Floor Statements

Mr. President, before I begin my statement with respect to tax day, I wish to pause and express on behalf of the people of Utah our great sympathy for and anguish over the tragedy that has occurred in the State of Virginia.

I was once a resident of the State of Virginia, and I now am a physical resident of the State of Virginia while remaining a legal resident of Utah, and I feel close to the people of Virginia.

Virginia is known for its system of colleges spread throughout the State, in magnificent rural settings. Blacksburg, VA, is one of those settings, and Virginia Tech is one of those colleges. It comes as an enormous shock, and a sense of horror, to discover that a single student can be sufficiently disturbed in this quiet kind of setting to vent all of his demons in such a manner.

I want the people of Virginia and the students and parents of Virginia Tech to know they are not alone in their horror and their grief and to share that on behalf of the people of Utah whom I represent.

Mr. President, today is tax day, the day when most of us file for an extension so we can have another 3 months or so to work through the problems connected with our taxes. I wish to review the history of our tax system and the groundwork for an attempt to try to solve some of its serious problems.

One of the reasons we file for an extension is because the Tax Code itself is impenetrable. There are few--or I would say if any--who understand it. I remember when I was a very junior Senator here on the floor talking about health care, when President Clinton's administration was pursuing that, and making the point on the floor that the law was absolutely beyond comprehension. I quoted James Madison, who said that the laws should be understandable, and that was part of his justification for the writing of the Constitution.

Senator Moynihan, the Senator from New York, corrected me; that is, he disagreed with me. He stood up and said: Senator, we have long since passed the point where the laws are understandable. Look at the Tax Code; there is not a soul on the Earth who understands that, so do not make the fact that the health care bill is incomprehensible a justification for defeating it.

I do not know how serious he was. Senator Moynihan was known for his sense of humor, but he was also known for his ability to go to the heart of the issue.

Let me review the history of where we got our tax systems--and yes, the last word is plural because we have basically two Federal tax systems in this country. We have the payroll tax, and we have the income tax. Both were adopted during the period of the Great Depression.

Stop and think about the conditions which existed at that time. We were in the worst economic contraction of our history. The American unemployment rate was running not only in double digits but as high as 25 percent. Of the 75 percent who still had jobs, many of them had jobs that were not adequate to their needs. It was a devastating psychological time. The historians who talk of it say that many of those who were unemployed would get up in the morning, put on their suit and tie, put on their hat, and leave the house as if they were going to work because they did not want the neighbors to know they were unemployed. The stigma of unemployment was psychologically almost as devastating as the financial stigma of being unable to meet one's bills and pay one's mortgage.

The second circumstance that was present at the time of the Great Depression was that we were in the center of the industrial age. All of us, as we went to school, remember being taught about the industrial revolution when we shifted from basically an agricultural economy to predominately an industrial economy, an economy of factories, an economy of mass--mass building, mass production, mass communications. Everything was industrialized.

The third situation that applied in those days was that our economy was basically protected by two oceans. We were insulated from the rest of the world in a very real, physical, geographical sense.

Stop and think about these three interacting with each other--serious economic contraction in the midst of the industrial age at a time when we were self-contained between two oceans. Ask yourself whether those three conditions exist today.

We are in the midst of the longest running expansion in our history, not contraction. We are in the midst of this information age, not the industrial age. The focus of America, just as it shifted from agriculture to industry, has now shifted to the information age, and the richest man in America is not the one who owns the most land, as was true in the agricultural age, or the one who owns the biggest factory, as was true in the industrial age, but the one who has mastered the capacity of the digital code, which is true in the information age.

Finally, we are clearly not confined to a land between two oceans. Money moves around the world, ideas move around the world, and concepts move around the world with the click of a mouse.

We do not have anything like the economic circumstances that prevailed when we adopted our present tax system. Yet we continue to perpetuate those tax systems as if they still apply to our situation.

The payroll tax penalizes the working poor. It is an effective tax rate of 15 percent on the waitress who works at minimum wage because 7\1/2\ percent she has to pay and 7\1/2\ percent her employer pays that otherwise she would get in her paycheck. That is a very high, regressive tax. When it started out in the midst of the Great Depression, it was 1 percent or 2 percent, and now it has grown to a 15-percent effective rate.

While the payroll tax penalizes the working poor, the income tax discourages the productive rich. The more you produce, the more the Government comes in and says: We will take that away from you.

I have said before in this Chamber, I was fortunate enough to be involved in building a business during what many newspapers called the decade of greed. Ronald Reagan was President, and the top tax rate was 28 percent. We had basically a flat tax system. It had two tiers, 15 percent and 28 percent, but it was moving us toward a simple system, a flat rate system. If I were running that same business today, the effective rate would be 43 percent, and the difference between 28 percent and 43 percent on the earnings of that company would probably make the difference between the company surviving or not. It started out not in a garage but in a basement. It grew to 4,000 employees. Think of the tax revenue coming from those employees, think of the tax revenue coming from that successful business. Then ask yourself: Would it have been a good thing to have prevented that business from coming on board in the name of high tax rates?

We need the tax revenue. We perhaps need more tax revenue than we are currently getting. I will grant that to my friends on the Democratic side. But I suggest to them a bargain. If we want to drive to a higher level of tax revenue, let's recognize we live in a very different world than we lived in in the 1930s, when we created our present tax system. Let's talk about eliminating

the payroll tax. Senator Moynihan was willing to do that. Let's talk about eliminating the present system of income tax and replacing it with a flat tax. Instead of saying we want to use the tax system to make economic decisions, using the tax system as the tiller to steer the economy, let's adopt the radical notion that the purpose of taxes is to raise money to run the Government, and then ask ourselves, how can we raise it in as simple a manner as possible, as efficient a manner as possible, as competitive a manner as possible, so that we recognize the reality in which we live--a tax system that is geared to an expanding economy rather than shrinking one, a tax system that is geared to the information age rather than the industrial age, and a tax system that is geared to a worldwide economy rather than one centered within our borders.

I am already having conversations with some of my Democratic friends on this issue. I think tax day is the day to talk about it. We disagree as to whether the President's tax cuts should be extended. I voted for them. I think they probably should be. But I am willing to scrap the whole thing, if my friends across the aisle will make a deal with us whereby we say: Let's start with a clean sheet of paper and produce a tax system that is geared to the realities of the economic circumstances we face. I hope in this Congress we can move in that direction.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, during the week we were back in our home States getting acquainted with our constituents, there was more good news on the economy. I had expected to spend my 10 minutes here talking about the economy. I will do that briefly, but I intend to move to another issue which came out during the week of recess which I think deserves comment.

The news came out about the number of new jobs created in the month of March and a revision upward of the number of new jobs created in February. Without going through the details, I will summarize what this news really means with respect to the recovery as a whole.

Ever since the economy started its recovery after the recession that began in mid-2000, we have created, now, more than 150,000 new jobs every month; every month, 150,000 new jobs over a period of more than 40 months. That sounds impressive, but let's go behind the figures and look at what is really happening in the economy to understand how impressive it should be.

Oversimplifying but taking a number that describes what is happening, every month approximately 900,000 Americans lose their jobs. Their company goes out of business, the company cuts back, things change, they retire and the job is not replaced--whatever it may be, every month roughly 900,000 jobs disappear.

In order for us to be able to say accurately that we have created more than 150,000 new jobs every month, that means the number of new jobs created every month is not 150,000, it is 1,050,000, to produce a net of 150,000. To produce 1,050,000 new jobs every month for over 41 months--which is the record of this economy and this recovery--is pretty extraordinary. Frankly, it is unusual. We take it for granted in America because it happens in our dynamic economy almost automatically. If you go to other economies in the world, you find that this does not happen. Unemployment is high, is stagnant, is continual.

