Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I am pleased to join with Senator Durbin to introduce a bill in support of New Philadelphia, the first town founded by a freed African-American. This bipartisan legislation would initiate a feasibility study in order to determine whether or not this area should be designated as a unit of the National Park System.

The town of New Philadelphia, Illinois, established in 1836, became the first known town platted and officially registered by an African- American prior to the Civil War. New Philadelphia became a place where European Americans, free-born African-Americans, and formerly enslaved individuals could live together in community during a time of intense racial strife that transpired before, during, and after the Civil War.

Frank McWorter, the founder of New Philadelphia and a former slave himself, saved money from neighboring labor jobs to purchase his own freedom and the freedom of fifteen other family members. Subsequently, Mr. McWorter purchased a sparse plot of land between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers in Pike County, Illinois to establish the town of New Philadelphia, which also became a station along the Underground Railroad.

In 2005, the town of New Philadelphia is designated a National Historic Place and more recently, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2009. Being designated a unit of the National Park System will preserve the historical significance of New Philadelphia and allow its legacy to continue to inspire current and future generations to understand the struggle for freedom and opportunity.

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

Madam President, I wish to follow the remarks of my colleague in a colloquy, briefly, saying I agree with him which is why I voted to support restrictions on cross-State air pollution. Certainly coming from Maryland, I understand that one State can

pollute another, especially given the prevailing westerly winds. But even in the State of Illinois we estimate that the rule will reduce pollution in Chicagoland by 7 to 13 percent and in high-ozone time, the highest pollution, 24 percent.

We have also seen quite a number of our powerplants already reengineer their plants to control pollution, expecting this regulation which, by the way, comes from the Bush administration, the initial legislation, and pursuant to a Federal court order.

I commend my colleague and say there is bipartisan agreement that we control cross-State pollution. This rule, by the data that was provided by the Congressional Research Service, has a significant amount of benefit in reducing particulate matter that would be in the State of Illinois and especially Eastern States.

I actually rose to speak on several other topics which I will do in turn. First, I wish to say tomorrow we are going to honor generations of veterans who wore the uniform of the United States. As a Member of the House, I worked to help save my congressional district's veterans hospital in north Chicago, IL, after Washington bureaucrats recommended its closure by the Department of Defense, by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

We actually arranged to bring the Department of Defense and the VA together in a naval hospital and a VA hospital, to combine them in what became the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center, building on synergy and seamless care for Active Duty and veterans alike. It became the first combined VA-Navy hospital in the Nation. It is a world-class facility that delivers medical care to about 4,000 Active Duty at Great Lakes and about 42,000 recruits and a equivalent number of veterans in the region.

I like to think about the waiting room of this hospital in which grizzled veterans from--one I remember meeting from the battle of Savo Island, 1942, World War II right next to the rawest new recruits to the Navy, in the same waiting room about to receive care from the same nurses and doctors at this now combined Navy-VA hospital.

In the Senate, I became the new ranking member of the Military Construction and VA Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee. Now we are going to see if we can expand this model of care, not just to one part of northern Illinois but to the country. We should go to the next level, not just integrating one set of hospitals but for the whole country.

Here, the greatest potential is in medical records. It should be the policy of this Congress, the Appropriations Committee and our subcommittee, that we create in the end one military VA health record so there is a seamless continuum of care for the men and women who have joined to protect our country from the first day they sign up as a recruit until their sunset years as a veteran.

I shared a draft of this speech with the chairman of our subcommittee, Chairman Johnson, and also Chairman Culberson of the House subcommittee, and the administration, to hopefully drive consensus in the House and Senate forward on this issue. I think we all now agree there should be more Defense Department and VA collaboration on health care but especially focused on health records.

With Chairman Johnson, we held a March hearing on the progress of moving forward to a military veteran--what is called--fully integrated electronic health record or IEHR. The system will provide servicemembers with a single medical record from their enlistment through their final days as a veteran. I wish to applaud Secretary Shinseki, Secretary Gates, and Secretary Panetta, his successor, for pushing the very separate Department of Defense and VA bureaucracies into a single common record system. The integrated health record developed jointly by VA and DOD is a very large and necessary IT project. It will encompass quite a lot of effort to be caring for around 15 million servicemembers, veterans, and eligible families each year.

For more than 20 years, these two executive departments built entirely separate health care systems, but the taxpayer did pay for both. A 20-year marine leaving Active-Duty health care would then, potentially, today, have three separate health care records--a military one, a veterans record, and a civilian care record through TRICARE. This meant that information on medical treatment or service-connected disabilities could easily be split between these records. VA doctors or VA benefits personnel would not have the complete information in assessing care for this American in uniform or just out of uniform.

The new system will hopefully eliminate paper records, missing files, and replace them all with a common record, complete with Active-Duty medical history that the VA medical care providers can access in all hospitals and clinics throughout the country.

A project of this magnitude, 6 years of work, several hundred million dollars in expense, is not without risk. It is our responsibility to make sure both departments, DOD and VA, make the right cost-effective decisions to defend the hard-working taxpayer. In past years, normal practice inside Washington would be to give a project such as this to a massive government contractor that would hijack it into an unwieldy and proprietary system which rapidly became outdated, with technology that was only licensed to that contractor. In the Congress we cannot let that happen with this project. In times of physical austerity it is critical that the government work carefully with Chairman Johnson in the Senate and Chairman Culberson in the House to look beyond their own walls to cooperate and innovate and deliver more efficient and effective services.

It is imperative that VA and DOD ensure that it gets this right and not replicate problems associated with past developments of so many large IT systems. One of the most positive developments is the joint VA-DOD approach that will embrace best commercial practices by leveraging technology already used in the private sector through commercial off-the-shelf systems, and especially open-source coding so that the electronic health record can be billed at the lowest cost. This will ensure that the new system will benefit from innovative and new solutions being used by major medical systems and health care providers across the country.

An open source--that is an open computer-code approach--will, most importantly, prevent us, the government, from being locked into one single vendor. Instead the approach will allow not only innovation but will require a private firm to integrate their technology into the joint VA-DOD system. It will also encourage real competition as every vendor bidding on a new contract will have full, public access to the product completed by the previous vendor. This approach should ensure that the taxpayer is defended, that their dollars are well spent, and that servicemembers and veterans are well served by the system that we then develop.

I commend the VA and DOD on their willingness to break down the walls between their respective departments and work together on this project, especially on the eve of Veterans Day. If successful, this approach could serve as a model for cooperation between other government agencies serving similar communities, making the government smarter and leveraging private sector innovation and developing cost-saving technologies--like open source coding, like commercial off-the-shelf requirements--which is exactly the mindset we need to embrace in the cost-conscious environment we are in today.

In closing, I want to, once again, thank Secretary of Veterans Affairs Shinseki, our previous Secretary of Defense Gates, and our current Secretary of Defense Panetta for their vision in bringing this tough problem together. I

will tell each one of these Cabinet Departments that Chairman Culberson and I are looking forward, in about 2\1/2\ months' time, to meeting with their teams to assess the project and progress on developing a fully integrated, complete joint DOD and then VA health record to care for that American from the time they enlist until their final days as a veteran.

Hiring Veterans

On November 11, 1919, exactly 1 year after the end of World War I, President Wilson designated Armistice Day to honor those who served during the great war. In 1954, Congress changed the name of the holiday to honor the service of all men and women in uniform that we now know as Veterans Day. For the last 22 years, it has been the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy Reserve. I have seen firsthand the sacrifice of men and women who wore the uniform and, quite frankly, provided the freedoms that we enjoy as Americans.

This week we remember those who sacrificed everything in the defense of our Nation, and I am proud to support legislation that provides a new employment opportunity for those veterans. The VOW to Hire Heroes Act of 2011 is bipartisan legislation that the Senate has just passed to give our veterans the opportunity to learn new skills and reenter the workforce. Too often employers overlook the experience of our professional veterans. These men and women are typically highly effective, organized leaders who have been part of a team in a difficult environment. They have undertaken responsibilities few could imagine under extreme conditions--especially at young ages.

