Floor Statements

Mr. President, let me thank my great friend and colleague from Nevada for his very kind words. I thank him for coming to hear my last speech on the floor of the Senate. I know there are many listening who are applauding at this moment for that. But I come here with a wonderful spirit. I have written on the top of the page the same words that I wrote the night of the election, and that is the word ``gratitude'' because that is all I feel--an incredible sense of gratitude.

Mark Rodgers is my long-time friend and chief of staff, now head of the conference. We were talking again this morning about coming to work every day and walking up to the Capitol Building every day for 16 years now and still feeling that, wow, I work here--every day for 16 years. It was such a gift, such an incredible gift to be blessed to serve the people of the 18th District in the Congress, southwestern Pennsylvania, in Allegheny County, and for 12 incredible years to be able to serve the people of Pennsylvania here.

So first and foremost, I want to thank who is most responsible--and that is God--for this great gift he has bestowed upon me and my family--to be able the serve the greatest country in the history of the world and to serve in a body that is, and hopefully will be, the greatest deliberative body in the world. I think back to my dad, when he came to this country, and my mom, who is a second generation, and I think of how I grew up. It is amazing what a great country this is and how God has bestowed upon me and my family tremendous blessings. So I thank Him for the opportunity he has given me to serve. We are all called to serve. Some are frustrated because they don't think they are in a job or a position in life where they are doing what God has called them to do. God has blessed me with the opportunity to do this and to serve in a way that I hope he has called me to serve.

Second, I thank my family. Karen and the kids are watching. They have suffered a lot and have sacrificed a lot in 16 years. I was telling John the other day that it is amazing how you think you are doing certain things well, and then you have the opportunity to spend a little more time doing those things and you realize how insufficiently you did them in the past. A phrase from the Bible is ringing in my ears, ``the scales falling off of the eyes.'' In the last month or so, I have had a lot of scales fall from my eyes--to see not just what the 2 years have been to my family, which have been a tough 2 or 3 years, but the accumulation of 16 years in what is a very difficult life. I know everybody here recognizes that because you live it. They know how difficult this life is, how public everything we do and say is or what we are accused of. We think we understand how difficult that is for our family, but I don't think we really do. I want to say thank you to Karen, who I picture in my mind with this T-shirt dress she wore and had stenciled on it ``Santorum for Congress.'' She went knocking on doors in 1990, when no one gave us a chance. We did the impossible. We were able to defeat a 14-year incumbent who no one thought could be beat. I would not have even come close to winning that election but for her.

In 1994, it was the same thing. She went out with the two children at home and she spent day after day--not traveling with, no; she was giving speeches in her own right and traveling all over the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, sacrificing. They continued to do that day after day, year after year. I was a Senator, and I had important things to do.

I tell stories all the time about debates that were held on the floor of the Senate, when I would call Karen and say I had to come back to this very place and say more. There was never a hesitation. She served more than I did. My children--none of them have known their father without being in politics. I got married in 1990 to Karen, and Elizabeth came along 11 months later. Their life has been with their father in politics, in the public arena. They have had to deal with that in both pleasurable ways and some very painful ways. So I thank them for being without their dad far too often. Even when they are with their dad, I am not as attentive as I should have been. But I think they knew and they shared in the endeavor because they knew it was important for them and for our country.

So, hopefully, out of this experience they have been given a sense of purpose, and they know more about what life should be all about and that is to serve--serve God, serve your family, serve your community, and to serve your country. It is a great blessing. I thank them for the opportunity they have given me, through their sacrifice, to do that for the last 16 years.

I thank my mom and dad and Karen's mom and dad and all in our family who have been supportive every step of the way--sometimes wondering why I was doing this, sometimes unable to walk to the end of the driveway and pick up the paper for fear of what next was going to be said about their son-in-law or son. But they stood with us and fought with us and they comforted us. I thank them.

John mentioned the people who are here in this room, my staff.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed a list of all of the folks who worked for us over the last 12 years in the Senate at the end of my remarks.

Mr. President, I wish I could read all these names, but there are a lot of names. These are people who worked for me in my personal office in Washington and in my offices across the State and the people who worked here in Washington in my leadership office at the Senate Republican Conference. John said it so well. These are incredible people. I have had the opportunity now in the last few days to sit and talk with each one of my staff members to find out what they are doing and to get any final thoughts they would have. One after another, I have been amazed at the dedication, intelligence, caring, and the commitment of service they had to the people of Pennsylvania, or to the causes I have attempted to do my best to fight for in the Senate. These are incredibly talented people whom I have been so blessed to be associated with and to work with.

I looked at the list of our legislative accomplishments and I can say, yes, I worked on that, but on the autism legislation, Jennifer Vesey wrote it, not me. She spent 16 months working with 15 offices. In fact, let me do something at this point.

Mr. President, I ask the Chair lay before the Senate a message form the House of Representatives on the bill (S. 843) to combat autism through research, screening, intervention and education.

The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message from the House of Representatives.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate concur in the House amendment, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we just passed the combating autism bill that we have been working on for 16 months. I thank Senator Dodd for his tremendous work on that. I thank all of the autism groups. I thank Jennifer Vesey for the tremendous work she did and the hours and hours and patience it takes to put together complex and important pieces of legislation.

Later today, or tomorrow, we are going to pass the abandoned mine lands bill. I would love to say that was Rick Santorum, but it was Ashley Horning; it wasn't Rick Santorum. She did all the work. I pretty much knew what was in there, and I would negotiate the parts in disagreement. That is what we all do. But on 90 percent of the bills that most of us know about, we didn't hammer out the details; it was done by folks who have the commitment and vision and effort and work the long hours to make the legislation possible. It is important that in Pennsylvania now we will get a billion dollars to clean up abandoned mines--it is a tremendous contribution to the environment--or miners will have health care coverage paid because, in part, I had a terrific staff person. I can go down through issue after issue and look at these accomplishments that would be great to stand up and say that I did, but I had a tremendous amount of help. I had incredibly talented, gifted people who worked incredible hours.

What most people across America don't realize is how hard our people around here work. They don't do it for the money. They don't do it because they have some agenda to accomplish. They do it because they want to improve America, make America a better place. They want to leave this place better than how they found it. They want to serve because they love this country and they believe in what will make this country better. They work long hours. They don't get paid as much as they could make if they wandered off the Hill. I will put my folks, both in Washington and across the State, up against anybody. They are sitting in the gallery and here along the railing. They have given their all and I thank them. They served the people of Pennsylvania. Looking at Kevin Roy over there, I think of all of the earmarks--that is a dirty word--that we were able to get to help the people in Pennsylvania in so many ways. I look at work we did for the nonprofit community and welfare and families, and Melanie Looney and her team worked on that.

It has been an incredible group. Our Senate conference, the message folks--it was awfully hard. Republicans are not good on the old message issue. We don't follow our talking points very well. We try. We try. We have a lot of independent thinkers on our side. God bless them. They always have a better way of saying things than what we suggest or actually not even saying things, thinking things than what we suggest. That is the beauty of our party. We have a lot of diversity within our party.

We have some very talented people who work very hard, not just a dry message to spin, but to try to move the debate, try to get our causes articulated in a way that is communicated effectively to people across America. They worked hard. They built coalitions. They did their best, and I thank them for their effort and the tremendous service they have given our conference.

I thank the folks in my district offices. Most of those folks have been with me 16 years. We don't have a lot of turnover in our office. A lot of folks in Pittsburgh have been with me 16 and others around the State have been with me 12 years. They are dedicated people who go out and do those security checks and veterans benefits and medals.

I will always remember one story that happened this last year. There was a man, a World War II vet named Patrick. I was at a ribbon-cutting for a VA facility in Oakland in Pittsburgh. While I was there, we arranged a little medal presentation to a veteran who had sought a medal and was never given that medal. That is all I knew about it. I showed up. There was this older gentleman sitting in the front row. His name was Patrick.

Patrick was a World War II veteran who served in Patton's army and was sent on a secret mission to try to liberate a POW camp. In that mission, he was captured. He was imprisoned for several months, I believe, in a German POW camp. When he got out of the Army, he requested a POW medal, but the paperwork didn't show he had been captured. It was a secret mission, and it never appeared on his military record.

For 60 years, Patrick fought to get his designation as a POW. He never married. In fact, later in his life after he retired from work, he became somewhat of a recluse because he was kidded by some of his buddies about being a POW. It affected him dramatically, so much so that one of his friends and relatives contacted us to say: Is there anything you can do? Could it possibly be true?

Ann Blocksidge in my office in Pittsburgh, wizard that she is with these issues that she has been working on now for 16 years, knew the places to call and put the records together. We found out, yes, he was, and that was in one place in one record and not in the same place as the other record, and A didn't talk to B. So we were able to get him his POW medal.

I remember pinning it on him. This older man walked to the microphone. He said: There is one thing I want to say. He said: I finally feel welcomed home.

It is a great story, but the folks in my office and offices all over this Capitol do this every day because they care, because the people call with impossible things, and our folks do impossible things to help them.

I thank all of them for all the service they have done, for doing what I ask them to do when they come into the office: Treat every caller as if it is your grandmother calling. If you treat every caller as if it is your grandmother--hopefully they get along with their grandmother--then things will be fine.

I thank my colleagues. This place gets a lot of ridicule. It is very easy to criticize people in the fishbowl. It is very easy to take shots at people for not living up to expectations, and certainly we all do not live up to expectations. But I think I can say without any reservation that the men and women in this body are good and decent people who are doing what they believe is best for this country.

I know many people find that hard to believe because they look at people and they have beliefs so diametrically opposed to people in this Chamber. I certainly have views--and have demonstrated that on many occasions on the floor of the Senate--that are diametrically opposed to many people in this Chamber. But in my heart, I never questioned the integrity and the sincerity of the people who articulated their opinions, that they were not sincere. I believed them to be sincere and I believed them to believe that it was in the best interest of the country. That is what is supposed to happen here. Ideas are to be debated, points of view are to be discussed, and the prevailing thought of the day will move the country in that direction.

There are very good people here. I tell the people of America: There are very good people here. There are people here on both sides of the aisle who pray every single day for God's guidance. There are people here today who, while we fight and argue, do so out of a passion for doing what is right.

I thank my colleagues for the courtesies they have shown me, and particularly my Republican colleagues for the honor they have given me to serve in the leadership for 6 years. I know that was not an easy decision back in 2001 to elect someone who had a reputation of being somewhat of a bomb thrower in the House and in my early Senate days to a position of leadership in the Senate. They took a risk. I hope they feel it has paid off.

It has certainly been a great blessing to me to have been able to serve my colleagues in the capacity of conference chairman.

It is an incredible group of people. I think of John, who is my tennis partner. We played our first match after I was defeated, and he beat me 6-love, 6-1. He thinks it is because he played better, but I am just preparing for other employment.

We have prayer groups here. One of the most important things in my life over the past 12 years has been the Senate prayer group, the Senate Bible study, and the prayer breakfasts, the small prayer group with which I have been involved. I don't know how people do it. I don't know how people do this business without prayer, without an understanding that there is something bigger than us here, something that will help us, guide us, lift us up at times when there seems to be no other reason to be lifted up.

I thank all of those who prayed with me and prayed for me. Lloyd Ogilvie, a chaplain here for many years, and Barry Black, our Chaplain now--they are prayer warriors for all of us. I know they pray for us every day. I know Lloyd still prays for us every day, and I know millions of Americans pray for us every day. I thank all of them for helping me through and helping us and helping our country through these difficult times.

I thank our leader, Bill Frist, my first leader I served under as a member of the leadership, Trent Lott, and the leader I served under when I came to the Senate, Bob Dole. Each and every one of them in their own way led differently. But in the case of Senator Dole, he was a larger-than-life figure to me, coming over to the Senate as a 36- year-old Senator. He was on his way to run for the Presidency. He took the time to be concerned about the issues that were important to me. He put me on the committees I needed to be on and gave me the opportunity that I will never forget and certainly will always be thankful for--to manage and work on the welfare reform bill back in 1996.

Of all the things I accomplished in the Senate, there is nothing I am more proud of than what we did in 1996 to reform the welfare system and transition it so millions and millions would fall off the rolls, find gainful employment, and change their lives and the lives of their families. I owe that to Bob Dole. He gave me the opportunity to stand at that manager's chair for months in my second year in the Senate and taking on what I would argue was the most important piece of legislation in that session of the Congress, the Republican revolution.

I thank Trent Lott not only for his tutelage and mentoring me in the time I have been here as a leader, but for helping me in gaining leadership and being involved in the leadership in the Senate.

I thank Bill Frist for his friendship. His coming in as a leader when I was already in the leadership was a little different. He didn't come in and point the finger and boss around, but he came in to learn. He came in to engage, to try to take the knowledge that was in the leadership group and use it to build a stronger group. I appreciate that.

There is a humility in Bill Frist. It is a very attractive quality and, I might also add, a rather rare quality if one is in the Senate, but a very attractive one and a very important one in Senators and leaders.

I thank, I guess finally, the people of Pennsylvania. I was talking to Jim Towey. Jim is the new president of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. Jim is the former director of the faith-based office for the President. I called him the other day. He said: You know, Rick, I have been here--I think he said 6 months. He said: I really like the State, like the area, good people. But the more I study the State and the more I get the feel of Pennsylvania, I have one question: It is not how did you lose the election, but how did you get elected here twice?

