Floor Statements

Mr. President, One Hundred and Thirty Nine years ago, before the term Homeland Security was even coined, a group of men devoted themselves to securing the frontiers of this Nation. They protected Americans in their homes; they deterred hostile invaders, and they secured the blessings of liberty for a young country. Even more remarkable, they secured these blessings for others, while they could not fully enjoy them themselves.

I am referring to the Buffalo Soldiers. These brave men instituted a tradition of professional military service for African Americans that spans the greater part of American history. African American military service is as old as our nation. There were black soldiers during the revolution, a unit of free black men played a pivotal role in the Battle of New Orleans, and the exploits of African Americans during the Civil War have been captured in novels and on film. However, it was not until the Army Reorganization Act of 1866 that soldiering and service to country became a realistic option for African Americans seeking to improve their quality of life. In so doing, they raised the bar of freedom, and revealed the injustice of preventing the defenders of democracy from fully participating in it.

The City of New Orleans, and the State of Louisiana have a rich history. They have given more than their fair share of sons to the service of our Nation. Much of this history is commemorated throughout the State. Yet, these great sons of New Orleans remain unacknowledged in their home. For in Louisiana's great military tradition, surely one of its greatest military contributions were the 9th Cavalry Regiment and the 25th Infantry Regiment.

These two forces, recruited and organized in New Orleans, represent half of all the units of buffalo soldiers. The 9th Cavalry alone constituted 10% of all the American cavalry. Their list of adversaries reads like a who's who of the Old West--Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Poncho Villa. In movies, when settlers encounter Apaches, the cavalry always comes to the rescue. Yet how many times were the cavalry that rode over the horizon African American? Of course, the reality is that the Buffalo Soldiers comprised some of our nations most capable and loyal troops. Despite suffering the worst deprivations known to any American soldiers of the period, they had the lowest desertion rates in the Army. The 9th Cavalry was awarded 10 Congressional Medals of Honor, including a native Louisianan, Sgt. Emanuel Stance--a farmer from Carroll Parish.

For these reasons, I am offering legislation today along with Senator Vitter that would authorize the creation of a suitable memorial in New Orleans for these gallant soldiers. There is an excellent statue to the Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Leavenworth, KS. It commemorates the 10th Cavalry Regiment stationed there. However, I believe that these men deserve to be recognized in their home city. Furthermore, it should be in an a location where thousands of visitors will have the opportunity to come to appreciate the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers. I believe that the City of New Orleans is the perfect location.

We have made a number of changes to this legislation after consultations with the American Battle Monuments Commission. I believe these changes should address any concerns that they have expressed. Furthermore, we have an able and dedicated organization of individuals in the state who desperately want to see this project to completion. Last year, I had the pleasure of being in New Orleans with another of this Nation's great military heroes, Senator Daniel Inouye. We addressed a group of distinguished veterans from all around the state. Among them was George Jones, President of the Greater New Orleans Chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers Association. They have been working with Eddie Dixon, the artist for the beautiful Fort Leavenworth statute, to develop an appropriate memorial in the City of New Orleans for over a decade. This bill will fulfill that noble ambition.

This Nation has sadly found the need to say thank you to its servicemen and women after the fact on more than one occasion. Unfortunately, this is another. We are fortunate to have living memories of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments today. The regiments were not disbanded until the conclusion of World War Two, where they served with distinction. We should take this opportunity to honor these veterans, and in so doing, honor the principles of liberty, freedom and democracy for which they fought and sacrificed. They have given so much to their nation, we owe them this public expression of gratitude.

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

Mr. President, today I rise, along with Senator Vitter, to introduce the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve Boundary Adjustment Act of 2005. This bill was passed unanimously by the Senate during the 108th Congress.

The Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve was established in 1978 to preserve for present and future generations significant examples of the rich natural and cultural resources of Louisiana's Mississippi delta region. The park seeks to illustrate the influence of environment and history on the development of a unique regional culture. It is named for Jean Lafitte who was a pirate, or privateer as he like to be called, that fought alongside U.S. forces in the Battle of New Orleans at the end of the War of 1812. The park consists of six physically separate sites and a park headquarters located in New Orleans. The sites in Lafayette, Thibodaux and Eunice interpret the Acadian culture of the area. The Barataria Preserve, in Marrero, interprets the natural and cultural history of the uplands, swamps and marshlands of the region. Six miles southeast of New Orleans is the Chalmette Battlefield and National Cemetery, site of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans and the final resting place for soldiers from the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II and Vietnam. The park's visitor center, which is located in the historic French Quarter, interprets the history of New Orleans and diverse cultures of Mississippi delta region.

It is the Barataria site that is the focus of our attention today. The Bill before us would merely adjust the boundary of the Barataria preserve unit of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve and by doing so protect a crucial component of one of the largest and most productive expanses of coastal wetlands in North America--coastal Louisiana or as they are known: America's Wetlands. The Barataria preserve is the only part of our coastal wetlands preserved in the National Park System. As we strive to find ways to stem the tide of coastal erosion in Louisiana, and bring about the restoration of wetlands already lost, it is equally important that we protect those areas that remain such as the Barataria preserve so that Americans can experience, first hand, the amazing beauty and fertility of Louisiana's bountiful coastal wetlands--the most threatened wetland ecosystem in the country--disappearing at a rate of 25 to 35 square miles a year. Located on the outskirts of New Orleans, where it is accessible not only to the people of New Orleans but also to the millions of tourists from around the world that visit New Orleans and south Louisiana, Barataria serves as an interpretive experience of this greatest of coastal wetlands.

This bill expands this national treasure without any cost to the Federal Government while preserving private property rights. It simply transfers to the Park over 3,000 acres of wetlands already in Federal ownership, already paid for by the American people. These lands, which are adjacent to the Preserve, became Federal as a result of the settlement by the Justice Department of two lawsuits brought by the landowners against Federal agencies. However, because these acres are not managed by the park, they are presently unavailable for public use. An Act of Congress is necessary to allow inclusion of these lands into a new boundary.

My bill does just that, opening these lands for canoeing, wildlife viewing, exploration, fishing, and hunting, all under the management and protection of the park service. The bill grants long-term protection to crucial resources that the Park Service has found suitable and feasible for inclusion within a new boundary through a 1996 boundary study.

The Park is immediately adjacent to the developed areas of the Westbank of Jefferson Parish along much of its boundary while the Barataria unit in particular is right next door to a hurricane levee. Making more of the park boundary contiguous with the levee

that divides developed land from undeveloped wetlands enhances opportunities for direct cooperation between these communities and the Park for management of shared concerns. These concerns include the routing of storm-water run-off; the discharge of treated sewage; estuarine water quality and its effects on fisheries and recreational uses; wetland restoration and mitigation; and a number of other problems and opportunities. The Park has worked with Jefferson Parish in seeking creative solutions to these problems and will continue to do so. The addition of these properties will only enhance their chances for success.

It is for all of these reasons that I am hopeful the Senate can approve of this measure in the near future. The expansion we seek in this Bill benefits us today as well as tomorrow.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today, nearly 38 months after the September 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, the Senate will pass a bill to make Americans safer at home and abroad. What was broken before 9/11 must be fixed. S. 2845 is based on the lessons learned from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States-- the 9/11 Commission. This legislation is a great step forward to revamp and strengthen our intelligence community to thwart terror attacks on Americans in the future.

It has not been an easy task to bring this legislation to the Senate floor for a vote. Initially, the 9/11 Commission was not to report its findings to Congress and the American public until after the November elections. Fortunately, the Commission was permitted to issue its findings during the summer, which allowed Congress to draft S. 2845 and act upon nearly all of the 9/11 Commission's 41 recommendations to reform the intelligence community and improve the public's safety. Nevertheless, there were roadblocks along the way. Many Members in both Houses tried to kill this legislation, and it is a major accomplishment that we will hold a vote today and send this bill to the President this evening.

Of course, the credit goes to Senators Susan Collins and Joseph Lieberman, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. With great skill, they pushed and pulled in unison when they needed to keep this legislation afloat. They refused to let our national security fall prey to those who sought inaction over action. Additionally, Senator John Warner, the able chairman of the Armed Services Committee, worked tirelessly to ensure that S. 2845 would preserve the military's chain of command and ensure necessary intelligence resources would remain available to the military at all times. As a result of the efforts of these Senators, we will pass a bipartisan bill that will achieve the goal of centralizing U.S. intelligence operations while helping intelligence agencies better coordinate with U.S. military efforts.

Again, the 9/11 Commission found that our Nation was vulnerable to attacks because we were not properly collecting, analyzing, and acting upon intelligence. Our domestic intelligence agencies were not talking with their foreign intelligence counterparts, and federal law enforcement offices were not working with local law enforcement. And so, perhaps most importantly, this bill creates a Director of National Intelligence, DNI, and a National Counterterrorism Center, both of which will go a long way toward ensuring that our Nation's many intelligence and military agencies have the oversight, resources and coordination necessary to protect our borders and our citizens.

This bill will also help improve interagency cooperation by requiring extensive sharing of intelligence and law enforcement operations among Federal, State, and local agencies. That alone is a key step toward better protecting our citizens by ensuring information that could be vital to our national security makes it to the appropriate level. To better balance security with citizens' rights, this bill also establishes a Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to review Federal policies and practices.

Before I close, I do want to point out a provision that was deleted in the conference which could have made this bill even stronger. Our Nation needs a director of national intelligence with the mandate to provide the President and

other intelligence consumers with accurate, truthful, and even blunt intelligence. The DNI should not feel hamstrung to tell the President and other intelligence consumers what they want to hear; rather, the DNI must be able to tell them what they need to hear. The DNI must be independent and unsusceptible to the political whims of his/her superiors. S. 2845 does not go as far as I would like to ensure that there will be no politicization of the gathering and analysis of intelligence. The original Senate bill contained safeguards to ensure intelligence would not be politicized. I am hopeful the DNI will not feel pressured to validate certain political or policy points of views where the intelligence simply cannot provide such validation.

While I hope we can revisit this issue in the 109th Congress, this bill is a success. It will benefit the American people greatly, and I look forward to its passage.

May I inquire if we are still in morning business with Senators able to speak for up to 10 minutes each?

Mr. President, we are in the midst of a very important discussion, of course, as we are considering what to do. As the leadership meets to consider what we should do that hopefully will either move this process forward or come up with some other resolution, I thought I might take a moment to speak about our colleague, Senator Breaux, and his retirement.

This would probably be a good time to talk about the senior Senator from Louisiana and to pay tribute to him because he would be one of the Senators most certainly who could help us figure out this situation. He has been helping us figure out situations like this for 32 years with a lot of success and, I might say, with a lot of respect from all the Members in this body, both on the Republican side and the Democratic side.

It might be appropriate for me to speak a few moments about the great contribution this man has made to this body.

Senator Breaux came to the House when he was 28 years old, and after four children and now three grandchildren, he leaves us after serving well and admirably for 32 years.

When he came to Congress 32 years ago at the age of 28, he was the youngest Member of Congress to be serving at that time. He has served with 7 Presidents and 16 Congresses. He served with President Nixon, President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush, President Clinton, and now currently with President Bush. He served through 16 Congresses for 32 years in times of war and peace, through recessions and irrational exuberance. He has served as a husband, as a father, as a grandfather, and he served our State with great grace, great steadiness, and great leadership through it all.

It might not come as a surprise to my colleagues as we consider at this time what we are going to do to look at this picture of John Breaux that will give us all a laugh. I do not know whether he was playing Li'l Abner or a farmer, but this is on his Web site and he displays it proudly. It shows a sense of humor, even as a young man.

He has been called brash and good looking and confident, and he still is that today. He is not only a storyteller, but a great dealmaker. He has a rollicking sense of humor. He is admirable. He is hard-working, amiable, smart, a bridge builder, a strategic thinker, and someone who has our deepest respect. He has been, and continues to be, a team player.

I found this picture of John Breaux with his uniform on, which is the way he pretty much came to work every day, with his hat on, a baseball cap on, his uniform on, maybe just in a suit, but ready to get the work of the Senate done and get the work of Congress done.

There is probably not a major piece of legislation passed by this Senate that did not have John Breaux's assistance. He was the teammaker, always ready to bat or pitch or catch or sit on the sidelines or referee because he basically did it all.

He was also considered a strategic thinker and a great leader for our country. He, as many of us, gets the opportunity to not only speak on this floor but to be on major television and radio programs speaking about the great issues of the day. And he most certainly has put his mark on many pieces of legislation.

As a member of the Finance Committee, as a member of the Commerce Committee, and as a member of the Fisheries Committee in the House during the time he served there, I can say there is probably not a major piece of legislation that has not felt the good mark of Senator Breaux: always there with a compromise, always there with a suggestion, always there with a little prodding. We and the people of our Nation can be grateful for his wisdom and his input at those critical times.

Whether it was the Medicare overhaul, laying the groundwork for a stronger Social Security system, or whether it was legislation related to agriculture, to sugar or rice, the commodities in Louisiana that are so important, John was always there.

I want to say a word about a very important bill--and we will show John playing tennis because this demonstrates that not only is he a great athlete and team player, but he is a great tennis player. What I like about this picture is he always kept his eye on the ball. Despite all of the great work that Senator Breaux did in this Senate on so many pieces of legislation, helping all States, he always kept his eye on the ball--the State of Louisiana.

There are 4.5 million people who live in our State--wealthy people, poor people, people who live far out in the woods in the country and people who live in the great urban centers of New Orleans and our capital city of Baton Rouge and our other cities. Not only did he keep his eye on the ball in Louisiana, he kept his heart with us.

I can tell you he has left a great mark on our State.

There is an act we are proud of that we now call the Breaux Act. It is referred to as Wallop-Breaux, but at home we call it the Breaux Act because John, in his typical quiet, responsible fashion, crafted a very special tax arrangement that is ongoing--and we will not talk too much about the details, John, on the floor--but there was a very special arrangement made years ago with members of the Finance Committee that has helped us finance and send money to the State of Louisiana that has literally laid the groundwork to save our coastline.

It is not just Louisiana's coastline; it is America's wetlands. Two- thirds of the Nation is drained by it. Forty percent of the fisheries are in the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest shipping channel in all of North America comes through that Mississippi Delta.

Because John kept his eye on the ball--and although he did all this great work for the Nation, he always loved Louisiana the most, always put his State first--we are now able to build a great environmental legacy to save this coastline. We already lost the size of the State of Rhode Island, but because of John's work, because of his great strengths and great sense of humor, great respect, and great intelligence, he was able to lay that groundwork.

Whether it was advocating for senior citizens in our State when they did not have an advocate, or showing up at senior centers early in the morning and late at night, whether it was advocating for children through education or whether it was advocating for sugar, he did it all.

Maybe this picture says it the best. On the front page of one of our Nation's leading magazines, here is Senator Breaux sitting at the table holding all the cards and most of the chips, which is the most important thing about this picture, with the elephant on one side and the donkey on the other, and John Breaux in the middle. At times, we need men and women in the middle. We need people who can listen to both sides and try to figure it out.

Tonight, that is what we are trying to do on the Senate floor, just trying to figure out this situation. It is a serious situation, and I do not at all mean to be light about it, but figuring it out is what we do as leaders, making our government work.

While I do not gamble too much myself, I can most surely appreciate-- and there are plenty of people in Louisiana who do gamble. So we are proud of this picture and proud of John, but deals need to be made on principle and for the people. The people need the government to always give them a fair deal, a good deal, and a square deal, and that is what John did.

So, John, on behalf of so many people in Louisiana and around the Nation, let me say that you are going to be missed because you will not be a Member, of course, of the Senate, but we know that we can call you. We know that we can reach you. We know that you will always be advocating for us in Louisiana and for our Nation.

Let me also mention what has not been said on the floor and what was not said in my remarks. Besides having his name on many bills, the phone conversations and quiet consultations that he held with Presidents and with senior Members of this body, his wisdom was found and went through those conversations and into legislation that became part of the work of this body and the Congress.

So, John, for all of your not only legislative work but for your good counsel to us, to Presidents, to leaders of nations, to leaders in industry, we thank

you for that and may you look forward to many happy years with Lois. I know that your father Ezra, and I know that your mother, God rest her, would be proud. I know that your father Ezra has watched you all these years and continues to be very proud of you. From Crowley, LA, from a young man who ran when he was 28 years old on the theme of experience matters, and was brash enough at 28, having never served a moment to say that experience matters, let me say, experience does matter, and we are proud to have had a Senator with the kind of experience and legacy of my senior Senator from Louisiana, John Breaux.