I was in Europe a month or so ago, and picking up an international paper, it said: The German economy is coming back. Unemployment is now down. And then there was another headline that said: The American economy is fairly stagnant; unemployment is stable.

We found, during the break, unemployment hit 4.4 percent. It is as low as it was at the end of the last economic boom. The Germans were excited that their unemployment record was now out of double digits, getting down into the 9, maybe even 8 percent level. That is exciting for them.

The American economy is doing well and does not get the credit it deserves. Perhaps it is the political atmosphere in which we operate, but we keep hearing this described as the Rodney Dangerfield recovery.

It is strong. It is powerful. It is creating new jobs. But if you listen to some, it is in a state of constant disaster. The figures that came out during the break made it clear: The economy is not in a state of constant disaster; the economy is still strong.

However, there was something else that came out during the break which I think deserves some comment. I turn for my text in this matter to a source that is not usually thought of as being particularly friendly to Republicans. I am talking about the Washington Post editorial page.

I was a little stunned, out in Utah dealing with my constituents and getting reacquainted with some real people who have different kinds of priorities than those we normally have here in Washington, to read about Speaker Pelosi's venture into the Middle East. I picked up, via the Internet, an e-mail, a copy of the editorial that ran in the Washington Post.

I think it deserves some review. It is entitled: ``Pratfall in Damascus,'' and the subhead is: ``Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy.'' The opening paragraph begins this way: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why Members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the Secretary of State when traveling abroad.

I have traveled abroad, Madam President, as have you. I went abroad when Bill Clinton was the President of the United States, and I traveled with Phil Gramm of Texas. I do not think anybody has ever accused Phil Gramm of Texas of being particularly fond of Bill Clinton. Every country we went to where Senator Gramm was leading the delegation, the first place we went was to the Embassy. Senator Gramm said over and over again to these ambassadors, every one of whom had been appointed by President Clinton: We are here to help you, Mr. Ambassador, or Madam Ambassador. Tell us what we can do in this country where you are representing the United States that can be of value to you. How can a congressional delegation of varying sizes--usually fairly large--be supportive of the work you are doing in this country?

Then when we met with leaders of the country, whether it would be the chief of government or the chief of state, sometimes both, or lower level officials, we always had in mind what we could say and do to support the Clinton State Department's position as represented by the Clinton Ambassador.

I have traveled with the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid. We have gone to various places in Europe and in South America. In every instance, Senator Reid went out of his way to make contact with the U.S. Ambassador appointed by President Bush, and to make sure our delegation was properly briefed by that ambassador to make sure we did not do something stupid out of our ignorance while we were in that particular country.

I contrast that behavior by Republicans traveling abroad, behavior by Democrats traveling abroad, with the kind of behavior we saw from Speaker

Pelosi. I go back to the Washington Post editorial. I must read in its entirety the final paragraph, because it lays it out far better than I can.

The paragraph refers to a statement by Nancy Pelosi:

We came in friendship, hope and determined that the road to

Damascus is a road to peace.

Then the editorial says, and I quote:

Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any

diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms.

Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority

at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N.

charges that he orchestrated the murder of the former

Lebanese prime minister. The really striking development here

is the attempt by a Democratic Congressional leader to

substitute her own foreign policy for that of the sitting

Republican President. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed

legislation through the House of Representatives that would

strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander-in-chief to

manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to

introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts

with that of the President.

We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military

strategy and regional diplomacy, but Ms. Pelosi's attempt to

establish a shadow Presidency is not only counterproductive,

it is foolish.

That happened while we were on break. There are some who hope it disappears in memory, and in the words of George Orwell, that it goes down the memory hole and never gets called up again.

I was going to talk entirely about the economy, but I think this is something, now that we are back in session, that we should take time to talk about. I hope with this kind of scolding from the Washington Post--I understand there were other newspapers also that took the same position, newspapers that are not favorable to Republicans generally--I would hope the Speaker would realize she has made a rookie mistake and that she will not do it again.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are debating S. 4, dealing with the TSA employees, the Transportation Security Agency. The most controversial aspect of that has to do with the unionization of those employees. We have had this debate before. We had it when the Department of Homeland Security was created. It was a very vigorous debate. Quite frankly, it held up the bill for a considerable period of time.

Ultimately, the Senate and the House decided, with the concurrence of the President, that it would not be a good idea to have these workers unionized. But they are Federal workers and they should have the same rights as every other Federal worker was the argument in favor of unionization. The argument against has to do with the peculiar nature of their assignment. They are not Federal workers in the same sense that people working in the Federal Highway Administration, building highways, might be Federal workers. They are not Federal workers in the same sense that people dealing with normal routines are Federal workers.

They appear to be, as we see them day to day--as all of us go through the security procedures at airports and we take off our shoes and our belts and we forget our boarding pass because it is in the bin with the computer and they have to help us recover it and so on--we all have the sense that these are fairly routine operations they are going through. Therefore, why not allow them to form a union and engage in collective bargaining, because this is, in fact, fairly routine work--very important work, to be sure, but fairly routine. In fact, it is not fairly routine, as we have seen during the time this force has been in place.

Let me take my colleagues back to the situation before the TSA was created. Screening was done airport by airport, contractor by contractor, because it was viewed as a routine kind of thing. Like all Senators, I travel in and out of enough airports to know that each airport is different. In the days before TSA, one never quite knew what they were going to get. You would go through one airport very rapidly, you would go to another and they would be sticklers for detail.

These people were contracted by the airlines, and they had a wide range of skills and a wide range of training. One of the reasons we decided after 9/11 we would have a single Federal force to deal with this was we wanted a single level of training, accountability, and competence to cover the entire American system anywhere in the country.

I have found that is now basically true. If I go through the airport in Philadelphia, I get treated pretty much the same way as if I go through the airport in Salt Lake City. This, however, has a security component that is over and above the screening component.

We are in a war with an enemy unlike any we have ever had before, and the primary tool in protecting us in this war is intelligence. This is an intelligence war rather than a war between tanks and aircraft carriers and infantry battalions. So when the intelligence turns up a key piece of information in this war, the TSA must be flexible and responsive to its leadership.

If we had a series of organized unions, one different in each of the 450 airports that operate in the United States, we would not have the flexibility nor the capacity to respond that we currently have in this situation.

Let me give you a few case studies to illustrate what I mean.

The most dramatic, of course, was that which occurred when the British

intelligence operations discovered there was a plot to blow airplanes up over the Atlantic through the device of taking innocent-looking liquids onboard the airplane and then combining them to create an explosive bomb on the airplane.

I remember a study being done at the University of Utah after this was over, by some of the professors there who looked at it and said: It is possible, it can be done, and it can be done fairly simply. They outlined how it would be done--something that, frankly, had not occurred to anybody as they were setting up TSA in the first place.

The terrorists in Great Britain were inventive enough to come up with the idea. As we contemplate the possibility of it being carried out, it is truly diabolical. They would have gotten on the airplane, passing all screening, gotten together back in the coach cabin--they would not have had to storm the cockpit or try to take over the airplane the way the terrorists on 9/11 did--mixed their chemicals together and had the airplane blow up over the Atlantic.

