Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 701, S. 1810.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be agreed to; the committee-reported amendment, as amended, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read three times and passed; the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4120, the Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read the third time and passed; the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 490 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar No. 1030, S. Res. 540.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Con. Res. 101, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 678, submitted earlier today by Senator Stabenow.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 661, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in recess until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, September 24; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first 30 minutes and the Republicans controlling the second 30 minutes; that following that hour, morning business continue with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand in recess under the previous order.

I understand we are in morning business.

Madam President, because of the hard work of Chairman Baucus of the Finance Committee, Senator Cantwell and several others, we may--I say ``may'' and I will talk about that in a moment--have finally secured a deal to extend the renewable energy tax credits and to temporarily fix the alternative minimum tax. If we can do this, it is a huge accomplishment that will generate hundreds of thousands of new, green-collar jobs, stimulate the economy, improve our energy independence, and lower energy costs for all Americans. And it cannot come too quickly, as we heard from our distinguished colleague from New York.

Unfortunately, in order for the Democrats to secure a deal to do this, we had to agree to a bill that, in my opinion, is not as strong as previous versions of the bill. On eight separate occasions, our Republican colleagues had the opportunity to keep the rapidly developing wind and solar industries growing at an astonishing pace. But, instead, they decided to play politics. Time after time, Republicans filibustered and then voted to block consideration of proposals to extend critical tax credits for wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy. So Democrats had to sit down with our colleagues from the other side of the aisle and work out a deal.

I have heard a lot recently about how Washington is broken and how there needs to be a greater spirit of bipartisanship. I agree. But I want the American people to understand that comes at a price. What is often overlooked is there is a price to be paid for that compromise. In this instance, the price being paid is $8 billion over the next 5 years to big oil. In essence, at a time when financial markets are in turmoil, banks are failing, Americans are struggling to make ends meet, Republicans have required a big oil bailout, a bailout for the most profitable industry in history, at a time when they are beating their own record profits.

I also have concerns about some of the oil shale and tar sands provisions of the bill in an environmental context. But on balance, based upon the circumstances of where we are and what is possible, this bill will do a lot more good than harm.

Renewable energy is essential for our environment and our economy. But renewable energy is, most importantly, the opportunity to produce massive amounts of domestic, clean, cheap energy and generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs in doing so. Simply put, renewable energy is a core solution to our energy woes and a massive business opportunity. Don't take my word for it. Just ask landowners in Texas or Minnesota or Iowa or Wyoming who are receiving $3,000 to $5,000 per month for allowing a windmill to be sited on their property. Or ask oilman T. Boone Pickens who is plowing billions of dollars of his own money into wind energy, even though he made his money on oil and has a plan to use renewables to end our addiction to oil.

Last year the United States installed enough wind turbines to power over 1.5 million homes, and the solar power industry is growing at over 40 percent a year. In fact, over one-third of all additional electric power capacity that was added to the grid last year was from renewable sources. So despite claims by the Republican Presidential nominee, these technologies work. They work now, and they are producing an enormous amount of energy.

They have done so in large part because of the leadership and investment by the Federal Government in incentivizing those renewable energy industries. By extending the wind and solar tax credits so these industries can continue their rapid growth, we could easily add 150 gigawatts of installed capacity within 10 years.

What does that mean? That is enough electricity to power over 37 million homes. By 2030, even if we do not pass additional policies to create a national grid or further incentivize distributed energy, we could get well over 25 percent of our Nation's electricity from wind and solar power.

This tax package also has a very important provision to help us transition from oil to renewable fuels. The bill

contains a large tax credit for the purchase of plug-in hybrid vehicles, cars such as the Chevy Volt which will be able to run solely on electricity only for the first 40 miles after being plugged in.

If projections by some experts hold true and half the cars on the road in the year 2030 are plug-in hybrids, we could easily cut our use of oil by one-third or more. By this time we would be producing enough renewable energy to power all of these cars and still have electricity to spare. If we want cheap gasoline, to be free from imported oil, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, then we need to pass this tax credit extension. It is that simple.

I am relieved in one sense that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have finally come to the table to let us vote on something that will actually produce energy, but I am concerned that there are still those objecting to us proceeding. This fall, voters, however, are not going to forget that the price the Republican Party has forced on the American people in order to get to these renewable energy sources is to continue $8 billion in subsidies for big oil. When the American voters see that, they are going to have a much different view of what they do in these elections, and we will see a very different Federal Government come January.