I yield the floor.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 3 minutes.

Mr. President, while we are continuing to try to resolve our current situation, I will speak for a moment about something else today. Today is National Adoption Day. The Senator from Idaho and I spoke at some length yesterday in anticipation of today, so I will not go into too much detail, but I thought maybe some of my colleagues would be pleased because they worked so hard on this issue. It is an important issue. One out of six Americans has been touched by adoption.

While we were working in Washington, in our capitals and cities all across America, over 4,000 children were adopted today. That those children found forever families and parents who have prayed and hoped for either their first child into their family or children added into their family through adoption was made possible today because our country honors this day as National Adoption Day.

Both President Bush and President Clinton before him were wonderful advocates of promoting a better system of foster care and child care in our Nation for the children of America. We believe, as Members of the Senate, there is no such thing as unwanted children, just unfound families. Many of us do a lot of work in this area in terms of legislation to try to make our system work more effectively and efficiently so that all children can have the dream of a family, a mother, a father, at least one parent, to raise them, to bring them up.

We think that governments do a lot of things well--I, at least, think governments do a lot of things well--but one thing it does not do well is raise children. Families raise children. That is where children belong, in families. When they are separated from their birth parents for one reason or another--and there are many: war, famine, disease, and sometimes having to be separated from parents because of gross abuse and neglect--our work is to get them reconnected as soon as possible to a relative, to a responsible, caring adult, to at least some family in the community right there where they are and, if not, somewhere in the world.

I have a heartwarming and also heartrending story about a little boy from Louisiana. For the sake of time, I will quickly tell the story because it truly is touching.

Eight years ago, a little boy was born at Tulane Hospital. I am not going to say his name for the record. That was the wonderful news about being born, but the sad news was he was born with AIDS. He was so sick, so fragile and frail that his birth mother basically abandoned him and no one stepped forward for him.

The nurse that cared for him fell in love with him and basically took him home to her house. She and her husband raised, nurtured, and loved this little boy for many years. She tried through our system to adopt this child for years. I am not exactly sure if I could explain to Members why this never took place when the child was 2 or 3 or 4 except for bureaucracy or that people did not care enough.

Here is a little boy, dying of AIDS, wanting parents, a parent wanting this child, but the system did not work fast enough.

The happy part of the story is one judge in my State, Judge Taylor, after this came to his attention, decided to take action, and action he took. He brought all the court, which is unheard of, all the clerks, all of the lawyers to the hospital room where this little 8-year-old boy was lying in a frail condition, and he brought the prospective parents to the hospital room and they conducted the adoption ceremony right there in the hospital room. This is the only time I have ever heard of this. Maybe it has happened before, but this happened in New Orleans, LA, just in the last year.

He was so frail that his doctors insisted that the heart monitor be kept on the whole time that this was going on. When the judge said the words, this child is now adopted, his heart rate went up to normal for the first time in his life. The child could not speak, but the monitors said what the child was feeling when he was adopted because his last wish was that he would be adopted. Through the Make a Wish Foundation this all happened.

So the child was adopted, and his now new parents stood by his bedside and hugged and cried. That is the happy part of this story. I do not know what kind of system was not working that would leave this little boy without these parents so long, but the happy news is he was adopted and they became his parents. The sad part of the story is that his little life did not go much further than that, and within basically a day of that ceremony, he passed on.

The great thing that I want to say today about National Adoption Day is that this child did not die an orphan. He died as a son. For this child and for the parents who adopted him, it was a wonderful ending.

So the work that we do in the Senate, whether it is on finance, tax, health care, or military, there is not too much work that we can do that is more important than connecting children to families, families who will love them, nurture them, and give them the best opportunity. We cannot promise our children rose gardens. We cannot protect them from harm or injury or disease, but we can give our children love for as long as we have them and, of course, they give us back so much more.

In honor of National Adoption Day, I thank all of our great leaders in Louisiana that made this wonderful story happen, and I congratulate the judges on our bench in New Orleans, the social workers who were on the positive side of this story, the parents themselves, the medical staff at Tulane University, and my sister Madeleine, who is a wonderful judge, who shared this story with me.

I ask unanimous consent that the article from the New York Times be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for Resolution No. 474 to be brought up for its immediate consideration, and I will allocate time.

I am happy to cooperate. I thought we had worked this out. Perhaps we have not. I understand we are calling up a resolution for its immediate consideration and I will stay in the business that we are in.

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

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed immediately to the consideration of S. Res. 474, submitted earlier today by myself, Senator Craig, Senator Bond, as well as Senator DeWine, Senator Fitzgerald, Senator Levin, Senators Santorum and Stabenow--those last names be added as cosponsors to the resolution.

I yield to my friend who cosponsored this resolution for his remarks prior to mine.

Mr. President, I am pleased and proud to join my colleague from Idaho. I have the opportunity this morning before this body to thank him for his extraordinary leadership on this issue and his tireless efforts. Despite all of the responsibilities he has as a leader of the majority party and all of the other issues that he leads, he always finds time for this issue. It is not an issue that has a lot of paid lobbyists associated with it because this is a coalition that is actually advocating on behalf of orphans. His leadership is particularly noted, and we are grateful for all the work that our Senators do for children, not only in our country but around the world.

While we do celebrate this month and recognize this month of November and mark this time noting our great progress and success, let me begin by saying, unfortunately, the number of orphans in the world is on the rise. Some experts predict an unprecedented number of orphans in the world--really in numbers not ever known by the world before. We have had world wars in the past that have caused the number of orphans to expand greatly, but in the midst of this century and this time not only do we have war and famine, but we have something the world has never seen before, and that is the epidemic of AIDS that is an orphan factory in Africa and India.

We come to the floor today to celebrate what successes we have achieved in the United States, and we will talk about those successes in a moment. The challenge is great. I look forward to working with Senator Craig and all Members of the Senate as we try to form a leadership team for the world to address this unprecedented number of orphans.

If I could just say one more word about AIDS, sometimes children are orphaned because a parent dies of heart disease or cancer, but those diseases usually just affect one parent, not two. Because of the nature of AIDS and the way this disease is transmitted, it actually works at killing parents in usually a quick amount of time, leaving children in the international community not single orphans but double orphans. So that is quite a challenge to the world.

Let me switch to a happy note. In America last year 120,000 children found loving and permanent homes, and approximately 12,000 of those children came from other countries to the United States to loving homes in all parts of our country; small towns in Idaho, very small towns in Louisiana, as well as to our larger metropolitan areas. And they were welcomed, of course, with happiness and celebration and have become parts of families. I am proud to say that over 100,000 children were adopted, children from the United States to American families right here at home out of foster care and, of course, infant adoptions as well. That was terrific.

Two million children live in adoptive homes today in our country. More extraordinary and more jolting and impressive is the fact that 6 out of every 10 Americans have been personally touched by adoption; either they themselves were adopted or they have adopted into their family or grandparents have received from their biological family adoptive grandchildren. The stories are endless and wonderful. We need to make sure this Government of ours is doing everything it can to connect children who need families because governments do a great job at many things, but raising children is not one of them. Children need to be raised by parents, preferably two parents, but at least one loving adult that can raise that child to be a contributing member of our society.

Our future truly depends on it. We can have all the great tax policies in the world, great health policies, great education policies, but it is parent to child, that carries future values from

one generation to the next. So making these connections is not only a feel-good thing to do, it is a necessary thing to do for the continuation of our great Nation and the world community and family.

Let me share briefly about some of the children waiting in my State. There are 500,000 children in foster care in the United States today. That is tragic. It is tragic and good and I will explain. It is tragic because children have been separated from their parents. Sometimes we could have done a better job of preventing that had we given more drug counseling on substance abuse or stronger educational benefits or job opportunities to those parents. On the positive side, sometimes children have to be separated from their families because, if not, they may literally die at the hands of parents who are not in their right mind and spirit. These children can sometimes be in danger.

While we try to protect, promote and develop a better system, the fact is, 500,000 children are in foster care, anywhere from the age of 1 month up to 21 years old.

These are pictures of some of the children in my State. There are many more. Some are young teens, children who are perfectly healthy, sibling groups. Cynthia is a beautiful child. She was born with cerebral palsy and needs special care and attention. This is a story of one child who gives everyone great inspiration. Children like this with the right love and attention can grow up to be Presidents, mayors of great cities, professors at our great universities. They just need love, attention, and care. That is what National Adoption Month is all about.

Let me in my brief time share a story about an extraordinary young woman who came out of an orphanage. I will tell the story and then show the picture because you will not believe it when I show the picture. I want to tell a story that Senator Craig and I know about that has touched our hearts that we want to share with you today.

A young girl, about 9 years ago, was left in an orphanage in Russia. We do not know too much about the circumstances, but what we know is she was severely disabled when she was born. She had spina bifida. She had a hole in her spine. In some places in the world, children born with disabilities are basically just left to die--even with disabilities that we have come to know in America can be fixed and corrected with good health care. But there are truly dying rooms around the world where infants and young children are born and left to die. They are not fed, they are not taken care of because there is no medicine, no doctors, and nobody can do anything, so they make a tough judgment: to feed the healthy children and leave the sick children to die.

This little girl was left in a dying room. But she would not die, basically. After 6 years of living, with very little support, a woman we know well showed up in one of our adoption agencies and was trying to find children in this orphanage to be adopted. She came across this child who was on the floor because she could not walk. She had no wheelchair but she crawled up and touched her jacket. She looked down at this child's eyes and saw something that obviously no one else had seen and decided to adopt this child. The orphanage kept saying: We don't want you to have this child; we want you to have a ``good'' child.

She kept saying: This is the child I want. I want this child with a hole in her back, the strong and beautiful little girl.

The long and short of the story is, this woman scoops this child up, brings the child to America, adopts this child as her daughter, and her name is Tatiana McFadden.

I want to show a picture of Tatiana, but no one is going to believe the end of this story. Tatiana represented the United States of America in the Para-Olympics in Greece this year and won the silver medal for our country, for America.

This is a picture of Tatiana, who is now 16 or 17 years old, one of the strongest, most courageous, bravest human beings I have ever met. She proudly carried the American flag over that finish line and won the silver medal in the Para-Olympics.

Senator Craig, my good friend from Idaho, and I hoped she would be our special guest at Angels in Adoption, but she was actually winning the medal as our event was taking place.

In honor of Tatiana McFadden, I wanted to speak for her and for the children she represents in America and around the world. This is Tatiana, receiving on our behalf, for the United States of America, the silver medal. She represents everything that Senator Craig and I want to share today about National Adoption Month.

There are many orphans waiting. They are not damaged goods. These are children who, through no fault of their own, have been separated from their parents for a variety of different reasons. They need and want families. They have a lot to offer not only to themselves but to their countries and their families.

We hope in November, as we gather around our Thanksgiving table, and as our Nation gathers and spends time on its knees thanking God for our many blessings which we have, remembering our blessings from the early founding of this country. As we gather around our tables and hold the hands of our children, let's think about the children who do not have parents and what we can do.

Every Senator can most certainly do something. Many Senators and House Members are doing a great deal.

My colleagues have been very gracious with this time, but I close by saying that tomorrow, on Saturday, many of our colleagues, House and Senate Members, will be participating at their courthouses all over America. We are happy to say that we will have 4,000 children adopted tomorrow, on National Adoption Day, an effort started by one judge, Judge Nash in Los Angeles, CA, who started this to call attention to children like Tatiana. All they need is someone to pick them up, hold them, love them. Basically the spirit that God has put in them will do the rest. That is what this month is about.

I thank my colleague for offering this resolution. I thank the Senators in the midst of their busy work schedule for pushing this resolution through. I thank the President for his great support and acknowledge President Clinton and First Lady Clinton's effort, now Senator Clinton, and President Bush and Mrs. Bush, for their good leadership on this issue--not just in America, as my colleague knows, but as President Bush advocates these policies around the world.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider by laid upon the table, and any statements related thereto be printed in the Record without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, we have all heard the expression, ``To err is human.'' We teach our children that mistakes are okay because we learn from them. However, there are some mistakes that are more costly to make than others. In 2000, the Institute of Medicine released a report entitled, ``To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System.'' The report revealed the following devastating statistic: every year, between 44,000 and 98,000 hospitalized people in the United States die due to medical errors.

Science has not yet found a cure for cancer or even the common cold, but it has discovered a way to prevent the thousands of fatalities that occur every year due to medical errors. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations developed a universal protocol that calls for surgical teams to literally call a ``time out'' before surgeries begin. This ``time out'' serves a brief period for surgeons and nurses to verify the patient's identity, the procedure to be performed, and the site of the procedure. Endorsed by the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Hospital Association, the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses, and the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management, this idea of a ``time out'' may seem almost simplistic, but the fact of the matter is even the best surgeon in the world can make a very costly mistake if he or she does not stop for a moment for surgery and take a ``time out.''

Therefore, it is my pleasure to rise today to submit this resolution, which promotes a National Time Out Day and promotes the adoption of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization's universal protocol for preventing errors in the operating room.

To err may be human, but for the thousands of relatives that are currently sitting in a hospital waiting room, waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery, human error is not an acceptable answer.

Madam President, under the agreement last night I have up to 30 minutes to speak, and I will be happy to yield additional time to Senator Boxer at a later time because I most certainly want to support her comments and to thank her for her great support of this amendment. Without Senator Boxer and many other Senators, the victory that we have achieved this morning would not have been possible.

Senator Boxer knows, because she represents the largest State in our Union, that 90,000 guardsmen and reservists reside in California. Today, as she and I are on this floor speaking on their behalf, 7,900 are currently on duty from California, having left their homes from Bakersfield--the home of Chairman Thomas, or the center of his district--to San Francisco to Los Angeles, from Louisiana, from Oklahoma, and from Texas. Thousands of Guard and Reserve men and women have left their families, left their children, left their place of employment and gone to the front lines.

We decide where the front line is and we send them. Wherever we say to go, they go, and they have gone in large numbers.

I have spent the last few days speaking about this because it is of such critical importance for us in the Senate and for the Congress to understand that we are asking more and more of our Guard and Reserve. This was not always the case. It was not that way in World War I and World War II. It was not that way in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s, but it is this way today.

From 1990 to 2004, we have called up 690,500 Guard and Reserve members. The Guard and Reserve now make up 40 percent of our whole force. We have 1.6 million active members of all of our services, and we have 1.2 million men and women in the Guard and Reserve.

Many of these men and women, as my colleagues know because I have said it--and I am sure my colleagues are now aware of this, that when many of our reservists signed up, they expected to make a sacrifice. They knew that one weekend a month they would go on duty, and they knew that in times of crisis they would be sent. What we did not tell them 10 years ago is that there would have been a terrorist attack on 9/11. What we were not able to tell them 10 years ago was that we would make a decision to reduce our Active Forces, thereby putting a greater burden on them.

They signed up under a different paradigm. Yet year after year some of us have come to this floor--not just this week, not just last year, but year after year. I have been here 8 years. There is not a year that I can think of that I have not mentioned this--maybe the first year I was here, but most certainly once I got on the Armed Services Committee and it became apparent to me and many others of the major shifts that we were making, and have argued, sometimes successfully and sometimes not successfully, not because I do not think our arguments are clear and compelling but because they seem to fall on deaf ears, that the Guard and Reserve need help.

I wish I could spend the time reading some of the hundreds, thousands of e-mails that I have received since this filibuster started. The filibuster is no longer in place because basically the amendment we asked for has been agreed to. It is going to be put in another bill. That is how this whole thing started, was to say that I know that it was impossible for us to amend $137 billion. We could not procedurally amend this bill. The only thing we could have done would have been to vote against it or send it to the President and ask him to veto it because the Guard and Reserve were left out. Both of those strategies were probably not going to happen. So I said that I would accept that, and I would stay here until Thursday or Friday, until I had to, with others helping me, to make sure we could find another vehicle that would be appropriate to put this amendment on as much intact as we could, and that is what happened.

There are a lot of Senators to thank, and I think I will spend a moment thanking the Senators before I go into more detail. First, I will just finish this one thought and then I will thank the Senators.

