Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce legislation today that would increase the mileage reimbursement rate for volunteers.

Under current law, when volunteers use their cars for charitable purposes, the volunteers may be reimbursed up to 14 cents per mile for their donated services without triggering a tax consequence for either the organization or the volunteers. If the charitable organization reimburses any more than that, they are required to file an information return indicating the amount, and the volunteers must include the amount over 14 cents per mile in their taxable income. By contrast, for 2007, the mileage reimbursement level permitted for businesses is 48.5 cents per mile, nearly three and a half times the volunteer rate.

While we are asking volunteers and volunteer organizations to bear a greater burden of delivering essential services, the 14 cents per mile limit is imposing a very real hardship for charitable organizations and other nonprofit groups.

I have heard from a number of people in Wisconsin on the need to increase this reimbursement limit. One of the first organizations that brought this issue to my attention was the Portage County Department on Aging. Volunteer drivers are critical to their ability to provide services to seniors in Portage County, and the Department on Aging depends on dozens of volunteer drivers to deliver meals to homes and transport people to their medical appointments, meal sites, and other essential services.

Many of my colleagues know the senior meals program is one of the most vital services provided under the Older Americans Act, and ensuring that meals can be delivered to seniors or that seniors can be taken to meal sites is an essential part of that program. In fact, it is often the case that the senior meals program is the point at which many frail elderly first come into contact with the network of services that can help them. For that reason, these programs are important not only for the essential nutrition services they provide, but also for the many other critical services that the frail elderly may need.

Unfortunately, Federal support for the senior nutrition programs has stagnated in recent years, increasing pressure on local programs to leverage more volunteer services to make up for that lagging Federal support. Regrettably, the 14 cents per mile reimbursement limit has made it far more difficult to obtain those volunteer services. Portage County reported that many of their volunteers cannot afford to offer their services under such a restriction. And if volunteers cannot be found, their services will have to be replaced by contracting with a provider, greatly increasing costs to the Department, costs that come directly out of the pot of funds available to pay for meals and other services.

The same is true for thousands of other non-profit and charitable organizations that provide essential services to communities across our Nation.

By contrast, businesses do not face this restrictive mileage reimbursement limit. As I noted earlier, for 2007 the comparable mileage rate for someone who works for a business is 48.5 cents per mile. This disparity means that a business hired to deliver the same meals delivered by volunteers for Portage County may reimburse their employees nearly three and a half times the amount permitted the volunteer without a tax consequence.

This doesn't make sense. The 14 cents per mile volunteer reimbursement limit is badly outdated. According to the Congressional Research Service, Congress first set a reimbursement rate of 12 cents per mile as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, and did not increase it until 1997, when the level was raised slightly, to 14 cents per mile, as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997.

The bill I am introducing today is identical to a measure I introduced in the 109th Congress, and largely the same as the version I introduced in the 107th and 108th Congresses. It raises the limit on volunteer mileage reimbursement to the level permitted to businesses, and provides an offset to ensure that the measure does not aggravate the budget deficit. The most recent estimate of the cost to increase the reimbursement for volunteer drivers is about $1 million over 5 years. Though the revenue loss is small, it is vital that we do everything we can to move toward a balanced budget, and to that end I have included a provision to fully offset the cost of the measure and make it deficit neutral. That provision increases the criminal monetary penalties for individuals and corporations convicted of tax fraud. The provision passed the Senate in the 108th Congress as part of the JOBS bill, but was later dropped in conference and was not included in the final version of that bill.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure. It will help ensure charitable organizations can continue to attract the volunteers that play such a critical role in helping to deliver services and it will simplify the Tax Code both for nonprofit groups and the volunteers themselves.

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

Mr. President, I will oppose the amendment offered by our colleague, the senior Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg. I support the concept of what is called a ``line item veto,'' more accurately described as an expedited Presidential rescission. But the proposal offered today has some fundamental flaws that prevent me from voting for it.

There are a number of problems with the amendment before us, but let me call the body's attention to two of these flaws. First, the proposal goes far beyond the supposed target of this newly proposed authority; namely, unauthorized earmarks. When the line item veto is discussed, invariably it is the unauthorized earmark that is held up as the principal rationale justifying this new Presidential authority, and rightly so. The explosion in unauthorized earmarks over the last decade and more is a strong argument in favor of providing the President with additional authority in this area. But the amendment before us goes far beyond targeting earmarks. The Gregg amendment would allow the President to use the proposed expedited rescission authority to eliminate new provisions of programs like Medicare and Social Security, hardly measures that anyone would consider an earmark.

Second, the proposal has too great a potential for political gaming. The amendment allows the President to wait a full year after initial enactment before submitting an expedited rescission. If we are going to craft new Presidential authority in this area, the goal ought to be to eliminate the potential wasteful spending, and to do so in a straightforward manner. There is no good reason for significant delay. Permitting the President to wait a year before submitting a proposed rescission opens the door for inappropriate use of potential rescissions as a political hammer to hold over individual Members.

Mr. President, as I noted earlier, I support granting the President some additional authority in this area, but we need to be especially careful in crafting that authority. The Gregg amendment, however well intended, needs substantial improvement, and until that is done, I will oppose it.

Mr. President, I wish to speak on amendment No. 31, which I have offered with Senator Obama, and which, unless agreement is reached otherwise, will be voted on when we return to the bill in an attempt to finish it. We have offered this amendment to try to give some teeth to the so-called revolving door statute.

The shortcomings of the revolving door law have been known for some time. This bill already corrects two of them, and I strongly support those provisions.

First, it increases the so-called cooling off period--that is, the period during which restrictions on the activities of former Members of Congress apply--from 1 year to 2 years.

Second, it expands the prohibition that applies to senior staff members who become lobbyists. Rather than having to refrain from lobbying the former employing Senator or committee, staffers turned lobbyists may not lobby the entire Senate during this cooling-off period.

These are important changes, but there is an additional reform that I believe we must adopt if the revolving door statute is to be a serious impediment to improper influence peddling.

My amendment would prohibit former Senators not only from personally lobbying their former colleagues during the 2-year cooling-off period, but also from engaging in lobbying activities during that period.

Let me talk for a minute about revolving door restrictions generally, and then I will discuss the need for this particular amendment. The revolving door is a problem for two basic reasons. First, because of the revolving door, some interests have better access to the legislative process than others. Former Members and staff, or former executive branch employees, know how to work the system and get results for their clients. Those who have the money to hire them have a leg up.

The public perceives this as an unfair process, and I agree. Decisions in Congress on legislation, or in regulatory agencies on regulations or enforcement, or in the Defense Department on huge Government contracts, should be made, to the extent possible, on the merits, not based on who has the best connected lobbyist.

The second problem of the revolving door is it creates the perception--perception--that public officials are cashing in on their public service, trading on their connections and their knowledge for personal profit. When you see former Members or staff becoming lobbyists and making three or four or five times what they made in Government service to work on the same issues they worked on here, that raises questions for a lot of people.

Both sides of this coin combine to further the cynicism about how policy is made in this country and who is making it. That, ultimately, is the biggest problem here. The public loses confidence in elected officials and public servants.

One of the worst things we can do here is say we are addressing a problem, knowing we are not getting at the core of the problem. That is what has happened with the revolving door. We have a so-called cooling- off period, which basically has become a ``warming-up period.'' Former Members leave office and they almost immediately join these lobbying firms. Both they and their employers know they cannot lobby Congress for a year, but it does not matter. They can do everything short of picking up the phone or coming to the meeting. They can strategize behind the scenes. They can give advice on who to contact, what arguments to use, what buttons to push. They can even direct others to make the contacts, and say they are doing so at the suggestion of the ex-Senator in question, who is supposedly in the middle of this 2-year cooling-off period.

Making it a 2-year warming-up period does not do enough. We have to change what is allowed during that period. Only then will the public believe we have addressed the revolving door problem.

The Lobbying Disclosure Act requires lobbying firms and organizations that lobby to report on how much they spend not on lobbying contacts but on lobbying activities. ``Lobbying activities'' is a defined term, covering ``lobbying contacts and efforts in support of such contacts, including preparation and planning activities, research and other background work that is intended, at the time it is performed, for use in contacts, and coordination with the lobbying activities of others.'' This term I just mentioned and defined has been in use for over a decade without controversy.