Across Afghanistan and Iraq, veterans are saving lives and using state-of-the-art medical equipment in austere conditions. When they return, these skills they have obtained do not necessarily quickly translate into civilian certifications that first responders need to qualify for a job. As a result, governments subsidize expensive training for veterans who are already, in many cases, substantially overqualified. The bill just passed in the Senate requires the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Labor to identify equivalencies between military service and private sector competencies. This change will translate military experience and certifications into civilian qualifications opening new career opportunities for veterans.

The legislation also reforms and improves the Department of Defense Transition Assistance Program to assist retiring servicemembers with resume development, educational options, and tools for separating from the military. The legislation will identify potential positions and industries in the private sector for our new veterans.

For unemployed veterans the legislation establishes a retraining educational benefit allowing veterans to go back to school for high- demand skill development and to obtain a technical certificate or degree that prepares them to reenter the workforce. This bill also engages the private sector and expands the tax credit for hiring our returning heroes.

The legislation is particularly important to my home State where we have over 700,000 veterans. Across Illinois they enthusiastically take on new challenges and become teachers and corporate executives or public servants.

In 1901, a Knox County native and Illinois veteran, Charles Walgreen, built the foundation of one of our Nation's largest pharmacy chains. Chicago native George Halas served twice in the Navy and then spent 63 years at the helm of the Chicago Bears and helped found the NFL. Countless other citizens of our State served in the military but then made invaluable contributions to our Nation and its economy.

Despite what most Americans see on TV, Chairman Murray in the Senate and Chairman Miller in the House demonstrated that Republicans and Democrats across the Senate and House can work together, and this legislation just passed as a result of that bipartisan cooperation.

Today our Nation's veterans are facing different adversities and are overcoming new challenges both in the field and when they come home. We owe these men and women everything, and this measure--a bipartisan measure--is one of the ways we can say thank you.

Europe's Debt Crisis

I also want to take a moment to speak briefly on the subject of the European debt situation. I am concerned that we are now eyewitnesses to history, but few in the Senate are even watching major events that could hurt the incomes of Americans at home.

Margaret Thatcher once said: Socialists eventually run out of other people's money. We witnessed the end of communism in 1991 when Russia ran out of money. In 2011 we may be witnessing the end of European socialism as many of their economies go bankrupt. Events in Europe offer an immediate warning to our own banking system and is a long-term lesson to our society.

I thank my friend David Malpass for his work in helping to develop my view on these issues. In our view, Europe's approach to the run on Greek debt and then Italian debt and possibly this afternoon French debt shows that Europe's leaders are not addressing the problems squarely that they face. The current approach they have is unsustainable.

Yesterday we witnessed the interest rate Italy must pay to borrow funds rising to over 7 percent from the 6.4 percent on Tuesday and the 5 percent they had to pay at the beginning of the month.

Germany's Finance Minister suggested that Italy consider drawing on EFSF funds, implying that Germany doesn't recognize the true magnitude of the systemic problem they face, still focused on Plan A when Plan A no longer is viable. As Malpass commented, this compares a popgun versus the charging financial rhinoceros that is needed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel talked about a new European Union and new EU treaty structures. The United States should support increased financial restraints--tougher ones than the Maastricht Treaty provided. It is hard to see how Europe could undertake an entirely new treaty and then ratify it in the middle of this crisis. After all, the EFSF was hard enough.

Merkel's party also discussed ways to allow countries to exit the euro. This would be an immediate and severe threat to the current outlook, but her party is now no longer in the ascendency. It is losing strength to coalition parties that are more committed to the euro.

On Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the possibility of what he called a two-speed Europe in a speech in Strasbourg, meaning that the eurozone countries would have different rules than non-euro EU members. These issues would all be fine to discuss if we were not immediately in a current financial crisis. There are many steps the United States should encourage to prevent this situation from jumping across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, none of them appear to be underway.

First, Italy should undertake major growth-oriented structural reforms in their labor market, but there appears to be little chance of that.

Next, Europe could temporarily back away from the Basel III mark-to- market and the bank capitalization levels they require, removing for now the threat their banks face: that they will be taken over or forced to excessively dilute their equity at the market bottom. Recall that the United States provided critical relief in this regard by reinstructing the FASB in March of 2009 to do this launching the equity market surge.

European Nations could also begin guaranteeing new liabilities at their banks. Remember, also, the United States took this step in October of 2008 through a fee-based FDIC guarantee of new bank issuance. The ECB could also purchase Italian bonds in the size needed in the secondary market with the goal of lowering the current yield. Remember, the Fed bought American mortgage-backed securities in December of 2008 instantly helping recover and resuscitate that market.

Unfortunately, right now none of these positive developments seem likely. The news tonight from Europe is fairly dismal, and I recall the collapse of German credit in July of 1931. It was that collapse that turned the recession of 1929 into the Great Depression.

Our Congress right now is rightly focused on the need to cut our own spending, but, unfortunately, the news that I have seen is the crisis abroad

could become the No. 1 economic story in the United States as early as next month.

Americans should watch this situation very closely. We should encourage Europe to take the actions I outlined above, and most importantly, we should make sure the supercommittee does its job and that we kick our own spending habit before we face the same future.

Iran's Nuclear Program

Lastly, I want to touch on a subject that I think most concerns me for the future of the country, especially next year.

When the history of the Iranian nuclear program is written, November 2011 is likely to be marked as the turning point toward conflict regarding Iran's nuclear weapons program. Recall that Iran has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and her government claims they are taking no action in violation of that treaty. Recall also in 1979 Iran embraced supporting terror as government policy. Iran was then certified as a state sponsor of terror by Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Recall also that Iran now has become the top financier for two major terror groups in the Middle East, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Iran has transferred nearly every type of weapon in its inventory-- including cruise missiles--to Hezbollah. Recall also that Iran has started the massive refining of uranium, far above the 3 percent necessary to fuel a reactor--upwards of 20 percent--moving to the 98 percent needed to run an atomic weapon.

This week, the IAEA released a landmark report. It said the Iranians were accelerating their uranium enrichment. It said they had received design information through military personnel on nuclear weapons. But, most importantly, it showed how step by step the Iranians were working on a nuclear warhead for their long-range SHAHAB-3 missile to include the density and weight of a nuclear weapon as well as the inclusion of an electric generator inside that weapon--unnecessary for a conventional munition but absolutely required for a nuclear munition-- that there were no submunitions, that the entire package was to go off at once, and that the critical design information behind that all pointed to a nuclear warhead. Our response should be, in my view, nonmilitary but the strongest nonmilitary means necessary.

For many years as a House Member I worked on what I thought was the critical sanction, which was to take advantage of the key vulnerability of Iran; that the mullahs had so mishandled their economy since 1979 that this oil-producing nation totally depended on foreign gasoline for their energy supplies. Our idea was to cut off Iran's supply of foreign gasoline and then to ensure that their signature under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty was genuine, real, and verifiable. After working many years on this legislation, eventually the House of Representatives voted, with over 400 positive votes, for this legislation to help cut off Iran's gasoline supply. In fact, the bill was unanimous in the Senate, and last year President Obama signed this bill into law.

But the record now shows, according to Reuters this morning, that gasoline deliveries, despite the Obama sanctions, now have gone up 21 percent to Iran. Despite the comprehensive sanctions the United States has leveled against Iran, the International Monetary Fund reports that the Iranian economy grew faster than the U.S. economy last year. So, many of us, looking at the sorry record of sanctions enforcement, have gathered together on the idea of one last sanction that we think could avoid a conflict, that we think would deliver the decisive diplomatic weight to solve this problem, and that is to sanction the Central Bank of Iran itself. We would say any entity which does business with the Central Bank of Iran cannot do business with the United States, and we would force every financial and business interest in the world to choose between the $300 billion Iranian economy and the $14 trillion American economy.

We know the Central Bank of Iran is the central paymaster of Hezbollah and Hamas, two organizations Secretary of State Clinton has highlighted as sponsors of terror. We know the Central Bank of Iran is the central paymaster for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and especially their subunit, the Quds force, which Attorney General Holder highlighted, which tried to launch a plot through a Mexican drug cartel to blow up a Washington, DC restaurant. They talked about killing dozens of Americans--they even talked about killing Senators--in an effort to kill the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States. We know the Central Bank of Iran also is the likely paymaster of the nuclear program of Iran itself.