I got elected twice because I had a lot of wonderful people who campaigned hard, worked hard, and believed in me and were able to maybe see past some of the differences with me to give me an opportunity to serve here, and I am eternally grateful.

It is an incredible State. It is one I got to know very well and, obviously, got to know thousands of people. I had the opportunity to serve them. I had the opportunity to be scolded by them, reprimanded by them. But I always understood they were my employers. I work for them. And when you work for somebody, sometimes they are going to tell you they don't like the job you are doing. And you better act like someone who is an employee instead of an employer or you are not going to find yourself as an employee very much longer. Well, I tried to act like an employee. But that doesn't mean I always had to agree with my employer, and a lot of times I didn't. And maybe I spoke up too often too loudly and too boldly on some of the things that my employer didn't agree with. I hope they respect the fact that it was a heartfelt disagreement and that I did what I did and I said what I said because I believed it was in their best interests, even though they may not have thought so.

I respect the fact that I didn't win this election and that the people of Pennsylvania made a different decision. I had an opportunity to meet with my successor today in my office and get a chance to talk with him about some of the ins and outs of the Senate. He is a good man, and he will do a good job. I hope the people of Pennsylvania will give him and extend to him the same courtesies and trust and cooperation that so many Pennsylvanians who didn't agree with me on a lot of things but knew that it was important to work together--such as our Governor, Ed Rendell, whom I worked with as mayor and as Governor, as well as I did with any Republican that I know--I hope that Republican officeholders in Pennsylvania treat my opponent with the same kind of respect and the same kind of cooperation that Governor Rendell and I have had over the years.

That brings me to my colleague, Senator Specter. It was very kind of Arlen to come and say a few words. He said that we are not only colleagues in the Senate and, obviously, colleagues from Pennsylvania, but we are friends. I have to tell my colleagues, when I first came to the Senate, I thought it was a very long shot that I would be friends with Arlen Specter. All I had

heard about Arlen Specter was how prickly a character he is, how difficult he is, sort of cold and tough. But he is a pretty soft guy. He really is. He gets those granddaughters around him and he just melts. No, he is a good man. I don't agree with Arlen a lot, and of course everybody knows that, but Arlen has been a good partner. We have worked on a lot of things together. And even when we disagreed, we understood and respected the disagreement and didn't let it affect us, or certainly our relationship, or if it was important enough to us and important enough to the State and important enough to the country, we worked hard to try to bridge those differences. I think that is a good model. I recommend it to my successor. I recommend it to all my colleagues.

This place doesn't have to be as personally confrontational as it is. I say that as someone who was pretty personally combative when I first came here. I know that I have had some pretty strident debates on the floor of the Senate, but I will tell my colleagues that in my heart, it was never personal, it was always about what the issue was about. And it is hard for a lot of people in America who look at it in a culture that takes everything personally--people have asked me why I have been so comfortable and at ease with what has happened, and it is because I don't take it personally. People disagree with where I wanted to take this country, and that is fine. They will have an opportunity to take it someplace else, for now.

But I don't take it personally. I look at the empty desks of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and I look at each and every one and I can see them all sitting there, and I can't think of one that I would take a disagreement with personally--and I have had disagreements with virtually every one but all of them have disagreed, hopefully without being personally disagreeable. That is how this place works. It is the only way it can work and be successful for America.

In closing, I want to say that I always come back to the word ``gratitude.'' To God, to my family, to my colleagues, to the wonderful people who have worked for me and with me over the years, to the people of the 18th Congressional District, to the people of Pennsylvania: Thank you. Thank you. I don't know what I will be doing next, but I cannot imagine that anything I do in the future will rival the kind of blessings I have felt from all of the folks whom I have mentioned. The relationships and the wonderful accomplishments and the great spirit I have experienced over these last 16 years is something that I am eternally grateful for to all of those involved. It has been a great blessing.

I thank my colleagues, I thank those who came and listened, those who might be listening in other ways, but I thank them, personally, for the great kindness they have shown me. I leave a very happy and contented former Senator from Pennsylvania who feels very blessed.

Exhibit 1

Senate Personal Office Employees

Aho, Robert W; Anderson, Thomas S; Armata, Andrew M T;

Baldwin, Todd A; Barbera, Vincent M; Barron, Bruce A;

Bashore, Keith E; Beresnyak, Allison M; Beresnyak, Thomas E

Jr.; Bernier, George M III; Bernstein, Luke M; Berry, Donna

A; Bertuola, Lawrence J; Beynon, Matthew E; Bickhart, Robert

G; Blocksidge, Anne M; Bonesso, Rozzanna J; Bowman, Patricia

Dianne; Bowser, Julia E; Boyd, Allison J.

Bozzuto, Robert F; Bragg, Heather N; Broughton, Aaron

Michael; Brown, Brian T; Burkhalter, Colin J; Butler, Timothy

R; Caldwell, Stanley D; Calka, Courtney JO; Carlson, Michael

R; Carter, Andrew C; Castillo, Michael J; Chapman, Elizabeth

R; Christman, David R; Clater, Michael D; Cognato,

Christopher; Cognato, Michael H; Coleman, Samuel E; Collins,

Leah R; Conklin, Jennifer M; Coppolo, Stephen D.

Corman, Jacob D III; Coulter, Kathryn A; Covel, Michelle F;

Crane, Rebecca H; Curry, Margaret K; Daniel, Kelly L;

Davidek, Jason E; Davis, Mary Elizabeth A; Davis, Virginia L;

Dermody, Brandon D; Devito, William J; Dick, John T; Diehl,

Samuel W; Dougherty, Kara A; Doyle, Lyda A; Dutkowski,

Margaret C; Ely, Ramona J; Ensslin, Mary T; Evans, Andrea L;

Faulk, Page C.

Faustino, Mary A; Feenstra, Paul A; Feller, Meredith L;

Fergusen, Sarah E; Ferrara, Lorenzo L; Finney, Thomas S;

Fischer, Karen E; Fratto, Salvatore A; French, David G;

French, John M III; Galko, Vincent A; Garver, Nancy L;

Gaston, Shivellia T; Gemma, Peter B Jr.; Genesio, Christine

J; Gerry, Keith M; Gorman, Victoria Lynn; Greco, Michael P;

Greene, Charles M; Gresov, Winston G.

Gutierrez, Jennifer C; Haberkern, Jeffery J; Hall, David M;

Harbula, David Scott; Harvey, Marcus W; Hershey, Jill E;

Hershey, Michael S; Hoadley, Cassandra; Holcombe, Sara K;

Hornbake, Lawrence E; Horne, Wesley O; Horning, Ashley E;

Howard, Jaime L; Hybels, Amy R; Irvine, Walter G Jr.; Irwin,

Christine E; Ivanov, Florina D; Johnson, Thomas O II;

Kauffman, Alexander J; Kelly, Caitlin B.

Kennedy, Brian D; Kinsman, Chelsea M; Kitchen, Michelle L;

Kocan, Sheila T; Koutsiouroumbas, Athan; Kuklis, Joseph V;

Laager, Maryanne R; Ladd, Abigail A; Larcinese, Mary E;

Laurenson, Craig A; Lebaudy, Laura A; Leidner, Kristina S;

Leinbach, Christian Y; Lewandowski, Leslie L; Lindenberer,

Stephanie Ann; Lofton, Marian Victoria; Looney, Melanie L;

Lyle, Stephen T; Lynch, Stephanie F; Maclean, Heather Marie.

Maddox, Audrey C; Maguire, Erin K; Mahon, Emmet M; Maines,

Laura A; Martin, David; Martin, John E Jr.; Mattei, Thomas J

Jr.; Matthews, Shawnna Lee; Mcclard, Melissa J; Mccoy, Ida M;

Mccracken, David E; Mccree, Michael R; Mcdonald, Robin V;

Mcelwee, George S; Mcginley, Christopher P; Mckeon, Meredith;

Mcnamara, Kevin M; Medina, Wanda I; Meyer, Christine M;

Mihalke, Michael H.

Miller, Eric R; Miller, Jennifer L; Miller, Manda B;

Miller, Nicole M; Miller, William A; Mitchell, Anna K;

Mitchell, Marcus P; Mizer, Erica L; Molineaux, Peter J;

Moore, Thomas; Moore, Zachery P; Morinigo, Nicholas; Morton,

Bylly Jo; Mullen, James G; Narcavage, Michael III; Navin,

Lawrence M; Ohara, Gerald J; Oshea, Joseph J; Pallotto, Adam

R; Palmer, Wayne D.

Park, Victoria P; Parrick-Cox, Susan; Patel, Kajal A;

Pavlik, Bonnie M; Peacock, Deborah A; Pearson, Tim; Perez,

Janet M; Petraglia, Amy W; Poteet, Paul W; Preate, Alexandra

V; Pugh, Jennifer S; Quinn, Christine Marie; Rajsic,

Michelle; Ramos, Josephina; Reilly, Sean M; Reyes, Jeremy;

Rhodes, Allison L; Riegel, Ellen J; Rockwell, Russel A; Rode,

Katherine R.

Rodgers, Lincoln R C; Roman, Lisa M; Romaniello, Catherine

M; Roscoe, Abigail; Rossi, Connie J; Rossman, Eleanor T; Roy,

Kevin F; Ryan, Maureen; Sailhamer, Brent A; Salvesen, Erling

R III; Sanborn, Alden R; Sanders, Joseph E Jr.; Sarmir,

Danielle; Scanlan, Tricia L; Scaringi, M Anthony; Schmidt,

Keith A; Schmidt, Michele E; Sears, William P; Sechler,

Michael W; Shaner, Mathias R.

Sharp, Crystal N; Sharp, Trudy R; Shelby, Melissa B;

Sheriff, Marie A; Shirk, Jamie E; Shott, Christine M;

Simodejka, Jill L; Sinha, Sushant K; Smith, Brian A; Smith,

Jacob W; Solfanelli, Matthew; Soroka, Suzanne M; Sosar,

Edward D; Spangler, Courtney Leigh; Sparvero, Emily S;

Stawasz, Karen L; Stein, Peter J; Stephans, Elizabeth L;

Stolnacher, Patricia L; Stoltzfoos, Gerald D.

Stoltzfoos, Jeffery L; Strickland, Carolyn; Strothman,

Alexis A; Stuart, Robert R; Swain, Tooshar K; Swartz, Barbara

K; Sweeny, Jennifer Mahurin; Sybyl, Julie M; Szy, Daniel J;

Taylor, David N; Tekel, Adam R; Thompson, Holly; Titus-Young,

Joy J; Traynham, Robert L; Trego, Joshua S; Tulyasathein,

Charnsin; Turner, Michelle D; Urguhart, E Randy; Valdes,

Stephen G; Vanderpool, Kristen R.

Vesey, Jennifer L; Voinski, John A; Vulakovich, Randolph P;

Walker, Patricia B; Wall, Toni B; Walters, Christopher F;

Watson, D Dexter; Weaver, Chad A; Weber, David; Weiss, Todd

M; White, Jennifer S; Wiesenfeld, Michael A; Williamson, N

Kathy; Willis, Jessica R; Wittman, Anne E; Wright, Erica

Clayton; Wusinich, Maria T; Yanoshak, Erica M; Younger,

Anita.

Senate Republican Conference Employees

Amy Marie Adams; Jeff Hunt; Garrett Fahy; Joel Digrado;

Kate Harris; Shonda Werry; Cris Clapp; Melissa Seckora

Anderson; Elizabeth Keys; Barbara Ledeen; Chrissy Shott;

Sarah Berk; Mark Rodgers; Randy Brandt; Katherine Gonzalez;

Carlos Gonzalez; Lane Marshall; Cyrus Pearson; Robert

Traynham; Henry Peterson; Chris Angrisani; Laura Gill.

Nick Schweich; Aaron Broughton; Tim Petty; Curtis Swager;

Nate Green; David Song; Michael Bleicher; Jen Sweeney; Joy

Schmidt; Eden Gordon; Susana Levenson; Eric Miller; Chris

Myers; Rebecca Cotton; Drew Cantor; Alex Kaufman; John

Rankin; Dan Ronayne; Eric Ruiz; Loredana Vouto; Deidre

Woodbyrne.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about why I voted against Dr. Gates and lay out in detail the concerns I have about the security posture of the United States today and how I do not believe that Dr. Gates is the appropriate choice to confront them. While I think he certainly has a lot of positive qualities, and in normal times I would certainly defer to the President's judgment on this, we are not in normal times. I believe we need a Secretary--and I think we need leaders in this country, particularly the Secretary--who has insight into the nature of our enemy and is willing to provide the vision necessary, not just for our people in the military but the country, on how to defeat them. On one particular vital aspect of that vision I think he is in error, and that error causes me to object and to vote no to his nomination.

What I would like to do is lay out what I see as the problem confronting America and the complexity of that problem, which I think has grown more complex since the last time that we have been in this Chamber, over 6 weeks ago. I would like to go back to two speeches I gave last summer, one at the National Press Club, and the other at the Pennsylvania Press Club--one obviously in Washington, the other in Harrisburg. I gave those speeches because I thought it was important that

at a time when our country is at war and our country is struggling with this war that we have a better definition as to who the enemy is and what we need to do about it.