So the Feingold-Obama amendment simply prohibits former Members of Congress from engaging in lobbying activities for the 2 years following their congressional service. If the money spent on what the former Member is doing would have to be reported under the LDA, then the former Member cannot do it. Adopting this amendment will show the public we are serious about addressing the revolving door problem. It will make a real difference, which I fear simply lengthening the cooling-off period will not.

I have heard some complain that by doing this we are going after our former colleagues' ability to make a living and support their families. I strongly disagree with that.

According to a study done by Public Citizen in 2005, it is only in the last decade or so that lobbying has become the profession of choice for former Members of Congress. In any event, we are not talking about a lifetime ban, just a real cooling-off period for 2 years. Members of Congress are highly talented, highly employable people. Surely, their experience and expertise is of interest to potential employers for something other than trying to influence legislation right after they leave the House or the Senate.

There are many other kinds of work, including some that may be just as fulfilling, though perhaps not as rewarding financially, as representing private interests before their former colleagues. This is not a question of punishing those who serve in Congress. It is a question of Members of Congress recognizing that we are here as public servants, and when that service ends, we should not be allowed to turn around and transform it into a huge personal financial benefit.

If after sitting out an entire Congress--2 full years--a former Member wishes to come to Washington and lobby, he or she can do that. But some of the issues will have changed, and so will the membership of the Congress. The former Member will not have quite the same advantages and connections after a true 2-year cooling-off period. So even if these Members do become lobbyists at that point, I think we will be able to tell our constituents with a

straight face that we have addressed the revolving door problem in a meaningful way.

Let me emphasize one thing about this amendment. It does not apply to former staff. The reason is simple. We let, under this, former staffers leave this building and become lobbyists tomorrow. They are limited in what offices they can contact, but they are allowed to lobby. So preventing them from engaging in lobbying activities only with respect to certain offices would not make sense. But for former Members, who are prohibited from contacting anyone in the Congress, this additional prohibition actually makes a lot of sense and will have a real impact.

The American people are looking for real results in this legislation. We cannot claim to be giving them that with respect to the revolving door without this amendment. So I urge my colleagues to vote for the Feingold-Obama amendment.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would just say, in response to my friend from Utah, that I don't doubt for a minute that what he has said is true. But to generalize from his experience I don't think makes sense. Our former colleagues are making millions of dollars trading on their experience. I don't think these lobbying firms are throwing away their money for nothing. And I know the public doesn't believe that, which is a very good reason to adopt this amendment. It is not silly; it is the right thing to do.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I strongly oppose Senator Bennett's amendment to strike section 220 from the bill. The debate about section 220 is essentially a debate about the openness of the legislative process. It is a debate about the right of the American people to know who is spending money to influence their elected representatives and how that money is being spent.

It is important not to be misled by the use of the term grassroots lobbying in section 220. We aren't talking here about constituents reading the newspaper and deciding to call their Member of Congress to weigh in on the issue of the day. No, what section 220 deals with is paid grassroots lobbying, the spending of money to try to get the public to contact Congress. It is estimated that grassroots lobbying is a billion dollar business. That is a billion undisclosed dollars spent by special interests to influence the legislative process. We should keep in mind as well that in 2005 a few million of those undisclosed dollars went to Grassroots Interactive, a so-called ``grassroots'' lobbying firm controlled by Jack Abramoff. E-mails made public by the Indian Affairs Committee indicate that Abramoff and his accomplice Michael Scanlon prided themselves on being able to make it appear as if there was significant public concern over an issue. Further, those e- mails suggest that Abramoff and Scanlon used the grassroots lobbying firm as a way to avoid public scrutiny of their activities because current law does not require disclosure for grassroots lobbying firms. For example, Jack Abramoff reportedly paid Ralph Reed $1.2 million to use his Christian Coalition network to stimulate public opposition to a tribal casino; under current law, Ralph Reed's supporters were completely in the dark about the fact that their antigambling efforts were being funded by a competing tribal casino.

The lobbying disclosure law, as it stands now, contains a billion dollar loophole. All section 220 does is close that loophole.

I am going to address some of the claims made by the Senator from Utah, but first let me explain what section 220 does. First, it requires registered lobbyists to report how much they spend on efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying on the lobbying disclosure reports that they are already required to file. Second, it requires large professional so-called grass roots lobbying firms to report on the amount they receive for their services, just like any other lobbyist. And that is it, that is all section 220 does. Organizations do not have to report on the amounts they spend to communicate with their own members, and they only have to report on the cost of their communications with the general public if they are required to register and file under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

By the way, communications to fewer than 500 people are not considered by section 220 to be communications to the general public. And here is the important thing private citizens can still call, write, e-mail, fax, or visit their Senators anytime they want, in response to a call from a telemarketer or an e-mail from an organization they belong to, or because they read something in the morning paper, without ever have to report anything at all. Citizens are completely unaffected by this provision.

Some groups, especially the ACLU, have raised concerns that section 220 will intrude on Americans' freedom of speech and right to petition the Government. I appreciate the ACLU's concerns and am grateful for its vigilance in protecting our civil liberties, but in this case its reservations are unfounded. In 1954, in United States v. Harriss, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of disclosure requirements in the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act, stating that Congress is entitled to require a modicum of information from those who for hire attempt to influence legislation or who collect or spend funds for that purpose. That is exactly what section 220 does. Without disclosure, the Court warned, ``the voice of the people may all too easily be drowned out by the voice of special interest groups seeking favored treatment while masquerading as proponents of the public weal.'' Paid grassroots lobbying is a billion dollar business. It will not be chilled or discouraged by the very reasonable disclosure requirements in section 220.

While the ACLU's opposition to section 220 is honest and heartfelt, the same cannot be said of attacks made by some other groups. Their claims are so outrageous, so manifestly untrue, so unhinged from any connection to the reality of this bill, that I would like to assume that they have been misinformed about the details of the section, or that perhaps they are mistakenly referring to an entirely different piece of legislation. Unfortunately, I think it is more likely that they are engaged in a campaign of deliberate misinformation about the details of section 220. And of course, because of the loophole they are trying to protect, we may never know who is spending big money to try to convince the public to tell us to oppose this provision.

I certainly would not claim that the Senator from Utah is deliberately trying to mislead the Senate. But his statement today shows a deep misunderstanding of how section 220 works. So let me address several of the claims he made.

First, the Senator from Utah said the following:

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.

That is simply not true. The definition of lobbyist and the requirements for registration are not changed by this bill or section 220. A lobbyist doesn't have to register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act unless he makes a lobbying contact on behalf of a client and

receives over $5,000 for lobbying activities engaged in for a particular client. So the person who gets his neighbors together as described by the Senator from Utah and spends some money getting them to write some letters is not a lobbyist and does not have to register-- before this bill or afterwards. That is not just a matter of interpretation of the statute; it is the undisputed meaning of the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

The Senator from Utah also said the following in his statement yesterday:

A grass-roots lobbying group decides in its neighborhood

that the most effective means of influencing and speaking up

on legislation is to send out letters to its membership. Or

perhaps it may decide the most effective means would be to

buy a mailing list and send out letters to the people on

the mailing list. As soon as they spend the money to buy

the mailing list, there is a paid lobbyist involved. And

if the registration is not correct, there is a $200,000

fine against that group if we leave this--this provision

in the bill as it is.

Again, that is not true. Unless an organization makes direct contact with a Member of Congress and spends more than $10,000 in a quarter on lobbying activities, then it does not have to register. And if it does not have to register, it does not have to report its spending on that mailing list. In addition, and this is very important, a group's spending to communicate with its own members is not considered grass roots lobbying at all.

The only way that this group would have to register is if it makes direct contact with a Member of Congress and spends over $10,000 in a quarter on lobbying activities, not including communicating with the general public to try to get the general public to contact the Congress. If the group does that, then it is not a small grassroots lobbying group. And yes, it has to register and report. I think that is the correct result.