This summer, something unique happened in the life of the Senate. In these partisan times, with so many differences expressed between Republicans and Democrats, 92 Senators joined in the Kirk-Schumer letter saying that we should sanction the Central Bank of Iran, that we should cripple the Iranian currency. For God's sake, at least we can have Iranian economic growth as slower than U.S. economic growth for 2012. It was a unique moment of bipartisan consensus, and the Obama administration even leaked to the New York Times that this action was under consideration. All indications are now that the Obama administration will take no major action against Iran, despite a United Nations report and despite a plot revealed by the Attorney General himself.

Recall that the IAEA was the organization that downplayed Bush administration accusations against Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction program, and that following the fall of Saddam Hussein we consistently found that what the IAEA said about Iraq was exactly correct. So when the IAEA reports that the Iranians are working toward a nuclear weapon and a warhead aboard their SHAHAB-3 missile; when we learn that the Iranians are supporting terror through Hezbollah and Hamas with a plot to kill Americans at a Washington, DC restaurant; when we learn that Iranians have registered the names of every Baha'i family, all 330,000 in their country, that they have removed all Baha'is from universities, that they have kicked all Baha'i children and prohibited all Baha'i businesses from doing business with their government, we are worried that this is a government--probably the only member of the United Nations--where the head of state regularly talks about wiping another member of the United Nations off the planet, it seems as though we should take action.

I recall a famous quote from President Kennedy long before he was elected President when he wrote an essay called ``Why America Slept'' in which he talked about all the signs of a coming catastrophe in Europe and no action by the U.S. Government.

This week is the turning point for Iran. If the United States takes no action, then we set the Middle East on a course for conflict likely involving our allies in Israel, potentially also Saudi Arabia. The simple course of history right now I think would be improved if we leveled this sanction in a bipartisan fashion, giving our diplomats decisive weight to stop this program and, therefore, avoiding conflict. By taking the easy way out--by leveling no action against Iran--we actually are empowering those who would go to conflict more quickly.

I am dumfounded as to the reason we are doing this. Senators on this floor told me they suspected there was so much insecurity about the current price of oil that the administration will do everything possible not to have conflict or stress in the Middle East in order to ensure its reelection and keep prices low. But I would argue that nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranians will automatically raise energy prices in the United States. I would argue that with the record of the Iranians transferring cruise missiles to Hezbollah, there is no doubt in my mind that the Iranians, once they build a sufficient stockpile of nuclear weapons, will transfer some of those to Hezbollah.

We also see hostile intent by the Iranians not just at the Israelis but at the Saudi Arabians, and that the path to further instability and danger is in not taking action rather than taking action.

This, on a Friday night in November, is the turning point on the Iran crisis. Many bureaucrats inside the administration would prefer we not know this

is the turning point. They would prefer we not realize the Iranian program is receiving decisive weight, and that according to experts the Iranians will have nuclear weapons either next year or, by their latest estimate, the year after. They would prefer we not realize that according to my scenario, they would build a sufficient stockpile so that we envision a possible future where by 2014 or 2015 the Iranians will have a sufficient number to begin transferring weapons to Hezbollah. And we certainly know that the moment the Iranians detonate a weapon, we will witness the launch of nuclear programs in Saudi Arabia and likely in Egypt.

The bottom line is this: Without decisive action on economic sanctions, we condemn the Middle East to a conflict that eventually may involve weapons of mass destruction. With action similar to action called for by those who saw history correctly in the 1930s, we could help protect the coming generation from such a conflict. A world in which the Iranians have nuclear weapons is one that we grant to our kids in a far more dangerous environment than the 21st century, rather than the one we should grant to them.

The Senate, hopefully, will vote on an amendment next week that I hope to offer to level this sanction on Iran. If opposed by the Obama administration, then I think we are condemning this region to an awful conflict, and I think we should protect the next generation from such a future by taking good, solid, decisive, nonmilitary sanctions action now.

With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today in honor of one of Illinois' most heroic sons, LCpl Larry Gene Bailey II of Zion. Lance Corporal Bailey joined the Marines in October 2007, and like his father, a Vietnam Veteran, he too wanted to serve his country. His parents and his country are very proud of his service and sacrifice.

On June 23, 2011 in Helmand province, Lance Corporal Bailey ran to a rooftop to provide cover for his unit under heavy fire. An improvised explosive device took both of his legs and one of his arms. This young man's will to live and recover are an inspiration to us all.

With the support of his parents Mary and Larry, he has made great strides in his recovery. This Veterans Day, our nation owes a great debt of gratitude to families like the Baileys, whose service to our nation continues to preserve our American way of life.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a poem penned in honor of Lance Corporal Bailey by Albert Caswell.

Make My Father Proud

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

Mr. President, I rise to talk about two entirely different subjects; first, on the subject of Iran, the subject of a critical International Atomic Energy Agency report that will be issued likely tomorrow.

Credible press reports on the United Nations document tell us an important thing. Remember, it was the IAEA that urged caution with regard to the weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq. The record shows that the IAEA was largely correct on its determination there. Based on that credibility, we should listen to the IAEA and what they say in this groundbreaking report.

Their report makes six very important conclusions according to credible press reports: No. 1, the Islamic Republic of Iran has used military people to procure dual-use nuclear material; No. 2, they have developed an undeclared nuclear material production line separate from their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; No. 3, they have now acquired outside international information on the development of nuclear weapons; No. 4, they have begun work on an indigenous design for a nuclear weapon; and, No. 5, they are already substantially in excess of the 3-percent enrichment for uranium-235 necessary to run a nuclear reactor as they originally claimed.

The sixth conclusion, though, appears to be the most important. The International Atomic Energy Agency concludes they may have also begun work on a new payload for their Shahab-3 missile. This is a missile that largely comes from North Korea called the No Dong and is able to hit U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf and our allies in Israel. According to the reports on this U.N. document, it says the Shahab-3 payload has the correct mass for a nuclear weapon; it has a generator aboard the warhead that would be necessary to initiate a nuclear detonation; it is designed for an airburst to make that detonation most effective; the weapon has multiple detonators in it--I think this is a key conclusion because a conventional munition only requires one detonator, but a nuclear weapon requires multiple detonators; and this has it--it does not issue any submunitions, all the warhead is contained in one critical mass; and the Iranians have now prepared a 400-meter test shaft likely for a nuclear test shot.

If this is not a smoking gun, I do not know what is. I do not know what the word for ``smoking gun'' in Farsi is, but clearly the United Nations, not known for speaking clearly on many topics, is now telling us one clear thing: the Islamic Republic of Iran is designing and moving toward building nuclear weapons.

If we look at their record, we will see the Islamic Republic of Iran has transferred nearly every one of its advanced munitions it currently owns to terrorist organizations, including antishipping cruise missiles, which the Iranians transferred to Hezbollah.

We have also known several dangerous--actually, dangerously weird-- things going on in the Islamic Republic of Iran, such as sentencing an Iranian actress to 90 lashes for appearing in an Australian film simply on the crime of not having her head covered--luckily, because the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called attention to this, apparently that sentence may be in abeyance--or credible reports this weekend that the Islamic Republic of Iran, under President Ahmadinejad, has arrested 70 fashion designers for anti-Islamic activity.

What we know for a fact is that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been a state sponsor of terror, as certified by Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush 2, and President Obama under Secretary of State Clinton. We know they are the leading paymasters for Hezbollah and Hamas.

What we can see clearly from this report is that this year, or likely the year after, they will have nuclear weapons. I think it is quite likely they would then transfer those nuclear weapons directly to Hezbollah and Hamas. This is something we cannot allow to happen, which is why action in the Senate and in the executive branch should occur on collapsing the Central Bank of Iran. We already have 92 Senators who have agreed, even in these partisan times, to collapse the Central Bank of Iran. Ninety-two Senators have signed on to the Kirk-Schumer letter to call for this action. This action was also just recommended in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion in the House Foreign Affairs Committee under the leadership of Congressman Berman to recommend this also in the House. I think the administration--that has leaked several times to the New York Times that they have this under consideration-- should move in this direction.

For those countries that substantially purchase oil from the Islamic Republic of Iran, we should work with our Saudi allies to make sure their needs are met so we can go ahead and collapse the Central Bank of Iran and the Iranian currency, especially in the wake of this report.