I also want to address another essential piece of the tax extenders program, and that is the temporary fix of the alternative minimum tax. New Jersey's hard-working families deserve real tax relief. More than 70 percent of the President's tax cuts have gone to people making over $200,000, while families who earn anywhere between $50,000 and $75,000 have received less than 5 percent of those cuts. Yet the President has done nothing to make the AMT exemption permanent, a tax which, in the next 4 years, would affect nearly every family of four earning between $75,000 and $100,000 if nothing is done.

The President has directed all his efforts, priorities, and the Nation's bank account to tax breaks for the wealthiest, leaving little room, let alone money, for the reforms that will affect nearly 24 million middle-class families.

When Americans wonder why there has been little attention on what most tax analysts refer to as the ``single most important tax issue'' facing the Nation, they should know that it is because tax cuts for the middle class have clearly not been a priority of this administration.

I am glad we are moving in this Democratic majority in a different way. The fact is that, without this bill, middle-class families will be faced with a harsh reality at the end of the year. In my State of New Jersey, where roughly 270,000 families were subjected to the alternative minimum tax in 2006, the number of middle-class taxpayers subject to this tax would explode if no fix is enacted. Average families, who are far from wealthy, could face significantly higher taxes this year if we do not act on the crisis at hand. This fix makes very clear that our priority should be to protect middle-class families from an unintentional tax hike, and that millions of taxpayers should not wake up next tax season to realize they owe more in taxes even though their income has not changed.

Let's remember, this was a tax intended to ensure that those making over $200,000 a year were not able to game the system and avoid paying any taxes toward the common good at all. It was never intended to raise the taxes of average Americans.

So let's send a clear message that the values we embrace are the values of helping American families. Let's embrace fairness and equal treatment for those who are working hard. We can do that in this bill.

Finally, let me thank again Chairman Baucus and others for their hard work in crafting this legislation to extend the renewable energy tax credits and to temporarily fix the alternative minimum tax.

But I do urge my colleagues who are objecting to bringing up this legislation to drop their objections. You cannot expect more for oil than even what you have gotten in this bill. These are obstacles the American people clearly cannot afford at this time, that this country cannot afford at this time in one of the worst financial times.

This will be one part of a solution to move us in a direction that creates jobs, that can stimulate our economy, that can break our dependency on oil, that can do something about our environment and, at the same time--and, at the same time--ensure that we give relief to middle-class families through that relief in the alternative minimum tax.

I hope if, in fact, we can get through our colleagues' objections-- the majority leader has tried to bring up this bill already--if we are able to do so, we can send a message as this week comes to a close that the Senate is finally on the way to giving relief to American families in a real, meaningful way, and as people are losing their jobs in this economy, we can be at the threshold of creating a new generation of jobs in which people will be able to prosper and the Nation will be able to meet its energy needs for the future.

Madam President, with that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I appreciate what my colleague, Senator Sessions, is trying to accomplish. But I think there is another view. That view in large part is expressed by the House of Representatives that sent over in a vote of 407 to 2 a much different and obviously very bipartisan approach toward E-verify. It is one that does what Senator Sessions wants to do, which is extend the program for 5 years. But it also had some other critical protections.

No. 1, the protection of the Social Security Administration programs, and in that vote of 407 to 2, realizing there are only 435 Members of the House of Representatives--that is how overwhelming it was--it, in fact, also made sure that funds would be provided for the Commissioner of Social Security by the Secretary of Homeland Security to administer this program. When it is costless--it is not costless to the taxpayers, and in reality it is not costless to the Social Security funds.

The bottom line is these provisions that were passed by the House to extend the life of E-verify 4 or 5 years also have a protection of the Social Security programs. It is one that I believe makes a lot of sense.

It also had to ensure, if you are an American and you get--I know Senator Sessions downplayed the percentage of people who get kicked out--but in fact if you are totally eligible to work but somehow through computer error are denied that ability in the first instance, now the burden shifts. The burden goes to an American citizen to prove, in fact, that they have a right to work in the first place.

We might say it is only 5 percent, but 5 percent of millions of people in this country is a lot of people. So the House of Representatives passed in their proposals, in addition to extending E- verify for 5 years and making sure that Social Security funds were held whole, they also passed provisions having a GAO study of this program and ensuring that, in fact, it was improved in a way so that we could understand the magnitude of those individuals who are totally U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents with the full right to work but who are being denied because of computer error.