I have taken a fair amount of time to respond to the Senator from Utah because this legislation is too important to let mistaken discussions of this provision stand without an answer.

Some of section 220's opponents have claimed that it is designed to keep the public in the dark about the legislative process, that it targets individual citizens and small grassroots organizations, that it will prevent organizations from communicating with the public, and that it will smother lobbyists in miles of redtape.

None of these claims are true. Not one. I suppose the groups spreading this information are so afraid of section 220 that they are willing to say anything to try to stop it. But I wonder exactly what they are afraid of. Section 220 only applies to registered lobbyists and large grassroots lobbying firms, and it does not prohibit or restrict their activities in any way. In fact, section 220 merely makes public how much money they spend and how they spend it. Surely these groups that have tried to convince people to contact their offices with mistaken claims about the bill aren't afraid of a little sunlight--or maybe they are.

We are so close to passing the kind of ethics bill that the public wants, that the 2006 elections endorsed, and that our democracy needs. Defeating this amendment will bring us closer to the day we can go back to our States and tell our constituents that we actually delivered real bipartisan lobbying reform. But what will our constituents say if this amendment succeeds and the Senate votes to reopen a billion-dollar loophole in the lobbying disclosure law?

I urge my colleagues not to be fooled by the phony arguments being advanced by the opponents of this provision. I ask my colleagues to please vote no on the amendment of the Senator from Utah.

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

Mr. President, the Reid amendment draws a bright line. Groups that employ or retain lobbyists could not provide trips of over 1 day. The Bennett amendment allows 501(c)(3)s that lobby to provide trips. There is a limitation that will prevent this amendment from becoming a loophole that will lead to kinds of abuses we saw with Jack Abramoff and his trips to Scotland. If these groups don't lobby, there is no limitation; they can do this. That means, unlike what the Senator from Utah said, the Aspen Institute would not be prohibited under the Reid amendment. We must defeat this amendment to keep our rules parallel to the House rules and prevent lobbyists from funding these trips.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendment be set aside so I can call up three amendments at the desk.

Mr. President, I call up amendments Nos. 63, 64, and 76.

They are at the desk, and I ask for their immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

I ask that the pending amendments Nos. 32 and 54 be withdrawn.

Those were items replaced by what we did prior to that.

Amendment No. 65 to Amendment No. 4

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 65, a second-degree amendment to Reid amendment No. 4, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I withhold further discussion of these particular amendments until a later time.

Now I will move on to talking about a very major vote coming up in the Senate later today.

This evening the Senate will cast a very important vote. The result will go a long way toward deciding whether the gift rule changes before us meet the high standards for reform set by the American people in the most recent elections in November. I am referring to the motion to invoke cloture on Reid amendment No. 4, which contains very important provisions imposing and strengthening restrictions on gifts, travel, and corporate jets.

I take a few minutes to explain why I believe the Reid amendment is so crucial.

In 1995, after another watershed election, the Senate adopted major rule changes, which came to be known as ``the gift ban.'' Prior to that time, there were virtually no limits on the gifts or trips that Senators could accept. Scandalous tabloid TV exposes showed some of the most egregious vacation extravaganzas that some Senators enjoyed at the expense of others, and after an election in which numerous incumbents were defeated and majority control of both Houses shifted, the Senate finally, in 1995, took action.

People forget because the 1995 rules were a major departure from what had gone before, but they contained exceptions and loopholes that, while they might have seemed reasonable at the time, began to cause problems in the years that followed. For example, as I said, before 1995, there were virtually no limits on the gifts that Senators could accept. I was astonished when I came here as a new senator in 1995 to see the things that were being offered to Senators. I could not quite believe some of the things being offered. The 1995 gift ban was actually not a ban at all; instead, we just put a limit on gifts--$50 per gift, and $100 per year from a single source.

Similarly, the 1995 rules prohibited the worst excesses under the previous anything goes attitude about privately funded travel--golf and ski vacations paid for and attended by lobbyists, what were called ``purely recreational trips.'' But it still allowed factfinding and officially connected trips of up to 4 days in length, or 7 days to a foreign destination.

Not surprisingly, and consistent with the new rules, after 1995, as before, much of the gifts and travel offered to Senators and staff came from lobbyists and groups that lobby. Sure, constituents offer us T- shirts or baseball caps or home State products, and the rules allow that. But not too many constituents making a trip to Washington with their kids are offering to take a Senator or staffer out to a $49 dinner or to buy tickets for them to the Kennedy Center or a Wizards game.

Although there are exceptions, most of the invitations to go to conferences or on factfinding trips also come from lobbying organizations, groups with a point of view that they want to share with a Senator or staffer in comfortable, relaxed surroundings, with ample food and drink provided.

The American people, and many of my colleagues as well, have come to view these gifts and trips from those who want to influence us, which are now perfectly legal under our rules, as unseemly. And of course, there have been people who have played fast and loose with the rules. The $100 annual limit is hardly ever discussed. Tickets to skyboxes are sometimes valued at $49.99. A different person picks up the tab at regular lunches or a ``personal friendship'' is developed where one friend always seems to pay. And fact-finding trips to Scotland have turned out to be golf adventures.

Now last year the Senate made a half-hearted effort in the direction of cleaning up this problem, but it fell short. It passed a lobbyist gift ban but didn't cover groups that retain or employ lobbyists. It passed new disclosure and Ethics Committee approval requirements for privately funded trips but did nothing to change the underlying standard of what kinds of trips can be taken. On these two key issues, the Senate failed the test of real reform. And in any event, no changes to the rules went into effect because the bill died after it left the Senate.

The public showed its displeasure with these practices and the excesses and lawbreaking in the November elections. Watershed elections occurred. Many new Members and new leaders arrived early this month. To their credit, Speaker Pelosi in the House and Majority Leader Reid made ethics reform a top priority for the new Congress--and the first priority in the Senate. But they did something even more important. They put the power of their offices behind tough and comprehensive reform, a strong brew of gift and travel changes, not the weak tea that was before us last year.

Let me be very clear. While the underlying Reid-McConnell substitute includes some important provisions to improve the flawed bill the Senate passed last year, it doesn't make the necessary changes to the gift and travel rules. Only if Reid amendment No. 4 is adopted will that job be complete. Senator Reid follows the lead of the House to really ban gifts from lobbyists, instead of letting groups that lobby continue to buy gifts. And he imposes new restrictions on lobbyist funded travel that should reduce, if not eliminate, the excesses that have become commonplace under the 1995 rules.

Senator Reid took a bold step as well by agreeing to include in his amendment changes to the reimbursement rules that apply when Senators fly on corporate jets. I am very pleased that this change in particular has been included because it was brought to the attention of the Senate in an ethics reform bill I introduced in July 2005. It will rid us of one of the most obvious ethical fictions in the current rules, and in the campaign laws--that flying on a corporate jet is just worth the cost of a first class ticket on a commercial airline.

To his credit, Senator Reid has been flexible in crafting the final version of these new corporate jet rules. He included important disclosure requirements that the Senator from Arizona and I have been seeking for some time. He made clear at the request of the Senator from Oklahoma, that Members who fly their own planes are not affected by these new rules. And he included a provision I suggested to address the concern raised by the Senator from Alaska and others that their official travel budgets might need to be supplemented because of the particularly complicated logistics of travel in their large and rural States.

My colleagues, the vote on Reid amendment No. 4 will tell the American people if we are serious about reform or just trying to get away with doing the least we can. The changes in Senator Reid's amendment are absolutely critical to sending the message that the days of lobbyist access and influence based on the perks and privileges they offer us, the meals they buy,

the tickets they provide, the trips they arrange and their clients finance, are over.

Lobbyists play an important, and indeed a constitutionally protected, role in the legislative process. But the Constitution protects the rights of our citizens to petition their government, it does not guarantee that lobbyists hired by those citizens can try to influence elected representatives by taking them out to dinner. All this amendment is saying is that if you want to meet with a lobbyist over dinner, go right ahead--but pay your own way. And if you do not want to pay, then have the meeting in your office. That is the rule the Wisconsin legislature has had for decades. That is the rule my staff and I have followed since I came to the Senate in 1993. That is the rule the U.S. Senate should support today. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of cloture on Reid amendment No. 4.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside so I can call up four amendments to the pending substitute.