That means there would be no black box to recover. The entire wreckage of the airplane would be at the bottom of the Atlantic, far beyond any discovery, and the airplane would simply have disappeared off the radar scope, with no explanation, no commentary in the cockpit. The pilot would be reporting, if anybody was listening, that everything was fine, everything was normal and, suddenly, the airplane would have disappeared.

The terrorists were scheduled to blowup not one plane, but three or four. Can we imagine what kind of uncertainty that would have created in the air traffic system worldwide if that plot had succeeded? Fortunately, the British intelligence agencies discovered it, interrupted it, and prevented it. In the process, naturally, they notified the American intelligence agencies. What did those agencies do? They went to TSA. They went to the TSA leadership and explained what had happened. The TSA leadership had a security clearance to get all the information about the intelligence involved, and TSA swung into action immediately.

Let me give you some of the details. At 4 o'clock in the morning, transportation security officers arriving at the east coast airports, where the first flights would take off, were informed there were new procedures. They were instructed in the procedures. They were trained very quickly. Immediately, seamlessly, through the entire TSA system, everyone was brought up to speed.

The difference between what happened in Great Britain and what happened in America is fairly dramatic. Let me read a commentary that describes that: ``Passengers in the United States and the United Kingdom saw two completely different effects of the changes. In the UK, dozens of flights were canceled, scores delayed, and a nightmare of travel backups ensued and lasted for days. By contrast, no cancellations occurred in the United States as a result of this change.'' None.

That is because TSA was nimble; TSA could act quickly. There was no concern about revealing the intelligence source of this information to the leaders of TSA because they were all Government employees, and they were all responsive to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

If collective bargaining had been in place and a requirement for union approval of change of routines, a clearance by shop stewards of change of patterns, to make sure it fit in with the collective bargaining requirement--a different series of requirements at different airports, as the union would organize Philadelphia but not Baltimore, as the union would organize Kennedy but not LaGuardia, as the union would organize Miami but not New Orleans or wherever you might want to go--the patchwork that would occur, if passage of S. 4 goes forward in its present form, would create all kinds of chaos in the United States.

Fear of disclosing the British information might have caused U.S. officials to say: Let's think twice before we describe what is going on and why we are doing what we are doing because it might reveal sources and methods to people who are not cleared for that and inadvertently they could leak it back to al-Qaida. None of those fears occurred. None of those problems arose because TSA was structured from the very beginning to be the kind of agency it is.

Another example of what could happen if we allow S. 4 to go forward in its present form occurred in Canada. Quoting from a description of that:

Consider a recent incident in Canada, a nation whose air

security system does not have the flexibility like that

granted to the TSA. Last Thanksgiving, as part of a labor

dispute, ``passenger luggage was not properly screened--and

sometimes not screened at all'' as airport screeners engaged

in a work-to-rule campaign, creating long lines at Toronto's

Pearson International Airport.

OK, that is the kind of thing we expect. Unions organize for the ability to do slowdowns or strikes or whatever as pressure on management to get what they want. That is what happened.

What was the consequence with respect to security?

A government report found that to clear the lines, about

250,000 passengers were rushed through with minimal or no

screening whatsoever. One Canadian security expert was quoted

as saying that ``if terrorists had known that in those three

days that their baggage wasn't going to be searched, that

would have been bad.''

I think it would have been more than bad. If the terrorists had had any advance indication there would be that kind of breakdown in the screening activities in Canada as a result of union activity, they would have said: All right, that is the time we go to the airport, we go to the airport in some numbers, we carry liquids with us in our baggage, and we put explosives in our checked baggage because it is all going to go through without proper screening. The pressures from the Thanksgiving Day travelers are going to be so high that people are going to say: Well, just let it go through this once.

For the terrorists to strike a significant blow at the United States, all we need to do is ``let it go through just this once'' and have them have advance notice of when it would go through.

You cannot organize a strike, you cannot organize a work action without people knowing about it. I am not suggesting, in any sense, that anyone in TSA--unionized or not--would ever be complicit in notifying al-Qaida of the fact that a work action was coming. But al- Qaida, in a unionized situation, would say: Here is something we want to monitor. Here is something we want to pay attention to. Some innocent, inadvertent remark on the part of a unionized member of TSA could easily get back to al-Qaida, and they would say: We are ready for this. Let's go. Here is the opportunity. It is going to come up at Thanksgiving. It is going to come up at New Years. It is going to come up at the Super Bowl or some other situation.

Unions look for those kinds of situations where they can get maximum leverage for their work actions. It is not hard to figure out where that kind of thing might occur. So if a union is dissatisfied with working conditions at an airport that services the Super Bowl city on Super Bowl Sunday and says: We are going to have a slowdown here unless we get this, that or the other, and the slowdown occurs, it would not take a genius on al-Qaida's part to say: That is where we probe. That is where we do our best to get into the system.

Once again, if the plot in Britain had borne fruit and three airplanes had disappeared off the radar screen, with no advance warning and no way to find out what actually happened, worldwide travel would have been disrupted everywhere. The economy not only of our country but many others would have been seriously devastated. The consequences, tragic as they would have been for the families of those on those three airplanes, would have multiplied across the world.

I do not want to take that chance. I intend to support the administration's position, which says: If this provision relating to unionization of TSA employees does not come out of the bill, we will oppose the bill. The President has indicated he might very well veto the bill if this provision does not come out. I hope we do not have to go that far. I will oppose this provision. I will oppose the bill if the provision stays in. If it does go that far and gets to the President's desk, I will vote to uphold the President's veto.

I think the war on terror has taught us we are dealing with an entirely different kind of enemy, one who is very patient, one who is very intelligent,

and one who is very inventive. For us to treat security matters such as airport security as a routine kind of task that can be dealt with in routine kinds of training and, therefore, is eligible for routine kinds of labor relations between management--in this case, our leading security agencies--and labor--in this case, those who are on the frontline of security for our Nation--would be foolish.

For that reason, again, Mr. President, I would oppose this bill if this provision does not come out.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I agree with the Senator from Alaska. Funding intended for NDIIPP serves a vital purpose for our Nation. I will work with the Senator and our colleagues to restore these funds.

There is a wide assumption that digital materials will be available tomorrow and that we can put off taking measures to preserve them until sometime in the future. That is not the case. The average life of a Web site is 44 days and material not saved today will be gone tomorrow. Geospatial information, including records of land elevation, weather patterns, water levels, LANDSAT imagery, State and local maps and other statistical information about an area exist almost exclusively in digital format today. If these materials are not actively preserved, the vital information they contain will be lost. Outside of efforts being undertaken by government agencies such as the Library of Congress and its public and private sector partners, little is being done to preserve digitally created materials for the future use of the Congress. The expense is great, the technologies necessary for long term preservation of digital information are in their infancy and the risks of loss are not widely known or understood. The legislators of the future will have access to only what we actively preserve today.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to reintroduce the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2007, together with my colleague Senator Hatch. This legislation will ensure the protection of critical lands along the Colorado River corridor in southeastern Utah and will help provide important funding for Utah's school children.

In Utah, we treasure our children's education. A key component of our education system is the 3.5 million acres of school trust lands scattered throughout the State. Upon Utah's admission to the Union in 1896, these lands were dedicated to support public education. Revenue from the trust lands, whether from grazing, forestry, surface leasing, or mineral development, is placed in the State School Fund. This fund is a permanent, income-producing endowment created by Congress to fund Utah's public education. Unfortunately, the majority of these lands are surrounded by public lands, making responsible management very difficult. It is critical to both the State of Utah and the Bureau of Land Management that we consolidate their respective lands to ensure that both public agencies are permitted to fulfill their mandates.