Those provisions which passed 407 to 2 are ones that I would like to see in an E-verify extension.

I object.

I urge the Senator to consider, and I will make a unanimous consent request when the Senator is finished, that S. 3414, which includes all of the House provisions, as well as H.R. 5569 which would be the EV5 extension, as well as all of the other items the Senator spoke about--the Conrad State 30, the religious workers would be included.

Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, but I do, in that reservation, want to be recognized next after the Senator finishes his 5 minutes.

I would ask the Senator to modify his request so that I be recognized immediately after his 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my distinguished colleague from Alabama, but I have to correct some things.

First, we do, under the unanimous consent that I will ask for briefly, under S. 3414, extend E-Verify. We extend it for 5 years. We do it, as the House did, protecting Social Security and protecting U.S. citizens who get rejected by the system and yet have every right to work. So that is one thing.

The second thing is, I heard my colleague talk about extending current law. We heard a lot of business-related elements--investors who have a lot of money and who are going to get visas, businesses are going to have these checks and all these things are going to happen. Well, current law allows a U.S. citizen to claim their immediate family. And as far as family values, it seems to me that the core of what our immigration policy has been and the core of what Members of this body have talked about time and time again in the context of family values is that family reunification is the core of those family values. You can't have family values if you don't have a family in the first place. And the family in the first place is the core essence of that family. That is, in essence, what the current law provides.

So what is simply done, as we look to solve businesses' challenges and problems, and bring in investors who have a lot of money, who now get a visa because they have a lot of money, is to say to a current U.S. citizen that we are going to recapture and use, for the purposes of absolutely legal immigration, under the current law, visas that exist but don't get used because of the way our system is working. This would allow a U.S. citizen to claim their relative using those visas, or a portion of them.

By the way, I would urge my distinguished colleague to look at the numbers. We are not talking anywhere near the number he throws around of half a million. It is more like 300,000. And we have even talked about working on that number and narrowing the universe. So this is about using the existing legal system to have U.S. citizens be able to claim their relatives under the existing system and make sure the visas that exist under the existing system are used in a way that meets the goal of legal immigration.

Now, I don't know why we are so hell bound on giving businesses everything they need and then saying to U.S. citizens they do not have the opportunity to be able to meet some of their challenges. In my mind, that is promoting a lawful system. I know it is very easy to slap up the word ``amnesty'' every time somebody wants to talk about immigration. You can become famous by claiming everything is amnesty, but it doesn't necessarily make it true.

The bottom line is what we are talking about is making sure that U.S. citizens who are presently torn apart from their families, and who under existing law have the right to claim that immediate family, have the wherewithal to be reunified using visas that don't get used but which should be used for this family reunification under existing law. So it seems to me we can do E-Verify, and do it the way the House did it, so Social Security is not hurt in terms of funds; and we can make sure that we improve upon a system that right now rejects a percentage of American citizens who have legal eligibility to work and yet now have the burden of proof shifted upon them.

It changes the whole legal precedent where in our country you are considered innocent until proven guilty. Under E-Verify you are guilty until proven innocent. I would be outraged as a citizen if I had to be challenged about my ability to work when I have every right to work but some system is barring me from that right to work. And that situation exists under E-Verify. Now, it doesn't mean we should do away with E- verify, but we need to make it better, and the House provisions do that.

We also say: OK, you want to give those people who have a lot of money to come here and make investments a visa? OK, we will do that. You want the religious workers, of course, who are not necessarily clergy members, but religious workers? OK, we will do that. You want to bring in doctors? OK, we will do that. But at the same time let's have a smaller universe of those whose families have been waiting and who followed the law.

This is the interesting part. We can't even seem to incentivize people who follow the law. These are people who didn't come crossing a border, whether it is the southern or northern border. These are people waiting. They have waited and they are still waiting. Yet their U.S. citizen husband or wife or mother and father can't get reunified in what is a core family. We seem to have lost sense of that core value.

So in that respect, I think we are being very reasonable here. And this is not about a broad comprehensive immigration reform. This is not about amnesty. It is not about all those things people like to throw up on the wall and suggest ultimately that is the case and paint it as one big swath. I don't know when U.S. citizens became second-class citizens in terms of being able to be reunified with their families.