Mr. President, the four amendments--Nos. 31, 32, 33, and 34--are at the desk and I call them up at this time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I want to very briefly discuss the amendments I have offered. I will be happy to debate them more fully at the appropriate time if necessary. All of these amendments are drawn from the bill I introduced this week with Senators Obama, Lieberman, and Tester, S. 230. I believe that several of the amendments have the support of the majority leader, but for a variety of reasons, they were not included in the substitute that is now before the body. I again thank him for his support of strong lobbying and ethics reform, and I look forward to the Senate's consideration of these amendments.

My first amendment, amendment 31, changes the universe of activities that former Members of Congress can engage in during their cooling off period after they serve in this body. Currently, they cannot personally lobby their former colleagues. This amendment states in addition they may not engage in lobbying activities, which is a defined term in the Lobbying Disclosure Act. They must refrain from running the show behind the scenes. They won't be able to strategize with and coordinate the lobbying activities of others who are trying to influence the Congress. Members who have just left Congress should not be capitalizing on the clout, access, and experience they gained here to lobby their colleagues, whether they are doing the lobbying themselves or instructing others.

My next amendment, amendment 32, is the same as the revolving-door amendment that I just described but also extends the ``cooling-off period'' for senior staff from one to two years. Under the bill, the ``cooling off period'' for Members of Congress is increased from 1 to 2 years. I believe that just as one year is not an adequate ``cooling off period'' for Senators, and the bill reflects that, it is not adequate for senior staff. Staff, of course, can lobby the other body after they leave, and my amendment would not subject them to the same lobbying activities prohibition that it seeks to apply to former Members. It simply will make them wait 2 years to lobby this body after they leave the Senate.

My next amendment, No. 33, ends Senate gym and parking privileges for former Members of Congress who are lobbyists. The underlying bill terminates floor privileges for Members turned lobbyists, and we should finish the job by making sure that other special privileges aren't available to these lobbyists just because they used to serve here.

My next amendment, No. 34, will finally bring Senate campaigns into the 21st century by requiring Senate candidates to file their FEC disclosure reports electronically. This amendment mirrors a bill that I, along with Senators Cochran, McCain, and 20 of our colleagues from both sides of the aisle, introduced on Tuesday.

These amendments, along with amendments that have been offered by my partners on S. 230, Senators Lieberman and Obama, and another to be offered by the junior Senator from Pennsylvania, will get us closer to completing the job of improving this bill and making it a product that we can be proud of. More importantly, we can make this a product that the American people will accept as real change. We are headed in the right direction on this bill, with the substitute

and the Reid amendment on gifts, travel, and corporate jets. But we need to keep pressing for the best reform possible. These amendments are offered for that purpose, and I urge the Senate to adopt them.

Mr. President, as the Defense Department continues its planning for the creation of an Africa Command, it is important to realize that the creation of a new regional combatant command focused exclusively on Africa will have a profound impact on our country's presence, policies, and engagement in what is becoming one of the most critical regions of the world. New bases, new personnel, new missions, new efforts, and new relationships will be created, and our potential to have a positive impact throughout the continent will be enhanced greatly.

We have to be strategic and forward-thinking as we create this new organization, though. Because we are making such a profound change to our posture on the continent, we need to ensure that the new organization will contribute to, not define, the U.S. Government's overall strategy and objectives for the continent. We also need to make sure that the U.S. military's activities and involvement on the continent do not overshadow, skew, or otherwise hinder our Government's other key objectives.

It is clear that challenges in Africa are diverse and complex. We have a number of security-related concerns there, ranging from terrorist organizations and safe havens to large-scale corruption, regional conflicts, and the disruption of global energy markets. Continuing to establishing firm and productive military-to-military relations with a number of African nations is also critical.

But we have learned that the way to address the underlying causes of the security challenges throughout the continent is not generally through military power. In fact, the best way to address the full range of security-related concerns in Africa is to focus on the underlying conditions that plague governments and societies throughout the continent. Security threats and instability stem from corruption, absence of human rights, poverty, disease, lagging economies, and joblessness. Weak governments are incapable of addressing the dynamics that often contribute to lawlessness or violence, and are often left without any capacity to help defeat trans-national threats.

Our focus as a government, therefore, must be on strengthening African governance capacities and legitimacy, as well as the commitment to the rule of law, sound democratic mechanisms, and human rights. We must continue to help alleviate the humanitarian suffering that exists throughout the continent, and we must work hard to assist African countries develop sound democratic institutions that are credible and capable, and that have the technical capacity to provide for their people and to govern fairly. Only then will we start to see real returns--real, long-term returns--for our national security.

This isn't to suggest that continued military involvement throughout the continent isn't essential. It is. But only if it is a component of a broader strategy to address these underlying causes of instability. U.S. military activities throughout Africa must help support a larger framework that seeks to strengthen African governments and balance the need for good governance and security capacity. Our security assistance to African nations, and more broadly, the work of the U.S. military throughout Africa, must not interfere with, create an imbalance in, or skew the necessary political, economic, and social work that must be done if we are going to see any long-term improvement in areas of critical concern.

Accordingly, establishing a new combatant command for Africa presents an opportunity to strengthen our national security focus in Africa, but it also presents an opportunity to create a military command with the primary mission of supporting diplomatic, development, humanitarian assistance, and regional initiatives led by the Department of State, USAID, and other agencies. This command, if designed right, will be able to serve as a contributor to broader U.S. Government efforts throughout the continent, and will help provide an additional platform for regional thinking, strategizing, and activity that will advance the strategic interests of our country throughout Africa.

To be effective, of course, this command will take careful planning. It will also take a considerable amount of planning on the part of the Department of State, USAID, and other departments and agencies that will have to adjust to this new organization. It will take intensive coordination and adjustments throughout the civilian interagency and it will be crucial that State, USAID, and other departments and agencies are playing a full role in the creation of this command.

The mission of this command will need to be relatively broad. Africa Command should establish strong security-oriented relationships with our partner nations throughout Africa. These relationships should be coordinated with our embassies and with Washington, but should only be part of our broader efforts with any given country. The command's efforts should be balanced and should take into consideration the scale and scope of diplomatic, development, humanitarian, and human rights efforts in each country.

The command should also prepare to deal with international organizations--particularly the African Union and subregional organizations that often play leading roles in regional and continental peacekeeping efforts, conflict mitigation activities, and humanitarian response. Establishing a strong relationship with the AU and other organizations will be essential to unlocking the potential for Africans to address security challenges throughout their continent.

The command should also prepare to conduct missions that have often taken a backseat to higher profile or less military-focused efforts. Humanitarian assistance--often one of the best ways to win hearts and minds in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster or conflict-- will need to be at the top of the command's list of priorities. So too should efforts to help rebuild societies after conflict. This might take the form of logistical assistance for humanitarian or development personnel, or potentially a direct role for U.S. military personnel, when appropriate. Other critical components of the new command's mission should include anticorruption efforts, leadership training, strengthening civilian oversight of national militaries, preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, demobilizing or reintegrating ex-combatants, and being on standby for rapid response to new conflicts or challenges.

The Department of Defense does a lot of this already. Many of these missions have been carried out by dedicated men and women in uniform who are stationed in places like Nigeria, Uganda, or at the Combined Joint Task Force--Horn of Africa. The challenge, though, is to establish a command that places these initiatives on its priority list, and to ensure that these efforts are resourced appropriately, are coordinated with the appropriate departments and agencies, and that they do not distort or disrupt other key initiatives throughout the continent.

With this new mission and these challenges in mind, I would like to

raise a series of issues that I believe to be important as our government begins developing this new command.

First, as the Department of Defense plans for the creation of an Africa Command, it is essential that it think outside of the traditional model of the regional combatant command. While this new command will help us defeat terrorist networks that operate, recruit, stage, or otherwise seek haven throughout the continent of Africa, this new command should not have combat as its primary mission. It should have as its core mission the task of supporting bilateral, regional, and continental diplomatic and development efforts. It also should be focused on bolstering State, USAID, and other government activities-- providing resources, information, and logistical support for programs that have often been slowed or stopped because of the very absence of these things.