I made that issue, the issue I discussed in these two speeches and subsequent speeches during my campaign, the centerpiece of the campaign. Many political advisers suggested to me that this was a wrong tactic in a State where the favorabilities for the war and the President were in the low thirties to make this the centerpiece and, in fact, draw divisions between myself and the President where I put myself in a position which some suggested was to the right of the President. But I thought it was important for the country and for me personally as a U.S. Senator to address the issues that I thought were critical to the time.

So I went out and gave two speeches about the importance of defining our enemy. If there has been a failing--obviously, for the last several weeks and months we have been talking about the failings of the administration with respect to the policies within Iraq--I would make the argument that the larger failing, not just of the administration but of the Members of Congress and leaders in this country, is that we have not had the courage to stand up and define the enemy as to who they are and study and understand them and explain to the American people who they are.

I defined the enemy back at the National Press Club speeches as Islamic fascism. I said that is the biggest issue of our time, this relentless and determined radical enemy that is not just a group of rag-tag people living in caves but, in fact, people with an ideology, a plan, and increasingly the resources to carry out that plan, as well as, increasingly, a bigger and larger presence throughout the Islamic world, these radical Islamic fascists.

As I said, I understand this is an unpopular war. When I stepped forward to define the enemy as radical Islamic fascists, I was ridiculed by the media and others, saying that my words were too harsh, saying that at worst my defining the enemy was incorrect, at best it was inflammatory. But I did so because I believe words matter. If you are going to confront an enemy you have to understand who that enemy is and you have to communicate that to the people of America. And we must do that.

Many people talk about this war as if it is an attempt simply to create fledgling democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. While this may be an appealing possible outcome, we all must recognize that Iraq and Afghanistan are battlefields in a much more complex and broader war. That includes every continent with the exception of Antarctica. The war is at our doorstep, and it is fueled, as I mentioned, literally and figuratively by the evil of Islamic fascism.

Whether we know it or not, they have been at war with us, and the State of Iran specifically has been at war with us, since 1979 when they declared war against the United States. They have not rescinded that declaration. So when we talk about engaging Iran as the Secretary, the new, future Secretary of Defense has talked about, we are talking about engaging someone who is at war with us, who has declared war with us, and who has been at war and, and as I will talk about here, and I think it has been widely reported in the press, has been doing a lot to substantiate the claim that they have been at war with us.

But this threat is not exclusively based in Iran. It is gaining strength and spreading throughout every region of the world. I have addressed the issue of Islamic fascism but have not yet spoken to the subject of Iraq. Iraq is the central front in the war on Islamic fascism. However, contrary to the Iraqi Study Group, the Baker-Hamilton commission, the answer to this problem can be found--the answer to Iraq can be found not in Iraq but in Iran. It is Iran and its client State of Syria that serve as the principal instigators and fomenters of the conflict in Iraq today.

The President gets advice from the CIA that the opposition in Iran is weak and divided and therefore we should do nothing in Iran because we have no alternative. We have no one we can use in Iraq to confront the Iranian Government to cause any kind of changes. So the President gets advice from his intelligence team that we are without options in Iran.

The Pentagon advises the President and says we don't know if we have the resources to open up a new battlefield or confront, militarily, Iran, and therefore we have limited options in Iran.

The State Department--yes, State Department--they think that Iran is the solution to the problem; that negotiating with them and getting them to be our pals can in effect solve the problems; so confronting Iran would be the absolutely wrong thing to do in solving the problem in Iraq.

So the President is being advised by all of his minions that Iran and confrontation with Iran is not an option, as we heard from the testimony of the new Secretary of Defense.

Let's look at other interested parties as we look at how we solve the problem in Iraq and dealing with Iran. The American media seems to be very focused and spends a lot of time talking about how poorly things are going in Iraq. They report daily--not just recently but repeatedly for the past 3 years, daily--the body count in Iraq. It is the lead and has been virtually every single day for 3 years.

Is their interest in shifting focus and covering the problems in Iran? Not if we can drive home a story like this in Iraq.

Republicans and Democrats, leaders in the Congress, why don't they focus and talk more about Iran? Democrats, if you look through--as unfortunately many Republicans and Democrats do--look at it through the eyes of politics, why would we change focus and focus on Iran as the problem? We saw from the last election there is grand political advantage of keeping the focus on Iraq and the problems in Iraq. Why aren't the Republicans, then, stepping forward and pointing to the difficulty and problems that Iran is causing in Iraq and call for confrontation? If we saw anything from the last election, the American public has no appetite for a broadening of this war, increasing the complexity of this war. You might be seen as warmongering, digging us deeper and more dangerously into a region of the world that we would rather not be in in the first place.

So what do we have? We have the Baker-Hamilton report which is a prescription for surrender. It is just a matter of time. It is certainly not a prescription for victory. Nowhere does it mention, other than of course that we would like victory, nor is there a prescription for victory in that report.

So now we have the slow process of how we exit ourselves because we have no option to confront the real problem. We have no willingness on the part of any level of Government to confront it. So we are destined at this point to focus on something that is insolvable without confronting Iran, and that is the war in Iraq.

Who are these Iranians? Who are these Islamic fascists? I do not mean to exclude Sunni Islamic fascists because they were the principal--or they were the first, let's put it that way--in launching the war against the United States. I should not say the first. They were the first in recent times--certainly 9/11--in launching the war.

So this is not just a Shia problem, but it is increasingly becoming a Shia-dominated field as they continue to spread control in Iran with their influence and money. But let's not leave out Saudi Arabia and others that have used their resources to foment Islamic fascism all over the world with their resources--Sunni Islamic fascism.

So where are we? What can we do to confront this problem?

The interesting thing is that this problem is growing--I don't know about exponentially, but I don't know of a single country in the Middle East where the threat of radical Islam has not grown over the last 30 years, since Iran took over control--since the radicals took over control in Iran, the last 27 years. Every capital, every regime is feeling the pressure. And not just since 2003, but systematically over the years we have seen, particularly in Arab Muslim countries and Middle Eastern Muslim countries, this rise. But, again, not exclusive: Indonesia, Malaysia--this is not exclusive to the Arab world. Obviously Iran, which is Persia.

So what have we seen over the past 6 months? We saw a situation in the central synagogue in Prague where the Islamic fascists intended to carry out, on Rosh Hashanah, a mass kidnaping when large numbers of Jews would be

celebrating the new year. When the world's attention now was focused on Prague, they designed to make impossible demands and then blow up the synagogue and everyone within it.

Those people were not marked for death because they supported the war in Iraq. They were not marked for death because they oppressed these Islamic fascists. They were targeted because they were Jews. This is evil.

Islamic terrorists organized an assault on civilian aircraft leaving London, planning to blow up 10 or more planes this summer as they flew over the North Atlantic. You may not know that two of those participants were a husband and a wife, a husband and a wife who were going to board that plane and explode that plane over the North Atlantic while holding in their arms their 6-month-old child.

This is evil.

Islamic terrorists slaughter innocent Iraqis every single day on both sides of the divide within Islam. As we know, in recent days they beheaded an orthodox priest and crucified a 14-year-old boy guilty of nothing but being Christian.

This is evil.

Almost everyone has now heard of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the fact that he denies the existence of the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth. But he has been remarkably clear about his mission, remarkably clear about his messianic vision of a Shiite religion, his vision to destroy the Western world and impose a caliphate on the world in which the world would submit to Islam or die in the process.

He said:

Is it possible for us to witness a world without America

and Zionism?

Then he answered himself:

But you had best know this slogan and this goal is

attainable and surely can be achieved.

So do we have any questions about the nature of our enemy? Do we have any questions about the capability of this oil-rich country? Yet just this past week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent an open letter, a conciliatory letter, to the American people, addressed to the ``noble'' American people. He called on America to withdraw from Iraq and end support for Israel, and, of course, to convert to Islam. This man may be a fanatic, but let me assure you he is not a stupid fanatic. This man understands and studies America. The Islamic fascists respect us enough to get to know us. They respect us enough so they know what buttons to push and how hard to push them. They respect us enough to figure out what it will take to defeat us.

I wish that were the case for the American people.

He couched his warning in the words that are familiar and comfortable with Americans--``freedom,'' trying to appeal that he would be free of this illegitimate regime in his mind, which is the current administration, and we would free them of this burden of fighting. It is a great appeal and many would like to see the end of this war, but we should not be fooled.

Our troops in Iraq are being killed by Iranian weapons today paid for with Iranian money smuggled into Iraq by Iranian logistics and utilized by Iranian-trained terrorists.

A couple of years ago you needed a security clearance to know this. Now, if you care to know, if you want to know this uncomfortable truth about Iran, you can know it. Iran is the centerpiece in the assault against us and other countries in the civilized world, which is why I fought so hard for passage of the Iran Freedom and Support Act.

I stood on the Senate floor at this very desk and argued in May or June of this year for passage of the Iran Freedom and Support Act. I said we should not be negotiating with Iran, that we should be confronting Iran.

Bernard Lewis tells a familiar opinion that he has. He tells a lot of them. He said that the oddity in particular of the Arab and Middle Eastern Islamic world is that the more we have strong relations with the government in an Arab Muslim country the more the people of that country hate us; and the more that we stand up and confront leadership of those countries the more the people like us. Is it no wonder he recounts on the day of 9/11 when there was but one Middle Eastern Muslim capital there was a candlelight vigil in support of those who died on 9/11, and that was in Tehran, Iran.

It is not hard to understand when you have regimes throughout the Middle East who oppress their people that when you stand up and confront those regimes and call them the evil they are the people understand and respect your honesty, agree with you, and support you.

This summer when we attempted to negotiate with Iran, we told the people of Iran that we are not on their side, that we want to make deals with people who oppress them, who torture them, who enslave them, who abuse them, and who kill them. That is why we should not have entered into any negotiations in spite of the entreaties of Europe with this evil regime in Iran. We should confront them, and only confront them. If we want the support of the people of Iran, we have to earn it with the integrity of our mission, and we are not doing that.

So I stood up on the floor of the Senate and said we needed to confront Iran, that we needed to fund full democracy groups, that we needed to use the public airwaves and the Internet to disseminate information to cause a change in the Government of Iran, and that we needed to sanction them. And this administration opposed me. The Senate opposed me by, I think, a 54-to-46 vote. That is why I continue to work on the Iran Freedom and Support Act.

Over the intervening months, what happened? Iran did as I predicted on this floor back in the spring--they played us along. They said: Well, you know we will negotiate with you as long as we can continue to produce nuclear materials and continue our nuclear program. So we negotiated and we negotiated and they developed and they developed. So finally in September of this year, enough people on both sides of the aisle and enough people in the administration finally were convinced that this was not a viable strategy anymore. What did we gain? We passed the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which probably surprised most people in this Chamber. We passed it unanimously--one of the last things we did before we broke. Most Americans don't know it. Unfortunately, most in the Middle East don't know it. I suspect if we went into the bowels of the State Department they may know it, but they are not going to do a damned thing about it because that is not their intent. They do not want to do anything about it. My guess is they will take that money and spend it on a lot of conferences and studies on what we should do instead of giving it to the bus drivers who went on strike as a strike fund so they can stand up to the government. Instead of giving it to dissent groups so they can disseminate information, instead of actively engaging we will appease. We will study, we will delay, and they will have time to further build.

But we did pass the bill. That would be on one of my to-do lists in the next Congress.

Is this bill going to be enforced? Are we going to confront Iran? Are we going to try to do something or are we going to sit by and allow them to develop these weapons? They are not developing them alone. No, there are a lot of reports that they are working with others around the world. Who are those others? I talk about Islamic fascism, and I keep focusing on that. But, unfortunately, over the past several months it is increasingly clear to me that the situation is becoming even more complex. We are not just facing a group of people who are in the Middle East desiring to overthrow the world and oppose a caliphate on us, but they have allies--unlikely allies in some respects, unlikely allies as the German Nazis and Japanese imperialists who had very conflicting ideologies but had a common purpose, and that was destroy the West, destroy the English-speaking world and the Western world, and put it under the domination of those countries.

So it is today. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. What Iran has found and the Islamic fascists have found is there are plenty of enemies of the United States. In fact, they had a meeting just this year a couple of months ago in Havana, Cuba. The nonaligned states met. There were 100 nations. On their agenda was to redefine the word ``terror'' to include ``the U.S. occupation of Iraq'' and the ``Israeli invasion'' of Lebanon. Of course, there

was no mention about the incursion of Hezbollah. They found solace with these countries.

We saw it played out at the United Nations just a couple of weeks later where President Ahmadinejad, President Hugo Chavez, to thunderous applause of many in the United Nations community, demonized America. But another member of that crew of nonaligned nations was North Korea.

I mentioned before that Iran is pursuing a nuclear program. They are indeed pursuing a nuclear program, and there have been many intelligence reports published that have suggested there were Iranian scientists there the day North Korea exploded their nuclear weapon. In fact, the scientist who had been working with North Korea, AQ Kahn, is the same scientist who has been working with Iran in the development of their nuclear program. Some have suggested that they are working collaboratively and jointly in their development of nuclear weapons which, of course, would have put Iran's nuclear program well ahead of where everyone believes it to be.

So we have not only the Islamic fascists led by Iran, but we now have an alliance between Iran and North Korea; North Korea, which is a threat in their own right, now with nuclear weapons and their increasing ability to deliver them with long-range missiles, including the development of, as they hope to do, ICBMs which could reach the United States of America.