In pursuit of meeting these goals, redoing E-verify, giving it a 5-year life, doing it the right way, doing those other things, as well as trying to help this small universe of American citizens, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3414, the Visa Efficiency and E-Verify Extension Act of 2008, the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration and to the consideration of H.R. 5569, the E-V-5 extension, which was received from the House, en bloc; further, that the bills be read a third time and passed, en bloc; and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I regret my colleague's objection. At the end of the day, I understand how passionately he feels. I hope he understands how passionately I feel. The reality is I find it very difficult when my constituents, U.S. citizens, paying their taxes, being good citizens, come to me and say: We cannot get reunified with our spouse. We cannot get reunified with our mother and father. We cannot get reunified with our son and daughter. That is the universe we are talking about.

If we do not stand for the very core value of family reunification, while we talk about those who have money to invest and who get visas because they have money, well, we have seen what has happened with our system around here when everything is about money, and it is a huge failure. The proposition is that if you have money, yes, you can get a visa. But God forbid we give a U.S. citizen who is claiming their family a visa as well.

I feel very passionately about this. I understand Senator Sessions feels very passionately about the way he views it, and I hope we can reconcile our passions and be able to have a little less heat, a little more light, and create an opportunity to be able to move forward in the days ahead. We have time until the end of November, and I certainly look forward to working constructively to make that happen.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and 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 ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business with the time to run postcloture.

Mr. President, there is no doubt Wall Street and Main Street are in a crisis. The floodgates from the subprime storm have ripped open and the effects are clearly devastating--unemployment is up and markets are down.

While I may not be able to predict what is coming next, I would like to talk a little bit about how we got here. Americans may not have been tracking the exact moves and, I believe, the negligence on the part of the Bush administration that has led us to this point, but we certainly understand the consequences.

For New Jersey, my home State, financial losses on Wall Street mean job losses at home. I am worried about the 1,700 employees of Lehman Brothers in Jersey City. I am worried about the 6,000 employees at Merrill Lynch in Hopewell. I am also worried about those families and others who are going to have to face foreclosure or watch their home values plummet. And I am worried about millions of retirees and people approaching retirement who are going to realize that their life savings are under attack and diminishing as quicksand below their feet.

Everyone is demanding to know what got us here. Well, what got us here to a large degree is that for the last 8 years we have had an administration that has turned a blind eye to financial markets and deregulated at every turn, playing Russian roulette with our economy. Their regulatory changes gave lenders the chance to invent new ways to make bad loans and to pass off the risks on investors.

The Federal Reserve had a power given to it long ago by a Democratic Congress to fight predatory lending. For more than 7 years of the Bush administration it failed to use it. If they

had acted, many predatory lenders wouldn't have been allowed to pedal bad loans, which investment banks bought and then went bust and spurred this crisis.

There are so many parts to this pattern of deception and neglect. In 1994, a Democratic Congress passed the Homeowner's Equity Protection Act. It was the first statute to fight predatory lending. That was in 1994. That law mandates that the Federal Reserve must issue regulations to prohibit abusive and deceptive practices. But how long did it take the Federal Reserve to do so? It took the Federal Reserve 14 years-- from 1994--to implement these regulations.

Senator Sarbanes, the former chairman and sometimes ranking member of the Banking Committee, and Senators Schumer and Dodd have repeatedly introduced legislation to protect against predatory lending. Not once has any Republican been a cosponsor in the Senate. Yet we have been hearing a lot about Senator McCain suggesting that all of a sudden he has seen the light. But he wasn't here all those years.

Even after reaching a bipartisan agreement on the Foreclosure Prevention Act and its successor, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 in June, Republican Senators delayed the final passage of the legislation for weeks--for weeks. Between the two bills, Republicans had six filibusters to prevent the passage of this legislation.

Notwithstanding what was happening throughout the country, as a member of the Senate Banking Committee in March of 2007--well over a year and a half ago--I raised the prospect of a tsunami--my word--of foreclosures. But the administration said: Oh, no, that is an overexaggeration. Unfortunately, I wish they had been right and I had been wrong. But the fact is, we haven't even seen the crest of that tsunami take place.

A few months later, as foreclosures mounted, they assured us that the problems we were concerned about might bring broader consequences to the economy. But oh, no, all those who came before our committee, all the financial leaders of this administration--the Secretary of the Treasury, the head of the Federal Reserve, and the regulatory side of the Securities and Exchange Commission--oh, no, those problems would be contained to only the housing market, even though they couldn't even see the foreclosure crisis being the tsunami it has become.