Second, the creation of an Africa Command and the design of its mission, objectives, and capacity, must be done in concert with the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other departments and agencies that are active in Africa. This new organization--the first regional command to be focused exclusively on Africa--will obviously be military in nature, but it must cast a new mold for regional combatant commands that incorporates interagency interests and responsibilities from the outset, as well as personnel from throughout the government that can help advance the mission of the U.S. Government in Africa. The Department of State and USAID personnel should be embedded deeply into the command and should play important leadership roles in the various components of this command. Formal coordination mechanisms, too, must be established between the new command, our embassies, Washington, and other pertinent regional and functional commands around the world.

Given its potential impact throughout the continent, we should make every effort to ensure that the command represents a unified U.S. Government effort, and that in the early planning phases of this command that civilian interagency requirements are absorbed and incorporated into the final organization.

Third, and more specifically, the planning process for the creation of an Africa Command must be met with parallel--and equally aggressive--discussions within the Department of State. The Department of State must realize that an Africa Command will have a significant impact on how it does its business and how it coordinates and collaborates with the Defense Department. It should begin planning for internal bureaucratic changes, as well as posture changes throughout the continent, to account for the fact that the Defense Department's presence and focus will be regional, while the Department of State's efforts will remain largely bilateral.

Africa Command will help alleviate many coordinate challenges between departments that have existed to date. But it won't change the fact that the State Department still focuses on bilateral relationships and often has trouble organizing, coordinating, or planning for regional initiatives or programs. Closer State-DOD relations will come about as a result of the creation of Africa Command if and when the State Department begins addressing how it can better organize itself to address regional conflicts, transnational counterterrorism efforts, humanitarian emergencies that spill over borders, and ungoverned spaces.

We must also recognize the resource disparity between the Defense Department and the Department of State. This will most likely be an important issue as this new command is created. But short of dramatically increasing the State Department's budget in the next few years to account for an additional and needed focus on Africa, it will be essential that the State Department maintain a leadership role throughout this entire process, and that it adjusts itself to better manage and coordinate all U.S. government efforts throughout the continent. The State Department should apply its best Africa and political-military minds to DOD's efforts to create this new command, and it should view its role as both client and patron, knowing well that the creation of this new command will require new leadership efforts within the State Department.

Fourth, it is crucial that the Defense Department and the State Department move faster to establish joint planning mechanisms--both strategic and financial. It has become widely known that Defense and State planning mechanisms are not in sync, and that both organizations plan, or don't plan, for events, missions, and strategic objectives differently. This needs to be addressed immediately. The creation of Africa Command will give both departments an opportunity to begin syncing planning capabilities, and may open the window to truly interagency budgeting and strategic planning processes that will align all U.S. Government resources to address challenges in places like Africa.

This may sound bureaucratic, but it has real implications on how we position our government to address the wide-ranging challenges throughout Africa, and indeed throughout the rest of the world. The State Department develops bilateral strategic plans and generates resource requirements largely based on bilateral, and sometimes multilateral efforts. The Defense Department views things more regionally, establishing regional commands and task forces that can evaluate, strategize, and implement programs based on the needs or challenges unique to a given region--challenges that often transcend national borders or programming allocations. Neither department's strategic planning process is perfect, but I would urge both Departments--in addition to USAID, the Department of Treasury, Justice, Agriculture, as well as others--to begin evaluating how the strategic planning process can incorporate departmental or agency-specific activities and efforts into comprehensive U.S. Government strategies for the continent, subregions, and partner nations. Creating combined planning processes would also benefit lawmakers that are constantly seeking better coordination and a higher return on taxpayer investments.

Fifth, and in a related vein, the President should make absolutely clear that ambassadors--chiefs of mission in any given country--are his representatives and must be accountable and responsible for all actions taken on behalf of the U.S. Government in any given country. It is essential that ambassadors have the ultimate say of what happens in country, and that he or she has the ability to ``turn off'' any programs, initiatives, or efforts that may adversely affect our government's broader goals in or relationship with a given country. That said, the Department of State may want to consider creating a new position for Africa that can help liaise--at a sufficiently senior level--with the senior Africa Command commander on daily issues. This position would be more than a political advisor. This person would ideally have the ability to make decisions at the traditional three- or four-star level, and provide a substantive and management-oriented perspective on State and DOD efforts throughout the continent. This person would ideally not be based in Washington, and might benefit from serving side-by-side with the new combatant commander.

The Department of State--both in Washington and at our embassies-- must step up and play a stronger leadership role. I would imagine that DOD would welcome this. In many countries in Africa the Defense Department represents the bulk of U.S. efforts or presence. Our security assistance programs are wide-ranging and often overshadow development, economic, or political assistance to fragile and poor countries. This is not to suggest that the creation of a new command for Africa is bad. It is not. I authored a successful piece of legislation last year that required the Defense Department to do a complete feasibility study on this very issue. I believe that it will enhance our ability to do important work throughout Africa, and that it will have a positive impact on our national security. But it is essential that as we increase our efforts to strengthen the security capabilities of our partners in Africa, we do not undermine critical human rights and that we work to strengthen democratic institutions. The State Department must prepare to exert its authority and influence on the new command's activities and ensure that future U.S. Government efforts in Africa are balanced and take into consideration the larger strategic efforts in any

given country, region, and throughout the continent.

Finally, the Congress needs to be prepared to support this new effort. It will be essential that Congress take into account the needs of the Defense Department and the individual uniformed services as this new command is created. But it is equally essential that Congress take into account the needs of the State Department, USAID, and other agencies that are trying to ramp up their efforts throughout the continent. If anything, the creation of a new combatant command for Africa should signal the dramatically increasing importance of Africa to our national security, and that to truly address the range of challenges present there we need to look at an equally aggressive plan to strengthen our diplomatic, development, humanitarian, and human rights work throughout the continent. This may include addressing how the Congress allocates funds--both to this new command and to the other departments and agencies that will make the spirit and intent of this command work.

In closing, we must focus greater resources on Africa but we should ensure that our efforts in Africa do not become primarily military in nature, and that the State Department continues to play the primary leadership role with respect to our efforts on the continent. Those within the Defense Department, the State Department, at USAID and other key departments and agencies will need to use this as an opportunity to evaluate and enhance the way they do business. The success of this governmental effort requires it, and our national security depends on it.

Mr. President, I am pleased today to introduce the Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007. I want to thank Senator Sununu for once again cosponsoring this bill, which we also introduced in the last Congress. Senator Sununu has consistently been a leader on privacy issues, and I am pleased to work with him on this effort. I also want to thank Senators Leahy, Akaka, and Wyden, for their continuing support of the bill.

The controversial data analysis technology known as data mining is capable of reviewing millions of both public and private records on each and every American. The possibility of government law enforcement or intelligence agencies fishing for patterns of criminal or terrorist activity in these vast quantities of digital data raises serious privacy and civil liberties issues--not to mention serious questions about the effectiveness of these types of searches. But four years after Congress first learned about and defunded the Defense Department's program called Total Information Awareness, there is still much Congress does not know about the Federal Government's work on data mining.

We have made some progress. We know from reviews conducted by the Government Accountability Office that as of May 2004 there were nearly 200 Federal data mining programs, more than one hundred of which relied on personal information and 29 of which were for the purpose of investigating terrorists or criminals. And we have learned a few more details on five of those programs from a follow-up report that GAO issued in August 2005. We also have a brief report from the DHS Inspector General published in August 2006, and as a result of my amendment to the DHS appropriations bill we have a July 2006 report from the Privacy Office at the Department of Homeland Security that provides some interesting policy suggestions relating to data mining.

But this information has come to us haphazardly, and lacks detail about the precise nature of the data mining programs being utilized or developed, their efficacy, and the consequences Americans could face as a result. Furthermore, much of the reporting thus far has focused on the Department of Homeland Security. It also appears there has been little if any government-wide consideration of privacy policies for these types of programs. Indeed, public debate on government data mining has been generated more by press stories than as a result of congressional oversight.