I was explaining how the paradigms changed and we are relying more and more on our Guard and Reserve. So when this bill began to be put together 2 years ago, some of us knew that this bill was going to start out at about $50 billion. But we also knew that it would grow because any time there is a tax bill before this Congress, lots of things get attached. NASCAR racing got attached; ceiling fans are in here; railroad reimbursements for maintenance of tracks is in here. I do not have a complaint about one of those items. That is not why we filibustered the bill.

What we complained about is the only item that was put in the Finance Committee and sent out of the Senate with 100 percent of us supporting it--all of the Republicans and all of the Democrats supported it--was stripped out by the House Republican leadership.

If we cannot find $2 billion of $137 billion in tax cuts to give to the men and women who are taking 100 percent of the risk, 100 percent of the bullets, what are we doing here? That was the point we made. The point was heard loudly and clearly.

So with the help of many colleagues, we have corrected the error. We have sent an amendment, in large measure whole. Senator Boxer is correct that a portion that she and I thought was very important, which was to help public entities that keep those paychecks whole as the Guard and Reserve go to the front line and lose 41 percent of their income, according to the GAO study--that was given to us not last week, not a month ago, this study was given to us 3 years ago. We knew 3 years ago that our Guard and Reserve take a 41-percent pay cut. The soldiers do not mind the pay cut. They are eating rations. They are living in tents. They are sleeping on the ground. This is not--well, it is about the soldiers, but it is more about the families they leave behind, about the children without health care, about the wives who have to take two jobs, about the gasoline that has to be put in the car, the car notes that have to be paid.

If we can find a tax bill and work on it for 2 years, which we did--2 years of work went into this bill. I am not on the Finance Committee, but I have a great member in Senator Breaux. I know how hard he works, and I know how he supported this amendment as well. I have Congressman Jim McCrery and Congressman Jefferson who worked very hard. The Louisiana interests are well represented in this as well as in many other important bills. But what I objected to was that the Guard and Reserve amendment that would have given a tax credit to the thousands of businesses in this country that are doing the patriotic thing, the right thing, the good thing, and they are getting commended by our President and us, we could not provide them a 50-percent tax cut to keep this paycheck whole for those on the front line.

Yes.

Yes.

No.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have those letters printed in the Record.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I would like to continue by thanking all of the Members of this body, particularly the members of the Finance Committee, particularly the Senator from Oklahoma, who stepped forward and helped us to negotiate a very good end to this situation. But the original cosponsors of this amendment were Senator Murray, Senator Tim Johnson, Senator Maria Cantwell, Senator Jon Corzine, Senator Kerry, Senator Durbin, Senator Dodd, and Senator Pryor. There were 21 Senators who signed the letter to the conferees and I am going to submit their names to the Record, but among them was Senator Bond, who has been a strong advocate for the Guard and Reserve; Senator Akaka, who came to the floor over the weekend to lend his support and his help; Senator Bill Nelson, who came to the floor as well and gave his help and his support. I also wish to thank the leadership, Senator Daschle and Senator Reid in particular, as well as the Republican leadership, who worked hard through these couple of days to make this good end come to be today; particularly Senator Harkin, who was in the Chamber advocating for a different issue that was his primary focus, but without his help in being able to hold the floor and being able to keep the procedure moving in the direction that helped us to make our point, it would not have happened. I also wish to thank the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions, for spending many hours in the Chamber. He and the Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, have spoken hour after hour after hour on this floor about the needs of the Guard and Reserve.

Perhaps we are not making our arguments clear enough; I do not know. But they seem to sometimes leave our mouths and fall on deaf ears. I do not think it is complicated; 690,000 Americans have been called up by our Commander in Chief to go to the front line. As we put bills together here, tax bills, health care bills, education bills, transportation bills, could we please not keep them in mind but put them in the bill and not leave them out. They are not asking for much. They are not asking for 100 percent of any tax credit. But surely $2 billion out of 137 is something we could have done. I know there were arguments, and I think somewhat legitimate--perhaps the amendment was not written in the correct way. Perhaps it was a little more complicated. We have successfully cleared up those complications. I have said there were other amendments in here that to me seemed quite complicated.

One in particular was a reimbursement for railroad track maintenance. I guess we trust the railroads to tell us how many miles. I don't think we send out people to walk the tracks and measure the railroad tracks. So I think we trust employers when they say they are paying their Guard and national Reserve and they put that on their tax return. I think most certainly we can trust them and trust the members of our Guard and Reserve. We are trusting them to fight for us and we stand with them. We are honoring the employers, small and large companies that are keeping those paychecks whole, and the least we can do is to provide a 50-percent tax credit.

I also wish to thank the floor staff: Lula Davis and Mary Paone, as well as the Republican staff who helped this weekend, and the Senate Finance Committee staff which helped us to work out the final details. On my own staff: Jason Matthews, Jeffrey Wiener, Kevin Avery, Kathleen Strottman, Brian Geiger, Amy Cenicola, and Linda Cox, and particularly my husband and my children, who were supportive of this effort because it could have gone on for many more days.

I want to, in the few minutes I have remaining, submit a few more things to the Record.

One of them is a letter that came to this Congress, not from the current Secretary of Defense, but from the former Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, in 1998, saying basically, while we support the concept of providing incentives to employees of Reserve component members, the Federal Government, we at this time cannot afford such a program, but with the increased use of the Guard and Reserve, particularly for unplanned contingency operations, employers of our Guard and Reserve members are often faced with the unplanned absences of their reservist employees. They may incur additional business expenses associated with the unplanned absences. The report suggests that a financial incentive might be helpful to ameliorate some of the employer problems, particularly for small business owners.

There you have the Secretary of Defense, the former Secretary of Defense, outlining that while they couldn't afford to do it in a Defense bill, we most certainly could afford to do it in a tax bill. That is why we started working with the tax bill and with the Finance Committee. I am pleased to say we have come to a good end. So in a few minutes, by a voice vote, this amendment will be adopted. It will go over to the House and to the House leadership on both the Republican and the Democratic side. I urge them to look carefully at what we have sent over there, to pass it the way it is. If they do, it will become law right away. Perhaps when we come back after this election or perhaps before the election, that could be done. But clearly the Senate has acted with respect, with care, with cooperation, and again I thank the Republican leadership and the Democratic leadership for working so well over the weekend to send this amendment, basically intact as we put it together, over to the House. It is now in their court.

How much time do I have remaining?

Yes.

The Secretary of Defense,

Washington, DC, March 17, 1998.

Hon. Floyd D. Spence,

Chairman, Committee on National Security, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: The Department of Defense report,

enclosed, has been prepared in response to the National

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997. Section 1232

of that Act directed submission of a report and draft

legislation to provide tax incentives to employers of members

of Reserve components.

The Department of Defense does not support submission of

legislation at this time but is submitting draft legislation

as a drafting service.

Sincerely,

Bill Cohen.

Enclosure: As stated.

A Report to Congress Concerning Incentives to Employers of Members of

the Reserve Components

This report responds to the requirements of section 1232 of

the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997

(P.L. 104-201, September 23, 1996), which requires a report

to the Committee on the Armed Services of the Senate and the

Committee on National Security of the House of

Representatives regarding tax incentives to employers of

members of Reserve components to compensate for absences of

Reserve employees due to required training and performance of

active duty.

overview

Increasingly, members of the National Guard and Reserve are

being called upon to augment the active duty forces in the

post-Cold War world. This is a sound use of resources and an

integral part of our national military strategy. More

recently, Reserve component members have responded to the

call in Operation RESTORE HOPE in Somalia, Operation UPHOLD

DEMOCRACY in Haiti, and Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR/JOINT GUARD

in Bosnia.

Previous Congresses have viewed legislation that would

provide incentives such as tax expenditures as having a fixed

and recurring budgetary effect. A number of methods could

resolve such a problem.

background

Generally, members of the Reserve components (both National

Guard and Reserve members) are required to attend one weekend

of inactive duty training per month and 14 days of active

duty training annually. Over and above this training, members

are often required to participate in mobilization training,

formal schools, and special training. Additionally,

many Reservists are called upon to provide PERSTEMPO

relief (reducing the active duty Service members time away

from home station). For some individuals, this may exceed

the normal Reserve participation requirements. Some

Reserve members, who support specific weapons platforms,

are actually spending up to 180 days a year on military

duty. This is compounded by involuntary call-ups to

support missions such as Operation DESERT STORM and JOINT

ENDEAVOR, which required the use of the Reserve

components.

In addition to this busy Reserve schedule, the vast

majority of Reserve component (RC)

members are employed full-time in civilian occupations. So,

not only are RC members working full-time in the civilian

community, they are meeting their Reserve obligation, which

has substantially increased beyond the minimum 38 days a year

prescribed by law.

This ``part-time'' Reserve obligation is substantially

different from any other part-time activity in which most

employees participate. They may be involuntarily called to

active duty in times of national emergencies. Although

efforts are made to reduce any conflict these absences may

cause, some conflict is unavoidable. Title 37 U.S.C. section

1008(b) mandates that each Quadrennial Review of Military

Compensation (QRMC) conduct ``a complete review of the

principles and concepts of the compensation system for

members of the uniformed services.'' The Sixth QRMC stated

that conflicts between RC members and their full-time

civilian employers account for nearly one-third of all

personnel losses incurred by the Reserve components.

demonstrated need

Employer concerns

From an employer's viewpoint, unscheduled absences create a

variety of problems.

While Reservists repeatedly demonstrate that their military

training and experience benefit their civilian employers,

budget-minded employers must also consider the impact of

unexpected long-term absences on their businesses. positive

approach to the pressures caused by unplanned employee

absences than simply enforcing Reservists rights.

Department of Defense concerns

Trained and equipped members of the National Guard and

Reserve are an integral part of the national military

strategy. With a smaller active duty force, the Department is

maximizing all available resources to meet mission

requirements. This has increased the day to day use of the

Reserve components. There are substantial economic benefits

to the government to use the Reserve components as they cost

the government less to maintain--anywhere from 25% to 75% of

the cost of their active duty counterparts. This is part of

the rationale for the dramatic shift of missions and force

structure from the active to the reserve forces. It is the

nation's advantage, therefore, to use its Reserve components.

Retention of RC members becomes critical. It is in the

government's best interest to keep well-trained individuals

in the military, rather than incurring the additional

training costs (roughly $26,000 per new recruit). The train-

up time associated with recruiting new individuals into the

force is also considerable. In spite of our efforts to

provide a benefits package that makes continued Reserve

service an attractive proposition, employer conflict is often

cited as the number one reason why individuals decide to

leave Reserve component military service.

department of defense efforts

The DoD has undertaken several initiatives to reduce

conflicts between Reservists and their employees. Since 1970,

the DoD has developed an aggressive program to encourage

employer support. The National Committee for Employer Support

of the Guard and Reserve (NCESGR) is an agency within the

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve

Affairs that promotes cooperation and understanding between

RC members and their civilian employers. This program has

grown from several hundred employers and professional and

labor organizations to more than 3000 community leaders

nationwide. Despite these efforts, the Sixth QRMC stated that

10 to 20 percent of RC members continue to experience

significant employment-related conflicts.

In an effort to protect Reserve employees, the 103rd

Congress passed the Uniformed Services Employment and

Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). This legislation protects

``non-career service members'' from job discrimination based

on Uniformed Service. USERRA has simplified statutory

employment protections and provided a system of local

arbitration for individual cases. While protecting the

employee, USERRA does not, however, address any adverse

effects Reserve service may impose upon employers. Employers

are required to provide seven basic entitlements by statute:

prompt reinstatement, status, accrued seniority, health

insurance coverage, training/retraining, special protections,

and other non-seniority benefits.

Despite these efforts, the major employer disincentive to

encouraging employee participation in the Reserve components

is the additional costs and reduced profits stemming from

Reserve participation.

previous legislative proposals

Recognizing the substantial role that employee attitudes

and practices have on Reserve readiness, legislative

proposals granting a monetary incentive (in the form of a tax

credit) to employers of National Guard and Reserve members

have been introduced several times, the most recently in the

103rd Congress. The Department understands that there may be

other methods to soften the employer's burden. The main

points of the most recent legislative proposals are outlined

below.

Summary of past proposals

DoD 100-49 (100th Congress): Credit and deduction; 20

percent of amount paid and 10 percent of amount unpaid; any

training; nonrefundable; and annual maximum of $2000 per

member.

H.R. 71 (103rd Congress): 50 percent of amount paid and 10

percent of amount unpaid of actual compensation paid when

employee was performing qualified active duty; annual maximum

of $2000 per member; and no credit for employee not scheduled

to work.

Additionally, the Sixth QRMC made the following

recommendations:

Nonrefundable credit of 50% paid to Reservist on military

leave and 10% credit for amount unpaid;

Include credit for self-employed individuals; and

Certification of Veterans' Reemployment Rights compliance.

draft legislation

The Department has developed draft legislation, as a

drafting service, for a tax credit program for employers of

Ready Reservists and self-employed Reservists as required by

section 1232 of the National Defense Authorization Act for

Fiscal Year 1997. Because of associated costs in the form of

federal tax receipt losses for such a program, neither the

Department of Defense nor the Administration support

submission of the legislation at this time. Because section

1232 requests the draft legislation, however, the attached

draft is submitted as a drafting service pursuant to

paragraph 7i, Office of Management and Budget Circular A-19,

dated September 20, 1979.

conclusion

Assistance to employers who support National Guard and

Reserve participation by their employees could reduce an

employer's costs associated with employee absence due to

their participation in the National Guard and Reserve on

contingency operations. The Department understands the

loyalty of the employers burdened with the costly and

unanticipated absences of their Reserve employees. We salute

such employers and seek their continued support. Tax or other

incentives for employers might help to ameliorate some of

their problems. Any such plan, of course, must compete for

resources in the ever shrinking availability of Federal

programs.

I will reserve the remainder of my time.

Under the previous order, I think I still have----

Mr. President, I want to take the time to thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I know he has some concerns about some of the details of this amendment. But because of his work and because of other Senators who worked through the weekend on this, we have put a very solid, substantial, largely intact amendment in place that is going to be passed to the House. Now it will be in the hands of the House leadership to decide if they want to pass this amendment, which is a tax bill specifically for the Guard and Reserve. The underlying bill actually will allow the Guard and Reserve a tax benefit to remove the 10-percent penalty if they would want to take money out of their IRA to help them through tough financial times.

According to the hundreds and thousands of e-mails that we have received, myself and many others, we know that our Guard and Reserve are having a tough time.

I would just like to read this for the Record. I know the Senator himself has received notices like this.

This is from--Janice is her name. I will find out where she is from in a moment. She writes,

Senator Landrieu, I have 3 nephews and 2 nieces that are in

our National Guard and they are being sent over to Iraq. I am

so angry right now that I hope that I don't have to see

others go to this war. But let me just say that my nephews

and nieces have left behind 11 children without health

coverage. I am their aunt and my husband is their uncle.

We are taking care of these three children. It is hard for

us. We are tired living on a fixed income.

This is what this amendment is all about--taking on the burden of having the Guard and Reserve on the front line, and paying those paychecks. Yes, it helps the soldier on the front line, but mostly it helps the families back home. That is what the Senator was able to help us come to terms with. That is what the Senate is sending over to the House--supporting this effort on the House side.

I look forward to working with them when we come back in, perhaps after the election--working with the Senators who have spoken up over the weekend and others who were not able to speak up and sent letters in support and cosponsored this effort, Republicans and Democrats, to say let us craft a tax provision, or several tax provisions, that will help our Guard

and Reserve, or let us dig a little deeper in the Defense bill to give them the support they need, whether it is health care, whether it is paycheck protection, whether it is other support services, so they can do the job better we are asking them to do.

Frankly, I don't think they could do it any better, but they could do it with more peace of mind knowing their families are able to pay the bills, are able to keep the roofs over their heads, are able to put gasoline in their automobiles, and pay the extra childcare expenses.

I know other Senators feel as strongly as I do--everyone in this Chamber. But let us not only feel strongly but remember them when we pass these bills. Again, we don't have to remember them only on the Defense bill. Then we end up having to make tough choices and ask the military, Do you want a rifle, or a helmet, or health coverage, or to send a whole paycheck to your family? I don't think our men and women in uniform should be asked to make those decisions, not when we are giving $137 billion in tax cuts to everybody else. That is my point.