We confronted North Korea as soon as they detonated their explosives. We had a U.N. resolution confronting them. North Korea condemned that nuclear U.N. resolution and called it ``a declaration of war'' and threatened the United States by declaring:

We will deliver merciless blows without hesitation to

whoever tries to breach our sovereignty and right to survive

under the excuse of carrying out a United Nations Security

Council resolution.

Not only do we have a threat of North Korea now launching a nuclear weapon, but we have the clear threat of North Korea and Iran proliferating nuclear technology. In addition, as Iran, working with North Korea, develops their nuclear program, and as the world sits fecklessly by and lets them do it, others in the region legitimately have their tensions increased and have talked about the need for those nations to develop nuclear weapons, Thus starting an arms race in a region of the world where it is the last place we want a nuclear arms race.

Finally, we have the issue of whether this nuclear material that is being developed in both North Korea and Iran will end up in the hands of terrorists, to be delivered in a nonconventional way. North Korea is a new threat on the horizon, but it is not alone. In fact, North Korea has expressed direct support for Iran's nuclear development program and stressed that the United States and the West have no right to defy such a program.

The Iranians have also commented officially on friendly ties between Tehran and Pyongyang after the Islamic revolution, saying Iran ``highly praises North Korea for its steadfastness against the domineering policies of the United States.''

But the threat goes even further. Ahmadinejad, with Kim Jong Il, like Mussolini and Hitler, intends to conquer Western civilization. Again, that is not Hitler. But they also, like the Soviets under Nikita Khrushchev, see the advantage of placing weapons of mass destruction within short ranges of the United States.

Obviously, one likely candidate would be Venezuela. I don't know of any regime currently that is more vehement and more anti-American than Hugo Chavez and the regime in Venezuela, so it probably comes as no surprise that Ahmadinejad and Chavez have had meetings, and they are now aligned and allies and working together and have, in fact, formed a defense pact between the two countries.

Venezuela is a serious threat not just because of their relationship within Iran but because of what it has attempted to do throughout the region, as well as its own potential threat.

Just a few weeks ago there was an election in Nicaragua, right before our election, where Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega won the election, took a congratulatory call from Hugo Chavez, who said:

We're happy here. We're very proud of you.

Now, like never before, the Sandinista revolution and the

Bolivarian revolution unite, to construct the future,

socialism of the 21st century.

Chavez made no secret about his support for Ortega or his support for the new rulers in Bolivia. Chavez is doing all he can to build military power and might and influence in the region of the world that is uncomfortably close to the United States.

As we know, Chavez has been clear about his disdain for America. What we don't know is what Venezuela has been up to. I suspect that most Members of this Senate do not know that Venezuela is the leading buyer of foreign arms and military equipment in the world today, that Chavez is building an army of more than 1 million soldiers. I suspect most in this Senate do not know that over the next year he plans to spend $30 billion to build 20 military bases in neighboring Bolivia which will dominate the borders of Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, assembling those military bases on the borders of the countries I just mentioned. These military bases, while they will be manned by Bolivian soldiers, will be commanded by Venezuelan and Cuban officers.

How does he do this? How is he able to accomplish what Fidel Castro has been seeking to accomplish now for 4\1/2\ decades? The answer to that, of course, is very simple. It is a three-letter word: oil. Oil and its huge profits are financing this, just like oil and its huge profits are advancing Islamic fascism in the Middle East. It is no wonder again that Venezuela and Iran have formed an oil pact. Why? As they have clearly said before, oil is a ``geopolitical weapon,'' according to Chavez. He also said:

I could easily order the closing of the refineries we have

in the United States. I could easily sell that oil that we

sell to the United States to other countries of the world . .

. to real friends and allies like China.

They have even closer relationships with the Islamic fascists in Iran. A recent congressional report found that Hezbollah may right now have established bases in Venezuela which have issued thousands of visas to people from places such as Cuba and the Middle East, possibly giving them passports to a vague United States border security.

To make matters worse, we see, with the help of Venezuela, Cuba and China are now exploring for oil within 50 miles of the coast of the United States, while the Senate blocks a measure to allow us to explore for oil within 100 miles of our own shore. So while China, Cuba, and Venezuela draw oil from our shores, we stand idly by and let them do it to arm against us.

Let's not overlook the role of Russia in working with all of these governments--Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. Last summer, Russia signed an arms deal with Venezuela to the tune of $1 billion. Last month, Russia began deliveries to Iran of highly sophisticated SA-15 anti-aircraft missiles valued at $700 million. The purpose of these missiles? To defend Iran's nuclear program. That shouldn't come as a surprise. Russia has consistently opposed the efforts of the United States to sanction the other enemy, North Korea, for their nuclear programs, and has insisted on diluting the effects of every resolution that was passed condemning North Korea. The Russians claim sanctions don't work. Yet, oddly enough, they just imposed sanctions on their neighbor, Georgia.

Yes, we live in a very complex time and we have enemies who are very dangerous, in which their relationships are growing, and so with it their commensurate power to confront terrorists of the world, and the rest of the world sits and hopes and hopes that we can negotiate our way out of this problem; that since we are people of reason and rational folks, we can deal with them on that level. Have we forgotten our history? We have been in this situation before.

I have titled this address ``The Gathering Storm of the 21st Century.'' It is not a coincidence that I do so in harkening to the book written by Winston Churchill, ``The Gathering Storm,'' talking about the lead-up to World War II. Just like Britain in 1940, after the fall of France, we are engaged with a struggle now with the enemy-- alone. Just like Britain in 1940, we entreated the rest of the world to join us against this evil, and the world fell silent. For a year and a half until Pearl Harbor,

and actually long after that, since the United States was certainly not prepared for war, Britain fought this battle alone. And with the exception of the State of Israel, we are fighting this battle alone, and I suspect we will for quite some time.

So what lesson can we learn? What lesson can we learn from history? What we know is America is very reticent to get involved in wars, and rightfully so. In the First World War, we only entered after a German U-boat sank American civilian and commercial ships in the North Atlantic. World War I was the war to end all wars. After the defeat of the German armies, it seemed as if peace was going to be with us for a long time. But it did not last a generation. As I said, we ended up with the situation in World War II. But even after the fall of Europe to the Nazis and the Italian fascists, America stood by, hoping this problem would go away. It was not until Pearl Harbor that things changed.

The Cold War was only after Stalin's aggression in the Middle East in Greece that we decided to engage and recognize that the Soviet Union was not our friend as many thought after World War II but, in fact, our new foe. And now, after the fall of the Soviet Union we thought we would have a peace dividend, peace for a long time, and we find that other forces of evil have cropped up to confront us.

If it were not for the fact of September 11, we would be allowing that to continue today. But we engaged the enemy because they attacked us directly here at home. But now we are growing tired. We are wearying of the battle. I said earlier that these Islamic fascists understand us better than we understand them. They understand our history better than we understand their history. They need not look long to see how quickly America tires of confrontation and conflict and death.

And so they plan and, more importantly, they kill, every day. It is recorded here every day, and support for this war goes down every day. And they check another box in Tehran.

Winston Churchill wrote in ``The Gathering Storm'' a short description of the gathering storm:

How the English-speaking peoples, through their unwisdom,

carelessness and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm.

We are at such a moment. Are we going to allow the wicked to rearm? We paid a terrible price for waiting. We lock at each war, each major conflict, we paid a terrible price for waiting. In many cases, it was a price paid in America. In many other cases it was a price paid in countries around the world. Are we going to pay that price at some day in the future or are we going to confront this enemy?

If we learned anything from the 20th century, it should be this lesson: When leaders say they are prepared to kill millions of people to achieve their goal, we must take them at their word. The enemy before us that I have described has said it clearly, repeatedly, and pointedly, and even more threateningly, because this is an enemy who doesn't see death as a tragic consequence of the war; they see it as their objective of war.

The ayatollah and the mullahs of Iran have repeatedly said that the object of jihad is not success, it is death. It is reaching the next level. It is ending this miserable life which we have on Earth and in pursuit of jihad, guaranteeing yourself eternal life with Allah.

Here in America, we refuse to recognize, many, that we are at war with this great evil.

We shrink from the recognition of identifying the enemy and confronting them, whether they be the Islamic fascists led by Iran or the socialist rulers of North Korea and Venezuela. We are sleep-walking through the storm, as we have done in the past. We pretend it is not happening or that it is simply because of the incompetency of the current administration or of a member of that administration.

But how do those who deny this evil propose to save us from these people? By negotiating through the U.N. or directly with Iran? By firing Don Rumsfeld, now getting rid of John Bolton? That is going to solve the problem? These people are now going to be nice to us because we removed these people who were agitating them or causing problems? Maybe relocating our troops to Okinawa or Kuwait or some other place will get these people to simply leave us alone? Maybe if we just abandon Iraq and Afghanistan to the chaos and slaughter of Islamic fascists, their thirst for blood will be met? Or maybe it is just engaging in one-on-one discussions with Iran and North Korea and other reasonable dictators?

No, I do not think any of those things will work. And history has proved they have not worked. We need to begin to confront our enemies. And that does not mean we have to launch a military mission into the countries I spoke of. But we have to do more than just adjust tactics in Iraq. If the focus of the next year and a half is simply adjusting tactics within Iraq, it will fail. It will fail. We must go after the regimes that recruit, pay, train, and arm their surrogate militias in Iraq. Again, I am not talking about military confrontation; I am talking about political and economic warfare to bring down the terror regimes in Tehran and their satellite puppet state in Syria. The best way to do that is to work with their own people who want freedom.

I talked about the Iran Freedom and Support Act, but there is much more we need to do. We need to implement it. And we need to use the public diplomacy apparatus we have to motivate and change the hearts and minds. A free Iran will change the world because it will deprive the terrorists of the single greatest source of support and isolate the likes of Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong-il.

Why is a free Iran and a free Iraq so essential? Because neither the United States of America nor any of our Western allies can defeat radical Islamic fascism on our own. We cannot defeat radical Islamic fascism. The only thing we can do is, through democracy-building and through support of moderate Islam, give those who truly seek the true meaning, the true moderate meaning of Islam the opportunity to be successful in suppressing its radical elements. We have to create that environment, and we have not in Iraq because Iran and Syria have not let us.

I remember reading commentaries from so many people talking about that things went well originally in Iraq. It seems like things were going OK, and then, after a year or so, it really started to turn south. Well, immediately after we were there, the Iranians were scared to death of us and dared not play in that sandbox. But they quickly surmised that we were not serious, that we were not going to confront this evil, so they began what we now see.

We need to counter Hugo Chavez. We need to do more to develop closer relationships with the countries in Central and South America, through trade and through diplomatic negotiations. We must fight for the hearts and minds of Central and South America, and we must do so much more deliberately and aggressively than we have. We have to do more to confront North Korea and its threat. That includes options, particularly missile defense. Finally, we have to confront the root cause of all of this, the root cause being oil.

There is one regret I have of not coming back here. It is--and my colleagues know I can be somewhat single-minded--to focus the attention of this body and this country on energy security. It is lunacy, it is suicidal to continue to allow the energy markets at the levels they are right now given the fact that a vast majority of those energy dollars are going to people who want to kill us and destroy everything we believe in. We can no longer play games with our energy security.

I spent a lot of time talking about this war, and I have fought very hard to pass legislation, both the Syrian Accountability Act and the Iran Freedom and Support Act, that will try to hurt our enemies and strengthen our country. I will do my best, after I leave this place, to continue to confront these enemies and to give the United States the opportunity to succeed in this war.

Osama bin Laden said:

In the final phase of the ongoing struggle, the world of

the infidels was divided between two superpowers: the United

States and the Soviet Union. Now we--

Understand this.

Now we have defeated and destroyed the more difficult and

the more dangerous of the two.

Understand what bin Laden is saying. ``We,'' these Islamic fascists-- they claim they defeated the Soviet Union, not Ronald Reagan and Margaret

Thatcher, not Pope John Paul II, but Islamic fascism, the mujahedin in Afghanistan. History will make a plausible case for this assertion that, in fact, they had a lot to do with defeating the Soviet Union. But he continues with one final sentence:

Dealing with the pampered and effeminate Americans will be

easy.

You see, they think they understand us. They think they know how to get to America. Open a paper every day and see what their tactic is. Open a paper every day, turn on a television every day, turn on your radio every day, sign on to the Internet every day and see what their tactic is and see how they believe they will defeat us.

I believe we need strong leadership to confront this greatest enemy that we have. The stakes are high, too high not to join together-- Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, American, European--to confront this dangerous enemy. We must stop them.

Winston Churchill, in June of 1940--I will close with this, for my colleagues who have been patiently waiting--Winston Churchill, in 1940, addressed the British people as Britain stood alone:

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I

expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon

this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.

Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity

of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might

of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows

that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war.

If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the

life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit

uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the

United States, including all that we have known and cared

for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more

sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of

perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to do our

duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and

its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still

say, ``This was their finest hour.''

This is the call of this generation. This is America's hour. This is the hour that we need leadership, Churchillian leadership, who had a keen eye for the enemy and a resolve in spite of the political climate to confront it. I ask my colleagues to stand and make this America's finest hour. I regret that the new Secretary of Defense is not up to the task, in my opinion. I hope others are.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, what is the pending business?