The legislation we are introducing today is yet another chapter in our State's long history of consolidating these State lands for the financial well-being of our education system. These efforts allow the Federal land management agencies to consolidate public lands in environmentally-sensitive areas that can then be reasonably managed. We see this exchange as a win-win solution for the State of Utah and its school children, as well as the Department of the Interior, the caretaker of our public lands.

In 1998, Congress passed the first major Utah school trust land exchange which consolidated hundreds of thousands of acres. Again in 2000, Congress enacted an exchange consolidating another 100,000 acres. I was proud to play a role in those efforts, and the bill we are introducing today is yet another step in the long journey toward fulfilling the promise Congress made to Utah's school children in 1896.

Utah's School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration manages some of the most spectacular lands in America, located along the Colorado River in southeastern Utah. This legislation will ensure that places like Westwater Canyon of the Colorado River, the world famous Kokopelli and Slickrock biking trails, some of the largest natural rock arches in the United States, wilderness study areas, and viewsheds for Arches National Park will be traded into Federal ownership and for the benefit of future generations. At the same time, the school children of Utah will receive mineral and development lands that are not environmentally-sensitive, and where responsible development makes sense. This will be an equal value exchange, with approximately 40,000 acres exchanged on both sides, giving taxpayers and the school children of Utah a fair deal. Moreover, the legislation establishes a common- sense valuation process for resources that are often either overlooked or overvalued because of their highly-speculative nature.

This legislation represents a truly collaborative process that has included local governments, the State, the recreation and environmental communities, and other interested parties. We

also worked closely with the Department of the Interior on proper valuation in the appraisal of the lands. In a hearing held before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on May 24, 2006, the Department of the Interior expressed their support for the bill and said that this land exchange will resolve management issues, improve public access, and facilitate greater resource protection. We look forward to working with the appropriate committees toward a successful resolution of this proposed exchange during this Congress.

I ask my colleagues to support our effort to fund the education of our children in Utah and to protect some of this nation's truly great land. I urge support of the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2007.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to reintroduce the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2007, together with my colleague Senator Hatch. This legislation will ensure the protection of critical lands along the Colorado River corridor in southeastern Utah and will help provide important funding for Utah's school children.

In Utah, we treasure our children's education. A key component of our education system is the 3.5 million acres of school trust lands scattered throughout the State. Upon Utah's admission to the Union in 1896, these lands were dedicated to support public education. Revenue from the trust lands, whether from grazing, forestry, surface leasing, or mineral development, is placed in the State School Fund. This fund is a permanent, income-producing endowment created by Congress to fund Utah's public education. Unfortunately, the majority of these lands are surrounded by public lands, making responsible management very difficult. It is critical to both the State of Utah and the Bureau of Land Management that we consolidate their respective lands to ensure that both public agencies are permitted to fulfill their mandates.

The legislation we are introducing today is yet another chapter in our State's long history of consolidating these State lands for the financial well-being of our education system. These efforts allow the Federal land management agencies to consolidate public lands in environmentally-sensitive areas that can then be reasonably managed. We see this exchange as a win-win solution for the State of Utah and its school children, as well as the Department of the Interior, the caretaker of our public lands.

In 1998, Congress passed the first major Utah school trust land exchange which consolidated hundreds of thousands of acres. Again in 2000, Congress enacted an exchange consolidating another 100,000 acres. I was proud to play a role in those efforts, and the bill we are introducing today is yet another step in the long journey toward fulfilling the promise Congress made to Utah's school children in 1896.

Utah's School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration manages some of the most spectacular lands in America, located along the Colorado River in southeastern Utah. This legislation will ensure that places like Westwater Canyon of the Colorado River, the world famous Kokopelli and Slickrock biking trails, some of the largest natural rock arches in the United States, wilderness study areas, and viewsheds for Arches National Park will be traded into Federal ownership and for the benefit of future generations. At the same time, the school children of Utah will receive mineral and development lands that are not environmentally-sensitive, and where responsible development makes sense. This will be an equal value exchange, with approximately 40,000 acres exchanged on both sides, giving taxpayers and the school children of Utah a fair deal. Moreover, the legislation establishes a common- sense valuation process for resources that are often either overlooked or overvalued because of their highly-speculative nature.

This legislation represents a truly collaborative process that has included local governments, the State, the recreation and environmental communities, and other interested parties. We

also worked closely with the Department of the Interior on proper valuation in the appraisal of the lands. In a hearing held before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on May 24, 2006, the Department of the Interior expressed their support for the bill and said that this land exchange will resolve management issues, improve public access, and facilitate greater resource protection. We look forward to working with the appropriate committees toward a successful resolution of this proposed exchange during this Congress.

I ask my colleagues to support our effort to fund the education of our children in Utah and to protect some of this nation's truly great land. I urge support of the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2007.

Madam President, as we have a debate around here about ethics and congressional perks and all of the rest of those issues, I am interested to find some Members of my own party, at least in the other body, boasting that they do not even have a passport, that they are so focused on their jobs that they don't do any foreign travel at all. When I was a newly elected Senator, the then-Republican leader, Bob Dole, took me and a number of other freshmen up to New Jersey to spend a day with former President Richard Nixon. Whatever you might think of Richard Nixon, I think you might confess he had a grasp of foreign affairs that was perhaps unparalleled. And he will be remembered, along with his other problems, for his opening to China, for his level of detente with Russia, and the other things he did in the foreign affairs field.

As we sat with him, one of the first things he said to us was: You cannot do your jobs as Senators if you do not travel. You need to be overseas. You need to be in these other countries. He said: I know the press will criticize you for it, but it is essential that you do it.

I have taken his advice. I have discovered he was right. The press does criticize us for it. There were articles in the Washington Post saying: What are these people doing viewing Inca ruins on a holiday at taxpayer expense, as if the whole purpose was some kind of congressional junket. And there would sit some of my friends in the House, smug in their assurance they didn't even have a passport and they were never going to be criticized for doing this.

The fact is, Nixon was right--not only for the things we learn when we travel but also for the messages we send when we travel. The majority leader had to go over the holiday period because his schedule was so full with other demands that this was the only time he could get away. I was honored and very much pleased when he asked me to come along. The fact that he made it a bipartisan delegation demonstrates his determination to make these trips have an impact both at home and abroad. It did have an impact on the six of us who were there. We have now come back with an understanding of trade issues in ways that you could not get reading a newspaper or, as one paper said: Why couldn't he find out these facts by getting on the telephone? Well, we went to a flower farm where it was pointed out to us, and we saw specific evidence, that the efforts to raise potatoes in Ecuador or corn or wheat may sound good in a political situation, as some Ecuadorian politicians are saying, but the climate and the altitude say they should be raising flowers. It gave a flavor to the whole question of free trade around the world when we realized the most efficient place to raise corn is in the Great Plains of the United States, and the most efficient place to raise baby's breath or roses is in the high altitudes and sunshine of Ecuador.

The fellow who was running the plant said to us: All we are doing is harvesting the sunshine and sending it abroad, and these people have jobs which they would not otherwise have. And this soil and this altitude means raising corn would be crazy. So let the Americans raise corn and ship it to Ecuador, and let the Ecuadorians raise roses and ship them to us.