Remember, this is the government that, according to Attorney General

Eric Holder, led a plot to blow up a Georgetown restaurant, possibly involving the death of many Americans, including, they described, Senators, in an effort to kill the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States. This is singularly irresponsible activity and one that now, coupled with this IAEA report on nuclear weapons, should not be tolerated.

Protecting Privacy Rights

Mr. President, I also rise to speak about another topic; which is that today the Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments on the case of United States v. Jones. The case concerns our rights to privacy as American citizens. As an American, I believe our government is the greatest government for the potential of every human being and the dignity of that human being. Under our Constitution, we had the first of any major government in the world to begin to protect that right of privacy, even against the government. It is enshrined in the fourth amendment to the Constitution.

As the Founding Fathers defined it, I think our 18th century fourth amendment privacy rights--which are covered, including our house and our place of business--are well defined and well protected under our law.

The question is this: What about our rights to privacy in the 21st century? What about the mobile device we carry, the tablet computer, the GPS in our car, and the various other computer devices we have? Do we have a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to this data or can the government access this data and decide they can find out where we have been, whom we have been with, and how long we have been there without a warrant?

Given the fact that the Supreme Court has just taken up oral arguments in this case, I think it is important for the Senate to back the Wyden-Kirk GPS Act. This is an act that basically says we should protect our rights of privacy in the 21st century as well as the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, that we should not only be secure in our house and our papers, but we should be secure in our GPS data as well; that if the government seeks to find out where we have been and whom we have been with, at least it needs a warrant--our right as an American citizen protected in that privacy before having access to that information.

I hope we consider this legislation as early as next year because I think we rise to our greatest potential in the Senate when we update our rights as Americans, to protect them not just in the 20th century but in the 21st century.

With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to thank the Government of Kenya and its President Kibaki for the difficult decision he and his government have made with regard to Somalia.

We all recall Somalia as the site of the Black Hawk Down tragedy in 1993. As much as Americans might wish to ignore that troubled country, I do not think we can. Somalia is a country whose government collapsed in 1991 but has now given rise to what is arguably the second largest terror presence on planet Earth, called al-Shabaab. The country also represents a new 21st-century threat of piracy across America's Persian Gulf oil supply lines.

On October 16, at the invitation of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, the Kenyan Government launched Operation Protect the Country against the al-Shabaab terrorist organization based in Somalia.

We all recall that al-Shabaab is an al-Qaida affiliate that has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States since 2008. It is responsible for multiple attacks in Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda, including a suicide bombing in July 2010 in Kampala that killed 76 people, including an American citizen, 25-year-old Nate Henn of North Carolina who worked for the Invisible Children nonprofit organization. Also, on October 25, al-Shabaab kidnapped and is still holding another American citizen, 32-year-old Jessica Buchanan of Virginia.

About 4,000 Kenyan troops are now approaching the critical Somali port city of Kismayo where al-Shabaab makes most of its money and is headquartered. The success of the Kenyan operation would mean a significant weakening of al-Shabaab's ability to plan and execute terrorist attacks and would greatly support the security of the region and the United States.

Also joining in the fight against al-Shabaab are prominent local tribal militias, including the Ahlu Sunnah Waljamaah, the ASWJ; the Raas Kaambooni Front; and the Jubaland militia formed under the former TFG defense minister, Mohamed Abdi Mohamed.

I commend the Kenyan Government and the allied groups for their action, and the United States and NATO should support this Kenyan action.

Al-Shabaab poses a significant threat to America's national security and to Kenya's safety. Since 2009, al-Shabaab has conducted at least 10 attacks on Kenyan soil and the territorial seas along her coastline. In a particularly heinous crime, on October 1, al-Shabaab kidnapped a disabled French woman on Kenyan soil and dragged her to Somalia, where she later died. Last week, al-Shabaab militants also threw a grenade into a Nairobi nightclub.

Because of al-Shabaab's refusal to allow access for humanitarian organizations to relieve famine, Kenya is also now home to 600,000 Somali refugees. In many ways, the famine and distress that is now evident in Somalia should be called the al-Shabaab famine.

Al-Shabaab also poses a direct threat to the United States by actively radicalizing and recruiting American citizens.

On October 29, a suicide bomber attacked an African Union base in Mogadishu, killing himself and 10 other human beings. The suspect, Abdisalan Hussein Ali, was a 22-year-old American citizen who grew up in Minneapolis and studied to be a doctor before he suddenly disappeared to join al-Shabaab in 2008. The recording he allegedly made before his death contained a disturbing message aimed at young Americans. He said:

Today, jihad is what is most important. It's not important

that you become a doctor, or some sort of engineer.

According to the FBI, Ali was one of 30 American citizens who have now

joined al-Shabaab. In August of 2010, the FBI arrested 2 and charged 12 more individuals in Minnesota, Alabama, and California ``with acts of terrorism that include providing money, personnel, and other material support to the Somali-based terrorist organization al Shabaab.'' At the time, Attorney General Eric Holder called it ``a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to al Shabaab from cities across the United States.''

On July 27, an investigation by the House Committee on Homeland Security found the following:

Al-Shabaab has an active recruitment and radicalization

network inside the U.S. targeting Muslim-Americans in Somali

communities. It also ensnared a few non-Somali Muslim-

American converts, such as a top Shabaab commander:

At least 40 or more Americans--

According to the House--

have joined Shabaab;

So many Americans have joined that at least 15 of them have

been killed fighting with Shabaab, as well as three

Canadians;

Three Americans who returned to the U.S. were prosecuted,

and one awaits extradition from The Netherlands;

At least 21 or more American Shabaab members overseas

remain unaccounted for and pose a direct threat to the U.S.

homeland.

The House said:

Al-Shabaab has the intent and capability to conduct attacks

or aid core Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in

Yemen with striking U.S. interests and the U.S. homeland.

They said that al-Shabaab has openly pledged loyalty and support to al-Qaida and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and has cemented an alarming set of operational ties to both groups.

The House report also points out that after the successful U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden, al-Shabaab's leadership eulogized bin Laden and vowed revenge against the United States. Omar Hammami, another al-Shabaab leader raised in the United States, said he ``swore [a] blood revenge against his own homeland for the May 1 killing of Osama Bin Laden.''

Al-Shabaab poses a grave threat to regional stability and to our own national security. I thank the Kenyan Government and their allies in Somalia for taking action. Our administration and our NATO allies should support Kenya. We should also make sure that in this support we have the objective to collapse al-Shabaab in Somalia. With luck, while al-Shabaab may have found a recruit or two among American citizens to wage jihad against their own country, there, hopefully, will be no al- Shabaab to fight for if they ever reach Somalia.

Mr. President, I yield back.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 3 minutes.

Mr. President, we all saw the news, yet to be confirmed, that General Qadhafi is dead. This is a victory for our men and women in uniform, for the United States, for the administration, but, most importantly, for the people of Libya.

Senators McCain, Graham, Rubio, and I had the privilege 20 days ago of traveling to Tripoli. I was quite surprised at what I saw. Considering other war zones, Tripoli did not appear to be one of them. The rebels took the capital largely intact. Only the Qadhafi compound was blown away. There was anti-Qadhafi graffiti--obviously spontaneous--everywhere, and some of the most popular people in the city were U.S. citizens.

While many people in Libya do not fully know the position of Senator McCain, they knew he was an American leader. Throughout our visit, they came out to thank him for the aircraft they saw overhead that they felt equalized the battle between them and their government, between the professional army of Muammar Qadhafi, the people of Misrata, the people of Tripoli, and the people of Benghazi.

We have the makings of a very pro-U.S. ally. Millions of Libyans right now are very thankful for the United States. They feel the aircraft overhead that equalized this battle were almost all American. In reality, many of those aircraft were British and French from our NATO allies. But because of that pro-American feeling, the new government there is likely to be overwhelmingly pro-American.

As we look to a now-secure post-Qadhafi environment, we have to make several points.

First, when we were there, leaders were obviously afraid that as long as he lived, Qadhafi could make a comeback. That now no longer looks possible at all.

Second, to head off Islamists who may try to form a party, Prime Minister Jibril wanted to call for early elections. We should help him call early elections because right now the rebel TNC government is overwhelmingly popular and would be elected.