My understanding is that this amendment, as the Senator from North Dakota just talked about, is an amendment dealing with agriculture. This is a military construction bill that is before us. The Senator from North Dakota said we might want to raise a germaneness question, which is rule XVI, and that would be treating the Senator from North Dakota and others who support this legislation improperly. I would make the point that the reason rule XVI is there is to make sure we don't have amendments that are offered to appropriations bills that are not germane. I think it is a great stretch to suggest an emergency supplemental for agriculture is germane to military construction. That is not treating my colleague any way other than how every other colleague is treated here on a whole variety of different issues.

There are lots of opportunities we all would love to have to offer amendments to appropriations bills we don't take because it is not germane, and we don't do it as a result of that. That is the way in which the Senate operates under some semblance of order. It doesn't necessarily operate as seamlessly as we would like, but this is one of the rules we have kept intact and used because we want to try to keep to the subject at hand, particularly on the issue of appropriations.

So throw on top of that what I can tell you in my State and in lots of other States and in lots of other races around the country is the cry of deficit spending, which was heard loudly and clearly and echoed, by the way, by both sides of the aisle, of how we were going to have much more fiscal responsibility, and here we are with the first amendment with nearly $5 billion in emergency spending on a military construction bill having nothing to do with military construction. It may be bipartisan but, as far as I am concerned, that is no excuse. This is not what I think the message from the electorate was, that we need to have a whole bunch of new spending nongermane to the matter at hand.

So while I understand the need--and we have farmers in my State who have suffered through floods earlier this year and I am sure will be impacted by this, but it is absolutely essential that we take this issue seriously, and I intend to do that.

So at this point I am going to suspend and ask for a quorum call and I will be back in a minute. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I understand the Chair has reviewed the amendment, amendment No. 5144, and I now raise a point of order against the amendment. But first, before I do that, I understand the Chair is currently reviewing this amendment, so I am going to suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to share with this body the recent remarks of the new Archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, at this year's 53rd Annual Red Mass in Washington, DC. I have had the pleasure of working with Archbishop Wuerl in his previous service as the 11th bishop of Pittsburgh, PA. For 18 years, he ministered to 800,000 Catholics throughout southwestern Pennsylvania with generosity and compassion.

The Red Mass is celebrated each year in Washington, DC., at the start of the Supreme Court session and traditionally is held in the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. Supreme Court Justices, judges, Government officials, lawyers, and people of all faiths regularly attend the Mass to offer prayers for those who administer justice. This Mass is sponsored by the John Carroll Society. The Red Mass enjoys a rich history, originating many centuries ago in European capitols. Red Mass derives its name from the traditional color of vestments worn by the celebrants of the Mass, signifying the scarlet robes worn by royal judges who attended the Mass centuries ago. The tradition in the United States began in 1928 in New York City and spread to cities across the country.

I hope that in sharing his comments with my colleagues, we will continue the ongoing conversations among people of faith about the roles of faith, law, and values in our system of democracy.

Mr. President, I ask that the remarks of Archbishop Wuerl to which I referred be printed in the Record.

The material follows.

Red Mass Homily

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a couple of issues that I think are very important. One I will get to in a minute, the pending legislation before us, the issue of immigration, illegal immigration, and what we are trying to do to combat that in the Senate.

Today, I am very hopeful that with the proper cooperation, we can get this done today and over to the President in the next 48 hours to begin the process of securing the border and dealing with an issue that may be the No. 1 issue in my State right now. I probably hear about this issue of illegal immigration from casual contact with my constituents in grocery stores, the train station, et cetera. I have more people asking me about the issue of illegal immigration than any other issue we deal with.

It is remarkable in the sense that if you talk to folks here in Washington and the ``experts'' in the media, this is not important to people. Particularly, you would think in a State such as Pennsylvania, which is miles away from the southern border but not too far from the northern border, this would not be an important issue. But it is an important issue. It is one that I am very pleased the Senate is going to deal with today after, I think, making a misstep in the previous consideration of illegal immigration legislation. We have now taken a step in the right direction, a step where we put the horse before the cart instead of the cart before the horse. So I am very excited about that. I will mention that in a moment.

There is one issue I wanted to get to. It is an issue the leader spoke about last night, the issue of Iran and the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which was passed in the House of Representatives yesterday. The House negotiated--and many of us in the Senate were involved, as well as the White House--and worked on an extension of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, to update that act, which needed to be done, and to take into consideration the change in dynamics in Libya and the change in dynamics with respect to Iran.

There is no country that I see on the horizon that is more dangerous to the national security of this country, in my opinion, than the country of Iran--not just to the national security of this country but the safety and security of the world. We need to have a better regime of sanctions as well as a better overall policy for dealing with Iran than what we have today in the ILSA, or Iran Libya Sanctions Act.

The House of Representatives, on a bipartisan basis, worked on the legislation, again, with the administration, which previously had opposed the Iran Freedom and Support Act, a bill that has 61 cosponsors here in the Senate, which we debated earlier this year. They took elements of that bill and the companion bill in the House, offered by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Florida. Working together with several House and Senate committees and with the administration, they were able to come up with a compromise and, again, many of us in the Senate worked with the administration and the House in crafting this. We were able to pass a bill that got so much support, they didn't even have to take a record vote on it. It passed by consent over there. That tells you the kind of strong support the bill enjoys. It was a bill authored by Tom Lantos and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and the chairman and ranking member of one of the committees of jurisdiction, the International Relations Committee, were on the legislation and, again, it passed yesterday unanimously. That bill now is sitting on the floor of the Senate, at the desk.

The leader mentioned last night that it is our intent to bring this legislation up and to try to pass it in the Senate. We did not, last night, ask consent to do that because we were made aware there might be concerns on the other side of the aisle with respect to some of the provisions. We wanted to give ample opportunity to have the other side go through the legislation.

Again, I state that this is not a new issue. I know the Democratic leader got up today and suggested that there have been no hearings on the bill and there hasn't really been a discussion on the bill. I will tell you that just within the last year, the following hearings were held:

There was an ILSA reauthorization hearing in the Banking Committee, June 22; a terrorist threat hearing in the Homeland Security Committee, November 15 of last year; a nuclear Iran hearing, Foreign Relations Committee, March 2; response to nuclear Iran, Foreign Relations, September 19 of this year; Iran's nuclear and political ambitions, a two-part hearing, May 17 and 18 of this year; Iran's nuclear program/ intelligence, Foreign Relations Committee, May 11.

In addition, as I mentioned, the Senate fully debated for 3 days the amendment I had offered to the National Defense Authorization Act back in June of this year. We debated that amendment for 3 days. We had a vote on the Senate floor. We had a full discussion of all of the provisions in the act, many of which, as I mentioned before, have been dropped. But many of the provisions that were debated were added to this bill--the ones that were noncontroversial. Things that were controversial were adapted to make them noncontroversial.

To suggest that somehow this is a brandnew piece of legislation, we haven't seen this before, there haven't been any hearings, we don't know anything about it, is just not accurate. We have had a full debate.

This is an important issue. For the United States Senate, for the Congress, the President to speak out on the issue of Iran at this time is critical as we confront, as we saw from a couple weeks ago, the machinations at the United Nations and President Ahmadinejad up there saber rattling as he does a little bit at the United Nations, but he is rattling sabers and all other types of weaponry in front of the people of Iran when he goes home and he speaks in his native language.

This is a very serious and dangerous threat. It is without question the principal reason we are having increased problems in Afghanistan and Iraq, because of the influence of Iran. Iran is there with fighters from Iran, with money and support, weaponry from Iran to foment sectarian violence. One of the reasons we are having the level of sectarian violence that we see there is because of Iran and its stated intention of being the dominant view in the Islamic world. The clash between Shia and Sunni is front and center in the ideology of the ruling mullahs of Iran and the President of Iran, Ahmadinejad. This is what their objective is. It is part and parcel of their own war within their religion, but it is also part of their strategy of destabilizing Iraq so democracy cannot flourish because if democracy flourishes, then it is an opportunity for moderate Islam to win the day over the fanatics who are trying to destroy that religion and destroy the world.

This is a vitally important issue for the Senate to bring up, I think no more important issue than for us to deal with this real threat, as I said on the floor a couple of weeks ago, I think the greatest threat that has ever faced this country and the world. If we do not act now when this threat is in its nascent stage, we risk cataclysmic consequences by not confronting this evil in time. We risk cataclysmic consequences if we don't, as this legislation permits, put increased sanctions on companies that do business with Iran and their nuclear program.

This is a very important piece of legislation, one that is so important that we were able, as I mentioned before, to get this kind of very quick consideration on the floor of the House of Representatives, and it passed unanimously. People in the House understand the threat of Iran. I hope the Senate does so also.

I will submit for the record the provisions of what this bill does. Some have suggested that it is a watered-down version of the Iran Freedom and Support Act. So to that degree I say, yes, it is, but it is watered down for the purpose of arriving at a consensus so we can speak into the moment.

It does make major changes particularly with respect to the President's waiver. We have had ILSA now for 10 years. We have a situation where a waiver has only been utilized, to my recollection, one time because there is no requirement the President has to

use his waiver authority. The President can look at these issues and decide yes or no sanctions, but there is no trigger, there is no force for the President to actually do something.

This compromise bill would encourage him to actually do something, to actually look at this information, make a decision, and if sanctions are warranted as a result of the investigation, then the President either has to impose those sanctions or waive them for six months. Right now he doesn't have to waive them. He simply keeps investigating. That is an important point to highlight.

That is an important pressure point that Iran needs to know that we are ratcheting up--albeit slightly compared to the original Iran Freedom and Support Act--we are ratcheting up the pressure on this illicit regime in Iran to do something. It is very important for the future security of our country.

I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a fact sheet on the bill.

Mr. President, I am hopeful today that the leaders will be able to get together and will be able to get consent to move forward on this bill. I assure you, this is a bill we must pass. This is ``the extension'' of ILSA with some very well thought out, negotiated compromises between Republicans and Democrats in the Congress, as well as the administration. I am hopeful that we can get a successful conclusion to that bill. The security of our country demands it.

Mr. President, I would like to move to another topic, and that is back to the issue of immigration and the fence bill with which we are dealing.

A lot of people have talked about a variety of implications of this legislation. To my mind, one of the principal considerations is the issue of national security.

The 9/11 Commission stated in the preface of its report that:

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan

and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable

to enter the country.

That is obvious, but it is an important statement to be made that one of the things we must do to help secure this country is to make sure we have a better immigration policy, whether it is a legal immigration policy and people coming here legally, properly screened for legal immigration, or people who are coming in.

One of the things we are hearing is there are a lot more people coming across the southern border who are being picked up who are not Mexicans, who are not from Latin America. They are coming from other countries, other places around the world. This becomes an increasing concern with the porous southern border.

I commend the House for putting forth this bill. This is a very important part of an initiative that I have been talking about since the Senate passed an immigration bill which I said was, in my opinion, a misstep. I offered a package of legislation called the border security first approach, which is: Let's focus on the border. Let's focus on first things first. If we have a problem with 11 million people and growing, people who are in this country illegally, the first thing we should do is stop the growth. We should take a problem that now looks to be an infinite problem, an ever-growing problem, and make it a finite problem with a specific number of people who are here. But the idea that we are going to solve the problem of illegal immigrants by dealing with this, as the Senate bill did, by legalizing people who are here illegally without solving the problem of more and more people coming--in fact, being another beacon for more people to come because if they do come, and they get here illegally, we are going to legalize them at some point--it just, in my mind, is putting the cart before the horse. We need to put the horse out there, and the horse is stopping the problem from getting worse. That means border security.

A key element of border security that I think is obvious--certainly obvious to the American public; it is an 80-20 issue in my State--is to construct more physical barriers. That is what this legislation does.

It is important not just from the standpoint of the 9/11 Commission and terrorists, but what we are seeing in our State--again, we are far from the border--is an-ever increasing problem of illegal immigrants in illegal activity in our Commonwealth. We had the U.S. attorney for the eastern district at a press conference where I announced a $2.5 million grant to deal with the 222 corridor from Lancaster leading up into the Lehigh Valley. We have an explosion of gang activity there, much of it driven by illegal immigrants and a whole new crop of gangs from south of the border that are causing problems in that 222 corridor. We were able to get a Justice Department grant to help, but I think it points out the problem.

Hazleton, a sleepy little town, the wonderful little town of Hazleton has gotten on the map because of the problems illegal immigrants-- criminal problems, drug problems, gang problems--have brought into that community.

It is a continuing problem. Just last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 100 criminals who were illegal aliens and other folks who were immigrants out of status living throughout Pennsylvania, all the way from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

Among those arrested were sex offenders, people who have committed burglaries, larcenies, robberies, criminal trespass, weapons violations, narcotics violations, aggravated assaults, resisting arrest, fraud, et cetera. All of

these people were wanted on these charges. So this is not just a national security problem, but it is also a personal security problem when we are not regulating the people coming into this country, when we are allowing anyone with any record or with any intent to come into this country.

Again, that is the right of every country to do: to make sure our citizens are safe, and we have a way to accomplish that. I think this fence bill will be a step in the right direction.

Other ways in which people in this country are violating Americans, not just through potential terrorist activity and criminal activity, but another criminal activity that we are seeing more and more of--and we heard some cases during the debate--is identity theft.

A woman came to my attention. A constituent contacted us by the name of Laurie Beers who had her Social Security number stolen by an illegal immigrant. She is a nurse who, as part of her job, is constantly traveling. She learned her information had been stolen and misused. She did everything she was supposed to do: contacted the FTC, reported it to the identity theft hotline, contacted the credit bureaus, on and on--obviously, contacted the FBI.