Being there, seeing the plant, seeing the people at work, seeing the conditions they were under is worth 10,000 phone calls to have somebody try to explain it to us. But perhaps more importantly, on the political level, what Senator Conrad was talking about, showing up in three countries that have not seen a significant congressional delegation in anybody's memory was a big deal. The press was everywhere. We were on the front page of the newspapers. We were on all of the television stations. The Ecuadorians gave us each a Panama hat. The Panama hat is misnamed. It has always been produced in Ecuador, but for some reason it got labeled the Panama hat. I wore mine. I was not an important member of the delegation as far as title is concerned, but I got on television because I was wearing a Panama hat. The Ecuadorians took sufficient pride in that I found the cameras following me around, just to say here is a U.S. Senator who is wearing one of our local products. I don't know how much good that did, but it can't have done any harm.

Senator Reid handled himself with his usual good taste and aplomb in all of the exchanges and all of the press

opportunities he had. No matter how much the Presidents of some of these countries who have an anti-American background might resent the Americans, they could not, in the presence of six American Senators, including the Senate majority leader, not be impressed. They could not not be tempered in their attitudes toward the United States. And some of these Presidents who have the reputation of anti-Americanism in the meetings with others in addition to us were very gracious, and then ultimately in the presence of these Senators, outgoing in their praise of the United States and their delight at having this kind of delegation. Every single Ambassador made it clear to us that by our being there, we made their jobs easier. We made their jobs better. We demonstrated an American interest.

I was reminded when I was there on a congressional delegation of a statement I heard from the leader of a European country who opened the conversation by chiding us and saying: It has been too long since a Senator has been here. What is the matter? Aren't we important enough for you to come?

Well, if a European country that sees Senators come through about every 6 months had that reaction when it had been over a year since a Senator came, how about a South American country that had never seen a Senator in the lifetime of that particular administration.

So, again, we who were on the trip were well served by the things we learned. I have just given one quick example. My colleagues will give others. But just as importantly, the United States was well served in terms of the impact this kind of travel made on those countries that had not seen senatorial delegations.

So I intend for the rest of my Senate career to follow Richard Nixon's advice when he said: You cannot do your job if you don't travel. And I would urge those who somehow think they can get a little cheap publicity in the United States by saying: I am above that, I don't accept all of that travel--you are being derelict in your duty.

Nixon made one other comment. He said: Yes, I know the press will criticize you, but it makes great speech material when you get home. I hope that has been the case for those of us here today from whom the Senate has heard.

Mr. President, I listened with interest to my friend from Wisconsin. I have to repeat what I said on the floor before. I may be the only one--I am not sure--who has had experience with the revolving door, as one who went through it. I worked in the Nixon administration. The day after I walked out, I had a number of clients who wanted me to lobby them at my former department. I was at the Department of Transportation, and I was the chief lobbyist. We pretend that executive departments don't have lobbyists. We call them congressional relations specialists or congressional liaisons, but they are lobbyists. And I had been lobbying the Congress on behalf of the Department of Transportation.

In that role I got access to the Secretary's inner circle. And the day after I left, I was hired by people who had interests before the Department. There was no prohibition for that at that time. So I went to the Department of Transportation and to my old friends with whom I had been working very closely for that period of time. I discovered very quickly that the fact that I no longer was at the Secretary's ear, the fact that I no longer had any position of influence in the Department made me a whole lot less welcome in their offices than I had been the week before. They were happy to see me. They were polite. But they had other things to do. And they were happy to get me out of their offices and out of their hair as quickly as they could.

Did I have an advantage? Yes, I had the advantage of knowing the Department well enough to know where to go and not waste my time. Did I have any additional clout to get these people to do something that would not have been in the public interest by virtue of the fact that I had been there and worked with them and knew them? Not at all. These were legitimate public servants who were not about to do something improper just because a friend who had worked with them asked them to do it. Of course, I was not about to ask them to do anything improper because that would be a violation of my responsibility to my clients. But I learned quickly that this idea of the revolving door is vastly overrated and overstated by some of our friends in the media.

I suppose we will pass the Feingold amendment. I don't suppose it will make any difference. But the idea that a former Member sitting in a board room talking to other people who are engaged in lobbying activity and saying to them: Don't talk to Senator so-and-so, talk to Senator so-and-so because the second Senator so-and-so is the one who really understands this issue. Don't waste your time with the first one. I know him well enough to know that he really won't get your argument--to criminalize that kind of a statement made in a law firm or a lobbying firm, to me, is going much too far. But we will probably pass it. We will go forward. We will see if it survives the scrutiny that it will get in conference and in conversations with the House.

I, once again, say that we are doing a lot of things that are in response to the media and in response to special interest groups that call themselves public interest groups but raise money and pay salaries just as thoroughly as the special interest groups. And they have to have something to do to keep their members happy. They have to have something to do to keep those dues coming in, those contributions coming in. So they scare them that a U.S. Senator, who leaves and goes to a law firm, cannot be in the room when anybody in that law firm is talking about exercising their constitutional right to petition the Government for redress of their grievances because, if the Senator is in that room for a 2-year period, he is somehow corrupting the entire process. I think that is silly.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

How is the time allocated between now and the scheduled votes?

Do I understand, Mr. President, that the votes are not locked in for 8:10 p.m.?

So the time between now and 8:10 p.m. is not allocated.

Mr. President, I wish to be fair to whoever opposes my amendment to allow time for them to do that, but I would like to speak briefly in favor of my amendment.

My amendment is called the grassroots lobbying amendment. I have discussed it and its virtues at some length previously during the period of debate, but I remind everyone what this is all about.

This has to do with the regulations and reporting requirements placed on organizations that stimulate people to contact their Members of Congress. These organizations can be, and many times are, outside of Washington, DC. They can, and many times do, carry on their work without ever contacting a Member of Congress directly or participating in any of the activities we normally think of as lobbying. And yet, if an organization or an individual were to stimulate neighbors, Members of a fraternal organization, their bowling club--whatever it is--to try to get them active in the process of petitioning the Government, they run the risk of not registering properly because under the underlying bill, they are defined as lobbyists, and if they fail to fill out their forms properly, if they fail to register properly, they are subject to a $200,000 fine.

The ACLU has said--in my opinion accurately--that this would have a

chilling effect on all of these kinds of activities. People on the right side, the National Right to Life, have said this would have a chilling effect on everything we do.

I know there has been talk about astroturf lobbyists and astroturf campaigns. I am certainly competent to know when an astroturf phony campaign has been mounted. The letters and the postcards come into the office, and it is very transparent they are not genuine and real. I do not need to be protected from my constituents by the language in the underlying bill.

My amendment is very simple. It simply strikes the grassroots provision.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee for her kind words. I echo her laudatory comments about the staffs on both sides. This is a baptism of fire for all of us, for my staff and her staff as well, and they have had enough background that they know how to swim.

We are very grateful for the cooperation we have received and the support that has come from the staff. I look forward to a productive Congress, working with Senator Feinstein on the Rules Committee on all of the other matters that will come before us.

amendment no. 98

I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, may I inquire as to how long this presentation will be?

I have no objection.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Is the Senator aware of the fact that there are well over 1 million veterans who have moved to Medicare Part D rather than the veterans plan because they find that the restricted formulary in the veterans plan has made it impossible for them to get the drugs they want? And one of the reasons the VA plan is cheaper is because they are rationing drugs? Is the Senator aware of the fact that many veterans have, in fact, moved to Medicare Part D for that reason?

I have no objection if we can add to that that following the presentation of the Senator from Vermont, I will be recognized.

Madam President, I have an amendment, No. 20, which I have offered and which I believe we will be voting on at some point, if not today then tomorrow. I rise to discuss the amendment and to share with my fellow Senators comments that have been made about the amendment by those groups in the Nation that would be most affected by it.