Next, we have to unify military authority with the new rebel government. We were briefed that there are 28 separate militias in Tripoli. We should unify military command under them to make sure any sectarian violence does not break out with the victory that has come at hand.

Libya is a unique country that does not need foreign assistance from the United States. We have seized 34 billion of their dollars and over $100 billion in a seized account worldwide. They need assistance. They need medical backup, training for their army, support for their elections, but they can pay for it.

One thing they asked of us that we should provide is a hospital ship. USNS Comfort should be allowed to go to Libya to care for those who were wounded in this battle. We were told 25,000 citizens of Libya died in this revolution and 60,000 were wounded. The United States should help care for them, and the Libyan Government should reimburse us for that effort.

When we look to the future, we also have a couple of key challenges. We were briefed that Qadhafi's chemical weapons stockpile was secure, and I think it is, but we need to keep it that way. We were also briefed that the arsenals of Libya were looted, including thousands of handheld surface-to-air missiles. It should be a top priority of the United States to buy or gain custody of those missiles again before they become a threat to civil aircraft around the world.

In the end, as I said, this is a victory for the administration, for the men and women of the U.S. military, but especially for the people of Libya. If we take the steps I just outlined--security for the chemical weapons arsenal, recovery of the surface-to-air missiles, support for early elections, and medical care with the provision of a U.S. hospital ship--I think we will lock in the winning of a new, very pro-U.S. ally in the Middle East.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the bi-partisan International Travelers Bill of Rights of 2011 with my colleagues Senators Scott Brown, Ben Cardin, and John Kerry. It is critical that consumers are able to make fully informed decisions, especially with regard to health and safety, as more Americans use the Internet to book overseas travel.

This effort is on behalf of my constituent, Nancy Midlock of Shorewood, Illinois, whose family suffered a great tragedy when her 8- year old son, Brent, drowned in a hotel pool, while on vacation in Mexico. If Ms. Midlock had been aware that this particular hotel did not offer adequate emergency care, perhaps she would have chosen to stay at another location where such services were offered.

Because of this, I feel strongly that websites must do their best to make sure travelers are aware of the available onsite health and safety services before they book. If a hotel can provide details about their fitness center, golf courses, and high speed Internet, it can certainly indicate if there is a lifeguard on duty.

This bipartisan legislation requires website operators to display the available health and safety information of their overseas destinations. This includes Department of State travel warnings, the availability of a nurse or physician on the premises, and the presence of a lifeguard on duty. Additionally, the Department of State is required to update the record of Deaths of US Citizens Aboard by Non-Natural Causes on a monthly basis with increased granularity.

Finally, several provisions will ensure that the travel industry is not burdened with impractical regulations. Website operators will have one year to request and display the necessary information, if available, and are protected from unfair lawsuits. Online travel websites provide an important service to many of us, and I look forward to working with them on behalf of all Americans. This bill is an important first step to ensure Americans are informed, prepared, and ultimately more aware, global travelers.

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

With regard to our policy toward Iran and the recent revelation of a potential attack involving not just foreign embassies and ambassadors but Americans, potentially Senators, being killed by a plot hatched by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Quds Force, there should be consequences, not just concerns expressed from the administration. We have witnessed a growing aggressiveness by the Iranian regime toward the United States and toward their own people.

For example, recently, an Iranian actress who appeared uncovered in an Australian film was then sentenced to 90 lashes for her so-called crime. With regard to the 330,000 Baha'is, a religious minority in Iran, first they were excluded from all public contracting, then they were told all their children had to leave Iranian universities, and then all their home addresses were registered in secret by the Iranian Interior Ministry.

I would suggest we have seen this movie before in a different decade wearing different uniforms. But this is the bureaucracy necessary to carry out a Kristallnacht in Farsi.

We have seen, for example, the Persian world's first blogger, Hossein Ronaghi, who was thrown into jail simply for expressing tolerance toward other peoples and other religions. Probably most emblematic, we saw the jailing of Nasrin Sotoudeh, a young mother and a lawyer, whose sole crime was to represent Shirin Ebadi, a Noble Prize winner, in the courts of Iran.

We hear and have watched unclassified reports of an acceleration of uranium enrichment in Iran. We even have the irony, according to the International Monetary Fund, that despite comprehensive U.N. and U.S. sanctions--according to the IMF--Iran had greater economic growth last year than the United States and the Iranian indebtedness is only a fraction of U.S. indebtedness. According to the IMF, the United States owes about 70 percent of its GDP in debt held by the public. For Iran, it is only 5.5 percent.

Now the United States has enacted a new round of sanctions against Iran. President Obama signed it into law last year. There were 410 votes in the House, and it was unanimous in the Senate. I worked for many years on a predecessor to that legislation when I was a Member of the House. The record of the administration, and especially our very able Under Secretary of the Treasury David Cohen, has been very good at implementing that bill. He has been very successful in reducing formal banking contacts between American, European and Asian banks and Iran. It is very important, when we look at the situation of how to deal with Iran, that we not see it from Washington's view, looking toward Iran, in which we see an awful lot of banks and an awful lot of transactions shut down, but look at it from Tehran's view, looking back from the United States, and we will see a quickly growing Iranian economy, a growing record of brazen oppression, actresses sentenced to 90 lashes, Noble Prize-winning attorneys thrown in jail, an accelerating nuclear program, and then a decision by the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Quds Force, to attack the United States.

Long ago, I thought it was a mistake to have the Drug Enforcement Agency left outside of the U.S. intelligence community. Luckily, we reversed that decision and we brought DEA back into the intelligence community. It was a lucky strike that the person who was contacted by the Quds Force to carry out an attack on the United States actually contacted a confidential informant working for the DEA. It was on that lucky break that we had the ability to break this plot. But if we read Attorney General Holder's complaint against the defendant involved, we will see--I believe it is on page 12--a rendition of how, if they could not kill the Ambassador outside the restaurant, it was perfectly OK with the Quds Force operator that a bomb go off involving dozens--if not over 100--of Americans killed. The bonus, he thought, maybe a large number of Senators would be involved. If that was necessary to kill this Ambassador, all the better.

The Treasury Department has designated, finally, the head of the Quds Force under our law. But it is ironic that when we look at the comprehensive record of designations, the Europeans, who actually are not known for their strong-willed backbone on many international questions, have a more far-reaching effect on calling it the way they see it in Iran. Both Europe and America now have a regime to bring forward sanctions and designations against Iranians who are ``comprehensive abusers of human rights.''

Currently, our government has only designated 11 Iranians, where the European Union has designated over 60. One of the people missed by our administration is the President of Iran, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who often talks about ending the state of Israel. Probably the only head of state of a member of the United Nations who regularly talks about erasing another member of the United Nations from the planet. We also have not designated President Ahmadinejad's chief of staff. We have not designated dozens of people that even the European Union has designated as comprehensive abusers of human rights.

So what should we do when we have uncovered a plot to attack the United States in which the highest levels of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force was involved? Thank goodness for the DEA and the rest of the law enforcement and intelligence community of the United States, the plot was foiled, and so no attack was carried out. In my mind, we should take the toughest action possible, short of military action. Is there consensus in the Congress behind what that action should be? I would argue yes.

Senator Schumer and I, this summer, put forward what we feel is one of the real, most crippling sanctions the United States could deliver against Iran; that is, to ensure that any financial institution that has any contact with the Central Bank of Iran be excluded from the U.S. market. Because the United States is the largest economy on Earth, we believe nearly every financial institution on the planet will cut its ties to the Central Bank of Iran. That, most likely, would cripple Iran's currency and cause chaos within their economy. You know what. Iran might actually suffer a recession, which it currently is not in, and I think that would be an appropriate price to pay.

When Senator Schumer and I reached out to the Senate to ask for support, I was very surprised at the answer because all but eight Senators signed our letter. There were 92 Republicans and Democrats who signed the letter stating it should be the policy of the United States to collapse the Central Bank of Iran, to cripple its currency. After what we learned this week of a plot to kill Americans and to carry out terrorist attacks on the Capital City of the United States, I think that represents appropriate consequences, not just concerns.