I know people may disagree. Maybe this vehicle was the right one. But because we were told 3 years ago there was no money in the Defense bill to do this, what option were we left with? We asked it be included. It was included when it left the Senate.

I am proud of that. Now we have a chance again sometime in the near future to get this fixed. I am proud of the effort.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

I intend to use 2 minutes and yield back the remainder of my time to the leadership.

Mr. President, while the leaders are in the Senate with their final remarks, I take the opportunity again to thank them for their work--Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley as the leaders of the Finance Committee--as we work toward a very significant victory and a conclusion on the issue of a tax credit for the Guard and Reserve. The Senate is going on record again this morning, as we did several weeks ago when this bill left the Senate, to include them in a tax provision. They will not technically be included in this bill, but there will be a bill sent back over to the House, as we said. That would not have happened without the help of Senator Baucus from Montana and Senator Grassley from Iowa. I personally thank them along with thanking Senator Durbin and Senator Boxer for their help on this original amendment.

We have explained it as well as we can, the arguments as to why our Guard and Reserve deserve our focus and attention to provide help to their families while they are serving for all Americans on the front line. I am so pleased we could come together as Members of the Senate to provide that help for them.

Now it is in the hands of the House of Representatives. As we return from this break, however long or short it is, we will then take up this issue as they decide over in the House how they would like to handle it. I hope they will take the bill as we have sent it, pass it, and then it will go to the President's desk for immediate signature because we all want to give them the help and support they most certainly are giving us at this special time.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Will the Senator yield for 30 seconds?

Mr. President, I see the senior Senator from Louisiana on the floor. I know he will want to respond in a moment. I so appreciate the comments from the Senator. But I would like to add, very briefly, that as you have spoken about the senior Senator from Louisiana, the great consensus builder that he is, and helping us to move very important pieces of legislation, always with the greatest sense of dignity and principle, I want to say, as his partner in the Senate, I could not have a better partner. He is a person who works in such a complementary way with me. We work well together, and it is because of the great spirit he brings to his work. I think because of his spirit, we have been a better team together than we are individually for our State. I learned that from him. I want to give him so many compliments this morning and thank him for his great service.

Mr. President, everyday more than 1,600 prisoners are released from jail and head back to the streets of America's neighborhoods and communities. That is more than 600,000 each year. When they get out, they are often get sent back to same neighborhoods where they got into trouble in the first place and more than two-thirds of them return to a life of crime.

This problem could get worse, if we don't take action. We have the largest prison population than at any other time in our history. Two million people are behind bars, the result of tougher penalties, particularly for drug offenses, and ``three-strikes and you're out laws'' in many States. While the worst offenders will stay behind bars indefinitely, 95 percent of people in jail will get out at some point in time, either on parole, or after completing their sentences.

The challenge for us and our communities is clear: we must find a way to successfully integrate offenders back into society after they get out of prison. The task is daunting. Many offenders face a unique set of personal challenges, legal restrictions, and social barriers that make the transition to productive citizenship extremely difficult for them.

Substance abuse is the most common problem. Eighty percent of all offenders abuse drugs and alcohol, or were under the influence of drugs and alcohol when they committed their crimes. Only about 13 percent of them receive treatment while they are in prison, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Spending for in-prison substance abuse programs has been cut so that States and localities can devote more funding for housing the increased number of prisoners in their corrections systems.

Drug addicted offenders face even bigger challenges when they get out. Corrections agencies are often required to return prisoners to the place where they were convicted. That means released offenders get sent back to economically distressed neighborhoods where drugs are plentiful, but hope is not. These men and women go back to face the same temptations and demons that led to their addictions and their criminal conduct. Resources for treatment in these communities are stretched thin and a lot of former inmates cannot get help.

Another important barrier to success as a citizen is poor education. Offenders are more than twice as likely to have not graduated from high school than the general population. One study found that one-third of inmates could not find an intersection on a map; the same percentage could not explain a billing error or place information on an automobile maintenance form; and only one in 20 could figure out what bus to take from using a schedule.

If you cannot use a map or read a bus schedule, you will not be able to find your way to an office in an unfamiliar part of town to interview for a entry level job as a file clerk. If you cannot explain a billing error to someone, you will not be able to get a job in customer service. There are basic-skilled jobs that do not require a college education available for ex-offenders. But too many of our offenders lack the basic skills to get these jobs and if people are not working, they are more likely to get into trouble.

Studies have shown that unemployment contributes to criminal conduct. The New York State Department of Labor found that 80 percent of offenders who violated probation or parole were unemployed.

To make matters worse, many States exclude felons from holding certain kinds of jobs and obtaining professional licenses. A felon might not be able to get a cosmetology license or certain kinds of drivers' licenses. They may also be denied housing assistance and certain kinds of welfare benefits; 15 to 27 percent of released inmates expect to go to homeless shelters when they get out.

These statistics make it clear why so many of our ex-offenders end up back in trouble with the law. Untreated substance abuse problems, poor education and job skills, and homelessness work to sap offenders of their drive, ambition, and hope. Crime seems like the only option for ex-offenders and they return to a life of crime 67 percent of the time.

Recidivism has its costs. Crime has devastating affects on the neighborhoods that see the most criminal activity. Housing an inmate for one year costs State prison systems $21,000 and costs the Federal system $25,000 per year. But the victims pay the biggest costs in pain, suffering, and fear.

I believe that we can do better than a 67 percent recidivism rate and we can reduce the amount of pain inflicted on victims if we invest in programs that help offenders get over the barriers and the personal difficulties that keep them from becoming productive citizens. Research shows that these kinds of programs can help prepare offenders for life outside of prison. According to one U.S. Department of Education study, participation in correctional vocational and education programs reduces recidivism by 29 percent in State prisoners and 33 percent for Federal prisoners. Substance abuse treatment programs can cut drug use in half and reduce recidivism by 20 percent. In fact every dollar invested in substance abuse programs saves taxpayers $7.46 in other government and social costs according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Today, I am introducing the Protecting Our Communities by Making Returning Offenders Better Citizens Act of 2004. This legislation will establish a $1.5 billion grant program at the Department of Justice to help States and communities develop comprehensive reentry strategies to turn felons into productive citizens. Funding would be available to State and local corrections and offender supervision agencies to a range of services including substance abuse treatment, basic education programs, job skills training, civic education, mentoring services, and family counseling services. The bill encourages these governmental agencies to partner with local non-profits, community organizations, and faith-based organizations to deliver these services to offenders both in and out of jail.

This legislation will also help the families of offenders when an offender returns home. Some 1.5 million children had a parent in a State or Federal prison in 1999 and 7 million children have a parent under some form of correctional supervision. These children are seven times more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. The return of an offender to the home can also produce a great deal of family strife. The adjustment can be very difficult. An unstable home environment only helps to foster criminal behavior.

My legislation will help corrections agencies institute family programs to help keep families close while a parent is incarcerated. Prisons and jails would be able to improve family visitation facilities, provide reduced cost phone service so that inmates can keep in touch with their families, or develop other innovative programs to keep family in the lives of offenders. Parole and probation agencies can work with family support agencies and other government agencies to provide a range of services so that families can successfully adjust to having an offender back home.

The experts are just beginning to examine the important role family services can play in reducing recidivism. One study found that prisoners with no visitors were six times more likely to re-enter prison within the first year of parole than those with three or more visitors.

A variety of family integration programs for offenders have also shown great promise. The La Bodega de la Familia program in New York City and the Michigan Department of Corrections's Project SEEK have produced terrific outcomes, reducing drug use and violent behavior by children. These programs offer an array of services to offenders in addition to family counseling. They serve as focal point for offenders to get substance abuse counseling, job training, and education. We need more programs like this and my legislation will make that possible.

We also need to do more to make offenders understand not only the responsibilities of citizenship, but also its benefits. Certain offenders can be denied the right to vote, public housing benefits, some welfare benefits, and they are legally barred from certain kinds of employment. What they often

do not know, however, is that they can get these rights back under certain circumstances. While we make offenders well aware of what civic rights and benefits they are denied when they get released, they do not receive information on how they can get those rights back.

In order to qualify for a grant, grantees must provide offenders with information on how they can restore their voting rights and any other rights or benefits denied them because of their criminal records. States will not have to change any laws to meet this requirement, they are only required to provide information to offenders. I believe that this will send a powerful message to released offenders that we want them to become full participants in our democracy despite their past mistakes. I believe providing information on how to restore their rights can help motivate offenders to follow a different path and underscores our willingness to give them another chance.

Our communities have done a terrific job protecting the public. The crime rate has fallen 55 percent over the last decade, the lowest level in 30 years. They have succeeded through hard work and the investment of the Federal Government in local law enforcement. We passed tougher criminal penalties, provided funding for equipment and technology, and put 100,000 community policing officers on the streets.

Keeping our streets safe is a constant battle that is far from over. These criminals are coming back. Some will be ready for the challenges of citizenship, many will not. The Federal Government can help again by providing the right resources to corrections and our parole and probation agencies. President Bush announced his support for a $300 million initiative to help offenders with job training, transitional housing, and mentoring with faith-based organizations. The President's program was an excellent start. The Protecting Our Communities by Making Returning Offenders Better Citizens Act will build on this so that every offender gets a second chance to turn themselves from felons into fellow citizens. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. President, everyday more than 1,600 prisoners are released from jail and head back to the streets of America's neighborhoods and communities. That is more than 600,000 each year. When they get out, they are often get sent back to same neighborhoods where they got into trouble in the first place and more than two-thirds of them return to a life of crime.

This problem could get worse, if we don't take action. We have the largest prison population than at any other time in our history. Two million people are behind bars, the result of tougher penalties, particularly for drug offenses, and ``three-strikes and you're out laws'' in many States. While the worst offenders will stay behind bars indefinitely, 95 percent of people in jail will get out at some point in time, either on parole, or after completing their sentences.

The challenge for us and our communities is clear: we must find a way to successfully integrate offenders back into society after they get out of prison. The task is daunting. Many offenders face a unique set of personal challenges, legal restrictions, and social barriers that make the transition to productive citizenship extremely difficult for them.

Substance abuse is the most common problem. Eighty percent of all offenders abuse drugs and alcohol, or were under the influence of drugs and alcohol when they committed their crimes. Only about 13 percent of them receive treatment while they are in prison, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Spending for in-prison substance abuse programs has been cut so that States and localities can devote more funding for housing the increased number of prisoners in their corrections systems.

Drug addicted offenders face even bigger challenges when they get out. Corrections agencies are often required to return prisoners to the place where they were convicted. That means released offenders get sent back to economically distressed neighborhoods where drugs are plentiful, but hope is not. These men and women go back to face the same temptations and demons that led to their addictions and their criminal conduct. Resources for treatment in these communities are stretched thin and a lot of former inmates cannot get help.

Another important barrier to success as a citizen is poor education. Offenders are more than twice as likely to have not graduated from high school than the general population. One study found that one-third of inmates could not find an intersection on a map; the same percentage could not explain a billing error or place information on an automobile maintenance form; and only one in 20 could figure out what bus to take from using a schedule.

If you cannot use a map or read a bus schedule, you will not be able to find your way to an office in an unfamiliar part of town to interview for a entry level job as a file clerk. If you cannot explain a billing error to someone, you will not be able to get a job in customer service. There are basic-skilled jobs that do not require a college education available for ex-offenders. But too many of our offenders lack the basic skills to get these jobs and if people are not working, they are more likely to get into trouble.

Studies have shown that unemployment contributes to criminal conduct. The New York State Department of Labor found that 80 percent of offenders who violated probation or parole were unemployed.

To make matters worse, many States exclude felons from holding certain kinds of jobs and obtaining professional licenses. A felon might not be able to get a cosmetology license or certain kinds of drivers' licenses. They may also be denied housing assistance and certain kinds of welfare benefits; 15 to 27 percent of released inmates expect to go to homeless shelters when they get out.

These statistics make it clear why so many of our ex-offenders end up back in trouble with the law. Untreated substance abuse problems, poor education and job skills, and homelessness work to sap offenders of their drive, ambition, and hope. Crime seems like the only option for ex-offenders and they return to a life of crime 67 percent of the time.

Recidivism has its costs. Crime has devastating affects on the neighborhoods that see the most criminal activity. Housing an inmate for one year costs State prison systems $21,000 and costs the Federal system $25,000 per year. But the victims pay the biggest costs in pain, suffering, and fear.

I believe that we can do better than a 67 percent recidivism rate and we can reduce the amount of pain inflicted on victims if we invest in programs that help offenders get over the barriers and the personal difficulties that keep them from becoming productive citizens. Research shows that these kinds of programs can help prepare offenders for life outside of prison. According to one U.S. Department of Education study, participation in correctional vocational and education programs reduces recidivism by 29 percent in State prisoners and 33 percent for Federal prisoners. Substance abuse treatment programs can cut drug use in half and reduce recidivism by 20 percent. In fact every dollar invested in substance abuse programs saves taxpayers $7.46 in other government and social costs according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Today, I am introducing the Protecting Our Communities by Making Returning Offenders Better Citizens Act of 2004. This legislation will establish a $1.5 billion grant program at the Department of Justice to help States and communities develop comprehensive reentry strategies to turn felons into productive citizens. Funding would be available to State and local corrections and offender supervision agencies to a range of services including substance abuse treatment, basic education programs, job skills training, civic education, mentoring services, and family counseling services. The bill encourages these governmental agencies to partner with local non-profits, community organizations, and faith-based organizations to deliver these services to offenders both in and out of jail.

This legislation will also help the families of offenders when an offender returns home. Some 1.5 million children had a parent in a State or Federal prison in 1999 and 7 million children have a parent under some form of correctional supervision. These children are seven times more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. The return of an offender to the home can also produce a great deal of family strife. The adjustment can be very difficult. An unstable home environment only helps to foster criminal behavior.

My legislation will help corrections agencies institute family programs to help keep families close while a parent is incarcerated. Prisons and jails would be able to improve family visitation facilities, provide reduced cost phone service so that inmates can keep in touch with their families, or develop other innovative programs to keep family in the lives of offenders. Parole and probation agencies can work with family support agencies and other government agencies to provide a range of services so that families can successfully adjust to having an offender back home.

The experts are just beginning to examine the important role family services can play in reducing recidivism. One study found that prisoners with no visitors were six times more likely to re-enter prison within the first year of parole than those with three or more visitors.

A variety of family integration programs for offenders have also shown great promise. The La Bodega de la Familia program in New York City and the Michigan Department of Corrections's Project SEEK have produced terrific outcomes, reducing drug use and violent behavior by children. These programs offer an array of services to offenders in addition to family counseling. They serve as focal point for offenders to get substance abuse counseling, job training, and education. We need more programs like this and my legislation will make that possible.

We also need to do more to make offenders understand not only the responsibilities of citizenship, but also its benefits. Certain offenders can be denied the right to vote, public housing benefits, some welfare benefits, and they are legally barred from certain kinds of employment. What they often

do not know, however, is that they can get these rights back under certain circumstances. While we make offenders well aware of what civic rights and benefits they are denied when they get released, they do not receive information on how they can get those rights back.

In order to qualify for a grant, grantees must provide offenders with information on how they can restore their voting rights and any other rights or benefits denied them because of their criminal records. States will not have to change any laws to meet this requirement, they are only required to provide information to offenders. I believe that this will send a powerful message to released offenders that we want them to become full participants in our democracy despite their past mistakes. I believe providing information on how to restore their rights can help motivate offenders to follow a different path and underscores our willingness to give them another chance.

Our communities have done a terrific job protecting the public. The crime rate has fallen 55 percent over the last decade, the lowest level in 30 years. They have succeeded through hard work and the investment of the Federal Government in local law enforcement. We passed tougher criminal penalties, provided funding for equipment and technology, and put 100,000 community policing officers on the streets.

Keeping our streets safe is a constant battle that is far from over. These criminals are coming back. Some will be ready for the challenges of citizenship, many will not. The Federal Government can help again by providing the right resources to corrections and our parole and probation agencies. President Bush announced his support for a $300 million initiative to help offenders with job training, transitional housing, and mentoring with faith-based organizations. The President's program was an excellent start. The Protecting Our Communities by Making Returning Offenders Better Citizens Act will build on this so that every offender gets a second chance to turn themselves from felons into fellow citizens. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I respectfully wish to raise the issue this morning to the leader because I know he has been trying very hard, along with our leader, Senator Reid, to move this process along. I am here this morning because I want the leader to know that I want to work with him to do that. Since Wednesday night I have had, along with other Senators, an objection to the Guard and National Reserve being left out of the tax bill.