My amendment is very simple. It is a single sentence. It strikes section 220 of the underlying bill. So the whole focus of this discussion has to be on section 220 and what is it and what does it do and why do I think it should be stricken.

If I can go back to the history of this bill, back to the Senate- passed bill we dealt with in the previous Congress, I can tell you where section 220 came from. It was an attempt to deal with what the press has labeled ``the astroturf groups.'' That is a little bit hard to understand.

What does astroturf have to do with anything here? There are grassroots lobbyists and then there are groups the press has decided are phony groups pretending to be grassroots lobbyists. And it is these phony groups that they have labeled ``astroturf lobbyists'' and they think something ought to be done about it.

Here is the theoretical definition of an astroturf lobbyist: An astroturf lobbyist is someone who gets paid, presumably by a large organization--a labor union, a corporation, a trade association, whatever it might be--to pretend there is a groundswell of grassroots support or opposition for or to a particular piece of legislation. So this hired gun, if you will, sends out letters, e-mails, faxes-- whatever it is--to stir up phony grassroots support for or against the particular piece of legislation.

The idea was that this hired gun, this individual who does this is, in fact, a lobbyist, even though he or she never talks to a Member of Congress, even though he or she may not live in Washington, DC, or even come here, even though he or she has no connection with any Member of Congress or the staff, because he or she is trying to stimulate communications to Congress that have the effect of putting pressure on Congress. He or she is a lobbyist and, therefore, must register, must report who pays him or her, must go through all of the procedures connected with a lobbyist under the Federal Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Put in that narrow context, there may be some justification for section 220.

Now let's step out of that hypothetical context and go to the real world, and we discover that section 220 is pernicious in its effect, which is why it is opposed all across the political spectrum by those who are involved in trying to put pressure on Congress by virtue of communicating with their Members.

On the right-hand side of the slate we have the Eagle Forum, on the left-hand side of the slate, if you will, we have the ACLU, and all across the spectrum we have a number of groups that are saying: Wait a minute, the prohibitions on astroturf lobbyists or grassroots lobbyists, as they are called in the bill, are prohibitions that cut to the heart of the constitutional right of Americans to petition the Government for redress of their grievances.

I have a letter, a copy of which was sent to every Senator, from the ACLU. Knowing what I know about senatorial offices, I think most Senators will not see the letter, so I will quote from it and at the end of my presentation ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record so that all Senators and their offices can read it.

Here is what the ACLU has to say about this particular provision:

Section 220, entitled ``Disclosure of Paid Efforts to

Stimulate Grassroots Lobbying'' imposes onerous reporting

requirements that will chill constitutionally protected

activity. Advocacy organizations large and small would now

find their communications to the general public about policy

matters redefined as lobbying and therefore subject to

registration and quarterly reporting. Failure to register and

report could have severe civil and potentially criminal

sanctions.

If I can end the quote there and insert this fact: When we adopted the Vitter amendment on January 12, we raised that fine to $200,000. Someone who gets his neighbors together and says, let's all write our Congressmen on this issue, and then spends some money doing it, under this provision becomes a paid lobbyist, and if he does not report and register would be fined $200,000 for having done that. The ACLU does not overstate the case when they say this would have a chilling effect on constitutionally protected activity.

If I can go back to the ACLU letter and continue quoting:

Section 220 would apply to even small, state grassroots

organizations with no lobbying presence in Washington. When

faced with burdensome registration and reporting

requirements, some of these organizations may well decide

that silence is the best option.

I guarantee you that if this small organization has a lawyer, the lawyer will advise them that silence is the best option. The lawyer will say: You are exposing yourself to a $200,000 fine if you don't do this right, and if you don't have the capacity to go through all of the paperwork and be sure you do this right, the best thing to do is simply not try to stimulate anybody to write his Congressman or go visit the local congressional office.

Back to the letter from the ACLU:

It is well settled that lobbying, which embodies the

separate and distinct political freedoms of petitioning,

speech, and assembly enjoys the highest constitutional

protection.

And for every statement they make here, as you will see when you get the letter inserted in the Record, the ACLU gives Supreme Court decisions in support of the position, and in many instances they are quoting directly from the Supreme Court opinion and not paraphrasing.

Back to their letter:

Petitioning the government is--

and this is a subquote from the Supreme Court--

core political speech,

the ACLU again--

for which the First Amendment protection is--the Supreme

Court--``at its zenith.''

So we are talking about something the Supreme Court has ruled is at the zenith of protected political speech under the first amendment.

Now, back to another Supreme Court position, quoting again from the

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, may I make a quick response to the Senator from California before we hear from the Senator from Pennsylvania? I will not take more than a minute or two.

I simply want to make this point with respect to the threshold that causes people to come under the provisions of the bill. There is, indeed, a $10,000 minimum for a 3-month period threshold in the bill, but section 220(b)(1) explicitly removes ``paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying'' from the scope of this exemption. In other words, $1 per quarter spent to stimulate citizens to communicate with their representatives in Congress triggers the registration and reporting requirement for an individual who meets the other four numbered criteria.

I agree with the Senator from California. This is very badly drafted and needs an awful lot of work, which is why I think the best thing to do with it is simply strike it.

Mr. President, I don't want to get deep into this confrontation between the two leaders, but I say to my good friend from Illinois--and he is my good friend--that I was present at the Republican luncheon and there was no indigestion on this bill. I was asked by the Republican leader to present where we are on the floor to the members of the conference. By the way, our rule is that we don't discuss anything that happens in the Republican conference, so I am bending that rule. We are allowed to at least discuss what we personally say. So I will not disclose what anybody else said, but I will bend the rule a little to characterize it.

I made the presentation as to where we were on the floor. There was no pushback whatsoever to the idea that we should pass this bill. There was no suggestion from any Member of the Republican conference that this bill should be taken down by some subterfuge.

The Senator from New Hampshire has gone to the leader and made a request. The leader has responded to the request, feeling that the Senator from New Hampshire is entitled to a vote. We are where we are. The leaders will make their decision and have their discussion. I want to make the record as clear as I possibly can that any Republican who wants to use this as a subterfuge to take down the bill has not made his or her position known to me or to the leader. There is no suggestion of that at all of which I am aware.

Yes, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Mississippi for that explanation. I simply want to add a little bit of history, which I did previously, to his comments. He said when he saw how President Clinton used the line-item veto he began to wonder if he hadn't, in fact, made a mistake by supporting it. I supported the line-item veto. When I saw how President Clinton used it, I was sure I had made a mistake. Here on the floor and in the debate with Senator Moynihan and Senator Byrd, I made the commitment that I would never support the line-item veto again because it was used in a way I had not anticipated. It was used in a way very different from the way State legislatures have dealt with the line-item vetoes that Governors had. That was my rationale for supporting it. I said: The Governors have it and it works; why shouldn't the President have it? That is because I didn't understand the way the Congress really works. So I said I will never support a line-item veto again.

When the White House called me and said, We need your vote on this, I said, You won't get it. And then when I saw the details of what the Senator from New Hampshire has crafted, I realized, as he has pointed out, that it is crafted with the Supreme Court rescission in mind, with the history of the experience with President Clinton in mind, and I am now willing to support the enhanced rescission legislation the Senator from New Hampshire has proposed because, as he has said, this is not the line-item veto.

Our friends in the press like a quick headline that they think everybody can understand, and they use the headline ``line-item veto,'' and then it sticks. In fact, that is not what it is, and a careful reading of the bill makes it clear that is not what it is. If, indeed, that were what it was, I would vote against it.