We heard from the administration this morning--and while I was encouraged by the diligent work, especially of the Treasury Department, I was concerned about another thing. There are press reports that the administration

learned about this plot in June and only revealed it to us the day before yesterday. So the administration has had months to understand what this plot meant and plan for the consequences. Yet except for minor actions against a small airline in Iran called Mahan Air, except for actually finally designating the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, we have no comprehensive action by the United States.

My recommendation to this House and to the administration is we should take yes for an answer. With 92 Republicans and Democrats all standing behind an effort to collapse the Central Bank of Iran, this is the appropriate sanction. On top of that, we have the Menendez bipartisan legislation to close loopholes in the sanctions already cosponsored by 76 Senators. This is a tough time of partisanship in Washington. We don't get bipartisan issues such as this that often. I am surprised, it having known about this plot since June, the administration has not already put forward action, but I would urge them to do so. This was not a multilateral attack by a collection of countries on the United States; therefore, I don't think we should wait for multilateral approval before the United States acts against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the highest levels of the Iranian Government. We should designate the full list of comprehensive abusers of human rights the way the EU has done. We should exclude any financial institution from the United States that does business with the Central Bank of Iran. We should make sure that in the case of high- level Iranian officials who have plotted an attack, potentially involving dozens of American deaths right here in the Capital City of the United States, there should be severe consequences, they should be fairly swift, and our inaction should not be mistaken for weakness in the face of what is one of the most brazen international acts we have seen in recent times.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the three free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea that will be before us shortly here in the Senate. Few States need these agreements more than the State of Illinois.

This week, I released a report on the State of Illinois's debt. We now have the worst credit rating in America. Our State has fallen to 47th for a healthy business climate, with only half of the State's pension and health care promises actually funded.

Instead of continuing our State's debt spiral, these agreements will help the bottom line of Illinois exporting employers who hopefully will create thousands of new jobs without adding to the borrowing of our State or any new taxes.

Since 1997, Illinois exports to Colombia have increased by 164 percent, and exports to Panama have increased by 196 percent. Collectively, the three nations represented more than $1 billion worth of Illinois export sales in 2010.

We will see the benefits of these agreements across a wide spectrum of jobs--from high-tech companies to manufacturers to farmers.

Illinois-based Caterpillar, in Peoria, which in 2010 exported $13 billion worth of products to other countries, will see tariffs reduced by hundreds of thousands of dollars on goods through these free-trade agreements. The Panama Canal expansion project alone represents a $300 million opportunity for Caterpillar. The trade deals are particularly important for Illinois-based Navistar, which has one of the best named truck brands in Colombia and Panama.

Illinois agriculture also reaps a windfall from the pending free- trade agreements. Trade deals are expected to create about $2.5 billion in new agricultural exports and over 22,000 jobs nationwide. Expanding export markets for Illinois farmers and the increased demand for agricultural products and equipment manufactured in Illinois will allow employers such as ADM in Decatur, John Deere in Moline, and, as I mentioned, Caterpillar in Peoria to reinvest in their companies and to hire more citizens of our State. Illinois farmers and ranchers are expected to see about $90 million in increased direct exports as a result of the Senate's approval of these trade deals.

These deals represent the direction the Senate should take overall on job creation--no tax increase, no borrowing, but opening new markets for American-made products.

I think next the Congress should build on this bipartisan job- creating vote and move to reduce regulatory burdens on small businesses and reform the Tax Code so U.S. businesses can better compete globally.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to talk briefly about the breaking news today that the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder announced that a plan was conceived, sponsored, and directed from Iran to conduct bombings in Washington, DC, and potentially also in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This is from a government that Secretary of State Clinton designated as a state sponsor of terror. It is what I would think of as a very audacious, forward-leaning plan to attack the United States, its people, and foreign embassies in the Nation's capital.

Tomorrow, in the Senate Banking Committee, we will meet with our Under Secretary of the Treasury, a very able man named David Cohen. I urge the administration to look at what is the most effective sanction currently pending on our docket against the terrorists in Iran.

Earlier this year, we had 92 Senators--just about the entire Senate--

sign a letter to the President calling for the Treasury Department to execute a strategy to collapse the Central Bank of Iran.

These are the pay masters of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the intelligence service of Iran--the MOIS--that appear to be involved in the plot that the Attorney General revealed today. It is that action--to cut the Central Bank of Iran off from the central payment backbone of the Federal Reserve; obviously, to do it in cooperation with Saudi and Israeli officials, and given indications from London, from Paris, and from Berlin, probable action by our NATO allies as well--to cripple Iran's currency, to make sure what is called Bank Markazi has no access to the payment mechanisms of the West that will lead to a collapse of its currency.

I applaud David Cohen for designating at least five individuals as sponsors of terror who were part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's force--Quds Force--but I think this doesn't go far enough. With the Attorney General of the United States directly blaming the Government of Iran for this bomb plot against targets in the capital city of the United States, it is clear, with overwhelming bipartisan support and 92 Senators behind the effort to collapse the Central Bank of Iran, that would be an effective nonmilitary way to address what is clearly an utterly irresponsible and largely out of control IRGC and MOIS, who were seeking to attack American targets.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to take this time to talk on the pending legislation with regard to China. In these times of deficit and debt, I think we should not launch a trade war with China. We are here because we borrowed too much. We have a spending habit that has weakened our economy. That spending habit was aided by China, but we can only blame ourselves for much of the economic weakness the United States now faces.

A trade war with China would put in jeopardy a number of jobs from my State of Illinois. Illinois exports to China in 2000 totaled about $533 million. Roughly 2,500 people received their employment by virtue of sales to China 10 years ago. Today, exports to China total about $3.18 billion. The number of people employed by sales to China has grown from around 2,500 jobs to 15,000. In a State with a higher than average unemployment, where unemployment is growing faster than almost any other region of the country, I do not think we should put these jobs at risk with an unnecessary trade war with China.

When we look at Illinois very directly, we see a major Peoria employer like Caterpillar, whose sales to China last year totaled about $3.2 billion roughly related to about 10,000 jobs in the direct and contractor and subcontractor area for sales to China. With Motorola, based in Schaumburg, sales totaled about $2 billion directly to China, impacting about 7,000 jobs. For Boeing, headquartered in Illinois, sales to China totaled about $3 billion--around 10,000 jobs directly related to sales into the Chinese market.

This bill would seek to blame all of our economic ills on a power overseas despite so much of the weaknesses related to our own overregulation, a flawed health care bill, and too many taxes that are causing small employers--the engine of employment in our country--to hold back on hiring an American full time. I believe this bill places the blame in the wrong place and diverts the needed attention of the Senate from where it should be placed in fixing our economy.

For 10 years, I served in the House of Representatives. In 2005, during that rendition of anti-Chinese legislation, I decided to form a bipartisan caucus, the China Working Group, with Democratic Representative Rick Larsen of Washington. We decided to bring together the three warring China tribes of the House of Representatives. That would be the panda huggers, a very small number of Members; the dragon slayers, a very large number of Members, especially on my side; and the panda slayers, who are growing in number, who dislike almost anything related to China. We welcomed everyone to discuss China because of its growing role in the world because, according to one of our leading banks, China could be the largest economy on Earth, replacing a status that the United States had until our policy was misplaced and that we have had since around the 1870s.

Should we trigger a trade war with the coming largest economy on Earth? I would say we should not. In the 21st century, China can be the source of the greatest ill or greatest good for the United States, depending on how we manage this relationship.

One of the key audiences I listened to, as chairman of the China Working Group, with Congressman Larsen, was Americans who actually sold American-manufactured goods in China. Oftentimes, we would ask: Is your No. 1 concern with regard to selling more

goods in China related to the currency? Overwhelmingly, they would say it was not their No. 1 concern. Their No. 1 concern instead was the comprehensive theft of intellectual property by Chinese entities from U.S. patent holders. This is most clearly evidenced in the Hollywood DVD industry but also elsewhere. When you look at this issue in a serious way, you find currency is not the No. 1 issue, although I admit it polls rather well. But our job is to actually add employment to the United States, and one of the key audiences we should listen to is people who sell U.S. goods in China.