My question is to the leader, and I know he wants to move forward, but with the chairman of the Finance Committee, could he at least give some indication of his willingness to work through this day for the next couple of hours to see if we can take that matter up by voice vote, taking no time for debate, because it has been cleared? Would that be possible for him to consider as we move through the day?

Reserving the right to object, I am prepared to not object to this request at this time this morning, but I want to let the leadership know, respectfully, the Republican leadership and the Democratic leadership, that I am prepared to stay here today and object throughout the day if this situation cannot be resolved some way on behalf of the Guard and Reserve officers. But I will not object at this time.

Reserving the right to object.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I want to begin by thanking Senator Grassley, chairman of the Finance Committee, for his hard work on this bill. It has been a very difficult and complicated process. He and his staff, as well as Senator Baucus, have done an extraordinary job moving a $137 billion tax benefit bill through the Senate and through the Congress over the last 2 years. We have been intimately involved in the building and crafting of this bill. There have been literally hundreds of meetings, hearings, debates, and negotiations, some public and some in private, over the last 2 years to put together a bill that is $137 billion.

My colleagues will note these bills that are on their desks that have been here since Thursday morning. This was printed Thursday morning or Friday morning and distributed to us, the first time that we have had this in its entirety to read its contents and to understand what is in it. We had our version, but we sent it over to the House and then the conference version came back.

Mr. Grassley, the Senator from Iowa, and the Senator from Montana have done a great job trying to provide a lot of good provisions in this bill. I am going to speak about that specifically in a moment. But before he left the floor I wanted to commend him for his work.

I rise today to speak for 40 minutes and will continue to speak throughout the course of the debate, which may go on for a day or two or three or four until we finally wrap up the business of this session. I will continue to rise and speak about one item that was conspicuously and unconscionably and unjustly left out of this bill. There was one item that we had passed out of the Senate, a unanimously by voice vote, Republicans and Democrats, unanimously sent over to the House, to include in this $137 billion tax bill an amendment for the Guard and Reserve called the Guard and Reserve Paycheck Protection Act--the Guard and Reserve, the 640,000 men and women who have been called up since the conflicts started in Afghanistan and Iraq, the men and women on the front line supporting our Active troops, protecting us at ground zero of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We had a provision in there to keep their paychecks whole. It was taken out by the Republican leadership of the House.

Before I get into the details, let me just divert and say, to get off on a little bit of a lighter and more positive note, I congratulate our LSU team, our Southern team, and our Grambling team for winning on the football field last night. LSU came back from a very dramatic game, which I got to watch part of after being here late into the night, and won 24 to 21 over Florida. Southern beat Alabama 33 to 24, and Grambling beat Mississippi State 34 to 26. And Louisiana at Monroe beat Idaho--I am sorry to say to the Senator from Idaho--16 to 14. The teams from Louisiana won last night.

I feel strongly that the people of Louisiana would like us to make our best effort to make sure that we can win throughout this week, whether the action is taken now or the action is

taken sometime in the near future, for us to win for our Guard and Reserve on the front lines.

I don't know why the provision was left out, but I would like to share a visual that is pretty dramatic. I have shared it before. I want to be clear: I have spoken on this on and off for several hours for the last 5 days. I don't object to anything in this bill. Although there are other Senators on both sides, Senator McCain, Senator Harkin, Senator DeWine, Senator Kennedy, other Senators have expressed real concern. I appreciate those concerns. But that is not my issue. That is not why I have stood on this floor objecting.

I am objecting to the passage of this bill because it left out the men and women who are on the front line of the war on terror, whether they are at home as first responders or in Iraq or Afghanistan. Members of our Armed Forces were left out of a $137 billion tax credit bill. We could not find one page, one paragraph, one sentence to include them in. You can sit here all day and read this bill. I am going to see how many pages are in the bill. It looks like there are about 650 pages of provisions. We refer to this around here as the FSC/ETI legislation. We have been working on it for 2 years. It is supposedly a jobs bill. It supposedly provides tax relief to good companies, large companies, small companies, companies that import and export, companies that perhaps deserve the relief.

The bill started out correcting a decision made by the World Trade Organization to correct basically a $50 billion problem. But as you know--because the President pro tempore is experienced and is chairman of the Appropriations Committee and one of the senior Members of this body--tax bills have a tendency to grow. They keep growing and growing and growing and getting bigger and bigger and more and more expensive because it is very tempting for individuals and corporations and people who petition their Government who want relief or some special credit or want some special provision or think they are not being treated fairly--they petition all of us.

Well, there was one group that sent some of us a letter. I would like to read from this letter, the statement they sent, the Reserve Officers Association of the United States of America, the men and women on the front line. It was signed by Robert MacIntosh, who represents the major general: We continue to support tax credits for employers of reservists and National Guardsmen.

This position is a result of a problem faced by employers of Reserve members who support our forces when they are mobilized. The extended mobilization and stop-loss authorities, which means basically a backdoor draft, enacted by the President and the service Secretaries to support Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan have served only to exacerbate these problems. Many employers want to extend pay and benefit coverage to the reservists but are finding this to be an unanticipated, long-term expense as operations in Iraq and Afghanistan entail multiple years of mobilization. Reservists are finding re-employment and employment difficult for the very same reason. As reservists' employers shoulder the burden of extra costs to support the employee's participation in the military, they become direct contributors to our Nation's defense. Employer pressure is listed as one of the top reasons for reservists to quit military service.

The ROA is disappointed to learn of recent actions by the House that defeated, by a voice vote, an attempt to revive amendment 3123 to Senate Report S. 1637, which would have provided a credit for the replacement employees of ready Reserve and National Guard employees called to military active duty.

The Reserve Officers Association of America--I am going to paraphrase here--represents the men and women who are carrying, in many ways, 100 percent of the risk, taking 100 percent of the bullets, leaving their families for hours and weeks and months and days for their training and their deployment.

I am paraphrasing this to say that the ROA urges Congress to support the employer tax credit as a means to eliminate civilian employment conflict and support recruitment and retention efforts.

It has come to the attention of some of us who have been involved in the Armed Services Committee--I have served on that Committee for several years and continue to support provisions through my position on Appropriations, as the Chair does, and many other Members of this body, support for our troops. I have supported provisions that support the Guard and Reserve as well as our Active because of many reasons but one in particular, which is that in the last several years, as you can see from this chart, our Government--all of us, the past President, the current President, the past Congress, this Congress, and Members from both sides--has basically rewritten the policy of defense. We have said we are going to have a total force structure, and it is going to be composed of 1.6 million Active-Duty officers--soldiers, sailors, marines, and Air Force--and we are going to have 1.2--that is the troop strength of our Guard and Reserve.

One of the reasons we count on the Guard and Reserve is for the benefit of the taxpayers, because it is not as expensive. They have civilian jobs and they only go when called up. They don't have to support them 24-7, year after year. We ask them to be ready. The least we can do is send them to Iraq with a full paycheck. We didn't do that because there are higher priorities in the bill. Every Member has come to say something about a priority in this bill. It could be any number of manufacturers. But for the record, for this Senator--and I know others join me--there could not possibly be any higher priority in this country today, right now, than the men and women who are fighting on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, and their families who support them.

As you know, Mr. President--and I do because I have visited many bases and spent a lot of time with our troops--the truth is that most of the soldiers are used to sacrificing. It is why they signed up in the first place. They think it is a virtue. That is something we can learn more about in this Chamber, including me. I don't sacrifice nearly as much as I should. They are quite an inspiration to us. They don't mind making the sacrifice. I have not had one soldier bellyache about anything, even those who lost their arms and legs. Most of them say: Stitch me up and let me go back to the front line. That is admirable. You would think we could honor their service with more than pictures and words or by putting them in a bill.

They didn't ask for the whole bill or half of the bill or even for 25 percent of the bill. They asked for $2 billion out of $137 billion. We could not find it anywhere. We could not find the time, the will, the attention, or the focus to give them a little percentage of this bill.

Let me tell you how many of them we call up. We seem to be able to find their phone numbers when we call them to service but not to put them in the bill. From 1953 to 1989, we called up 200,000 Guard and Reserve. This was the traditional way we operated in our Government to protect the country. We would call them up when we absolutely had to: during the Berlin crisis of 1961, we called up 148,000 of them, and 148,000 families stayed home and prayed for their safe return. During the Cuban missile crisis, we called up 14,200, and 14,200 families stayed home and prayed along with their neighborhoods, churches, and places of employment for them to come back. You can go through this list. There were 199,000 from 1990 to 2004, just in the last 14 years, 8 of which I have been a Senator in this Senate and a member of the Armed Services Committee, so I know something about this. We have called them up time and time again and told them to leave their wives, their children, their employment, and go to the front lines. And they go--proudly. They don't ask for much. They served in the Persian Gulf war, 238,000 of them. They went to Haiti, 3,680. They went to Bosnia, 29,670. They served in Operation Southern Watch, 2,038. They went to Kosovo, 5,933. And they went to Afghanistan.

Today, before I came to the Senate to speak, I turned on television set and the headlines this morning across the Sunday shows is ``Elections Going on in Afghanistan.'' Who do we think made those elections happen? Did we

just wish for those elections to happen? I don't think so. Our troops made those elections happen. They wouldn't be happening without our Guard and Reserve troops, and our Active Forces.

I don't care how many speeches we give. I don't care how many bills we write. I don't care how many budgets we pass. The fact is, those elections would not be taking place today if it were not for these troops. They are good enough to get those elections started, but they are not good enough to be in this bill? That is why I am standing on this floor until the last possible minute that I can to delay these proceedings--not to be obnoxious, not to be ridiculous, not to be uncooperative, not because I don't support transportation, not because I don't support shipbuilding, but because I think we owe it to our troops to stand up for them. And I plan to do it.

Now I am going to talk about a couple of arguments I heard.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

I thank the Chair. I want to talk about a couple of arguments I have heard the last couple of days, directly and indirectly, about why some Senators would object.

I want to be very clear. I know, as sure as I am standing here, at some later date I am going to have some sort of critic of mine, and I have my share of critics, standing up saying: There goes Senator Landrieu again. She's against tax cuts. She's trying to slow up our transportation bill. She's trying to slow up the highway bill. She never supports tax credits.

I am going to keep saying for the record the only reason I stand here, the only reason, is to try to get this Senate to do what it did a couple of weeks ago, which was to send over to the House of Representatives a bill that would include the Guard and Reserve.

There is nothing I can do as a Senator to make the House Republican leadership respond other than to bring this to light, to urge my colleagues to stand with me, Republicans and Democrats together, over here in the Senate, and send the bill back to the House and ask for them to consider it again. Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe they didn't realize this was one of the items. I don't know. I am not on the Finance Committee.

I sent a letter. Twenty-one of us signed it. I put it in the Record before so I won't read the letter, but it is addressed to Chairman Grassley; to Ranking Member Baucus; to Bill Thomas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; and to Charlie Rangel, the ranking member.

I see Senator Baucus has come to the floor. I know he supports this provision, I know Senator Grassley supports this provision, and I know Charlie Rangel supports this provision. What I am not sure about is the chairman, Bill Thomas. I don't know, maybe he didn't realize it was part of the request. There were over 2,000 requests, as you can see. I don't know how many items are in this bill, but it has to be thousands of items. I know it is difficult, so I am assuming he didn't know about it. That is why I am spending some time talking, so maybe the word will get there.

Twenty-one Senators signed this: Kit Bond of Missouri, a leading advocate for the Guard and Reserve signed this letter, along with Mark Pryor, Chris Dodd, Danny Akaka, Byron Dorgan and Senator Mikulski and Senator Lautenberg, Senator Murray, Senator Corzine, Senator Cantwell, Senator Schumer, Senator Nelson, Senator Tim Johnson, Senator Feingold, Senator Dayton, Senator Sarbanes, Senator Durbin, Senator Wyden, Senator Levin, and Senator Leahy. I am sure there will be other Senators on both sides who will let their views be known to the House Republican leadership.

How in the name of heaven could the House Republican leadership put a bill together and leave out the Guard and Reserve? Tax cuts for fan importers? I want the fan importers to know that I am not picking on them. But I think this picture speaks a thousand words. For some reason--we could find a reason, and it may be a good one. I am sorry I don't know the details of it. I can't talk about it. I understand there is a good reason. Maybe someone could explain it, about the fans. But they are in the bill. The fans are in the bill, but the guys in Iraq or Afghanistan, where it is 105 degrees most of the time, in tents that are hot, carrying 50, 60 pounds of equipment and armor, who could use these fans, can't even get a paycheck to buy the fans.

When they go to Iraq they leave their civilian paycheck at home. They leave the comfort of their families at home. The GAO report is that most of them take a 41-percent pay cut. We couldn't find time to acknowledge that and say: My goodness, we are passing a tax bill, maybe we can fit them in.

We can't fit them in the tax bill. We can't fit them in the Transportation bill. We can't fit them in the Homeland Security bill. We can't fit them in the intelligence reorganization bill because, obviously, we don't think they have anything to do with our security.

Whether you think the front line, as I said, is in Iraq in the war on terror--which is an issue of debate, and I actually could debate that. Maybe it is not exactly the front line. But regardless of whether you think it is the front line, the second line, the third line or the back line or whether you think it is in Afghanistan, the fact is, we sent them there. We sent them there with half a paycheck, or 75 percent of their paycheck, so their families at home can lose their houses and lose their cars?

If anybody doesn't think that is true, please go to my Web site or talk to me. I will most certainly give the information to you. You know it yourself. You have seen the reports about the sacrifices families are making.

There are some other arguments that were made about this. One of them was Senator Landrieu and others are just complaining. They want to slow the process down. I hope I have answered that argument. I hope my colleagues and the leadership know I am not trying to be uncooperative. I understand people's schedules. I have two children, 12 and 7; I understand schedules. But my family supports it. They understand what I am doing, and I told them if it takes 4 days or 5 days or 3 days or 2 days, it is going to take it. I am sorry. But I think I owe it to the 5,000 men and women from my State who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan because I just went home 3 weeks ago and waved goodbye to a lot of them.

I have been to Fort Hood and Fort Polk, telling them I am with them, taking pictures with them, and I'll be darned if I will take the pictures with them and not stay in the Senate and fight for them.

One of the Senators came to the floor this morning to argue we had eliminated the haircut provision--whatever that is. We support, in this bill, contributions of our industry. What about the contributions of the employers, small businesses and large businesses, that are carrying the extra burden of our defense by making those paychecks whole, sometimes at great difficulty to those businesses? What about these companies? I am going to provide a list in just a minute of some of those companies, which I have for the Record, but hundreds of companies, thousands of companies are trying their best, in some difficult times, to make those paychecks whole.

Why should we be giving tax credits to every other company? Some of them may overlap, but there is no mention of that in this bill. There is no direct support to the many companies that are being patriotic, that are doing the right thing.

Let me say something about these companies that are the beneficiaries in this bill. Again, many could be in shipbuilding, could be other manufacturers--I don't think there is one company that benefits from this bill, small or large, with 5 employees or 50,000 employees, that would say to the Members of the Senate: Please put me ahead of the Guard and Reserve. I don't believe it. That is why I have confidence I can stand here and I can talk about this. I do not think one industry in my State believes that in any way I am trying to take a penny away from them.

But for our Guard and Reserve, and their employers, in a time of war, at a time of great sacrifice, to ask to be included in the bill, I think they will find it very difficult to explain why they are not.

I know the third argument people have made, and I think I heard the chairman talk about it, is this is a jobs bill. I know jobs are important. I would like to make more happen in my State to create private sector jobs, high-paying jobs, good jobs. I do believe there

are some provisions of this $137 billion bill that will create jobs. But what job could be more important to our security than the job of our men and women in uniform and their service to our country?

Again, let me put up a chart that shows how many have gone, how many are serving, and to ask what we might do for them.

There is a total of 690,000 Guard and Reserve who are, right now, on the front line. Each of them, I presume, has some outside employment. Maybe some of them are working two jobs in their civilian life. These are doctors, lawyers, architects, truck drivers, policemen, firemen, nurses. There are 90,000 of them on the front line doing the work, but they are not in the bill.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, in all of our States this is the number of the National Guard on active duty or alerted. You can see here that it is a very high percentage in many places in the country.