But I am hoping the Democratic leader, the majority leader, can work out something which can give the opportunity for this to be brought forward, debated, and then voted on. I do note, as the Senator from New Hampshire has noted, that in order for it to pass, it would require 60 votes. So if, indeed, there are 41 votes against it, the logical thing to do is bring it up, kill it, and let us move forward. But apparently there are not 41 votes against it. I don't know, but I am guessing. So we are where we are. I am hoping it all gets worked out because I think we are close to getting this bill done. I think it is a bill that both sides can vote for overwhelmingly. I have enjoyed working with the chairman of the committee in getting reasonable adjustments in the bill, and it would be a shame to see all of that hard work go down the drain if we can't get this resolved.

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

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

Mr. President, I listened with interest on the television when my friend from Connecticut was responding to my amendment, talking about the grassroots or astroturf kinds of lobbyists. I was struck as usual with my friend's good intentions. I am reminded once again of a comment I made, which the Presiding Officer heard me make, which is hard cases make bad law.

The Abramoff situation was clearly a matter of money laundering. It had little or nothing to do with lobbyists. He found a way to use a particular activity in order to channel contributions from one of his clients back to himself in fees that would be hidden. That is being offered as a reason why we need to adopt this amendment with respect to grassroots organizations.

My friend from Connecticut talked about simply disclosure. Everybody who does this ought to say what they are doing, and we are not stopping them. Yes, they have their constitutional right to do this. And yes, it is a proper thing for them to do, so long as it all gets disclosed. Because if Abramoff had been forced to disclose, he wouldn't have been able to launder the money. That sounds enormously reasonable. But as I listened to the details, comparing them to my knowledge of the underlying bill, I realized, once again, this is being crafted with an eye toward the astroturf lobbyists, without an understanding of how chilling an effect it will have on genuine grassroots kinds of activities.

As the ACLU pointed out in its letter, the reporting requirements are so heavy and so onerous and now, as a result of an amendment we have previously adopted, carry with them a $200,000 fine, if they are inadvertently broken, that it will have a chilling effect on many groups who will decide they simply don't want to run the risk. We simply don't want to expose ourselves to this. Someone who inadvertently violates the law or violates the reporting requirements which we would be putting into the law, who accepts a relatively small amount of money for his services but somehow triggers the amount listed in the bill, finds himself or herself subject to a $200,000 fine for each incident. And even if that individual goes to court and gets it set aside, the legal costs will clearly go above $200,000.

To what end? Members of Congress are fully aware of how these astroturf campaigns are mounted. We understand when we are the target of one of

these. I don't know a single Member of Congress who can be swayed by this kind of thing, if, in fact, the underlying legislation is bad legislation in the opinion of the Member of Congress. I know many of these people do this to make a living, and they convince their Members that it is a worthwhile kind of thing. They will still continue to do that, the big ones. This is not something that is part of any culture of corruption. We cannot point to anybody who has been overwhelmed by these and, therefore, changed his mind on a particular piece of legislation.

Let's have a little understanding of the way the system works and a little common sense about how Congress responds, about how people try to bring particular pressure points upon them.

I respect my friend from Connecticut. I think his reading of the law is obviously very careful. But I come back to exactly the same position I did before in my earlier statement. This will have a chilling effect on honest, responsible, legitimate grassroots kind of activity, because the people who engage in that kind of activity will be afraid that their exposure to a $200,000 fine is too great. And it will be easier for them to say: Never mind.

People who do the astroturf kind of thing, where they are big enough and they have enough money, they have enough legal background, file all their reports and will continue to do it. The reports will be filed, and no one will pay any attention to them. I often say the best place to hide a leaf is on the floor of the forest surrounded by all of the other leaves. There will be a blizzard of reports coming from the big people who can afford to do this, and there will be a chilling effect on the little people who will be very nervous about the exposure we have built into this bill.

In the previous bill passed by the Senate that had this provision in it, the fine was $50,000. That was serious enough. Now that the fine is $200,000, I am getting all kinds of concern from all kinds of groups that are not professional astroturf lobbyists but legitimate grassroots groups that are very anxious that this is going to, in effect, hamper their ability to exercise their constitutional rights. Will it legally prevent them from exercising their rights? No, it won't. Will it practically prevent them from doing so? Yes, in all probability, it will. And the result is simply not worth that kind of risk to run.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am grateful to the majority leader for scheduling a vote on my amendment No. 81. I wish to inform the Members of the Senate that Senator Feinstein and I have been working to get this worked out in such a fashion that a recorded vote would not be necessary.

I raised the issue because lawyers on our side examined the underlying legislation and said the way it was worded, it could, in fact, be interpreted to prevent the 501(c)(3) activity that is purely educational and not connected with lobbying in any way, in which many of us participate.

The flagship example of that is the Aspen Institute and their Congressional Program. I am told the Aspen Institute has approved the language that is in the underlying bill. But I am convinced from the analysis of the lawyers that someone who wanted to do that program harm could, in fact, take the language of the underlying bill and attack the Aspen Institute Congressional Program.

Furthermore, while the Aspen Institute is perhaps the best known and the best supported, there are a number of other purely educational programs conducted by groups that have some connection with lobbyists. They do not take lobbyists on the trip. The lobbyists do not use the trip in any way. But because the organization has some connection to a lobbyist--may have employed a lobbyist for some issue unrelated to the trip or may, as in the case of the Aspen Institute, have lobbyists on its board--I am told that someone who wanted to disrupt those programs could challenge them.

So we have tried to work out a way to carve out this area reasonably and clearly, and we thought we had a deal. We had approval from both sides of the aisle by Senators who looked at it and said: Yes, this is exactly right. This is something we can certainly live with. We were, frankly, within minutes of having a voice vote on this, and then an objection was raised. The Senator who raised the objection has refused to budge. He has refused to compromise.

I have modified our original proposal in an effort to get compromise and have been unable to get it. So we will be voting on it. I would hope everyone would understand, when the time comes to vote on the Bennett amendment No. 81, that we are not, in fact, as some might allege, creating any kind of a loophole. The Ethics Committee will be involved to review all of these programs in advance, to make sure they are, in fact, educational programs. Lobbyists will not be allowed to travel or be present at any of the meetings.

We are talking about the kinds of things we should have more of in the Congress rather than less--opportunities across the aisle to get together under the sponsorship of a neutral organization, in a neutral location, and talk through the various problems.

Again and again, as I have been involved in these things, people say to me: Why can't we have more of this in Congress? The way the underlying bill is written contains the potential of having less of it. My amendment is structured to see to it that we are able to preserve those connections and relationships we already have. And if some future foundation decides to fund a 501(c)(3) for an additional one, they will not be prohibited from doing so just because someone on the foundation's

board happens to be a lobbyist. They will not be prevented from doing so just because someone connected with the 501(c)(3) happens to be a lobbyist, totally removed and apart from anything the 501(c)(3) is trying to do.

I believe very strongly this is the way we ought to go. I am grateful to my chairman, Senator Feinstein, for her willingness to cooperate in a compromise. I am sorry we have been unable to work it out so that it is necessary for us to have a vote.

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

Mr. President, for the information of Senators, on this amendment I wish to give them the names of the groups that would likely be prohibited from sponsoring educational travel, unless this amendment is adopted: Aspen Institute, Transatlantic Policy Network, Save the Children, CARE, Global Health Council, Population Action International.