In July I asked them about the prospect of a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but they couldn't foresee that either or they were misleading the committee. I see the distinguished chairman of the Banking Committee is here, and he will recall they were asked head on. They asked for incredible authorities. Yet they could not foresee the possibility, even as the mortgage crisis continued to rear its ugly head in dimensions that some of us predicted a year and a half ago. Those who are in charge of the regulatory process, appointed by the Bush administration, ultimately could not see.

So even in the face of all that, we had the White House issue numerous veto threats against the bill that was critical to try to get to the very root cause of what is happening in America today--the housing foreclosure crisis--which has created this ripple effect in all our financial institutions. Yet they were issuing veto threats--veto threats. How could you be so blind or how could you be so much in the interests of one sector that you are unwilling to mitigate the risks on behalf of the American people?

This is not new. Look at 2005. In 2005, the House of Representatives--I was a Member there at the time--passed a bipartisan GSE reform bill by a vote of 331 to 90. GSEs are those Government entities; that is, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We wanted to have a strong reform bill. It was offered by Republicans. Mike Oxley, the chairman at that time, a Republican, working with Barney Frank, offered the bill. It passed overwhelmingly. In the House of Representatives--I served there for 13 years--I can tell you, when you get a vote of 331 to 90, that is about as bipartisan as you can get.

That bill was offered here by Senate Democrats exactly as it passed the House. But it was blocked by the White House. Even Mike Oxley, the former Republican chairman of the House committee, said recently:

We missed a golden opportunity that would have avoided a

lot of the problems we are facing now if we had not had such

a firm ideological position at the White House and the

Treasury and the Fed. What did we get from the White House?

We got a one-finger salute.

His words, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, which passed the bill in a big bipartisan vote. We couldn't get it through here in the Senate.

I find it incredibly difficult to see that one of our colleagues who is running for President, Senator McCain, now talks about all of these issues. He has a new ad out suggesting he is a reformer. But he was part of the same Bush views. He basically was in support of most lifting of regulations.

So as the tsunami approached--the one that we were told, when I raised it a year and a half ago, they couldn't see--the administration was consistently on the back side of that tsunami, watching it sweep toward us, watching while the American people got washed under.

We have had 8 years of our regulatory entities. Who are they? The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the OCC--the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency under the Treasury Department. Instead of being the cops on the beat to ensure we have a marketplace that is balanced--yes, we believe in a free marketplace and, yes, we believe in free enterprise, but an unregulated marketplace, as we found, is one that has excesses. The reason there are regulators is to make sure there is balance at the end of day. But when those who are supposed to be the cops on the beat--the regulators--hit the snooze button instead of going into action so we can prevent or mitigate what we are now facing, we see the consequences.

Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle call this scheme ``the ownership society,'' which means today: You are on your own. A strong belief in this scheme has led Senator McCain, in the face of this crisis, to repeat the same old claim yesterday that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Housing foreclosures are defying gravity, and he continues to make statements that defy reality. Great financial institutions collapse, and Senator McCain has generally supported deregulation as the answer. That is like trying to say you want to take cops off the street to deal with a riot.

I have a real concern as we now move forward. We are where we are as a result of economic and regulatory policies of the Bush administration that John McCain thinks are the sound underpinnings of a good economy and how we continue to move forward. It is unacceptable. That is not change. That will not change the course of where we are headed in this economy. That will not change the course of the consequences to millions of Americans.

This is not just about wealthy investors. Look at the consequences. Look at what is happening. When Lehman Brothers has to close, not only are those 1,600 jobs in New Jersey at risk, but it affects all of those who had mortgages, all of those who used a service, all of those who bought a product, all of those who went out to eat in restaurants, all of those who, in fact, employed someone else to give them a service while they were working. The ripple effect is very significant.

When people get their statements for their retirement accounts, whether it be a 401(k) or a thrift savings or whatever, we are going to see what that means to people in real life. Some are going to look and say: I am going to have to keep working because I cannot continue this way.

I want to echo what one of my distinguished colleagues, the Senator from Illinois, said a few weeks ago in Colorado:

Enough. Enough of more of the same. Enough denial about our

challenges. It is time to develop solutions.

We look forward to having the Secretary of the Treasury before the Banking Committee this Thursday. There are very tough questions to be answered, not only about what has happened but what we are doing as we move forward.

It is enough of more of the same. Enough denial about our challenges. It is time to develop solutions. I believe we have to act fast to provide an economic stimulus package targeted to provide relief to those most in need, in

ways that stimulate our economy and infrastructure.

