been doing pretty well. Federal spending on all forms of postsecondary education over those last 5 years has risen 71.8 percent. So the picture has been that in the States, State spending on Medicaid is up. State spending on higher education is flat, pretty flat. And tuition at 4-year public universities is up, way up.

In my own State of Tennessee, the situation is even more pronounced. Tennessee's spending on Medicaid in the last 5 years is up 71 percent. State spending on higher education during that time is only up 10 percent. Tuition at a 4-year public university in Tennessee over those 5 years is up 43 percent. Medicaid spending is way up, and State spending on higher education is fairly flat. Tuition at 4-year public universities is way up. That is a bad trend, if it continues over the next 10 years.

A second reason that our university system may be at risk is that even though Federal funding for all forms of postsecondary education has been generous over the last 5 years, up 71.8 percent, that kind of increase is not likely to continue as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security costs put new pressures on the Federal budget. That is one reason Senator Bingaman and I have asked the National Academy of Sciences to suggest to us the 8 or 10 things we must be sure to do to keep our edge in science and technology over the next 10 years. Because while we are grappling with the budget to try to restrain the growth in spending, we want to make sure we don't squeeze out investments in science and technology that give us the standard of living we enjoy today.

The next reason that higher education may be at some risk is national security. Tight visa rules and other national security restrictions are making it harder for the more than one-half million foreign students and additional researchers who now come to our universities and laboratories. More importantly, scientific conferences are being held overseas. We have taken for granted that we have been insourcing brains. The brightest students and researchers from China, the brightest from India, from France, from Germany, where do they want to go? They want to come to the United States.

When we were Governors of Tennessee and Virginia, we would sometimes hear complaints from students who were being taught by graduate students who did not speak English very well. But the fact is, these brilliant people from around the world, more than a half million of them, have come here to do the kind of work that helps us create our high standard of living. Sixty percent of our postdoctoral students are foreign students. One-half of our graduate students in computers, engineering, and in sciences are foreign students.

In a way, it is a little like our natural gas problem. We are going to be importing liquefied natural gas from overseas to try to keep our prices down. We are already importing brainpower from overseas to keep our standard of living up. And while we need to put a focus on homegrown brainpower over the next 10 years, we also need to make sure that our universities and colleges continue to be a magnet for the brightest people from around the world.

At the same time, we have something else happening. Many countries, including India, China, Germany, and Great Britain, are reorganizing and improving funding for their universities and creating incentives to keep their most talented students and researchers home. They are asking themselves: Why should we send our brightest minds overseas to help the Americans create a higher standard of living for themselves when they can do it right here at home?

So we are going to be facing more competition from the Indian Government. Chancellor Schroeder, who was visiting with us a few weeks ago, was talking about the amount of new dollars Germany is putting into its universities. They believe they have become overregulated, that they have become bureaucratized, and that they have become, in some cases, mediocre. He knows that if Germany wants to compete and wants to have a higher standard of living, they are going to have to have better universities that are magnets for keeping home their brightest students and researchers and attracting the best from around the world.

There is one red flag I would like to wave, in conclusion, about the early reports on Secretary Spellings' decision to create a higher education commission to take a comprehensive look at the Federal role in postsecondary education. Some have pointed out that our system of higher education in the United States is very decentralized, and it may be for that reason that we are not taking a comprehensive look at higher education.

I, for one, believe that our decentralized system of higher education in the

United States is one of its greatest possible strengths. The model we use for higher education is a very simple one. It is a marketplace model. We have more than 6,000 institutions--public, private, for- profit, nonprofit. They are autonomous, and we respect their autonomy.

We have generous Federal funds that follow 60 percent of our students to the institutions they choose with Federal grants or Federal loans. We have peer-reviewed research that goes to the very best institutions. So I do not want to see any Federal commission that sends a signal that we may need some Federal centralization of our control over higher education. In fact, we need to be doing just the reverse.

I introduced earlier this year legislation that would help to deregulate higher education, and a number of those provisions have been incorporated into the Higher Education Act that was reported by our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. I believe our higher education system is the best in the world because it is decentralized, because institutions are autonomous, the Federal Government has been generous, and the money follows the students to the institutions of the students' choice.

I commend the Secretary of Education today for her attracting such outstanding persons--for example, the former Governor of North Carolina, Jim Hunt, to be a member of this commission; Charles Miller, former chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas, to be chairman of the commission.

I cannot think of more important work to do. We not only need to insource brainpower, we need to home grow a lot more of our brainpower, and if we do not, we will not enjoy this standard of living that we have had.

I can recall last year a meeting in the majority leader's office that Senator Frist and the Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, hosted. It was an opportunity for several of the Senators to meet the former President of Brazil, Mr. Cardoso. He had spent a semester here in residence at the Library of Congress. I remember Senator Hutchison's last question to President Cardoso. She said: Mr. President, when you go back to Brazil, what will you take back home with you about the United States of America?

President Cardoso didn't hesitate a minute. He said: The excellence of the American university. There is nothing in the world like it.

That is a great compliment to our country and to our system of higher education from one of the most erudite men in the world, the former President of Brazil.

But the yellow flags and red flags are waving because as we look ahead over the next 10 years, our system of higher education and, therefore, our standard of living is at risk because of a flat State funding, because of upcoming pressures on the Federal budget, because of tight visa rules and other national security concerns, which are understandable but will have this effect, and because other countries in the world are recognizing there is no reason in the world why the Americans should have 5 percent of the people and a third of the money. They have the same brains we have in India, in China, in Germany, so we will just keep our smarter people at home, they are saying, and we will create that standard of living for ourselves.

I look forward to working with Secretary Spellings. I would like, 10 years from now when the majority leader invites the former President of Brazil or any other President of a country to the office and we turn around and say to that person, Mr. President, what will you take home about the United States? I would like for that President of another country to be able to say to us: The American university. There is nothing like it in the world.

I believe that is true, but I believe we have some work to do over the next 10 years to keep that truth.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Congressional Record two charts that I referred to in my remarks.

Mr. President, I would also like to follow my remarks with this information from the American Council on Education that sheds additional light on the comparison of State and Federal spending.

In 1995, the State spent $2.16 on higher education for every Federal dollar spent on higher education. In 2000, States contributed $1.55 for every Federal dollar spent on higher education. In 2005, States spent 94 cents on higher education for every Federal dollar spent.

So very quietly, we are seeing a major shift in how we finance higher education. States are doing less, the Federal Government is continuing to

be generous, and students are asked to do more. The insidious part of this is that traditionally, States have been the largest part of funding for higher education. So very quietly we see States go from spending $2.16 for every dollar spent, which was the case in 1995, to less than $1 spent for every Federal dollar spent, which is the case 10 years later in 2005.

That is a major shift in funding, and we in the Congress and Secretary Spellings' new commission and the work Senator Bingaman and I are doing with the National Academy of Sciences need to take note of this and ask what will happen if we have 10 more years of these financing trends.

I yield the floor.