If you delve into the intellectual property issue and the comprehensive theft of intellectual property, you will find that China has some fairly reputable intellectual property laws, but they are not enforced. A common thing you hear about China is a phrase that is often used in the Chinese language. It goes something like this: The mountains are very high and the Emperor is far away, meaning despite laws that may be on the books in Beijing, they are not enforced in the provinces where so much theft of intellectual property happens.

I would argue that a bipartisan agenda that would add to jobs and strengthen our relation with China would be a greater enforcement of intellectual property laws between the United States and China. There, we would actually have allies, such as the man who is most likely to become President of China, Xi Jinping, who wants China to be a strong innovator, and he knows China cannot be an innovative nation if it represents a comprehensive theft of intellectual property worldwide. He knows China's intellectual property law has to be actually enforced in the provinces if they are to have technological development. His interests are actually in line with the interests of U.S. exporters, and here we could have a very productive dialog which actually stops the theft of intellectual property in China and enhances the export potential of Americans.

I worry that we are diverting the time of the Senate from the big game, which is the joint committee and its work on reducing the deficit. I have heard that the President of the United States has called Senators, asking that this bill not come up. When you look at the prospects for this legislation in the House, you will learn the prospects for this legislation are dim at best.

What should we do rather than trigger a trade war with a country that is about to be the largest economy on Earth? What should we do rather than trigger job losses at Caterpillar and Motorola and Boeing, at Schaumburg and Peoria and in Chicagoland? I think instead we should focus the Senate legislation on passing the Gang of 6 legislation that would reduce the net borrowing of the United States by $4 trillion. We should adopt the Collins moratorium on job-killing regulations costing over $100 million to reassure the engine of our job economy--small businesses--that they should go ahead and begin to hire Americans again. We should do the big idea that is in the bipartisan deficit commission report of tax reform, wiping out all special interest tax provisions and then using the money, A, to lower the deficit and, B, to lower the top rate from 39 percent to 29 percent. We should also rapidly pass, as has now been proposed, the Panama and Colombia and South Korea Free Trade Agreements that open new markets for the United States. Particularly in the case of Colombia, the markets would be opened for Illinois corn growers. For South Korea, I think it would end the beef impasse we have had and also open high-technology aviation markets for the United States.

When I talk about the Gang of 6, when I talk about the Collins amendment, when I talk about tax reform, when I talk about free-trade agreements--these are all positive agreements on which large numbers of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate can agree and which would pass the House of Representatives, rather than the underlying legislation which the President of the United States has indicated he would rather not come up, which has a dismal future in the House of Representatives, and which directly puts at risk any job subject to Chinese retaliation from this legislation.

I also note that when you read the basic text of this legislation, it is not serious because it has a big waiver in it. Even if it made it to the President's desk, given his calls to legislators on this issue, there is no doubt in my mind that the President would execute the waivers in this legislation.

So what are we doing? We are probably advancing a well and poll- tested piece of legislation in the Senate. I imagine some people would want to take advantage of that dialog. But have we made it into enacted law? Overwhelmingly, likely no. Are we actually going to take any legitimate action? Even by the terms of the legislation and its waiver, it would be exercised by the chief executive officer of the United States, and therefore no action would be taken. But we would open the very people whom we want to crawl this economy out of recession--U.S. exporters--to vulnerabilities for retaliation by the Chinese. Sometimes you have to think about the basic principle of medicine when you look at legislation; that is, first, do no harm.

As Europe crumbles in a wave of outdated and out-of-gas socialism, threatening our economy, as we teeter on the edge of a new recession because of too many regulations--10 new taxes in the health care bill-- and an uncertain political future for deficit reduction under the bipartisan joint committee, ladling onto that--and our markets and the future of our retirement savings--a trade war with the second largest economy on Earth would be unwise at best and put the jobs of many Americans at risk at worst.

That is why I oppose this legislation. That is why, regardless of the action in the Senate, I do not think it is going anywhere in the House. Certainly, given the action and calls of the President to certain legislators, it doesn't appear to have any real future in enforcement if it ever even did make its way to the White House.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

I rise to commend the Senate Appropriations Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Graham, on a decision we made yesterday as a full committee with regard to U.S. assistance to Pakistan.

In short, what the Senate did was to remove nearly all the guarantees of assistance funding to the Pakistani Government, based on new information and statements made by senior U.S. Government officials on the Pakistani Government and its intelligence service's--called the ISI--support for an organization called the Haqqani network, one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations on Earth.

We have learned from statements by our U.S. Ambassador in Kabul, U.S. Ambassador in Islamabad, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the Haqqani network has become the principle threat to the Afghan Government, to U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan, and to our NATO allies.

We have seen the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and NATO Headquarters were attacked on September 12. At least 16 people were killed, including 5 Afghan police officers and 11 civilians, in an attack organized and put together by the Haqqani network under the direct protection and support of Pakistan's Government itself. Just a few days earlier, at Combat Post Sayed Abad in Wardak Province, on September 10, over 77 U.S. soldiers and 17 Afghans were injured by a massive truck bomb likely put together by the Haqqani network, probably in Afghanistan, for an attack on Americans. This June 28, at the Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul, 12 Afghans were killed and 8 were wounded during a nighttime attack, also likely sponsored by the Haqqani network. That same network attacked Kabul Bank on February 19, with over 40 people killed.

The Haqqani network is a different branch of the Taliban. The Taliban largely does not have a safe sanctuary in Afghanistan or Pakistan. They have surrendered much of their operational control and initiative in eastern Afghanistan to the Haqqani network.

The reason why the Haqqani network has become so powerful and so strong is because it is protected by the Government of Pakistan itself, a claimed ally of the United States that receives substantial assistance provided by this Congress.

We have seen a very clear picture emerge from the administration directly connecting the Government of Afghanistan to the Haqqani network in support and assistance that has been involved in the death of American service men and women and our NATO and Afghan allies.

This started out on September 13, when one of our most able Foreign Service Officers, a real hero of Foreign Service, our Ambassador in Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, highlighted Pakistan support for the Haqqani network and its role in attacks in Afghanistan.

Four days later, our U.S. Ambassador, his counterpart in Islamabad, Cameron Munter, gave a very important and I think brave interview on Pakistani radio, highlighting the role of the Pakistani Government support for this terrorist organization and its attacks on U.S. service men and women in Afghanistan.

The following day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during a meeting with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khar, also highlighted the government support for this terrorist organization and its attacks on American citizens serving in uniform in Afghanistan.

Finally, on September 20, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, in a presentation before the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, also highlighted Pakistan's official government support for the ISI and the Haqqani network.

In testimony today in the Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral Mullen reiterated these claims, stating the ISI, Pakistan's Government, had provided explicit support for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and NATO headquarters. The Haqqani network, supported by the Government of Pakistan, is also responsible for attacks on Afghan and Indian construction efforts in the Kabul-Gardez Road at Camp Chapman, an attack that killed seven CIA employees and enabled the kidnapping of American and British journalists.

Within Pakistan, the Haqqani network serves as a trusted intermediary between the Pakistani intelligence service and terrorist organizations active also against the Indian democracy in Kashmir and throughout the subcontinent. These include Lashkar-e-Taiba and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, organizations responsible for the 2008 and 2011 Mumbai attacks.

Secretary Clinton, Secretary Panetta, Admiral Mullen, General Allen, Ambassador Crocker, Ambassador Munter, and the Congress, Republicans and Democrats here in the Senate, now all agree that the Pakistani Government's complicity and longstanding history of support and protection for the Haqqani network is a major impediment of the U.S. goal of achieving safety and security in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pakistani Government should end its protection of the Haqqani network.

The Haqqani network is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ISI, and is responsible for the death of American service men and women and civilians in Afghanistan. Both the United States and Pakistan would benefit from a strong and stable Afghanistan, but the ISI part of the Pakistani Government disagrees and supports terror. That is why it is important that the Senate made this decision to remove all but the counterterrorism accounts from Pakistan and to put in new language conditioning any extension of aid to Pakistan on cooperation against the Haqqani network.

We will need to define what ``cooperation'' means, and I hope what it will mean is, No. 1, a substantive and continuous reduction in Haqqani op tempo against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, showing that nearly all of the attacks have been eliminated within the calendar year and, on top of that, authority or action by the United States or NATO allies to hit Haqqani targets in the frontier autonomous tribal area, where they have been protected to date.