In response she found out, yes, she was a victim of identity theft. She contacted the IRS. She was told that the man using her Social Security number is an illegal immigrant. After talking to the FBI and Secret Service, they confirmed the person is an illegal immigrant who has been working for an employer in New York City and has been filing income tax returns under her Social Security number.

Obviously, she was upset that a man working in New York was using her Social Security number to file income taxes for 3 years. She contacted the employer of that man who has been anything but cooperative in resolving this situation. In fact, she has reported they have been downright nasty.

She is lucky her credit hasn't been destroyed. But this man has, unfortunately, with her Social Security number passed some bad checks, and now she can't use checks at Wal-Mart and other stores because of her Social Security number being linked to the passage of bad checks.

That is just one example. Is it a big deal in the security of America? No, but it is a big deal if you are the person who is a victim of identify theft. So we see this as one ``small example,'' but big in her life, as well as thousands of other Americans who have been affected by the stealing of Social Security numbers.

This is an issue we need to address. We need to get this bill done this year. We need to step away from the bad provisions that the Senate passed, which I can go into in great detail, but they have been discussed over and over, everything, again, from legalizing people who committed illegal activity by first stepping into this country, to the Social Security issue, and a lot of others.

My time has expired. I thank, again, the leadership, Bill Frist, for moving and pushing this bill. Let's hope for Senate passage today and a start to dealing with the issue of illegal immigration.

Mr. President, as I traveled across all 67 counties of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, almost to a person my constituents understand that America is not controlling our borders. From Berks to Butler, from Wayne to Westmoreland and Erie to Philadelphia, and across all income bracket and regardless of race, thousands of people tell me everywhere I go that we have to address our border security now. More than that, they tell me we must not reward or give preferential treatment to illegal aliens whose first step on our soil was a violation of our laws. They are clear, they do not want amnesty.

And I hear from all the talking heads and think tank wonks about how our Nation is a nation of immigrants. Well, obviously, except for the Native Americans, we are all immigrants from somewhere, and I am no exception.

My grandfather made so many sacrifices to give my family the opportunities we have all had. He left his family back in Riva de la Garda, Italy, to come to America and make a better life for them. He worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines and met the legal requirements to bring over my grandmother and my dad to Pennsylvania but that meant 5 years away from his family to earn the right to bring them over. Yes, immigrants are more than welcome in America, and they have made great incredible contributions to our society--but they have done so legally.

My family and millions of others have lived the American dream of finding good paying jobs, better education and safe environments for our children. The key is that it can and must be done legally. The foundation for the American dream must be built on the solid cornerstone of the rule of law, not the leaky sieve that characterizes our current borders.

This immigration crisis has been caused by decades of flawed amnesty policies that have left our borders porous and dangerously undermanned. The public is understandably frustrated that in the post-9/11 world we live in where our national security depends on our border security--we still do not know who is coming into our country, where they are from, and what they are doing here. I share their frustration and cannot for the life of me understand why my colleagues continue to put partisanship and posturing over our national security.

The 9/11 Commission stated in the preface of its report that ``[i]t is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country.'' Unfortunately, many of my Senate colleagues do not think this is so obvious. Well, it is obvious to the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania who, in applying for an antigang grant, said that with the influx of illegal immigrants to the 222 Corridor that ``the Latin Kings, Bloods, NETA and lately MS-13, are recruiting or fighting with local gangs for control of the drug markets. Violence is a daily by-product.''

The evidence is clear that the current immigration crisis poses an immediate threat to our communities--gang violence, drug trafficking, murders, rapes, and the burdensome costs shouldered by our public education, health, and housing systems. Just last week the Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 100 criminals, fugitive aliens, and other immigration status violators living throughout Pennsylvania--from Philadelphia to York to Pittsburgh. Among those arrested were individuals convicted of sex offenses, burglary, larceny, robbery, criminal trespass, weapons violations, narcotics violations, aggravated assault, shoplifting, fraud, and resisting arrest.

It is time--well, frankly it is well past time--that we put first things first--we must secure our Nation's borders now.

Our friends in the House passed an immigration bill that understands the urgency of securing our borders, but it is impractical--both in enforcement practice and in politics. And then the ``comprehensive'' Senate bill did exactly the wrong thing--offering illegal immigrants amnesty, providing them Social Security benefits, relieving them of tax burdens Americans face, and giving them better worksite employment rights than American citizens enjoy. It was the wrong bill at the

wrong time and failed to pass the one real test of securing our borders.

Yet as I travel the State, it is clear to me that many people do not know what all is in the Senate bill. That lack of information is dangerous for our national security but even more dangerous to our Pennsylvania jobs, tax revenue, education system and social welfare costs.

So let me start by reminding you what is wrong with S. 2611.

It does not protect American workers. In fact, Americans--U.S. citizens--can be put out of work--or their wages reduced--by the employment of the guest foreign workers.

It gives social security benefits for illegal work or stolen identities. Why does this matter? Ask my constituent--Laurie Beers--who had her Social Security number stolen by an illegal immigrant. Laurie is a hard-working hospice nurse who is constantly traveling. Recently, after Laurie learned that her information had been stolen and misused she did all of the right things--contacted the Federal Trade Commission to report the identity theft, called the identity theft hotline, contacted the three credit bureaus to obtain copies of her credit report, contacted the FBI and the Secret Service to report this breach of trust. In response, Laurie received letters confirming she was a victim of identity theft. When she contacted the Internal Revenue Service, she was told that the man using her Social Security number is an illegal immigrant. After talking to the FBI and the Secret Service, they confirmed that the person is an illegal immigrant. And this illegal immigrant has been working for an employer in New York and has even been filing income tax returns on Laurie's Social Security number.

Laurie is understandably upset that the IRS has known for 3 years that someone else has been using her social security number but did nothing to notify her or to stop the theft of her identity. Unfortunately, the employer--Adecco--will not cooperate with Laurie. In fact, Laurie reports that they have been downright nasty. Laurie is lucky in that her credit has not been destroyed, but she has been damaged. The person who stole her identity wrote a bad check to J. C. Penneys and now Wal-Mart will not accept Laurie's checks--something that will show up on her credit report.

That bill forgets the ``guest'' part of ``guest worker'' as the ``guest worker program'' is neither temporary nor based on the need for non-American workers.

It requires Mexican ``cooperation'' to protect our own borders.

This bill provides amnesty, but tries to calls it ``earned legalization.'' Proponents of the bill say that this is not amnesty, and that an alien has to meet certain conditions; but do they really? Illegal aliens in the amnesty program are supposed to pay a fine of $2,000. However, that $2,000 fine only has to be paid ``prior to adjudication,'' or up to 8 years from now. And they get a benefit Americans would love to have. Under the bill, illegal aliens only have to pay 3 of their last 5 years in back taxes. They get an option of which years, while Americans do not get that choice.

It give employers a free pass for hiring illegal aliens. The bill says that employers of aliens applying for adjustment of status ``shall not be subject to civil and criminal liability for employing such unauthorized aliens.'' Unbelievable.

The bill will dramatically raise spending and increase welfare costs. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, JCT, estimate that this bill would increase direct spending by $16 billion over the 5 years and $48 billion over 10 years. But what about all of the entitlement programs such as welfare? Illegal immigrants are currently ineligible for most federal welfare benefits, but when you give citizenship as this bill does those currently here illegally will be eligible for welfare programs. If just 60 percent of those currently here illegally get citizenship--the ballpark figure of the number that have been here more than 5 years--Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation estimates that welfare costs will increase by more than $11 billion per year.

However it may be even more important to note what the Senate bill did not do. We know that we must secure our borders, so my colleagues and I tried to add a provision to require a certification that the borders are secure before granting legal status to any alien who entered the United States illegally. I was not only surprised but extremely disappointed that our efforts to do this right--to secure our borders first before dealing with the 11 million illegal aliens in our country--failed. So that bill continues to put the cart before the horse--and continues to hold our national security hostage to a ``comprehensive solution.''

For this reason, in June I introduced my own bill--the Border Security First Act, S. 3564. My bill takes a first-things-first approach. This first step cannot, and should not, wait for a ``comprehensive'' solution. When we secure our borders--and only then-- we can address the remaining illegal immigration-related challenges with the apposite remedies.

Despite consensus on all of the border security provisions in my bill, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not allowed us to move forward that legislation. Nonetheless, this week the Senate is working to send to the President a bill to secure our southern border with 700 miles of at least double-layer fencing. I am glad we are here today to take a real first step--admittedly a modest step but at least a first step--toward demonstrating to the American public that we have heard you, that we understand we need to address border security first.

And the American public has been clear, but let me focus on my State for a minute. In Pennsylvania, my constituents have been clear--80 percent oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants, and 84 percent support building a fence on the southern border. Stop the flood and do not give amnesty. That is the message, colleagues. It cannot be plainer. We must listen and put America's border security first, reject amnesty, and pass this bill.

Border security cannot wait for more hearings, debate, and compromise; it must be done right, and it must start now. This bill is a good first step.

Mr. President, I realize that Senator Enzi has been working with Senator Kennedy and others to craft this underlying bipartisan, bicameral product. Already today, he has discussed how the bill will ensure more equitable treatment, target key resources, and save lives through treatment. However, he has also mentioned that someone from California is holding up the bill, due to concerns about converting their HIV system to standards created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I am curious about that, given that Pennsylvania, like California, is also in the process of converting its system. How long have States under current law to change their system?

How many more years will California and Pennsylvania have to make that change?

So, I understand that you have given States like my own Pennsylvania more time to change their system, so that they don't have losses just due to system issues when people still need care. What would Pennsylvania and California lose if those States did not receive the 4-year extension you are proposing?

Will CDC provide assistance to States that need to make this change? How will the Federal Government assist?

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will allow families across the country to climb the economic ladder of success without fear of losing their affordable housing.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program is currently the largest Federal program for producing new affordable rental housing. It is also a

``go-to'' program for preserving and revitalizing aging HUD and rural properties. As this program becomes an increasingly important option for serving the housing needs of low-income families, there is an unintended nuance in the occupancy requirements that must be addressed.

When Congress created the LIHTC, it properly intended that this housing should be available to low-income families in need of an affordable apartment. Congress included strict occupancy restrictions to ensure that these properties did not become cheap off-campus housing for college students. Therefore, households made up entirely of full- time students were prohibited from living in LIHTC apartments. Only four narrow exceptions exist for families: those who are receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); those enrolled in a Federal, State or local job training program; single parents and their children, provided that such parents and children are not dependents of another individual; or married full-time students who file a joint return.

While well-intentioned, the occupancy restrictions for full-time student households are penalizing low-income families trying to get ahead. One of the most common unintended consequences of the current policy is that it disqualifies from LIHTC eligibility single parents who have returned to school full-time and have school-aged children. Under the current law, children in grades K-12 count toward the determination of whether family is a full-time student household. Therefore, a single mother who has returned to school full-time and whose children, in grades K-12, were claimed as dependents on the ex- husband's tax return becomes ineligible for LIHTC housing. This family cannot be allowed to move into the unit or, if they live there already, they have to move out. This policy is just plain wrong, and it needs to be corrected. It is also contrary to the No Child Left Behind Act's commitment to ensure our children receive a quality education. Low- income families should not have to choose between obeying the law by educating children or losing their housing. And it is not just students enrolled in four-year programs who have been disqualified from LIHTC eligibility. Working adults trying to complete the requirements for a high school education have also been adversely affected. Even an elderly adult pursuing a GED can be denied occupancy in a LIHTC apartment or lose their eligibility to remain in the unit.

Whenever practical, affordable housing should be used as a stepping stone to self-sufficiency. This bill updates the LIHTC program so that low-income families can achieve the education necessary to land higher- paying jobs and eventually own a home or rent a market-rate apartment. It makes three specific statutory changes which specify that minor children in grades K-12 should not count toward the determination of who is a full-time student household; it strikes the requirement that single parents and their children must not have been claimed as dependents of another individual to qualify for the single parent with children exemption; and it adds a new exemption for working adults who are full-time students pursuing a high school diploma or GED.

These updates are consistent with the original legislative intent of the student restrictions. At the same time, they recognize current economic and workplace realities and the role of education in encouraging self-sufficiency. I ask for my colleagues' support to move this legislation forward.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will allow families across the country to climb the economic ladder of success without fear of losing their affordable housing.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program is currently the largest Federal program for producing new affordable rental housing. It is also a

``go-to'' program for preserving and revitalizing aging HUD and rural properties. As this program becomes an increasingly important option for serving the housing needs of low-income families, there is an unintended nuance in the occupancy requirements that must be addressed.

When Congress created the LIHTC, it properly intended that this housing should be available to low-income families in need of an affordable apartment. Congress included strict occupancy restrictions to ensure that these properties did not become cheap off-campus housing for college students. Therefore, households made up entirely of full- time students were prohibited from living in LIHTC apartments. Only four narrow exceptions exist for families: those who are receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); those enrolled in a Federal, State or local job training program; single parents and their children, provided that such parents and children are not dependents of another individual; or married full-time students who file a joint return.