My bill would require all Federal agencies to report to Congress within 180 days and every year thereafter on data mining programs developed or used to find a pattern or anomaly indicating terrorist or other criminal activity on the part of individuals, and how these programs implicate the civil liberties and privacy of all Americans. If necessary, specific information in the various reports could be classified.

This is information we need to have. Congress should not be learning the details about data mining programs after millions of dollars are spent testing or using data mining against unsuspecting Americans. The possibility of unchecked, secret use of data mining technology threatens one of the most important values that we are fighting for in the war against terrorism--freedom.

Data mining could rely on a combination of intelligence data and personal information like individuals' traffic violations, credit card purchases, travel records, medical records, and virtually any information contained in commercial or public databases. Congress must conduct oversight to make sure that all government agencies engaged in fighting terrorism and other criminal enterprises--not just the Department of Homeland Security, but also the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and others--use these types of sensitive personal information effectively and appropriately.

Let me clarify what this bill does not do. It does not have any effect on the government's use of commercial data to conduct individualized searches on people who are already suspects, nor does it require that the government report on these types of searches. It does not end funding for any program, determine the rules for use of data mining technology, or threaten any ongoing investigation that might use data mining technology.

My bill would simply provide Congress with information about the nature of the technology and the data that will be used. The Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act would require all government agencies to assess

the efficacy of the data mining technology they are using or developing--that is, whether the technology can deliver on the promises of each program. In addition, my bill would make sure that Congress knows whether the Federal agencies using data mining technology have considered and developed policies or guidelines to protect the privacy and due process rights of individuals, such as privacy technologies and redress procedures. With complete information about the current data mining plans and practices of the Federal Government, Congress will be able to conduct a thorough review of the costs and benefits of the practice of data mining on a program-by-program basis and make considered judgments about whether programs should go forward. Congress will also be able to evaluate whether new privacy rules are necessary.

In addition, Congress must look closely at the government's activities because data mining is unproven in this area. Some argue that data mining can help locate potential terrorists before they strike. But we do not, today, have evidence that pattern-based data mining will prevent terrorism. In fact, some technology experts have warned that this type of data mining is not the right approach for the terrorism problem. Just last month, the Cato Institute released a report--coauthored by a scientist specializing in data analytics and an information privacy expert--concluding that ``[t]he only thing predictable about predictive data mining for terrorism is that it would be consistently wrong.''

Some commercial uses of data mining have been successful, but have arisen in a very different context than counterterrorism efforts. For example, the financial world has successfully used data mining to identify people committing fraud because it has data on literally millions, if not billions, of historical financial transactions. And the banks and credit card companies know, in large part, which of those past transactions have turned out to be fraudulent. So when they apply sophisticated statistical algorithms to that massive amount of historical data, they are able to make a pretty good guess about what a fraudulent transaction might look like in the future.

We do not have that kind of historical data about terrorists and sleeper cells. We have just a handful of individuals whose past actions can be analyzed, which makes it virtually impossible to apply the kind of advanced statistical analysis required to use data mining in this way. That raises serious questions about whether data mining will ever be able to locate an actual terrorist. Before the government starts reviewing personal information about every man, woman and child in this country, we should learn what data mining can and can't do--and what limits and protections are needed if data mining programs do go forward.

We must also bear in mind that there will inevitably be errors in the underlying data. Everyone knows people who have had errors on their credit reports--and that is the one area of commercial data where the law already imposes strict accuracy requirements. Other types of commercial data are likely to be even more inaccurate. Even if the technology itself were effective, I am very concerned that innocent people could be ensnared because of mistakes in the data that make them look suspicious. The recent rise in identity theft, which creates even more data accuracy problems, makes it even more important that we address this issue.

I also want to touch on one issue that has proved difficult in many debates about data mining: how to define the term. What is data mining? From policy debates to government reports, many people have wrestled with this question. While it can be defined more broadly, for the purpose of this reporting requirement, data mining is limited to the process of attempting to predict future events or actions by discovering or locating patterns or anomalies in data. However, for purposes of the reporting requirement in this bill, which seeks information on those data mining programs most likely to threaten the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, I have limited the definition in a couple of other ways. First, the bill's core definition of data mining is to conduct a query, search or other analysis of one or more electronic databases to ``discover a predictive pattern or an anomaly indicative of terrorist or criminal activity on the part of any individual or individuals.'' Data mining has a number of applications at various government agencies outside the context of terrorism and other criminal investigations, but I have limited the definition for purposes of this legislation in order to get reports on the programs most likely to raise privacy concerns. For example, the May 2004 GAO report identified a number of government data mining programs whose goals are managing resources efficiently or identifying fraud, waste and abuse in government programs, and that do not rely on personally identifiable information. I am not seeking reports on programs like these.

Second, as I alluded to earlier, the definition explicitly excludes queries to retrieve information from a database that is based on information--such as address, passport number or license plate number-- that is associated with a particular individual or individuals. This type of query is a traditional investigative technique. Although government agencies must be careful in their use of commercial databases, simply querying a Choicepoint database for information about someone who is already a suspect is not data mining.

Most Americans believe that their private lives should remain private. Data mining programs run the risk of intruding into the lives of individuals who have nothing to do with terrorism or other criminal activity and understandably do not want their credit reports, shopping habits and doctor visits to become a part of a gigantic computerized search engine operating without any controls or oversight, and without much promise of locating terrorists. As the Cato report put it, ``[t]he possible benefits of predictive data mining for finding planning or preparation for terrorism are minimal. The financial costs, wasted effort, and threats to privacy and civil liberties are potentially vast.''

At a minimum, the administration should be required to report to Congress about the various data mining programs now underway or being studied, and the impact those programs may have on our privacy and civil liberties, so that Congress can determine whether any benefits of this practice come at too high a price to our privacy and personal liberties. As Senator Wyden and I have told the Director of National Intelligence, we must have a public discussion about the efficacy and privacy implications of data mining. We wrote a letter to him on November 15, 2006, that included the following:

[W]e believe there needs to be a public discussion before

the implementation of any government data mining program that

would rely on domestic commercial data and other information

about Americans. There are serious questions about whether

pattern analysis of such data can effectively identify

terrorists, given the relative lack of historical data about

terrorist activities. And as the furor over the Total

Information Awareness program demonstrated, the American

public has serious--and legitimate--concerns about the

privacy ramifications of programs designed to fish for

patterns of criminal or terrorist activity in vast quantities

of digital data, collected by other entities for entirely

different reasons. Pattern analysis runs the risk of

generating a large number of false positives, meaning that

innocent Americans could become the subject of investigation.

Before we go down that path, it is critical that we have a

public discussion about the efficacy and privacy implications

of this technology. And, if we decide that data mining is

effective enough to warrant spending taxpayer dollars on it,

we should establish strong privacy protections to protect

innocent people from being the subject of government

suspicion.

Of course, the Intelligence Community should be taking

advantage of new technologies in its critical responsibility

to protect our country from terrorists, and much of its work

must remain classified to protect national security. But we

can have a public debate about what privacy rules should

constrain data mining programs deployed domestically, without

revealing sensitive information like the precise algorithms

that the government has developed.

This bill is the first step in this process--a way for Congress and, to the degree appropriate, the public to finally understand what is going on behind the closed doors of the executive branch so that we can start to have a policy discussion about data mining that is long overdue. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. All it asks for is information to which Congress and the American people are entitled.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce legislation that would put an end to automatic pay raises for Members of Congress.

As I have noted when I raised this issue in past years, Congress has the authority to raise its own pay, something that most of our constituents cannot do. Because this is such a singular power, Congress ought to exercise it openly, and subject to regular procedures including debate, amendment, and a vote on the record.

But current law allows Congress to avoid that public debate and vote. All that is necessary for Congress to get a pay raise is that nothing be done to stop it. The annual pay raise takes effect unless Congress acts.

This stealth pay raise mechanism began with a change Congress enacted in the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. In section 704 of that Act, Members of Congress voted to make themselves entitled to an annual raise equal to half a percentage point less than the employment cost index, one measure of inflation.