For those who think this is a loophole that Jack Abramoff could drive through, I point out that the amendment requires the Ethics Committee to vet each program in advance, examine who is going, whether there would be a lobbyist present, and what the purpose is. If you vote against this amendment, in my view, you are expressing a vote of no confidence in the chairman and ranking member of the Ethics Committee, Senators Boxer and Cornyn. I urge adoption of the amendment.

I yield back my time.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to lay the pending amendment aside and call up two amendments, one on behalf of Senator Coburn, No. 59, and one on behalf of Senator Coleman, No. 39, and then have them laid aside as well.

I ask unanimous consent that these amendments now be laid aside.

Madam President, I have listened with interest to the Senator from Vermont. I have a few quick reactions. As we get closer to his amendment, I will perhaps be more specific about some of them. Comments about the revolving door situation, I must confess I am a little less than overwhelmed by the arguments about the revolving door because I have been there. I served in the executive branch in the 1960s, left on New Year's Eve of 1969, and took up my new duties as a lobbyist on January 1, 1970. In those days there were no restrictions with respect to a revolving door, and I was immediately called by people who wanted my services with respect to the agency I had just left. They paid well. I accepted their contracts, and I went back to see my old friends back in the Department of Transportation.

It came as somewhat of a shock to me that no one wanted to talk to me. Now that I was no longer a member of the Secretary's Office, now that I no longer had direct access to the Secretary to discuss things important to the administration, now that I was an outsider, my friends were happy to see me for lunch, they were happy to talk about my family, but I could no longer do them any good within the Department. I was no longer a power within the Department. I was an outsider, and they were happy to get me out of their offices as quickly as they could.

I discovered firsthand that the idea of the revolving door is vastly overrated. I was like any other lobbyist. I had to make my points on the basis of the validity of the arguments I was making and not because at one time I had been in the Department with them. We get carried away with

this because the media talks about how terrible is the revolving door. I am willing to let a reasonable period of time pass, but I think many of these arguments go beyond what reality has been to me.

I heard the Senator from Vermont talk about publicly funded campaigns. I will make this observation: We have the largest poll taken in the United States every year on April 15. Every year, every American taxpayer is given the opportunity to set aside just $3 of taxes he already owes--this is not additional money; this is $3 of the money he already owes--to be placed in the Presidential fund to fund Presidential campaigns.

Ninety percent of the taxpayers who have the opportunity to put $3 into a Federal fund for education vote no. That is not by accident. You have to check the box one way or the other. Ninety percent vote, no, they don't want to do that. I am not sure we should be talking about that as a great idea.

Finally, the business that is in the amendment of the Senator from Vermont that says we must disclose corporate contributions 24 months prior to and 6 months after the passage of certain pieces of legislation neglects the fact that corporate contributions are illegal, and they have been since 1902 in the days of Franklin Roosevelt. What the press calls ``corporate contributions''--the press misunderstands-- are PAC contributions. I was around Washington when we had the Watergate situation and I remember the rhetoric in these halls when the creation of political action committees was hailed as the basic reform that would clean up campaign contributions, because people make contributions to PACs; corporations do not. Individuals make the money available to PACs; corporations do not.

Corporate contributions are illegal. These are individual contributions put together by a political action committee and then given in the name of the political action committee from the private funds of private individuals. This was hailed as a reform. This was hailed as the way to clean things up. Because the media doesn't understand that, because the people in the media don't realize that a corporate name attached to a political action committee does not mean these are corporate funds, most of my constituents now think, as the Senator from Vermont has suggested, that this is corporate money. I have to patiently explain to them once again this is not corporate money. I could give you an example from one of my colleagues here. He has in his State a very large processing plant that produces products that are sold under the label of Kraft Foods. He is very popular in the town where this big plant is. Employees in that particular town come to him and say: We would like to make campaign contributions to you; how do we do it? He tells them: One way is you give me the money yourself. Another way is you can direct your contribution to the PAC at the plant that produces Kraft Foods to go to me. So the people who run the PAC at Kraft Foods come to this Senator and say here are the contributions that are directed to come to you and we are happy to transfer them through to you. The media gets hold of it and discovers that Kraft Foods is owned by a tobacco company, and the next thing you know, this Senator is being attacked in the press for taking campaign money from tobacco companies. He says: Wait a minute, these are individual contributions from my constituents funneled through the place where they work that has nothing whatever to do with tobacco.

Try explaining that to the New York Times. No, the editorials roll down that he is taking tobacco money, that he is in the pocket of special interests. Finally, the Senator said: I told them don't give me anymore money. It is too much trouble to try to explain the truth in this situation with the overwhelming amount of media publicity about corporations corrupting politicians.

I made the comment before and I will make it again: I have discovered in my 14 years here that there is no such thing as repetition in the Senate. You say the same thing over and over again as if it is brandnew. You cannot corrupt the Senator unless the Senator himself is corrupt. And if the Senator himself is corrupt, he or she will find a way around the rules no matter how we write them.

I am strongly for this bill. I think the transparency part of it, the disclosure part, is exactly what we need. But after 40 years of being involved with Washington, and living through the Watergate experience, living through the scandals, whether it is Abramoff or Duke Cunningham, or the other Members of the House who went to jail in years gone by, whose names I don't remember but whose circumstances I still recall, or whether it is the Congressman with whom I worked as a lobbyist who went to jail because one of my fellow lobbyists gave him a $100,000 bribe, the fundamental fact remains that you cannot corrupt a Senator or a Congressman unless that Senator or Congressman is himself or herself basically corrupt.

We can write all of the rules we want, but if a Member of this body has the instincts of corruption in his soul, he will find a way around the rules. We should not kid ourselves that we are doing something that is going to clean up everything, because if we get a corrupt Member, the corrupt Member will still act in a corrupt way and you will have another Duke Cunningham-type scandal 5 or 10 years from now and, unfortunately, the reaction here is, hey, that proves we need to change the rules.

As I have said, this is the only place I know where, when somebody breaks the rules, the first instinct is to change the rules instead of continuing to enforce them, recognizing that even without what we are talking about here, even without the legislation that is proposed, Duke Cunningham is in jail, and recognizing that even without the kinds of strict changes we are talking about, Jack Abramoff is in jail. These were corrupt individuals who found their way around existing legislation, and trying to solve that problem by additional legislation may very well turn out to be an ineffective effort.

With that, I see my friend from South Carolina on his feet seeking recognition.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I have looked at this amendment, and I have no particular problem with it. I would think we could pass it by voice vote, but as a courtesy to Senator Bond and the Intelligence Committee, we have asked them to confirm that the understanding which the Senator from California has is, indeed, correct. I have no reason to doubt her word on this matter, but the earlier comment to us was we want to be sure that the fix has been made. She assures us it has been. But as a courtesy to them, I have asked my staff to check with them. When that word comes back, which I expect to be positive, I will be willing to move ahead with a voice vote.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I have heard from the minority on the Intelligence Committee, and they verify what Senator Feinstein has said; that is, that the corrections which they suggested which she has accepted are, in fact, in the bill. I am prepared to go to a vote on the bill at this point, and I will support it.

I move to reconsider the vote.

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

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Lott, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment and call up amendments No. 78 and No. 79.

I ask unanimous consent these two amendments be laid aside.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 81.

Mr. President, I am advised----

That is correct, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I am advised there was a drafting error in this amendment and we cannot modify it, because cloture has been filed, except by unanimous consent. For that reason, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to modify the amendment by adding the word ``or'' at the appropriate place.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee for her courtesy, and send a copy of the modified amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Illinois has an action he wishes to take. I yield to him at this point.

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

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