While well-intentioned, the occupancy restrictions for full-time student households are penalizing low-income families trying to get ahead. One of the most common unintended consequences of the current policy is that it disqualifies from LIHTC eligibility single parents who have returned to school full-time and have school-aged children. Under the current law, children in grades K-12 count toward the determination of whether family is a full-time student household. Therefore, a single mother who has returned to school full-time and whose children, in grades K-12, were claimed as dependents on the ex- husband's tax return becomes ineligible for LIHTC housing. This family cannot be allowed to move into the unit or, if they live there already, they have to move out. This policy is just plain wrong, and it needs to be corrected. It is also contrary to the No Child Left Behind Act's commitment to ensure our children receive a quality education. Low- income families should not have to choose between obeying the law by educating children or losing their housing. And it is not just students enrolled in four-year programs who have been disqualified from LIHTC eligibility. Working adults trying to complete the requirements for a high school education have also been adversely affected. Even an elderly adult pursuing a GED can be denied occupancy in a LIHTC apartment or lose their eligibility to remain in the unit.

Whenever practical, affordable housing should be used as a stepping stone to self-sufficiency. This bill updates the LIHTC program so that low-income families can achieve the education necessary to land higher- paying jobs and eventually own a home or rent a market-rate apartment. It makes three specific statutory changes which specify that minor children in grades K-12 should not count toward the determination of who is a full-time student household; it strikes the requirement that single parents and their children must not have been claimed as dependents of another individual to qualify for the single parent with children exemption; and it adds a new exemption for working adults who are full-time students pursuing a high school diploma or GED.

These updates are consistent with the original legislative intent of the student restrictions. At the same time, they recognize current economic and workplace realities and the role of education in encouraging self-sufficiency. I ask for my colleagues' support to move this legislation forward.

Thank you, Mr. President. I will pick up where the Senator from Louisiana just left off, and congratulate her for her energetic support for energy security in this country. This is a huge issue. It is actually the reason I came to the floor to talk today, to talk about energy security. I am going to talk about a comprehensive approach I am introducing today, and a big part of that comprehensive approach is the passage of the legislation the Senator from Louisiana has talked about in addition to additional things she has talked about that we would like to do. If we could do them this year, great, let's try to do them this year.

Let's try to do more OCS this year. But let's get done as much as we can this year. Let's, if we can, pass the Senate bill. If there are additional provisions we can accomplish this year to--the Senator from Alaska is here behind me. The Senator from Louisiana mentioned the Commonwealth of Virginia. Let's try to get those done. Maybe there are some other things we can add, maybe in different pieces of legislation, to move this ball forward. There are conference reports that are going to be coming out, and it is not unheard of to place a little tidbit or two in a conference report. Let's sit down and have serious negotiations and discussions with the House to try to get as much as we possibly can without walking out of here empty handed.

So I would very much like to see that done. I congratulate the Senator from Louisiana, as well as all of those who have stepped forward--the chairman of the Energy Committee, obviously, Senator Domenici, and Senator Stevens, who is here on the Senate floor--for all of their efforts to try to do something that I think is vitally important.

I think the Senator from Louisiana put it in the right context. The context is that we are at war with a group of people we are funding because of the high cost of energy. Let's just be very honest about it. This is a very serious war we are involved in, and we are directly contributing huge amounts of American resources to the people who would like to destroy everything we believe. That is a country that is on a mission of suicide. We need to have more energy security because that leads to better national security.

(The remarks of Mr. Santorum pertaining to the introduction of S. 3926 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I gave a speech a couple weeks ago about the situation in the Middle East. I want to just do a reprise of that in brief to discuss the context of introducing today what we call the Empower America: Securing America's Energy Future Act.

It comes from the basis that I believe we are facing in this country--a threat. We are, in my opinion, already in the very early stages of a world war. We can act now to make this threat--which I believe is a serious one but not yet fully actualized--less severe if we do certain things. One of them, as you will hear at the conclusion of my remarks, will be focusing on our energy situation here at home.

One of the things I hear as a frustration of so many people I talk to in Pennsylvania is they look at the conflicts we are in in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places in the world, and they don't see an end or a strategy of how we succeed. I suggest that part of that strategy is in creating energy security and developing a whole host of energy resources in this country so that we are not dependent upon--or as dependent upon foreign sources of energy and that we develop the new technologies that will allow America to continue to grow and keep prices down, and not just because I want to keep them down for consumers, which is great, but so we are not providing enormous riches for people to develop nuclear weapons and turn around and harm the United States and our allies.

I believe the threat we face can be analyzed in a three-pronged approach. As I said on the floor last week or the week before, we face a threat, an enemy most people refer to as terrorists. I do not refer to them as terrorists; I refer to them as who they are: radical Islamic fascists. They have an ideology. These are not people who kill for the purpose of killing. They don't kill because of hatred. They kill because they have a belief, an objective.

I know that for a year or two, the President, right after 9/11, referred to these terrorists as ``cowards.'' I notice that he doesn't do that anymore. I don't know of anybody who does that anymore. There is a reason: They are not cowards at all. These are people with great conviction. Some would even say that, in a demented way, they have great courage. But they are certainly not cowards. Calling them cowards gives the wrong impression to the American people that we are fighting a foe who is afraid of us or afraid of something. The problem is they seem to be afraid of very little when it comes to this world. They are willing to give up their lives. In fact, they want to give up their lives, and their objective, by the way, is to take as many other lives in the process. The object in this war is not territory; the object of this war is submission and death.

So we are not dealing with a group of cowards. When we tell the American public we are dealing with cowards, they don't think this is a serious enemy that can defeat us. America would never lose to a group of cowards. But we can lose to a group of fanatical, zealous Islamists, who have a clear mission and a clear methodology by which to accomplish that mission.

These are people who are very serious about what they want to do, whether it is radical Sunnis or radical Shias. They have an objective and a common enemy--as does the radical left, represented so comically, in my opinion, so ridiculously, by the speech of Hugo Chavez yesterday at the United Nations. What do Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad, President of Iran, and Hugo Chavez have in common? Nothing except their hatred of everything this country holds dear--freedom, democracy, and individual human rights. That is what they hate. I would suggest they have as much in common as Mussolini and Hitler and Tojo. They had very little in common ideologically. The Japanese believed in the superiority of the Japanese race and wanted to conquer and rule the world. Hitler didn't believe in that, but they formed an alliance because there was a common enemy.

That is the case here. We are seeing it. It is, hopefully, a frightening sight put on display over the last couple of days at the United Nations, as this character of a President, this ridiculous diatribe Hugo Chavez presented to the U.N. received applause from many around the world--most leaders around the world. This is a serious threat. We can look at it and put it in political terms and say we went to war for the wrong reason and this or that wasn't true. But that is looking in the rearview mirror when we have a huge

threat. So they have an ideology and a common enemy.

Secondly, they have a very effective methodology by which to conduct this war. It is one that doesn't require the kind of coordination and resources a traditional military campaign would require. They don't need to conquer land, to hold ground; they simply need to kill people every day. And they do--every day. And we cover it in America every day. American people watch it every day. And every day, the resolve of the American people is eroded. The resolve of the American people is eroded because--I will use the words of Osama bin Laden--because we Americans love life and the radical Islamists love death. That is how he said he would defeat us, because of America's and the West's love for life and respect for life, their attachment to this world, to the modern world, and the radical Islamist's attachment not to this world at all but to death, which, in their minds, means life--a better life with Allah. That is their objective, their methodology. Their methodology is to prey upon what they believe is the weakness of America, what they believe is the weakness of the West, which is the fact that we respect life, love life, we have human rights, and we believe in freedom. We believe it is our objective in this world to make it a better world. They don't care about that at all. So terror is a uniquely effective tactic that fits well into their culture of death and is particularly effective against our culture of life.

In addition, they are trying to develop a new weapon; that is, a nuclear weapon. Iran has made it very clear and Chavez has announced his intention to develop a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to use, in the words of Ahmadi-Nejad, ``to wipe Israel off the face of the earth'' and use that weaponry to get the rest of the Western World to submit to their radical, fanatical brand of Islam.

This is their ultimate threat. This is the ultimate tactic of death and terror--to have a country that is committed publicly to using nuclear weapons not to defend itself, not to gain an earthly dominion over the world, but to cause mass chaos and destruction, in the case of Iran, for a religious purpose, because what they seek to accomplish is the return of the Hidden or 12th Imam. That is the 12th descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who, in the late 800s, went into hiding, according to the Shia religion, and is destined to return as the messiah of the Islamic faith at the end of times--the end of times meaning Armageddon. The interesting twist that the radical Shia project onto the world stage today is they believe it is their obligation to bring about the return of the Hidden or 12th Imam by causing a modern-day Armageddon. That is what they believe. You may not have heard this before, but let me assure you, that is what they believe. That is what they say. That is what they talk about all the time, that this is their objective. It is a messianic vision; they are being compelled by their faith.

Some pass it off as a bunch of dictators who are just using religion to prop themselves up, to maintain control, or to try to dominate bigger areas of the world. Well, that would be bad enough. That would be dangerous enough. But I think we underestimate them when we say that. I think we underestimate President Ahmadi-Nejad and the ruling mullahs of Iran when we say that. I believe they are true believers, and I don't think we can afford the luxury of not believing that they believe this. I don't think we can dismiss them as another group of two-bit tyrants. These are two-bit tyrants who have billions upon billions of dollars and have allies like North Korea, who have access to nuclear technology. They have scientists from Russia who left Russia because there is nothing for them to do, and they are in Tehran today developing rocketry and the nuclear capability to project that power.

Some would say I am beating the drums of war. No. I am accurately describing the situation at hand. Some disagree with me, and they are welcome to. Do you want to take that chance? Do you want to take the chance of having a nuclear weapon? They are clear about their intention of developing it. Do you want to take that chance? I don't.

How did this happen? Radical Islam has been present in the Middle East for a long time. We have not heard much from them except when? In the last 30, 40 years. Why? The price of oil. It is oil, to begin with, and now the high price of oil. It gives them the resources to not only feed the people to keep them in power but to produce weapons to project power. The only reason, again, they have those resources is because of this one three-letter word--oil--which brings me back to the beginning of this discussion.

If we are going to defeat radical fascist Islam, then we have to have a strategy to take resources away from them so they cannot project the power they can today. The only way to do that is by developing a more secure energy future for America and reducing our dependency on that oil, which would reduce the price of energy around the world. We need to encourage not only alternative energy production in this country; we have to do so around the world. We have to do so around the world by using alternative technology such as, for example, as I talk about in the bill, coal.

One of the greatest new energy consumers in the world is China. They don't have a lot of oil, but they have a lot of coal. So it is an opportunity for us, with coal to gas and coal to liquid fuels technology, developing and commercializing that technology. And it is not just going to be coal to liquid fuels, but if you talk to folks in the business who are developing these plants right now--and one is being developed in Pennsylvania, which I have been involved with--they believe they can use all sorts of organic matter, such as waste products, to blend in with the coal to be able to produce liquid fuel.

We need to have that technology in America, and they need to have that technology, and they are developing it, by the way, in China. We need to create from the vast amount of energy opportunities that we have in America and around the world new technologies so oil becomes less of a valuable commodity. This is one concrete way we can fight the war on radical Islamic fascism.

I have put together a bill that talks about making--it does, if it would be passed--a huge investment, a huge investment in alternative technologies, a huge investment in coal, a huge investment in renewables to create a more secure energy future for America. We can no longer talk about how we are going to do this or that we will do it at some future date. We must act now, quickly. We need to provide support for the commercialization of this technology. We are not going to see energy produced at $20 a barrel, the equivalent of oil. We are not going to see it done at $30 or $40 a barrel. It may be more expensive. We have to make sure we provide proper support in loan guarantees, incentives, and tax credits to make this a profitable venture and a secure venture for people to invest in.

This is not something that normally I have come to the Chamber and said that this is the Government's job. This is national security. This is not about subsidizing big business. This is about producing energy here for the security of our country. We either make the investment here or we pay a horrible price, human as well as financial, in the future.

We need to think big, and we need to think now. That is why--when I spoke about the comments the Senator from Louisiana made before I came to the floor on opening up OCS--it is unconscionable for us to look at the national security situation we look at today, to look at the subsidies we are providing to our enemies and say: Oh, oh, we can't explore for oil in Alaska or OCS. Oh, we are worried about the environment.

I am worried about the environment, too. In my State of Pennsylvania, in the western part of our State, we drill 3,000 gas wells a year-- 3,000--on farms, in neighborhoods, outside neighborhoods, in people's backyards. At Oakmont Country Club, which is where the U.S. Open is going to be played, they are going to drill a gas well right next to Oakmont Country Club. That is pretty much an environmental area. Nobody wants to pollute Oakmont Country Club. We are going to drill a gas well there.

Yet there are people on this floor who won't drill those wells in Alaska where nobody goes, where nobody is. As a result, our country is at risk. We feed an enemy huge resources to combat us

in their attempt to destroy us. It is unconscionable for us, a country that produces oil and gas cleaner and more efficiently than any other country in the world, to allow our enemy to hold us, not just hostage, but to gain resources to destroy us because we placate an interest group who funds, campaigns, and influences voters.

I know many in this Chamber and many in this country do not believe we are at war or do not believe this war is serious. Time will tell. I think, unfortunately, time will tell us in a relatively short period of time how serious this is, and we will look back on this time as we stood year after year for the past 10 years twiddling our thumbs, not doing what we can do to provide a more secure energy future for this country, and we will look back in horror of the blinders, of the scales we had on our eyes that we could not see the threat before us.