On occasion, Congress has voted to deny itself the raise, and the traditional vehicle for the pay raise vote is the Treasury appropriations bill. But that vehicle is not always made available to those who want a public debate and vote on the matter. Just last year, for example, the Senate did not consider the Treasury appropriations bill. Instead, we passed a series of continuing resolutions to fund government operations usually addressed in that bill and other appropriations bills that were not taken up. Because of that, Senators were effectively prevented from offering an amendment to force an up or down vote on the annual pay raise. And that situation was not unique.

As I have noted in the past, getting a vote on the annual congressional pay raise is a haphazard affair at best, and it should not be that way. The burden should not be on those who seek a public debate and recorded vote on the Member pay raise. On the contrary, Congress should have to act if it decides to award itself a hike in pay. This process of pay raises without accountability must end.

This issue is not a new question. It was something that our Founders considered from the beginning of our Nation. In August of 1789, as part of the package of 12 amendments advocated by James Madison that included what has become our Bill of Rights, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Constitution providing that Congress could not raise its pay without an intervening election. On September 9, 1789, the Senate passed that amendment. In late September of 1789, Congress submitted the amendments to the States.

Although the amendment on pay raises languished for two centuries, in the 1980s, a campaign began to ratify it. While I was a member of the Wisconsin State Senate, I was proud to help ratify the amendment. Its approval by the Michigan legislature on May 7, 1992, gave it the needed approval by three-fourths of the States.

The 27th Amendment to the Constitution now states: ``No law, varying the compensation for the services of the senators and representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.''

I honor that limitation. Throughout my 6-year term, I accept only the rate of pay that Senators receive on the date on which I was sworn in as a Senator. And I return to the Treasury any additional income Senators get, whether from a cost-of-living adjustment or a pay raise we vote for ourselves. I don't take a raise until my bosses, the people of Wisconsin, give me one at the ballot box. That is the spirit of the 27th Amendment. The stealth pay raises like the one that Congress allowed for 2006 certainly violate the spirit of that amendment at the very least.

This practice must end and this bill will end it. Senators and Congressmen should have to vote up-or-down to raise Congressional pay, and my bill would require just that. We owe our constituents nothing less.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased today to introduce the Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007. I want to thank Senator Sununu for once again cosponsoring this bill, which we also introduced in the last Congress. Senator Sununu has consistently been a leader on privacy issues, and I am pleased to work with him on this effort. I also want to thank Senators Leahy, Akaka, and Wyden, for their continuing support of the bill.

The controversial data analysis technology known as data mining is capable of reviewing millions of both public and private records on each and every American. The possibility of government law enforcement or intelligence agencies fishing for patterns of criminal or terrorist activity in these vast quantities of digital data raises serious privacy and civil liberties issues--not to mention serious questions about the effectiveness of these types of searches. But four years after Congress first learned about and defunded the Defense Department's program called Total Information Awareness, there is still much Congress does not know about the Federal Government's work on data mining.

We have made some progress. We know from reviews conducted by the Government Accountability Office that as of May 2004 there were nearly 200 Federal data mining programs, more than one hundred of which relied on personal information and 29 of which were for the purpose of investigating terrorists or criminals. And we have learned a few more details on five of those programs from a follow-up report that GAO issued in August 2005. We also have a brief report from the DHS Inspector General published in August 2006, and as a result of my amendment to the DHS appropriations bill we have a July 2006 report from the Privacy Office at the Department of Homeland Security that provides some interesting policy suggestions relating to data mining.

But this information has come to us haphazardly, and lacks detail about the precise nature of the data mining programs being utilized or developed, their efficacy, and the consequences Americans could face as a result. Furthermore, much of the reporting thus far has focused on the Department of Homeland Security. It also appears there has been little if any government-wide consideration of privacy policies for these types of programs. Indeed, public debate on government data mining has been generated more by press stories than as a result of congressional oversight.

My bill would require all Federal agencies to report to Congress within 180 days and every year thereafter on data mining programs developed or used to find a pattern or anomaly indicating terrorist or other criminal activity on the part of individuals, and how these programs implicate the civil liberties and privacy of all Americans. If necessary, specific information in the various reports could be classified.

This is information we need to have. Congress should not be learning the details about data mining programs after millions of dollars are spent testing or using data mining against unsuspecting Americans. The possibility of unchecked, secret use of data mining technology threatens one of the most important values that we are fighting for in the war against terrorism--freedom.

Data mining could rely on a combination of intelligence data and personal information like individuals' traffic violations, credit card purchases, travel records, medical records, and virtually any information contained in commercial or public databases. Congress must conduct oversight to make sure that all government agencies engaged in fighting terrorism and other criminal enterprises--not just the Department of Homeland Security, but also the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and others--use these types of sensitive personal information effectively and appropriately.

Let me clarify what this bill does not do. It does not have any effect on the government's use of commercial data to conduct individualized searches on people who are already suspects, nor does it require that the government report on these types of searches. It does not end funding for any program, determine the rules for use of data mining technology, or threaten any ongoing investigation that might use data mining technology.

My bill would simply provide Congress with information about the nature of the technology and the data that will be used. The Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act would require all government agencies to assess

the efficacy of the data mining technology they are using or developing--that is, whether the technology can deliver on the promises of each program. In addition, my bill would make sure that Congress knows whether the Federal agencies using data mining technology have considered and developed policies or guidelines to protect the privacy and due process rights of individuals, such as privacy technologies and redress procedures. With complete information about the current data mining plans and practices of the Federal Government, Congress will be able to conduct a thorough review of the costs and benefits of the practice of data mining on a program-by-program basis and make considered judgments about whether programs should go forward. Congress will also be able to evaluate whether new privacy rules are necessary.

In addition, Congress must look closely at the government's activities because data mining is unproven in this area. Some argue that data mining can help locate potential terrorists before they strike. But we do not, today, have evidence that pattern-based data mining will prevent terrorism. In fact, some technology experts have warned that this type of data mining is not the right approach for the terrorism problem. Just last month, the Cato Institute released a report--coauthored by a scientist specializing in data analytics and an information privacy expert--concluding that ``[t]he only thing predictable about predictive data mining for terrorism is that it would be consistently wrong.''

Some commercial uses of data mining have been successful, but have arisen in a very different context than counterterrorism efforts. For example, the financial world has successfully used data mining to identify people committing fraud because it has data on literally millions, if not billions, of historical financial transactions. And the banks and credit card companies know, in large part, which of those past transactions have turned out to be fraudulent. So when they apply sophisticated statistical algorithms to that massive amount of historical data, they are able to make a pretty good guess about what a fraudulent transaction might look like in the future.

We do not have that kind of historical data about terrorists and sleeper cells. We have just a handful of individuals whose past actions can be analyzed, which makes it virtually impossible to apply the kind of advanced statistical analysis required to use data mining in this way. That raises serious questions about whether data mining will ever be able to locate an actual terrorist. Before the government starts reviewing personal information about every man, woman and child in this country, we should learn what data mining can and can't do--and what limits and protections are needed if data mining programs do go forward.

We must also bear in mind that there will inevitably be errors in the underlying data. Everyone knows people who have had errors on their credit reports--and that is the one area of commercial data where the law already imposes strict accuracy requirements. Other types of commercial data are likely to be even more inaccurate. Even if the technology itself were effective, I am very concerned that innocent people could be ensnared because of mistakes in the data that make them look suspicious. The recent rise in identity theft, which creates even more data accuracy problems, makes it even more important that we address this issue.

I also want to touch on one issue that has proved difficult in many debates about data mining: how to define the term. What is data mining? From policy debates to government reports, many people have wrestled with this question. While it can be defined more broadly, for the purpose of this reporting requirement, data mining is limited to the process of attempting to predict future events or actions by discovering or locating patterns or anomalies in data. However, for purposes of the reporting requirement in this bill, which seeks information on those data mining programs most likely to threaten the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, I have limited the definition in a couple of other ways. First, the bill's core definition of data mining is to conduct a query, search or other analysis of one or more electronic databases to ``discover a predictive pattern or an anomaly indicative of terrorist or criminal activity on the part of any individual or individuals.'' Data mining has a number of applications at various government agencies outside the context of terrorism and other criminal investigations, but I have limited the definition for purposes of this legislation in order to get reports on the programs most likely to raise privacy concerns. For example, the May 2004 GAO report identified a number of government data mining programs whose goals are managing resources efficiently or identifying fraud, waste and abuse in government programs, and that do not rely on personally identifiable information. I am not seeking reports on programs like these.