Let's be clear, we have to recognize the potential for what we call moral hazard. We can't have everyone on Wall Street think they can go to any excess whatsoever and the Government will bail them out. But at any given time in this process we have to look at what entity creates the risk. We are in one of the most precarious moments in our financial history. What entity creates perhaps a systematic risk, something that creates such a widespread risk that we have to look at that as an individual case and determine whether there is a different governmental action to be recognized.

In general, as we move forward, I certainly hope the legislation Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby worked on together, that went through six filibusters and a bunch of veto threats by the President and finally got through into law, is now actively pursued starting on October 1, which is when it goes into effect. We cannot have any of the Bush administration agencies and regulatory entities involved not be ready to go on October 1 to start providing relief on those hundreds of thousands of foreclosures--not only for those families but at the same time to try to make those performing loans so we can prop up all of these functioning institutions at the same time so all of us as Americans get some relief from an economy that is definitely headed in the wrong direction.

In general, as we move forward we have to establish which failures are isolated and which present a systemic risk to the entire financial system.

Second, it is fundamental to the health of our economy that we help homeowners stay in their homes. The housing market is not just a center of the crisis, it is also a pillar of our society. Taking steps to shore it up makes sense on so many levels. Especially as this school year gets underway, we can't sit back and watch children get thrown out not only from their homes but pulled from their schools.

Third, we absolutely must hold administration officials and regulators accountable. I myself promise to do my part when they come before the Banking Committee this week and next. They better be prepared for some tough questions and some straight answers. I am tired of hearing that you could not foretell what some of us were telling you and others about the tsunami of foreclosures. We could have stemmed the tide. We could have acted in a regulatory process to make sure that was minimized.

When you are asked what is the possibility of a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I am tired of being told you can't foresee that happening, and just a month and a half later you have a very significant bailout--and you can't tell us how much the taxpayers will be on the hook for it.

I am tired of being told by some of our colleagues, such as Senator McCain, that this economy has all the right underpinnings and all the right regulatory processes. That is a fantasy world. It is a world that ultimately Americans cannot afford. They cannot afford that type of thinking in terms of where we go over the next 4 years.

I look forward to those opportunities, moving forward this week and the next, to try to turn the course of where we are for all Americans and for our Nation as a whole.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate those whom we lost on September 11 of 2001, to remember how our Nation responded to the pain we felt that day with a towering display of heroism, and to urge us to rededicate ourselves to making sure we never have to experience terror on our soil again.

That day, the families and friends of nearly 3,000 Americans got the worst news imaginable, and almost 700 of them were from my home State of New Jersey. They were from all walks of life. We lost mothers, fathers, and children. Brothers lost their sisters, neighbors lost their friends. Today in New Jersey, you can go from town to town--from Englewood to West Windsor, Toms River, Mantua, and Hoboken--and you can see a ceremony in each one. Families in those towns are laying flowers on the gravestones and monuments and holding tightly one more time onto the pictures of the ones they lost.

So many communities were affected in so many ways, not the least of which was the American community. It felt as if it was a day when there were no borders between us. Terrorists tried to engulf us in the smoke of fear and hatred. For a moment, we felt like the whole world went dark. But the light of heroism burst through. Individuals rushed into burning buildings risking their lives to save others, strangers opened their homes to help people they didn't even know, and men and women all over the country rushed to give whatever they could to help those in need.

It was a day when we learned the meaning of Oscar Wilde's words when he said: ``Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.'' It was a day when it didn't matter what part of the country you came from, what your family background was, or anything else. It was a day when we all stood together as Americans. People from all over the world said: We are Americans today.

There was a time when the events of September 11, 2001, gripped us so strongly that our minds couldn't focus on anything else. Yet 7 years later, we

have to talk about the dangers of forgetting. We have to talk about the dangers of forgetting, because 7 years later our obligations have not gone away.

Our obligations have not gone away to those whom we lost, and to their families and those who survived the attacks but came away injured. For them, it has been a long and heroic struggle to get by and find some sense of normalcy. People who ran out of burning buildings, the firefighters, EMTs, and other rescue workers who ran in, all breathed thick air as they were saving lives. Today, they are reminded of what they have to face with literally every breath they take. We think about them very deeply today, but those heroes triumph every day. Their supply of courage has never run out, and we can never walk out on them.