We must do something. The bill I am introducing today is a comprehensive package that does a lot to make America a safer country, first and foremost, from a national security perspective and, secondly, from an economic perspective.

I know we only have a week left. The Senator from Louisiana talked about trying to get a bill done. Let's get something done. I plead for us to get something done to create some new sources of energy for this country, to put some downward pressure on world market prices. It is essential for us to do so.

We need to make this commitment for the future of our country.

Mr. President, I gave a speech a couple weeks ago about the situation in the Middle East. I want to just do a reprise of that in brief to discuss the context of introducing today what we call the Empower America: Securing America's Energy Future Act.

It comes from the basis that I believe we are facing in this country--a threat. We are, in my opinion, already in the very early stages of a world war. We can act now to make this threat--which I believe is a serious one but not yet fully actualized--less severe if we do certain things. One of them, as you will hear at the conclusion of my remarks, will be focusing on our energy situation here at home.

One of the things I hear as a frustration of so many people I talk to in Pennsylvania is they look at the conflicts we are in in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places in the world, and they don't see an end or a strategy of how we succeed. I suggest that part of that strategy is in creating energy security and developing a whole host of energy resources in this country so that we are not dependent upon--or as dependent upon foreign sources of energy and that we develop the new technologies that will allow America to continue to grow and keep prices down, and not just because I want to keep them down for consumers, which is great, but so we are not providing enormous riches for people to develop nuclear weapons and turn around and harm the United States and our allies.

I believe the threat we face can be analyzed in a three-pronged approach. As I said on the floor last week or the week before, we face a threat, an enemy most people refer to as terrorists. I do not refer to them as terrorists; I refer to them as who they are: radical Islamic fascists. They have an ideology. These are not people who kill for the purpose of killing. They don't kill because of hatred. They kill because they have a belief, an objective.

I know that for a year or two, the President, right after 9/11, referred to these terrorists as ``cowards.'' I notice that he doesn't do that anymore. I don't know of anybody who does that anymore. There is a reason: They are not cowards at all. These are people with great conviction. Some would even say that, in a demented way, they have great courage. But they are certainly not cowards. Calling them cowards gives the wrong impression to the American people that we are fighting a foe who is afraid of us or afraid of something. The problem is they seem to be afraid of very little when it comes to this world. They are willing to give up their lives. In fact, they want to give up their lives, and their objective, by the way, is to take as many other lives in the process. The object in this war is not territory; the object of this war is submission and death.

So we are not dealing with a group of cowards. When we tell the American public we are dealing with cowards, they don't think this is a serious enemy that can defeat us. America would never lose to a group of cowards. But we can lose to a group of fanatical, zealous Islamists, who have a clear mission and a clear methodology by which to accomplish that mission.

These are people who are very serious about what they want to do, whether it is radical Sunnis or radical Shias. They have an objective and a common enemy--as does the radical left, represented so comically, in my opinion, so ridiculously, by the speech of Hugo Chavez yesterday at the United Nations. What do Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad, President of Iran, and Hugo Chavez have in common? Nothing except their hatred of everything this country holds dear--freedom, democracy, and individual human rights. That is what they hate. I would suggest they have as much in common as Mussolini and Hitler and Tojo. They had very little in common ideologically. The Japanese believed in the superiority of the Japanese race and wanted to conquer and rule the world. Hitler didn't believe in that, but they formed an alliance because there was a common enemy.

That is the case here. We are seeing it. It is, hopefully, a frightening sight put on display over the last couple of days at the United Nations, as this character of a President, this ridiculous diatribe Hugo Chavez presented to the U.N. received applause from many around the world--most leaders around the world. This is a serious threat. We can look at it and put it in political terms and say we went to war for the wrong reason and this or that wasn't true. But that is looking in the rearview mirror when we have a huge

threat. So they have an ideology and a common enemy.

Secondly, they have a very effective methodology by which to conduct this war. It is one that doesn't require the kind of coordination and resources a traditional military campaign would require. They don't need to conquer land, to hold ground; they simply need to kill people every day. And they do--every day. And we cover it in America every day. American people watch it every day. And every day, the resolve of the American people is eroded. The resolve of the American people is eroded because--I will use the words of Osama bin Laden--because we Americans love life and the radical Islamists love death. That is how he said he would defeat us, because of America's and the West's love for life and respect for life, their attachment to this world, to the modern world, and the radical Islamist's attachment not to this world at all but to death, which, in their minds, means life--a better life with Allah. That is their objective, their methodology. Their methodology is to prey upon what they believe is the weakness of America, what they believe is the weakness of the West, which is the fact that we respect life, love life, we have human rights, and we believe in freedom. We believe it is our objective in this world to make it a better world. They don't care about that at all. So terror is a uniquely effective tactic that fits well into their culture of death and is particularly effective against our culture of life.

In addition, they are trying to develop a new weapon; that is, a nuclear weapon. Iran has made it very clear and Chavez has announced his intention to develop a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to use, in the words of Ahmadi-Nejad, ``to wipe Israel off the face of the earth'' and use that weaponry to get the rest of the Western World to submit to their radical, fanatical brand of Islam.

This is their ultimate threat. This is the ultimate tactic of death and terror--to have a country that is committed publicly to using nuclear weapons not to defend itself, not to gain an earthly dominion over the world, but to cause mass chaos and destruction, in the case of Iran, for a religious purpose, because what they seek to accomplish is the return of the Hidden or 12th Imam. That is the 12th descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who, in the late 800s, went into hiding, according to the Shia religion, and is destined to return as the messiah of the Islamic faith at the end of times--the end of times meaning Armageddon. The interesting twist that the radical Shia project onto the world stage today is they believe it is their obligation to bring about the return of the Hidden or 12th Imam by causing a modern-day Armageddon. That is what they believe. You may not have heard this before, but let me assure you, that is what they believe. That is what they say. That is what they talk about all the time, that this is their objective. It is a messianic vision; they are being compelled by their faith.

Some pass it off as a bunch of dictators who are just using religion to prop themselves up, to maintain control, or to try to dominate bigger areas of the world. Well, that would be bad enough. That would be dangerous enough. But I think we underestimate them when we say that. I think we underestimate President Ahmadi-Nejad and the ruling mullahs of Iran when we say that. I believe they are true believers, and I don't think we can afford the luxury of not believing that they believe this. I don't think we can dismiss them as another group of two-bit tyrants. These are two-bit tyrants who have billions upon billions of dollars and have allies like North Korea, who have access to nuclear technology. They have scientists from Russia who left Russia because there is nothing for them to do, and they are in Tehran today developing rocketry and the nuclear capability to project that power.

Some would say I am beating the drums of war. No. I am accurately describing the situation at hand. Some disagree with me, and they are welcome to. Do you want to take that chance? Do you want to take the chance of having a nuclear weapon? They are clear about their intention of developing it. Do you want to take that chance? I don't.

How did this happen? Radical Islam has been present in the Middle East for a long time. We have not heard much from them except when? In the last 30, 40 years. Why? The price of oil. It is oil, to begin with, and now the high price of oil. It gives them the resources to not only feed the people to keep them in power but to produce weapons to project power. The only reason, again, they have those resources is because of this one three-letter word--oil--which brings me back to the beginning of this discussion.

If we are going to defeat radical fascist Islam, then we have to have a strategy to take resources away from them so they cannot project the power they can today. The only way to do that is by developing a more secure energy future for America and reducing our dependency on that oil, which would reduce the price of energy around the world. We need to encourage not only alternative energy production in this country; we have to do so around the world. We have to do so around the world by using alternative technology such as, for example, as I talk about in the bill, coal.

One of the greatest new energy consumers in the world is China. They don't have a lot of oil, but they have a lot of coal. So it is an opportunity for us, with coal to gas and coal to liquid fuels technology, developing and commercializing that technology. And it is not just going to be coal to liquid fuels, but if you talk to folks in the business who are developing these plants right now--and one is being developed in Pennsylvania, which I have been involved with--they believe they can use all sorts of organic matter, such as waste products, to blend in with the coal to be able to produce liquid fuel.

We need to have that technology in America, and they need to have that technology, and they are developing it, by the way, in China. We need to create from the vast amount of energy opportunities that we have in America and around the world new technologies so oil becomes less of a valuable commodity. This is one concrete way we can fight the war on radical Islamic fascism.

I have put together a bill that talks about making--it does, if it would be passed--a huge investment, a huge investment in alternative technologies, a huge investment in coal, a huge investment in renewables to create a more secure energy future for America. We can no longer talk about how we are going to do this or that we will do it at some future date. We must act now, quickly. We need to provide support for the commercialization of this technology. We are not going to see energy produced at $20 a barrel, the equivalent of oil. We are not going to see it done at $30 or $40 a barrel. It may be more expensive. We have to make sure we provide proper support in loan guarantees, incentives, and tax credits to make this a profitable venture and a secure venture for people to invest in.

This is not something that normally I have come to the Chamber and said that this is the Government's job. This is national security. This is not about subsidizing big business. This is about producing energy here for the security of our country. We either make the investment here or we pay a horrible price, human as well as financial, in the future.

We need to think big, and we need to think now. That is why--when I spoke about the comments the Senator from Louisiana made before I came to the floor on opening up OCS--it is unconscionable for us to look at the national security situation we look at today, to look at the subsidies we are providing to our enemies and say: Oh, oh, we can't explore for oil in Alaska or OCS. Oh, we are worried about the environment.

I am worried about the environment, too. In my State of Pennsylvania, in the western part of our State, we drill 3,000 gas wells a year-- 3,000--on farms, in neighborhoods, outside neighborhoods, in people's backyards. At Oakmont Country Club, which is where the U.S. Open is going to be played, they are going to drill a gas well right next to Oakmont Country Club. That is pretty much an environmental area. Nobody wants to pollute Oakmont Country Club. We are going to drill a gas well there.

Yet there are people on this floor who won't drill those wells in Alaska where nobody goes, where nobody is. As a result, our country is at risk. We feed an enemy huge resources to combat us

in their attempt to destroy us. It is unconscionable for us, a country that produces oil and gas cleaner and more efficiently than any other country in the world, to allow our enemy to hold us, not just hostage, but to gain resources to destroy us because we placate an interest group who funds, campaigns, and influences voters.

I know many in this Chamber and many in this country do not believe we are at war or do not believe this war is serious. Time will tell. I think, unfortunately, time will tell us in a relatively short period of time how serious this is, and we will look back on this time as we stood year after year for the past 10 years twiddling our thumbs, not doing what we can do to provide a more secure energy future for this country, and we will look back in horror of the blinders, of the scales we had on our eyes that we could not see the threat before us.

We must do something. The bill I am introducing today is a comprehensive package that does a lot to make America a safer country, first and foremost, from a national security perspective and, secondly, from an economic perspective.

I know we only have a week left. The Senator from Louisiana talked about trying to get a bill done. Let's get something done. I plead for us to get something done to create some new sources of energy for this country, to put some downward pressure on world market prices. It is essential for us to do so.

We need to make this commitment for the future of our country.

Mr. President, I wish to say a few words before we move to the cloture vote on H.R. 6061, the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Colleagues, the purpose of the fence is to prevent illegal pedestrian and vehicular traffic crossing the international border of the United States with Mexico.

This bill does four main things. First, it authorizes over 700 miles of two-layered reinforced fencing along the southwest border with prioritized placement at critical, highly populated areas. Second, the legislation mandates that the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, achieve and maintain operational control over the entire border through a ``virtual fence'' that deploys cameras, ground sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, and integrated surveillance technology. Third, it requires DHS to provide all necessary authority to border personnel to disable fleeing vehicles, similar to the authority held by the U.S. Coast Guard for maritime vessels. Finally, the bill requires DHS to assess the vulnerability of the northern border.

Some of my colleagues ask why we need these additional border control tools. When combined with high-tech detection devices, a secure fence should make attempts to cross our border more time-consuming so that the Border Patrol has time to respond and catch those trying to breach the border. Having a state-of-the-art border security fence system should ensure that it cannot be easily compromised. The business of apprehension is manpower-intensive, slow, and legally complex. If we only build a ``virtual fence'' without additional physical barriers, we will spend millions on technology that is subject to ordinary downtime and then spend even more money to chase down, apprehend, process, and deport the illegal border-crossers.

I believe instead we should add these tools to the toolbox of the Border Patrol, as requested by DHS. An increased manpower alone approach would have the Border Patrol remain vulnerable to decoys and other tactics designed to draw our border agents into one area so that another area is left exposed. This fencing will help border control efforts and will not be an inhibitor to legitimate entry to this country.

More importantly, we know that fencing works. With the establishment of the San Diego border fence, crime rates in San Diego have fallen off dramatically. According to the FBI Crime Index, crime in San Diego County dropped 56.3 percent between 1989 to 2000. Vehicle drive- throughs in the region have fallen from between 6 to 10 per day before the fence to only 4 drive-throughs in 2004, and those occurred only where the secondary fence was not complete. According to numbers provided by the San Diego Sector Border Patrol in February 2004, apprehension decreased from 531,689 in 1993 to 111,515 in 2003.

The Senate should take up and pass the Secure Fence Act of 2006 and give the Border Patrol all of the tools it needs to do its job. The Senate should send a clear message that we need this fence and we need it now. Let's send this bill to the President before we leave at the end of the month.