In Louisiana I have almost 40 percent of our Guard and Reserve who have been called up and activated.

In Washington State, 46 percent, almost half of their Guard and Reserve, have been activated.

In the State of Texas, 28 percent have been activated.

We can see this in every part of this Nation from the east to the west. In Hawaii, 57 percent--57 percent, almost 60 percent of the Guard and Reserve from Hawaii have been called up to serve.

These numbers may fluctuate as the needs of our military and the decisions made by the executive branch, the President and the Pentagon, change about where to shift these forces. But every one of these percentages represents thousands and thousands of families who are taking the direct burden of this.

I know we have tried to help them with pay increases. I know we have tried in other bills to help them improve their pensions. I have been part of most of those fights. I am proud to say in most of those fights we have been successful--but not always. My question is, Why do we only have to help the Guard and Reserve or the Active Forces in the military bills, in the Defense bills? Why can't we help them in our health care bills, in our tax cut bills, in any way we can? If we can afford it, we should step up to the plate. We should step up to the plate and do it.

I think I heard the chairman of the Finance Committee say earlier this morning that he was very proud that the Vice President himself could step in, and did step in--the Vice President of the United States. I think he said he stepped in to help the negotiations on a Transportation bill so we could get highways built in this country. I hope the Vice President and the President himself would step in and say, ``We made a mistake,'' or ``We just missed the issue,'' or ``We just missed the item,'' or ``We just didn't focus on it as we should,'' or ``The House leadership didn't focus, and let us make it up. Let us put it in this bill. Let us put it in another bill to help our Guard and Reserve.''

There are many ways that this could be corrected.

I will be pleased to.

I am aware.

I do believe that.

I thank the Senator from South Carolina. I thank him for his help and support. I work on many issues with him, and he is, as a member of the Guard and Reserve, most certainly aware of these situations. I know the Senator from South Carolina is not asking this for himself because the situation with his family is probably stable and steady. I know the Senator understands that many of the men and women he serves with don't have that same kind of security.

So we are asking them to provide security for us, and we can't find the time for a page or paragraph or a letter to find security for their families. I don't understand it and my constituents don't understand it. Most certainly the men and women in the Guard and Reserve in Louisiana, 12,000 families, do not understand it.

And so I frankly do not want to go home. I don't know what I would tell them when I do go home, how we could pass a $137 billion tax cut bill and forget them. How could we possibly forget them?

I got something from Senator Dorgan which is extremely upsetting to me I will speak about later today because I plan to speak and I am going to connect these dots for people. Maybe one reason we forget them is because there are corporate network executives demanding affiliates take the name of the dying soldiers off the reports at night. That is one way Americans could forget them. We don't want to take pictures of the funerals. We don't want to put their names on the screen, so we just forget they are dying. I understand that. Maybe there are good reasons. I don't want to get into that debate because it gets us into, well, some of the families want it, some of the families don't. I understand that. But still, even if they are not being scrolled on the television, if that is not the right thing to do, surely the Senators and elected leaders who represent them do not need to be reminded by the scrolls on television of those who died.

Many of us have been over to Walter Reed Hospital and visited them personally. Do we need to be reminded? I don't think I had to go stand at the conference committee and tell Chairman Thomas. And I am going to speak later today about Chairman Thomas's district and about what his district is like, and I am sure he knows that. I have done a little research myself about that, so maybe people in his district could get word to our colleague because while it is important what we say to colleagues, what is most important, as you know, is what our constituents say to us.

How much time do I have remaining?

The third argument that I have heard from some people about why I should sit down and stop talking is because some people are opposed to tax credits. Some people don't like tax credits. Some people think it is an inefficient way to operate the Government.

I am not on the Finance Committee. All I know is when I run for the Senate and when I talk to people at home, everybody likes tax credits. I have tried to provide as many tax credits and some relief for a variety of different individuals, and all I hear every day from this administration is tax cuts, tax relief, tax credits. I hear that all the time whether we have a surplus or deficit, whether we are at peace or war, whether we need to spur the economy or slow it down. All I hear from the administration is about tax cuts and tax credits. But there are Senators who come to the floor, might come to the

floor and say they are going to oppose them because they don't believe in tax credits. So I want to put nine of the tax credits that are in this bill in the Record.

Section 221. Modification of targeted areas in low-income communities for new markets tax credits is in this bill--$1$7 billion.

Section 245. Credit for maintenance of railroad tracks. Establishes a business tax credit equal to 50 percent of qualified expenditures for railroad track maintenance, capped at $3,500 per mile. So we have a credit in here for railroads as they maintain their tracks, and we cap it at $3,500 per mile. Now some good staff person could calculate how many miles of railroads we have and figure up how much that costs the taxpayers. Maybe it is a good thing, Mr. President. I don't know. But I will tell you what would be a higher priority for the constituents in my State--to send 1 mile, 1 mile of the railroad tax credit to one family so they could pay their house note.

No. 5. Appointment of small ethanol producer credit. Provision clarifies that the small producers' tax credit flows through a member of a cooperative.

No. 6. Section 339. Credit for production of low-sulfur diesel fuel. Provides that a small business refiner may claim a credit equal to 5 cents per gallon for costs paid to comply with the EPA sulfur regulations. The total production credit is limited to 25 percent of the capital costs to come from compliance with EPA requirements.

No. 7. Section 341. Oil and gas from marginal wells. Some of these are in the State of Oklahoma, some in my State of Louisiana. It adds the marginal well production tax credit. The credit is $3 a barrel of oil or .50 percent per thousand cubic feet of gas. The credit is not available if the reference price of oil exceeds $18 a barrel. The last I checked it was $50 a barrel. So we can give tax credits to oil companies and gallons. We can't give a paycheck to the Guard and Reserve to put fuel in their car.

Now, I am obviously upset, but I am going to try to be respectful, but I have to tell the truth, and that is the ugly, unvarnished, unedited, uncensored truth about this bill, and so we are going to stay here till Thursday. I am prepared to stay here morning, noon, and night. I am going to be respectful. I am not going to get into any arguments and I am not going to raise my voice above this level. I am not going to be talked down. I am not going to be spoken down to because I am not speaking for myself. I am speaking for the 5,000 men and women who left Louisiana and are overseas, and if I don't speak for them on this floor, they don't have anyone to speak for them, so I am not leaving.

How much time do I have remaining?

So the last minute and 16 seconds that I have this morning before we vote on cloture, which I will not be voting for, I want to ask my colleagues, whatever they can do in the next 4 days to help this I would appreciate it. I understand schedules are tough, and I am not going to make a comment if no one else says anything or shows up or signs a letter because I understand we have a lot of things going on, very important things, and I would not be the least bit disrespectful to my colleagues in this Chamber. But I want them to know, my colleagues, that that is why I am here, and I am not leaving. I am not leaving this Chamber. So I want to apologize ahead of time to anyone I inconvenience. I hope they understand.

I yield back my time.

Thank you, Mr. President. May I have order, please?

Thank you, Mr. President. I am not going to speak until we have more order.

I am sorry, Mr. President, no, I won't. Maybe in a few minutes but not at this point.

As my colleagues know, we have been working toward this point, actually on this particular bill, for over 2 years, so there have been many meetings, many votes, many debates, many conferences. I understand that. I know we are to the very end of this discussion, and we have a bill before us with $137 billion worth of tax cuts. This is a bill that started out 2 years ago because of a decision by the World Trade Organization that called to our attention that our Tax Code was not in order and that if we did not straighten some things out in our Tax Code, some of our businesses could be penalized. So 2 years ago, an effort was undertaken to correct that.

Some of us, knowing that effort was going to be undertaken, crafted a provision to give tax relief to the Guard and Reserve and their families, to the members of the Guard and Reserve who are on the front line, by saying to all the patriotic companies in America, large and small: As you continue to give that paycheck to the men and women on the front line, we thank you, we appreciate that effort. We know it is difficult for you. We know it is tough for you. And we want to provide a 50-percent tax credit to you to help your Guard and Reserve to keep their paychecks whole.

Because a lot of paychecks in America are going to get fattened, a lot of dividend checks are going to be improved, and a lot of benefits are in this bill, some of us thought, and the whole Senate voted, Democrats and Republicans, that one of the paychecks we should make sure was complete and whole was for the men and women taking the bullets on the front line.

Mr. President, 640,000 men and women have been called up since 9/11, and when we called them up, they have gone.

Mr. President, may I have order, please?

Thank you, Mr. President. I know that tempers are short because it has been a difficult process, and I am trying to be as cooperative as I can. I do not mean any disrespect to anyone in this Chamber, and I do not mean any disrespect for the managers of this bill, who have done a magnificent job under very difficult circumstances, but I have, since Wednesday, been trying to make this point.

When this bill left the Senate, there was a provision that gave a tax credit to the men and women on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan, wherever they serve, to keep their paychecks whole by giving a 50- percent tax credit to the thousands of employers, large companies and small companies, who send their civilian paychecks to the front line, not so much for the benefit of the soldiers. Many of these men and women who are fighting on the front line understand sacrifice. That is why they joined. If we understood sacrifice a little bit more in this Chamber--and I include myself. I don't understand the sacrifice, but I can tell you the men and women in uniform understand it. But this is not really all for them. It is for their families, their spouses and children, to keep that one paycheck whole.

For some reason, we passed a bill out of the House of Representatives, crafted in large measure by Chairman Thomas, that left them out. They couldn't find $2 billion in $137 billion to put in for our troops.

We have ceiling fan importers in the bill. We have the gambling industry in the bill. We have the oil and gas industry in the bill. There are many industries in this bill that are important to me. But I have confidence--complete confidence--that not one business in Louisiana, not one industry in Louisiana thinks they deserve to be in line before the Guard and Reserve and the employers that are keeping their paychecks whole--not one. If there is a company in Louisiana, if there is a company anywhere that thinks the tax credit in this bill is more important than the paychecks going to the men and women on the front line, please contact me, because I don't understand it, and maybe it is something I have missed.

I want my colleagues to know that I am only going to speak for the first few minutes, and I have an hour reserved. I am going to speak throughout the 30 hours, use a little bit of my time as we go on.

It is really not that complicated. My colleagues understand this issue. I don't think I have to go into any more detail about the amendment, what it did, how much it cost, and the fact there were 100 percent of the Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who supported the issue. It was moved over to the House. I think they understand it was the House Republican leadership primarily that crafted this bill and evidently did not think it should be included.

Let me spend a few minutes about what I am going to do so we can be clear about the schedule. I do not take this move lightly. I understand we are at the end of the session. I understand people have commitments. I understand there are elections going on. I know there is a Presidential election going on and elections for many of our colleagues in the Senate. But I am going to use all the parliamentary procedures available to me as a Senator to fight for the 5,000 men and women in the State of Louisiana who are currently activated and have gone to the front lines and don't get a whole paycheck. They get their Army or their Navy or their Reserve paycheck, but they leave a lot of pay on the table because they don't get their civilian paycheck.

Here is a tax bill that could have allowed their employer to get a 50-percent tax break, thereby encouraging them to continue that paycheck.

I am going to stand here and fight for them. I can't extend this debate past Thursday. I don't think there is anything in my power to do that. But I can and intend to use all the parliamentary procedures available to me until the

end of this debate. If I have to stay on the floor for the next 4 days, I am prepared to do that. It is with the greatest amount of respect that I let my colleagues know this.

The solution is something I have offered to my colleagues which I want them to consider. I know this bill cannot be amended. I understand that. I am not asking for that. There is a bill, H.R. 1779, that is in the Finance Committee now. Amazingly, because I didn't have anything to do with this bill, I can't believe the bill addresses exactly the same subject that I am discussing. It is a House bill that came over here from the House from the Committee on Ways and Means, the same committee that cut them out of this bill. There is another bill that came over from the Ways and Means Committee that is in the Finance Committee now. So by unanimous consent of the Senate, without even a rollcall vote, just if all the Senators in this body would agree, we could amend this provision into that bill and simply send it back to the House.

I understand I am only one Senator. I know the Senate can do its will, and we can't force the House of Representatives, but we can go on record to say, this bill is important. We can amend the bill.

I would like to spend a moment just to say what the bill is because there is a little bit of irony about the underlying bill. There is an interesting irony about the underlying bill. I will tell you who the author is in a minute. But it is an interesting bill that came over here to give the Guard and Reserve a tax benefit. The tax benefit described in that bill is to waive the 10-percent penalty for the Guard and Reserve taking money out of their IRAs so, presumably, they could pay a house note or a car note. In other words, there is a bill that came over to us from the Committee on Ways and Means to give a tax benefit to Guard and Reserve members to allow them to waive the 10- percent penalty so they could take money out of their retirement account to make ends meet while they are taking the bullets for us.

I have to hear objection for our amendment supported by many Senators, Republicans and Democrats, that would actually keep their paychecks whole so they could put some money in their IRA. What do you put in your IRA if you don't have a paycheck to put in your IRA? If anybody can explain to me what goes in an IRA other than money from a paycheck, maybe if somebody is lucky to have a dividend check or some passive investments or some capital gains, but most people I know take their paychecks and out of their paychecks, after they have paid their rent, after they have paid their car note, after they pay health insurance for their family, after they pay their food bill, after they pay their insurance bill and everything else they have to pay for, if there is anything left, they put it in their IRA. Because most Americans I know try to do their very best to manage their money.

So I have to have the insult of having the House send us a bill saying they want to waive the 10-percent penalty for the Guard and Reserve, but they won't help put an amendment on to give them a full paycheck so they have money to put in it. This Senator finds that quite obnoxious.

The irony of it is unbelievable. I asked the staff, go find me any bill, any Finance Committee bill that wouldn't get blue-slipped. They came back and said: Senator, you will not believe it; it is a bill about the IRA.

No, I will not yield.

So we have this bill that is over here. All I have asked my colleagues is this. As the leader knows, I am not even asking for a record vote. Even though I think our guardsmen and reservists deserve a recorded vote, because I think we should go on record, but I am not even asking for that. I am asking for a voice vote--a voice vote, not a recorded vote--to take that IRA bill, put this amendment on it and simply send it back to the House. This filibuster will be over. That is all I am asking.

Let me say one other thing. I am not opposed to one item in this bill--not FDA, not the pork issue.

I have tried to be respectful of other Members. I would ask that same consideration.

I am not opposed to any provision in this bill. There is $137 billion in this bill. This bill was supposed to be about $50 billion. Of course, when you open a tax bill, everyone in America would like to be in it. They have done a good job because everybody is in here. The only people who are not in here are the men and women taking the bullets on the front line. Six hundred and forty-three thousand Americans on the front line, and we couldn't find one page, not one line, not one paragraph for them. This is disgraceful.

It is not our fault. The Senate did not do that. But somewhere between the Senate and the House, the papers got lost. I don't know why they get lost. I don't know why we can't remember them in the tax bill because we sure remember them in photographs. We sure remember them in the parades. We sure have them all over our ads for those running for office.

I am not up for reelection now. I will be up for reelection in 4 years, and I am certain I will hear from every industry in here about how I didn't help them with their tax credits. I will say it again. I am not opposed to any tax credit in this bill, not one. What I am objecting to is how we could, in the middle of the war, with no end in sight, no real plan for the peace, no understanding of when our troops might get home, no understanding of how long they are going to have to be there, we cannot keep the paychecks going to their families.

When is somebody going to tell me we don't have enough money? What is this? This issue is not complicated. This is very simple. That is why people are responding because it is not complicated. I am trying to explain to my colleagues that it is very simple. I am not even asking for a record vote. I didn't want people to stay here until Thursday. I have 2 children; one is 12 and one is 7. I have had to make arrangements for the next 4 days for them and for my husband. I understand that. I have canceled everything on my schedule. I am not looking for awards or sympathy. I am not asking for anything unreasonable. If these guys can go to the front lines and leave their families for a year or 2 years, can't I stand here for a few days? Can we not work for a few hours to try to voice vote, in the air- conditioning of this building, and send this bill back over to the House and mark it up as they just were not clear about what they were doing? They just didn't realize what they were doing? When they come back in November, they can fix it. That is all I am asking.

One more thing about the tax credit, and then others may have questions. Maybe I haven't been clear. Here is the list of the tax credits. The only arguments I have heard against what I am trying to do are two. One was given by one of the House Ways and Means Committee members when I called to let them know ahead of time I was going to do this. I tried not to surprise anyone. I called them as soon as this bill was printed and came here Wednesday. I called members of the Ways and Means Committee and asked them: What could have possibly happened?