So not forgetting means caring for those whom we lost, and their families, and remembering them. But it also means caring for those who were made ill because of the attacks. Not forgetting means supporting all the heroes, paid and volunteer, who risked their lives to save others. Not forgetting means securing our ports, chemical and nuclear plants, so we don't have to experience another horrendous tragedy in the future, getting Federal grant money to our communities based on the risks they face, getting firefighters the funding they need for new equipment and increased personnel, and making sure our first responders can talk to each other during an emergency. And let's be very clear: Not forgetting means destroying the terrorist network that planned the attacks and bringing those responsible to justice.

Today, September 11 of 2008, we remember what has been lost, and we find strength in what we still have. No amount of time can ultimately heal what has been seared into our hearts and minds since September 11, 2001. But those wounds continue to drive us to make sure that no New Jersyan, no American ever has to experience them again. If we come together now, as we did on one of the darkest days of our history, then I believe our future can be filled with security, prosperity, and hope. On this day in which we remember that darkest day, we can see the light and our brightest days are yet to come.

Once again, my thoughts and prayers go out to the 700 New Jersyans who were lost on that fateful day, for their families who live with this for the rest of their lives and for which this day has an incredible resonance in their lives far beyond what anyone can imagine. But for votes here in the Senate, I would be in New Jersey today, and I wanted to take to the floor to let them know that we are one with them on this most sacred day.

Madam President, while I did not come to the floor for purposes of talking about something both Senator Nelson and I are passionate about, which is making sure the Nation's energy challenge is met but making sure it is met in a responsible way, I must say I appreciate him coming to the floor with a revelation that just came out and is being reported. It calls into question the nature of the decisions, the information and the substance of looking at drilling policy, as has been suggested, when there are clearly influences here that are geared toward supporting big oil versus what is the ultimate interest of the American people in achieving energy security and independence. I will be speaking about that and joining Senator Nelson in the near future.

I am concerned at what the inspector general's report says. It should be alarming to every Member of the Senate. I appreciate the Senator from Florida bringing it to the attention of the Senate.

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

About 10 minutes.

Madam President, what I came to the floor to talk about is Osama bin Laden. None of us will ever forget--no one in this country will ever forget--the shock and the horror we felt, 7 years ago tomorrow, when we realized that a group of terrorist murderers had taken 3,000 American lives, taken down two of our monumental skyscrapers, and taken a chunk of our military headquarters at the same time, as well as downed a plane in the fields of Pennsylvania.

I know this is true for every American. It is seared into our hearts as well as in our mind. I know it specifically by virtue of the hundreds of New Jersyans who were lost on that fateful day.

Before long we learned the name of the organization that plotted and executed this plot. They are called al-Qaida. Although he had already been a deadly force before that fateful day, each and every American would soon learn the name of the evil mastermind behind this carnage, Osama bin Laden.

As a country, we were unified in our grief and unified in our resolve to find bin Laden dead or alive, as our President said. There was no reason to think we would not succeed. We live in the greatest country on the Earth, with the greatest military in the world and the greatest resolve of any people. We are the country that taught man to fly, that has helped save the world from marauding dictators, and put a human being on the Moon. If we set our mind to capturing or killing the people responsible for this mass murder, then we were going to get the job done.

Here is the thing. As we speak here today, 7 years have passed since those terrorist attacks, and where is Osama bin Laden? Where is the man who killed 3,000 of our fellow Americans? Where is our Nation's No. 1 enemy? He was allowed to get off the hook. He was allowed to rebuild his terrorist organization to pre-9/11 strength, as has been noted by testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which I am a member. It has been noted in various official reports. He was allowed to establish his own safe zone along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

I do not think any American would disagree that the words ``Osama bin Laden'' and ``safe'' should never be uttered in the same sentence. Why is he living in a safe zone? Why was he allowed to rebuild his terrorist organization? Why has he not suffered for the consequences of his mass murder?

I would say the answer to that question is because President Bush-- who was so steadfast in his call to go after bin Laden and smoke him out of his hole, with the backing of a unified country in the days after September 11, when I was squarely with the President in that regard--decided not to commit the military force necessary to finish the job when bin Laden and al-Qaida were cornered in the mountains of Afghanistan. He decided to outsource the fighting to warlords in Afghanistan who took our money, put it in their pockets, and let bin Laden get away. He decided that the war against those who actually attacked us was not worth the absolute commitment of the most powerful, sophisticated, technologically advanced military in the world.