Unless we can meet these two conditions, I believe the decision we have made to remove the floors and stop the guaranteed funding for Pakistan is a wise one. This is a rare moment in which the U.S. Ambassador in Kabul, the U.S. Ambassador in Islamabad, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State have all said that the Pakistanis directly support terror through the Haqqani network and it needs to stop. In these tough economic times where nearly all of the assistance under the legislation approved yesterday is in the overseas contingent operation account--which, remember, is all borrowed money to be provided to

Pakistan--it should be done only if their policy of supporting the Haqqani network ends.

I am very glad the administration and now the Congress have spoken with a clear voice. I only hope we hold our nerve because, otherwise, if we go by past policies of having mere Pakistani promises and official statements be the cause for releasing U.S. aid, we will repeat the failures of the current policy. We need actual action. We need to understand that senior Pakistani officials--of their foreign ministry, of their intelligence service, and of their defense department--have directly lied to American officials. Only by action and cutting off the Haqqani network can we make sure that at least the U.S. taxpayer is not supporting this terrorism.

I commend the action of the Foreign Operations Committee yesterday. I commend that it was a bipartisan action. Now I hope we stick to our guns and make sure we do not provide assistance to Pakistan unless they stop supporting this most dangerous now terrorist operation operating against our men and women in uniform serving in Afghanistan.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to join with Senator Frank Lautenberg to introduce the Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act of 2011 to help protect the millions of Americans who utilize public beaches each day.

Unfortunately, every year many beaches go unmonitored or face severe delays in receiving test results of levels of contamination in coastal waters. Without proper monitoring and notification, thousands of citizens risk illness due to growing contamination of our coastal waters. Beach closings are a far too regular occurrence along the 52 public Lake Michigan beaches in my home State of Illinois. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, there were 579 beach closures or contamination advisories last year, an 8 percent increase from 2008. Beach closures greatly affect the health of our children and families-- a recent University of Chicago study showed swim bans at Chicago's beaches due to E. coli levels cost the local economy $2.4 million in lost revenue every year. This bipartisan legislation requires rapid testing methods to detect water contamination in 4 hours or less, faster notification and decision about closures and advisories within 2 hours. These measures can help save millions of Americans from hospital bills or unnecessary beach closings.

But we must not ignore the more dangerous toxin which has far reaching consequences for the most vulnerable members our society--our children. Mercury pollution is a serious problem nationwide and is particularly concerning since large amounts can accumulate in fish tissue. Mercury levels in the Great Lakes, particularly in Lake Michigan, are poorly understood. Moving forward, it is critical that we revise the outdated monitoring and testing of this dangerous toxin. This bill also requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to update existing monitoring protocols and develop updated testing recommendations for the existence of mercury in Great Lakes coastal waters, sediment and fish.

Protecting the Great Lakes and our coastal waters is one of my top priorities in Congress. I am proud to be the lead cosponsor of this important legislation that addresses a key problem facing our Great Lakes beaches. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to help safeguard our future generations and our most precious natural resource.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to join with Senator Frank Lautenberg to introduce the Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act of 2011 to help protect the millions of Americans who utilize public beaches each day.

Unfortunately, every year many beaches go unmonitored or face severe delays in receiving test results of levels of contamination in coastal waters. Without proper monitoring and notification, thousands of citizens risk illness due to growing contamination of our coastal waters. Beach closings are a far too regular occurrence along the 52 public Lake Michigan beaches in my home State of Illinois. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, there were 579 beach closures or contamination advisories last year, an 8 percent increase from 2008. Beach closures greatly affect the health of our children and families-- a recent University of Chicago study showed swim bans at Chicago's beaches due to E. coli levels cost the local economy $2.4 million in lost revenue every year. This bipartisan legislation requires rapid testing methods to detect water contamination in 4 hours or less, faster notification and decision about closures and advisories within 2 hours. These measures can help save millions of Americans from hospital bills or unnecessary beach closings.

But we must not ignore the more dangerous toxin which has far reaching consequences for the most vulnerable members our society--our children. Mercury pollution is a serious problem nationwide and is particularly concerning since large amounts can accumulate in fish tissue. Mercury levels in the Great Lakes, particularly in Lake Michigan, are poorly understood. Moving forward, it is critical that we revise the outdated monitoring and testing of this dangerous toxin. This bill also requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to update existing monitoring protocols and develop updated testing recommendations for the existence of mercury in Great Lakes coastal waters, sediment and fish.

Protecting the Great Lakes and our coastal waters is one of my top priorities in Congress. I am proud to be the lead cosponsor of this important legislation that addresses a key problem facing our Great Lakes beaches. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to help safeguard our future generations and our most precious natural resource.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to suspend the time limitation and continue for 8 minutes to eulogize Senator Percy.

Mr. President, I rise along with my colleague from Illinois, our senior Senator, Mr. Durbin, and, of course, Senator Rockefeller, related to the Percy family, to eulogize Senator Percy, whom he we lost on Saturday--a great and one of the most successful Illinois Senators.

Senator Percy dedicated much of his life to serving our Nation, first in the U.S. Navy and then for 18 years in the Senate.

I think I am the only Member of the Senate who actually voted for Senator Percy and volunteered in his campaign, along with my mom, when I was only 12 years old. Senator Percy, we knew, was a focused and disciplined leader, who succeeded at nearly everything he put his mind to.

He graduated from my alma mater, New Trier High School, and also lived in Kenilworth, IL, my hometown. He later, after graduating from New Trier, went to the University of Chicago. After getting a bachelor's degree in economics, he joined a small camera company called Bell & Howell.

He then led Bell & Howell, starting at the age of only 29, into making military cameras and movie projectors and then a new product called microfilm. As the leader of Bell & Howell, he was one of our greatest job engines of the State of Illinois. Employment grew 12 times under his leadership and earnings 32 times. But Charles Percy wanted to do more for his country.

As we heard, at the request of President Eisenhower, he helped write ``Better Decisions For America'' as part of

the Republican platform of 1960. Charles Percy ran for Governor in 1964, but he lost that election. In the not-so-proud tradition of Illinois, that Governor then went to jail and Percy became seen as a corruption fighter in our State. Just 2 years after that defeat, Charles Percy was elected by the people of Illinois to represent them in the Senate, defeating Paul Douglas.

During that campaign, his daughter Valerie was murdered in my hometown and his hometown, Kenilworth--one of our town's only murders. It was through this tragedy that we saw so clearly Charles Percy's quiet dignity.

In the Senate, Chuck Percy was first known as a proponent of a foundation to back home ownership for low-income families. He was the toast of this town in the 1960s, described by the New York Times as ``the hottest political article in the Republican Party.'' He even led in polls for the 1968 Republican nomination for President.

Senator Percy, though, was at heart an independent who took on corruption in his own State, and especially his own party. He moved the first resolution calling for an independent prosecutor on the Watergate scandal. The New York Times reported:

Nixon fumed to his cabinet that he would do all he could to

make sure that Mr. Percy, who already voted against two Nixon

nominees for the Supreme Court, would never become President.

Senator Percy fought corruption wherever he saw it. In 1977, he took on White House Budget Director Bert Lance for backdating checks to gain tax deductions. Lance later resigned.

Senator Percy was best known for his work as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during historic times, when the United States recovered its nerve and stared down the Soviet Union, and it won the Cold War outright.

He was a gentle man, disciplined in swimming every day, and a devout Christian Scientist who read the Bible each evening.

Senator Percy was a strong, honest, and principled man whose integrity remained uncompromised in his nearly 20 years in the Senate. He believed that accountability, checks and balances, and transparency should be the driving forces of government.

We will miss his moderate, fiscally conservative brand of politics. His legacy is one of genteel, thoughtful leadership, and his fight against corruption in Illinois is sorely missed today.

I send my sincere condolences to Senator Percy's wife Loraine and his children, Sharon, Roger, Gail, and Mark, and their spouses--including our colleague Senator Rockefeller--and to the grandchildren, great- grandchildren, and many friends and family who will mark his passing at the funeral on Wednesday.

Senator Percy was one of the best-remembered Illinois Senators. He represents a tradition, in some sense followed by me. As a former volunteer for his campaign and one who voted for him, we mark his loss today.

I yield the floor.