The only comment they gave back that was reported in the newspaper was the House did not like our offset. Forgive me, I am not a member of the Finance Committee. I don't know all of the details about offsets. I don't think our Guard and Reserve know about offsets. I don't think the people we represent know about offsets. But I will tell you, somebody in this Chamber knows about offsets because there is $137 billion worth of offsets right here. Did anybody think we could find $2 billion for them? So I am sorry I am not an expert in offsets.

The only other argument I have heard from anybody--maybe there are others and I haven't heard them, and I have been here 3 days--is I don't think we should have tax credits in this bill. Somebody might object philosophically to tax credits. That surprises me because, from the day I got to the Senate, all I have heard from the Republican leadership is tax credits, tax cuts, tax relief. If they don't say it a thousand times every day, it is amazing. Just tax credits, tax relief for everybody, whether we have money in the Treasury or not. That is all I hear about. So it is amazing to me that someone could say we don't like it because, technically, it is a tax credit.

Let me read the nine tax credits that are in the bill. I want the Guard and Reserve to listen; they got left out. I

will tell you the ones in this bill. Section 221: There is a modification of targeted areas of low-income communities for new market tax credits. That is probably very good. It is for new markets. I am sure it will help everybody in low-income areas. I think that is great.

Section 245, credit for maintenance of railroad tracks: It establishes a business tax credit equal to 50 percent--Mr. President, I am losing my voice having to speak over the conversations.

No, I will not.

Section 245, a credit for maintenance of railroad tracks, establishes a business tax credit equal to 50 percent of qualified expenditures for railroad track maintenance, capped at $3,500 per mile. Maybe there is a staffer or somebody who can calculate how many miles of railroad tracks we have and multiply it by 3,500 because that is a tax credit that is in this bill. We may need to do that. I have tons of railroads running through Louisiana, but not one railroad company in this country thinks their tax credit should come before making the paychecks of the Guard and Reserve whole.

Biodiesel income tax credit: Provides a 50-cent-a-gallon income tax credit similar to the present law ethanol benefits for each gallon of biodiesel used in the production of a qualified biodiesel mixture used or sold as fuel. I am fine with that, but you would think the tax credit some of us had and thought was important, which gave them a paycheck so they could buy gas, is equally important to this.

Section 339, credit for production of low sulfur diesel fuel; section 341, oil and gas for marginal wells--I know in Oklahoma they have a lot of marginal wells. I have some in Louisiana myself. I am very aware, as a member of the Energy Committee, of the importance of this tax credit, but again, not before the men and women taking 100 percent of the bullets.

Expansion of credits for electricity produced from certain renewable sources and then certain business credits allowed against regular minimum tax.

This is what I was given this morning. Perhaps there are more. I know these are nine tax credits in the bill. The rest of this bill has to be something else that they don't call tax credits. But it is tax benefits. I am not sure I know the title of it. Maybe I am not exactly correct. But these are the tax credits, which is the same thing I asked to be in this bill, and many of us asked, and it was left out by the House Republican leadership.

So, again, I am prepared to stay here until Thursday. I am not going anywhere. I am only asking for a voice vote--not a rollcall vote--on a bill that is already over here, that is already in our Finance Committee, to put this amendment on and send it back to the House. Then we can all go home and talk about it and we can say we supported it, which we did, and we did a great job, and then people can talk to House Members about are they going to accept this bill or amend this bill or kill this bill. Let the House Members answer that question.

All we can do here is take care of the Senate's business. This is the Senate's business, Mr. President. If we don't stand up for these guys and gals, if we don't fight for their families, who is going to fight for them?

Let me ask the Chair how much time I have remaining?

Mr. President, I think the Senator from Florida might have a question.

He is asking a question.

I thank the Senator from Florida for his comments, and I would be happy to answer his question because he is exactly correct. All members of this Chamber are aware that since 9/11, 640,000 guardsmen and reservists have been called up from Florida--and I see the Senator from Arkansas--from her State, other Senators who are here this morning and will be here through the debate--from all of our States. The Senator is absolutely right. The large measure of the burden has been placed on them and their families. The Senator from Florida knows they do not ask for much. These guys and gals are used to sacrifice. They do not ask for much and they really do not like to complain. They are the last ones to stand in line and come ask to be included in this bill, but we should ask on their behalf. That is why this amendment is so important.

If we were not passing a tax cut bill and we did not have any money to give anybody credits or tax cuts, then they would be the first to say: Please do not include us. But how can we, in good faith, stand here and pass a $137 billion bill and leave them out and leave out their employers, small businesses from Florida, Arkansas, and Louisiana that are digging deep, sending that paycheck to the front line even though the man or woman is not in the office or in the manufacturing plant, trying to help their families? Surely we could have found some room in this budget for them.

I thank the Senator for the question.

Yes, I would.

The Senator from Florida raises a very good question to me, and the way I would like to answer that question is with an e-mail. It is wonderful that I received this e-mail this morning. I have received hundreds of e-mails from families all over the United States who have been keeping up with this issue, but because this answers the Senator's question--this is from Bossier City, LA, and he writes: First, I would like to give you a little background on myself. I was raised as a military brat. My father served in the Air Force for 28 years, and we were stationed at Barksdale Air Force base

three times. He and my mother retired in Bossier City. We had a good life growing up in the military, and in my opinion it brought us closer together as a family, but there were many, many, many times when things were tough financially for a family of five. I watched you today on C- SPAN, and I was proud that you have represented us and our State and our military families. I think it is extremely important for funding to compensate our military families, especially now when there are no clear answers on how long our troops will be required to be in Afghanistan and Iraq. I have many friends whose spouses have lost significant amounts of income due to activism. Not only do they worry about their spouses on the front lines, they have to worry about how to make ends meet here in the States. Please keep fighting for their cause. By the way, this should not be a Republican versus Democratic issue. My parents are conservatives and I am a liberal, but we consider this matter a matter of patriotism.

I say to the Senator from Florida and other Senators, I have received hundreds of e-mails just like this, and so I want to make one more point. I do not think this is a Democrat versus Republican issue. As I said, the amendment we are fighting for already passed the Senate by 100 votes. The Senator was a cosponsor. The Senator from Arkansas was a cosponsor. I see other Senators in the Chamber who were cosponsors. We wanted this amendment in the bill, and it was in the bill. It went over to the House, and in the negotiations it was dropped. My question is, why? How could we afford to give a tax credit to everybody else but not the Guard and Reserve?

I thank the Senator for his question. I will yield for another question in a minute but to the point in answering the question: This is a page out of the handbook that the Guard and Reserve receive from our Government. This is the handbook they receive, ``Family Readiness Paradigm.'' The center of this says ``self-reliant families.'' ``Self- reliance'' is a powerful word. I like to think I am self-reliant. I like to encourage my children to be self-reliant, self-sufficient, independent, hard working. So we send out a memo just to sort of reinforce to our Guard and Reserve that we expect them to be self- reliant. We provide reunions for them. We help them with their deployment, tell them what is going to happen. We try to help them set up health care plans. We arrange telephone calls. We do the training and mission. The only thing we do not do is send a paycheck.

Then we have the President saying:

The National Guard and Reserves are a vital part of

America's national defense.

[They] display values that are central to our Nation:

character, courage and sacrifice, [and demonstrate] the

highest form of citizenship.

And while you may not be full-time soldiers, you are full-

time patriots.

Evidently, they do not deserve a full paycheck?

No, I will not yield. I am sorry.

That is what the argument is about. Again, I am not asking for a rollcall vote. I know this bill cannot be amended. It is against the rules. There is nothing I can do to amend it. But the bill that is right now before the Senate, I am asking our leadership--I am asking my colleagues to please join with me; I know many do, but I need everybody, I need 100 percent--to agree to amend this bill and send it back to the House and give the House time to reconsider this position. I am fairly certain they did not know the specifics of it. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I do not know that they specifically looked at this and said: These people do not deserve it. I do not think that happened. All I know that happened is that it came back without it in it, and we have time to fix it. We cannot fix it today, we cannot fix it tomorrow, but if we send a bill back to the House, whenever the House comes back, in October, November, December, or January, they could fix it.

How much time do I have remaining?

I will yield to the Senator from Florida and then perhaps to the Senator from Oklahoma at a later time.

I thank the Senator and will respond to his question by saying: Yes, in this amendment, besides what I have described, there is a portion of the amendment--that was actually led by Senator Boxer-- that would allow this tax credit to be applied by local governments to try to keep the paychecks whole for firefighters and police officers who have gone to the front line.

Think of the irony. The Senator from Florida understands this issue well. In the case he described, a firefighter who fought the fire in New York on 9/11, maybe one who went up into the building, put his life on the line or her life on the line on that day--and we know what happened. We don't have to go back and replay that memory in our head. Then he is in the Guard or Reserve and he signs up to go to Iraq to fight, to take the bullets. Because we left this amendment out, he has to send his family back half a paycheck, and we can't find the money in this bill, $137 billion, to help them keep that paycheck whole? It is a disgrace. It is shameful. It is unjust. It is unconscionable. That is why I am going to stay here until Thursday. I understand it may not work. I understand the session may adjourn. But it is going to adjourn with me speaking about this, and I hope all of us, saying the Senate has already spoken on this. Our leadership, Republican and Democratic, said if we are going to have a tax bill, a tax cut, a tax break, the Guard and Reserve should be a part of it.

If we could find other things to help, I am happy to do that as well. I put this particular thing together with some of us. There are many other items I am sure could be put in a comprehensive package. In fact, I have spoken to many of the colleagues who have said to me: Senator, we could put together a more comprehensive package. I am working on that with them as well. However, there is no reason and no excuse and nothing anyone can say to me to convince me that before we adjourn we should not take the action, with not a rollcall vote but a unanimous consent, and at least send this bill back to the House. Then we will have all the time in the world--October, November, December, all next year. I am going to be here at least 4 more years unless I get recalled. My election is not up for 4 more years. I will work on it with anybody who wants to for the next 4 years and come up with a comprehensive package. I know that.

But I want the Senator from Florida and the Senator from Mississippi to know, we don't have to wait for a comprehensive package. We don't have to have it all neat and pretty. We don't have to have a commission that could decide let's do this and let's do this. This is what is before me right now. This is what is before me--$137 billion of tax cuts, and not one page, not one paragraph, not one tittle, not one scribble for the Guard and Reserve.

No, I will not.

So that is my issue at this moment. I am hoping to put a package together. I don't expect this bill to be amended. But I have asked the leadership to allow a unanimous vote--not even on the record--to put this Paycheck Protection Act on the IRA.

How do you have an IRA without money to put in it? I don't know. So it makes sense to put my paycheck bill

with the IRA bill, so then they could actually have an IRA to take the 10-percent credit if they had money in it. You can't get the 10-percent credit unless you have money in your IRA, so this matches pretty perfectly. You get the paycheck, put the money in your IRA, take the IRA out, and you don't have to pay your 10-percent penalty. That would be terrific.

Then on that bill, also an amendment, there is a possibility there could be some hurricane relief. But I want to be clear about one thing. I didn't ask for that although my State will benefit from it. The Senators from Florida, Senator Graham and Senator Nelson, rightly led that. I am a cosponsor of that. That would fit nicely on that amendment. We have to give help to the hurricane victims as well. So we have the Paycheck Protection Act. We have the hurricane help.

Right now, as I speak, I have flooding in my State. I woke up this morning and turned on the television and, besides seeing Donald Rumsfeld in Afghanistan, the next I saw was a levee break in Louisiana. So there is money in this tax bill that I am talking about to help Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and everybody who is flooding, help this paycheck protection, and do this IRA provision which, again, was not my idea but I support it. I think it was a good one.

All I need is for 100 Senators to say it is OK. Evidently I don't have 100 Senators. I might have 98, 99, 89. We don't have a rollcall so I don't know. All I know is I don't have 100, because if I had 100 this filibuster would be over. So that is where we are.

I will yield to the Senator from Florida and then the Senator from Oklahoma, after one more question from the Senator from Florida.

Thank you. That is actually the question of the day. It may take all day or tomorrow to get the answer to that, but I don't know the answer to that. Maybe some Senator could give us the answer to that. I do not know why, but that is what this debate is about.

Is there any compelling reason we could not do that, end this filibuster, move on? These bills are very important to do. I am not objecting to anything in this bill. I am not objecting to anything in the military construction bill. I am not objecting to anything in the intelligence reorganization bill. Surely there are things in here I don't particularly like, but that is the process. That is the process. I cannot write this bill perfectly. There are things in here my constituents would find absolutely laughable. But I have to tell them we have to laugh sometimes, that is the way it is. That is the process. I have been a legislator for 25 years. I know the process. But this is more than process. This transcends all issues, in my mind. This is about whether this Senate, Republican and Democratic leaders, will stand up for the men and women on the front line--yes or no.

It is as simple as that.

Yes.

I would like to respond this way. I have the greatest respect for the Senator from Oklahoma. I actually like him very much. He and I have worked on some important issues--the issue of child welfare, adoption, foster care. I respect him as a Member who understands the details of the finance and tax system and the Budget Committee. He chairs the Budget Committee.

All I can say in answer to that is we drafted the amendment as carefully as we could to make sure that, in fact, that happens. I assure him that there are people wiser than myself, smarter than myself, who have worked here either as a Member or a staffer who could carefully craft such an amendment. I know they crafted this whole entire bill of 600 pages to help the railroads maintain their tracks, for ceiling fan importers so they can keep the fans on, but the troops in Iraq can't afford a fan. Their families can't buy one.

The Senator can talk about whatever. I am respectful of his question. I am completely convinced that the amendment could be written in such a way.

Does the Senator have any other questions?

The Senator's first question, in my opinion, doesn't have a lot of merit. The second one does have a lot of merit, and I would like to respond to it.

There is an argument that comes out of the part of the Pentagon, not the whole Pentagon. There is something unsettling to a man on the front line, some active and some Reserve, when both are driving in a truck in Iraq, that they should get the same paycheck. They both should get $30,000 no matter what. No matter if the reservist makes $70,000 in the United States in their regular work, when they drive the truck in Iraq they should make $30,000. I don't hold to that position. I will tell you why.

Our Government benefits significantly financially, and the taxpayers benefit by not having to keep that Guard and Reserve full time, 24-7, year after year after year. We benefit as taxpayers, so we have more money to give out in tax cuts to everybody else. We benefit by not having to keep a force. We have 1.6 million Active-Duty, and we have 1.2 million Guard and Reserve who are now 40 percent of our force and growing every day. You can see during World War II, in the 1940s, we called up everybody. We had to fight the war. We called up everybody who would go, and even those who didn't want to go because they were forced to go under the draft. Our Active Forces are down at the lowest level since 1941.

I hope everybody can see this. Our Active Forces are down to their lowest level since 1941. You know who makes up this gap? After the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and we are in a war, do you know who makes up this gap? The Guard and Reserve. They go to the front lines.

All I am talking about is since we asked them to go, just let their paychecks follow them by giving a tax credit to the thousands of businesses, large and small, in this country that are doing the patriotic thing, as acknowledged by our President and our

Secretary of Defense and the leadership. Can't we give a tax credit to keep their paychecks for their families? This isn't for the soldier. This is for their families. I think the men and women, active, traditional units, understand that. They get health benefits. They get other benefits when they are Regular Army or Reserve. The reservists don't even have a matching 401(k) savings plan. The reservists don't even have TRICARE. The reservists have very little, and we are blocking them from keeping the one paycheck they do have.

Some Senators don't think they should be able to get the employers' tax credit to keep bread on the table and keep their mortgages paid. This is the issue.

I understand the Pentagon disagrees with that. I understand their position. I don't agree with it. I think, yes, we should pay a differential, or at least allow reservists, when they go to the front lines, to keep as much of their pay as possible, even if they are in a fox hole next to a 10-year, full-time Army soldier. The full-time, traditional soldier gets other benefits and other compensation. They might get free housing. They understand that.

I think the active Army and the active military support this amendment. I am convinced of it. They are not jealous about the Reserves.

For one more question.

I would like to answer the question. First of all, the Senator has drafted many amendments in his career. If he wants to help me modify this amendment, I would appreciate his help. It clearly is my intention to get this direct tax credit in a way that makes sure that these companies can take tax credits for the Guard and Reserve.