Instead, he committed the full force of the United States military to invade and police another country, Iraq, which had no part in the murder of 3,000 Americans.

As bad as that sounds, the reality is even worse than that. It was not just about the White House losing its focus. They misled the American people so they could start a new war. They assumed Afghanistan would stabilize itself and maybe bin Laden would turn up one day. So let's add up the running tally of these ill-fated decisions of President Bush: a forgotten war against the real terrorist threat in Afghanistan along the Afghan-Pakistan border, plus misleading the American people into a war of choice--not a war of necessity, where no one from al-Qaida or bin Laden was engaged; a stunning disaster of a war that had no connection to September 11--increased anger in the Middle East; squandered international goodwill; becoming entrenched as Iraq's military police force; a military stretched thin, less able to respond to the real challenges of this country where Afghanistan and Pakistan's border are.

I was there earlier in August with the distinguished majority leader. I heard what our generals said. They said they needed 10,000 troops minimally--now; not next year, now--to face the challenges they are having in the resurgence of the Taliban and the new tactics they have acquired from al-Qaida, an al-Qaida that is rushing over that border, plus $600 billion in U.S. taxpayers' money, easily going well over $1 trillion, to secure and rebuild another country that we were told--I sat at those hearings--we were told, when we asked how much is this engagement going to cost: Oh, we were told, not more than $50 billion max.

Madam President, $600 billion later, $12 billion a month and rising-- by the way, not only were we told it is not $50 billion, we were told Iraq's oil would pay for all of it. What we have seen is $600 billion of the taxpayers' money, later, rising clearly in excess of $1 trillion and Iraq having a surplus in its budget. We are running deficits, Iraq has a surplus in its budget of anywhere between $50 and $70 billion, and yet we still continue to pay for their reconstruction. I was there this past January.

Of course, beyond all of this, beyond all of this, the most important, incalculable loss--over 4,100 American service men and women who have been lost in Iraq.

What does this all add up to? It adds up, in my view, to less security here at home, one terrorist mastermind responsible for the deaths of 3,000 dead Americans, plotting and planning yet again in his very own safe zone to pre-September 11 strength.

That is a huge challenge. I recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan with the distinguished majority leader and several of our colleagues. Our troops and their commanders are doing

a terrific job with what they have been given, as they always do.

But the message from everything I saw when I was there and heard from the people we always say let's listen to--the commanders in the field-- well, I listened to General McKiernan, who is the commanding general not only of our troops but also the NATO forces there. I listened to General Schlosser, who is in the midst of that part of Afghanistan that is in the fight. They said clearly they needed extra troops.

I heard the President's decision: They will not get those troops, even though they need them until sometime next year. In the interim, the fight intensifies, the risks grow greater, and our challenges grow more difficult.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the epicenter, the epicenter of the threat to our Nation. Things are not going to get better in that region or with our security here at home until we commit our focus to doing away with a resurgent Taliban and a resurgent al-Qaida once and for all.

Our focus must be on what are called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, those lawless areas along the Afghanistan- Pakistan border, our major challenges.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it himself in June, so let me quote him because this is the ultimate authority advising the President. He said:

I believe fundamentally if the United States is going to

get hit, it's going to come out of the planning that

leadership in the FATA is generating, their planning and

direction.

It could not be said more powerfully by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and more clearly: That is where the threat is coming from. That is where we need to focus if we are to secure our Nation.

Our colleague, Senator McCain, who is now the standard bearer for his party, has expressed his desire to keep our troops entrenched in Iraq even beyond what the Iraqis want and even beyond what President Bush has been calling for.

This does not help us with Afghanistan, this does not help us with Osama bin Laden, this does not help us target the threat of the Nation that is most vital. So I hope that after the solemn memorials and heartfelt remembrances we have tomorrow, on the seventh anniversary of September 11, after we continue to mourn and after we pray for those we have lost, when our thoughts turn again to preventing a repeat of September 11, making sure that ``never again'' means never again, I hope we can rededicate ourselves, as we did in the weeks following the attacks, to going after those responsible for this mass murder and ridding ourselves of that threat once and for all.

Let us not only follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, let us follow bin Laden to the cave in which he is in, in that region along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

It is never too late. It is never too late to bring the masterminds of September 11 to justice, to diminish the real challenge to our security, and to ultimately achieve what I truly believe is in the national security interest of the United States.

I yield the floor.