If we can write $137 billion worth of instructions to other companies about how this would apply to their tax credit, we could most certainly write a law or rule that allows these companies to be able to cover the paychecks, which they are doing already. This is totally voluntary. These companies don't have to do it. But if they are going to do it-- some in Oklahoma and some in Louisiana are digging deep--they have budgets to meet. They are paying the guys on the front line and then paying to replace them in their offices.

I will tell you why I don't want to put it on the Armed Services bill. I see the chairman on the floor, the Senator from Virginia. What happens is--and the Senator from Oklahoma knows this--under our rules, the Defense Department gets just so much money. Why should I ask my soldiers to make a choice: Do you want a paycheck for your wife, or do you want a covered Humvee for your battalion? I am not asking them that question. You might want to; I am not. Do you want a paycheck for your wife, daycare for your children, or do you want a covered Humvee for yourself? How would you like to answer that question? That is why I object to putting it on the Defense bill.

This is a tax package bill. I don't have to take one Humvee away from them. I don't have to take one rifle away from them, or one helmet away from them. All I have to do is put them in this bill. And I am going to stand here until 100 Members of the Senate agree to do it, and if not we will be back here next year.

How much time do I have remaining?

I will reserve the remainder of my time.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 30 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 30 minutes.

There are no other Senators wanting to speak.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Thank you, Mr. President.

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 30 minutes as in morning business.

Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving right to object, I just ask the leader----

I object.

No objection.

I thank the leader.

Mr. President, I thank the leader, Senator Daschle, for his comments and for the respectful way in which he has addressed the situation we find ourselves in now, because the Members of this body have been working very hard the last couple of days on very important matters. As you know, each and every one of these matters is extremely important to our constituents from our own States, but some of these matters transcend our own States and our districts. Some of these matters transcend individual industries.

Actually, the matter that is before the Senate, and the main reason for the filibuster--or one of the reasons; there are two or three--but the one I have been coming to the floor and speaking about, with several of my colleagues, is the fact we are in the process of passing a bill--if I can pick it up; it is quite heavy--a bill with about 600 pages in it of tax cuts, $137 billion that includes almost every industry you can imagine, large and small, in every part of the country, but the one group of people that is not in here, even if you read from the first page to the last, and even the small print, the one group of people who you will not find in this bill is the 643,000 men and women of the Guard and Reserve and the families they represent. There is not one sentence of tax relief for them.

So I took the floor on Wednesday and said there must have been some mistake, because when it left the Senate 100 Members of this body--all the Republicans and all the Democrats--had supported a provision. It went over to the House, but something happened on the way back from the House. It was omitted. I did not read every page, and I trusted the summary. But when I scanned the 500 items in here and did not find it, I came to the floor.

I went to the Republican leaders, I went to the Democratic leaders, and I said: Please know that I cannot accept passing a $137 billion tax bill that fattens the paychecks of many people in America, some of whom are, I am sure, deserving, but keeps the paychecks of the Guard and Reserve--the men and women who are taking 100 percent of the risk today, the families who are making almost all the sacrifice, and the men and women who are actually losing pay--I cannot for the life of me understand, and no one in my State can understand, how they were left out.

So I have made it clear that I am prepared to stay here until the very end, whether that end is Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. I know I cannot keep this whole Senate here forever, but I can keep the Senate here for the better part of this week. It is not my intention. I am respectful of all the Senators' schedules. I am respectful of their other commitments. I am very respectful that a third of them are in reelections. I am not up for reelection, and I understand the tenseness of this election time. And we actually have a national election.

But my leader knows I do not come here with any small request. I do not come here with a Landrieu request. This is not even a Louisiana request. This is a national plea on behalf of the 645,000 men and women who have been called up to serve, to support us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all places in between. How do we have the nerve to pass a tax bill and leave them out? So that is what the filibuster is about.

Let me be clear, I enjoy working with many Members on the Republican side. I see my good friend from Alabama here, Senator Sessions. He and I have worked together on coastal erosion issues. We have worked together on Armed Services before. I think he is going to have some comments about the work he has done which has been tremendous on the part of the Guard and the Reserve.

I say to the Presiding Officer, you and I just passed one of the few appropriations bills. People said it would never happen; it cannot happen; the DC appropriations bill will not pass; it will be contentious. If I may say, pat myself on the head, and you, too, we did a pretty good job of getting our bill through under a lot of odds that were against us. That bill is already gone, on the President's desk to sign. It strengthens schools, strengthens child welfare agencies in the District, for which the Presiding Officer deserves a lot of credit.

So please, I am not here to obstruct. I am not here to slow things down for no good reason. There are other provisions I did not get in this bill that I asked for. Fine, they are not in there. But I cannot, in good conscience, not speak and not stand on this floor for as long as it takes to get something done for them. I am representing many people, not myself, in this Chamber.

Let me say the good news in the 5 minutes I have left. We made some progress today. Several Members who had questions about the amendment in question have been working with their staffs. We may be coming up with a way that we could together get this amendment intact as much as I have already described it and get it connected to another bill that we can send back to the House.

I wish I could control what the House of Representatives does. I would like to go over there and give them a piece of my mind on their floor. But I am not allowed to do that. I am not. All I can do is stand here in the Senate, urge the Senators to stay strong and firm--we all voted for this amendment--and get it on a bill and send it back to them.

And when the leadership over there decides--because they can control their floor action. Our leadership cannot really control us that much. They can put a lot of pressure on us, but we are Senators and we can speak; and I intend to. The Members over there cannot speak freely because of the Constitution and the rules of the Congress, but the leadership will get this bill and they can decide, in October, November, December, or January, in this Congress or the next Congress, what they want to do about it. But what we can do is get this amendment negotiated.

I thank the Senators today who have been working on this. I feel not confident, but I feel encouraged. I feel encouraged that some parts of the amendment I have talked about that will help our Guard and Reserve to be a part of tax relief that we pass out of the Senate could be included. So I thank my leader.

Mr. President, I inquire, how much time of the 15 minutes do I have left?

So I have about 6 minutes, because I had 7 under my previous order.

I have 8 minutes left. I would like to take those 8 minutes, and then I will reserve the last 7 minutes I have because that is all I have. Would the Chair inform me, please, at 7 minutes?

I will take the 8 minutes I have left to read a couple of e-mails I have received from people all over the country to give courage and support to the colleagues that are negotiating this. I think they can see this is important to a lot of people.

This is from ``Nobody.'' That is how they signed it. The name is Janice.

I have three Nephews and two Nieces that are in our

National Guard, and they are being sent over to Iraq. I am so

angry at the Congress and the Senate today but I pray they

never have to see their Sons or Daughters go to this war. Let

alone their Grandchildren. My Nephews and Nieces have left

behind 11 children without any health coverage, let alone

monies needed to survive. Yes, survive! Today my Husband and

I . . . are taking care of three children of our loving

Niece. It is hard on us as we are retired and living on a

fixed income.

Might I add that I do not have health coverage any longer

as the monthly payments became too much for us.

Please continue your fight for our Soldiers! We love you

Senator for your Grace . . .

Another e-mail:

Thank you for standing there bravely for all of our

Americans who are becoming more powerless with each passing

day.

I am a disabled person barely able to stand on my own two

legs, so I really appreciate that you are standing there for

me and all of our National Guard troops.

I am watching you on CSpanII today. I know you are fighting

for us and I am moved to thank you [for trying].

I will be watching. I will be waiting, and I appreciate it.

Your desire to assist those individuals points to a bigger

problem--military pay. Service members deserve better, all

servicemen deserve better. Your efforts to help will create a

situation in which reservists and National Guardsmen receive

higher compensation than that of the full-time personnel.

The resolution to this problem is not providing a way to

help reservists and National Guard make up income. It is

helping them make up income and increasing the compensation

for all service personnel.

He goes on to say that he supports our efforts.

Again, I will just share that in the last 14 years since 1990, we have called up 690,000 troops. In the previous 30 years, from the Berlin crisis to the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam war, we only called up 100,000. Our policies have put more pressure on the Guard and Reserve to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Active members. I agree, we need to improve the pay and compensation across the board, but I can't provide tax relief for the Active Reserve in the same way I can do it for the Guard and Reserve in this bill.

There are other benefits that are being provided. If we can explore the possibilities in the amendment I am supporting, I will be happy to do that. But it is for all of our troops that we stand here and try to work on an amendment that will give a tax credit to the companies that are being patriotic, doing the right thing, trying to keep the pay their reservists were making when they were homeside and now are losing sometimes 40 percent of that pay when they go to the front line. Many of our employers are picking up the difference.

The tax credit we have argued for will help those small companies-- some of them struggling--to continue to pay their guardsmen and reservists. It is clear. It is convenient for the accounting systems of our companies, and we most certainly can afford it.

Again, $137 billion of tax relief getting ready to be voted on. I said I can't vote for this bill, but a majority of the Members will. I am not faulting them for that vote, but I am going to stay as long as it takes to get this amendment into this bill or at least get it attached to another bill so that we can say, as

Senators, that we did our job and we did the best.

I am happy to say the negotiations are going on, and they look promising. I thank my colleagues for being so open and for working through this today. I know it is unusual that we are in on a Sunday, but I thank them for their patience, and I retain the balance of my time.

If the Senator will yield for a question, I appreciate the Senator's comments. I look forward to working with him. He has been one of the leaders in supporting the Guard and Reserve. The question is, is he familiar with--if he is not, we can send it over--a letter from Secretary Bill Cohen on March 17, 1998, that says to the then- chairman of the Committee on National Security in the House--and this was in 1998--is the Senator aware that back in 1998, the former Secretary of Defense sent a letter noting:

With the increased use of the Guard and Reserve,

particularly for unplanned contingency operations, employers

of the Guard and Reserve members are often faced with the

unplanned absences of their Reservist employees. They may

incur additional business expenses associated with the

unplanned absences.

Does the Senator from Alabama know this report that was sent to us in 1998--3 years before September 11, 2001, and 3 years before 643,000 Guard and Reserve were called up, and that the Department of Defense has been petitioning Congress to provide some tax credit for employers who are picking up 100 percent of the expense? Does the Senator know that, and would he like to comment about our ongoing efforts?

If the Senator will yield, the Senator is correct. It will compete for resources, and that is why those of us who have worked on this will be careful to request it at the appropriate time. We understand there is competition among resources. That is why I have taken the opportunity of talking, when we were about ready to pass this bill--$137 billion in tax credits. Surely, we could have found $2 billion out of this as we spread out the scarce resources. I would not call $137 billion scarce, but it is $137 billion out of which we could have found $2 billion.

We cannot amend that bill, but did the Senator know there might be another bill that already passed the House of Representatives, which is over here, that we could amend and send back to the House? It would not become law on this, and I know he knows that. But we could send it to the House, and if they pass it and send it to the President's desk, it could become law on a different bill?

Would the Senator yield for just one more question? He is so patient.

I thank the Senator for yielding. Did the Senator know--because he raises an excellent point. We would not want to create a tax credit that basically allowed a $100,000 or $150,000 salaried worker to continue on the front line because it would inadvertently benefit the higher end. So did the Senator know that we crafted our amendment with a cap which we thought was reasonable so in the example that he gave, in the amendment that is being discussed now, that the $100,000 salaried worker who went over to Iraq would receive $30,000 in Reserve pay, according to our amendment, if his employer wanted to pay him up to $45,000 only, and they would get a $15,000 credit. So he would receive, on the front line, $45,000 instead of the $30,000, but he would still be losing $55,000 in income. So the family back home would still be losing $55,000 in income, which is a tough thing for these families.

I am not trying to help people who could otherwise help themselves, but that is still a pretty significant loss of income, as the Senator knows. But we do have a cap because of that purpose. We did not want to unfairly benefit those at the top end.

I will say that many employers are covering that gap now, and they are absorbing that difference now. We would only be subsidizing the first basically $15,000 of that. I would, frankly, be open to subsidizing more, but too many Members objected to that. So as a compromise, we sort of settled on this cap.

I understand what the Senator is saying. I just wanted to ask him if he was aware that we did have a cap on this amendment.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for about 10 minutes.

Madam President, I am so pleased to be on the floor and to thank our leadership: First, Senator Frist, our majority leader, from Tennessee; Senator Daschle, the minority leader; and Senator Reid, who has worked so tirelessly today. Reasonable minds came together on some of these issues. I particularly thank the Senator from Oklahoma, Senator Nickles, for working throughout the day with us on this very important amendment for the Guard and Reserve; and particularly, Senator Kit Bond, who was one of the leaders on the Republican side; Senator Jeff Sessions for his kind remarks today; Senator Jeffords, who signed the letter to the President; Senator Nelson of Florida and Senator Akaka, who came to the floor; Senator Murray for her strong support of the amendment; Senator Boxer for being an original cosponsor of the amendment, along with Senator Durbin and

Senator Kerry. There may be others I can mention in the next few minutes because this truly was a success for all of us and the Senate, for the Republican leadership and the Democratic leadership of the Senate, to be able to come to a reasonable agreement to pass a tax credit for members of the Guard and Reserve, to pass a significant tax credit for businesses in this country, particularly small businesses that are really struggling to make ends meet and are doing the patriotic thing.

Madam President, I had submitted this for the Record several days ago, so I will not repeat it. I call attention to the hundreds of businesses--potentially thousands--that will benefit directly from this tax credit, but most important, it is the guardsmen and reservists whose paychecks will continue, whose families will be supported, who will be the direct and most important beneficiaries of the agreement reached tonight. I thank my colleagues, and I will speak in more detail tomorrow about the benefits.

Because we worked together and kept working in good faith and because we kept them in our minds, the Senate tomorrow at some time will pass, by unanimous consent, according to the agreement just reached, a tax credit for businesses. It won't technically be in this huge bill I have been holding up for 3 days. As I started this discussion, there was nothing we could do to get it in this bill. The only thing that could have happened to get it in the bill is if we pass it, the President would veto it, send it back, and tell us to rewrite it. The chances of that happening were not good. So we negotiated the next best thing, which was passing a stand-alone tax credit for the Guard and Reserve out of the Senate again, as we have already done with 100 Members of the Senate--Republicans and Democrats--and sent to the House.

Now the focus will be on the House leadership. Now the focus will be on the House. Is the Republican leadership in the House going to stand up for the men and women in the Guard and Reserve? Are they going to include them or leave them out of their tax bill? That is something the House leadership will have to discuss.

I am so proud tonight of the Senators. Again, many Senators helped. I will go into more detail in the morning about that.

Let me make sure that I have included in the Record the Military Officers Association, representing 376,000 members. I will submit for the Record the Reserve Officers Association. In the morning, I will submit many other documents we have received from Active and Reserve military organizations for members of the military coalition thanking us for standing strong for them to get a tax credit for them. If anybody deserves a tax credit--and if we can afford $137 billion for many other interests in America--nobody deserves it more than the employers, particularly the small employers of under 500 or a thousand. That is not that small, but in the definition of small business, something under 500 is technically called a small business. In my State, we think of a 10- or 15-employee company as small. But particularly for those small- and medium-sized businesses that are doing the patriotic thing, keeping the paycheck whole for the Guard and Reserve while they are on the front line and also hiring replacements for them to run the factories, the businesses, the architectural firm, or drive a truck, et cetera.

So I am just as proud as I can be tonight to thank my colleagues for working so well together. It has been a pleasure particularly working with Senator Daschle, who has the patience of a saint on many of these issues and in the way he has negotiated with Senator Frist to bring this to a good end.

I will yield back the remainder of my time tonight and, of course, reserve the right to speak again in the morning on this important subject.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Will the Senator yield for 30 seconds?

I would particularly like to thank the Senator from Iowa. There is a long list of Senators, but I need to particularly thank the Senator from Iowa, for the two of us have been on the floor together for the last 2 days. He has been very generous in terms of helping with this issue, and he is a cosponsor of this amendment as well. He has been a tremendous supporter.

The Senator from Iowa has also, our colleagues know, had other issues which he will speak about in a moment, very important to farmers, actually in my State as well as Iowa and States all over the Nation, but I would be remiss if I did not thank the Senator from Iowa who has been arguing, holding the floor, making our points so we could get our colleagues to focus on this issue, which has been done, and now we have a bill we can send to the House. So I thank the Senator.