Second, as I alluded to earlier, the definition explicitly excludes queries to retrieve information from a database that is based on information--such as address, passport number or license plate number-- that is associated with a particular individual or individuals. This type of query is a traditional investigative technique. Although government agencies must be careful in their use of commercial databases, simply querying a Choicepoint database for information about someone who is already a suspect is not data mining.

Most Americans believe that their private lives should remain private. Data mining programs run the risk of intruding into the lives of individuals who have nothing to do with terrorism or other criminal activity and understandably do not want their credit reports, shopping habits and doctor visits to become a part of a gigantic computerized search engine operating without any controls or oversight, and without much promise of locating terrorists. As the Cato report put it, ``[t]he possible benefits of predictive data mining for finding planning or preparation for terrorism are minimal. The financial costs, wasted effort, and threats to privacy and civil liberties are potentially vast.''

At a minimum, the administration should be required to report to Congress about the various data mining programs now underway or being studied, and the impact those programs may have on our privacy and civil liberties, so that Congress can determine whether any benefits of this practice come at too high a price to our privacy and personal liberties. As Senator Wyden and I have told the Director of National Intelligence, we must have a public discussion about the efficacy and privacy implications of data mining. We wrote a letter to him on November 15, 2006, that included the following:

[W]e believe there needs to be a public discussion before

the implementation of any government data mining program that

would rely on domestic commercial data and other information

about Americans. There are serious questions about whether

pattern analysis of such data can effectively identify

terrorists, given the relative lack of historical data about

terrorist activities. And as the furor over the Total

Information Awareness program demonstrated, the American

public has serious--and legitimate--concerns about the

privacy ramifications of programs designed to fish for

patterns of criminal or terrorist activity in vast quantities

of digital data, collected by other entities for entirely

different reasons. Pattern analysis runs the risk of

generating a large number of false positives, meaning that

innocent Americans could become the subject of investigation.

Before we go down that path, it is critical that we have a

public discussion about the efficacy and privacy implications

of this technology. And, if we decide that data mining is

effective enough to warrant spending taxpayer dollars on it,

we should establish strong privacy protections to protect

innocent people from being the subject of government

suspicion.

Of course, the Intelligence Community should be taking

advantage of new technologies in its critical responsibility

to protect our country from terrorists, and much of its work

must remain classified to protect national security. But we

can have a public debate about what privacy rules should

constrain data mining programs deployed domestically, without

revealing sensitive information like the precise algorithms

that the government has developed.

This bill is the first step in this process--a way for Congress and, to the degree appropriate, the public to finally understand what is going on behind the closed doors of the executive branch so that we can start to have a policy discussion about data mining that is long overdue. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. All it asks for is information to which Congress and the American people are entitled.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce legislation that would put an end to automatic pay raises for Members of Congress.

As I have noted when I raised this issue in past years, Congress has the authority to raise its own pay, something that most of our constituents cannot do. Because this is such a singular power, Congress ought to exercise it openly, and subject to regular procedures including debate, amendment, and a vote on the record.

But current law allows Congress to avoid that public debate and vote. All that is necessary for Congress to get a pay raise is that nothing be done to stop it. The annual pay raise takes effect unless Congress acts.

This stealth pay raise mechanism began with a change Congress enacted in the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. In section 704 of that Act, Members of Congress voted to make themselves entitled to an annual raise equal to half a percentage point less than the employment cost index, one measure of inflation.

On occasion, Congress has voted to deny itself the raise, and the traditional vehicle for the pay raise vote is the Treasury appropriations bill. But that vehicle is not always made available to those who want a public debate and vote on the matter. Just last year, for example, the Senate did not consider the Treasury appropriations bill. Instead, we passed a series of continuing resolutions to fund government operations usually addressed in that bill and other appropriations bills that were not taken up. Because of that, Senators were effectively prevented from offering an amendment to force an up or down vote on the annual pay raise. And that situation was not unique.

As I have noted in the past, getting a vote on the annual congressional pay raise is a haphazard affair at best, and it should not be that way. The burden should not be on those who seek a public debate and recorded vote on the Member pay raise. On the contrary, Congress should have to act if it decides to award itself a hike in pay. This process of pay raises without accountability must end.

This issue is not a new question. It was something that our Founders considered from the beginning of our Nation. In August of 1789, as part of the package of 12 amendments advocated by James Madison that included what has become our Bill of Rights, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Constitution providing that Congress could not raise its pay without an intervening election. On September 9, 1789, the Senate passed that amendment. In late September of 1789, Congress submitted the amendments to the States.

Although the amendment on pay raises languished for two centuries, in the 1980s, a campaign began to ratify it. While I was a member of the Wisconsin State Senate, I was proud to help ratify the amendment. Its approval by the Michigan legislature on May 7, 1992, gave it the needed approval by three-fourths of the States.

The 27th Amendment to the Constitution now states: ``No law, varying the compensation for the services of the senators and representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.''

I honor that limitation. Throughout my 6-year term, I accept only the rate of pay that Senators receive on the date on which I was sworn in as a Senator. And I return to the Treasury any additional income Senators get, whether from a cost-of-living adjustment or a pay raise we vote for ourselves. I don't take a raise until my bosses, the people of Wisconsin, give me one at the ballot box. That is the spirit of the 27th Amendment. The stealth pay raises like the one that Congress allowed for 2006 certainly violate the spirit of that amendment at the very least.

This practice must end and this bill will end it. Senators and Congressmen should have to vote up-or-down to raise Congressional pay, and my bill would require just that. We owe our constituents nothing less.

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

Mr. President, I am happy to see the Senator from Montana presiding.

I am very pleased to speak about ethics and lobbying reform and the bill we will consider over the next week or so.

To start, what a pleasure it is to have a majority here that not only supports reform but recognizes the importance of dealing with this issue immediately in this new Congress. There is no better way to show the American people that things have changed in Washington and will continue to change than by taking up and passing strong ethics and lobbying reforms right away. I thank Majority Leader Reid for making a decision to start our work in this new Congress with this issue. This is the right thing to do.

Ethical conduct in Government should not be an aspiration, it should be a given. For too long, the public has had to open the morning papers and read about how Congress is mired in scandal rather than about how we are going to deal with the really tough problems) facing our country. We might wish that rules aren't necessary, but time has proven, over and over again, that they are. And once there are rules, there seem always to be people who want to bend those rules or skate as close to the line as they can. And sometimes they fall or jump over that line. And so the rules need to be revisited and toughened, based on experience.

Just over a year ago, it looked like the Jack Abramoff scandal had finally lit a fuse under the Congress. Soaring promises were made that reform was on the way last year. Bills were introduced, hearings were held, and ultimately both the House and Senate considered legislation on the floor. But there was always a sense that what was going on was just a show. It was clear that many of those in charge wanted to change as little as possible. It seemed like the Republican leaders in the House believed that the public really didn't care about these issues. First they attached major campaign finance reform provisions to the bill the Senate passed, and then they let it die.

We found out on November 7 just how wrong they were. The new faces in this Senate are the direct result of the public's distaste for how the last Congress handled this issue, and many others. So now it is time for real action. And the public will again be watching closely to see how we perform.

We start our work today on S. 1, which is the same bill that the Senate approved last year, by a vote of 90-8. Last year, I was one of the eight. I thought the bill was too weak in some very significant ways. And so today, along with the junior Senators from Illinois and Connecticut, Senators Obama and Lieberman, I have introduced the Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act. This is our attempt to say what we think the Senate's final product should look like when we finish our work on S. 1.

I do not intend to offer this new bill as a complete substitute. Instead, I will seek to I have important provisions of this bill added as amendments to S. 1. I am happy to say that a number of the suggestions that we make in our bill have been accepted by the majority leader. Some are included in his substitute, which is the base bill for this legislation. Some very important additional improvements are included in the Reid first degree amendment. This is a very good start for this debate, to improve the bill right at the outset.

I take a few minutes as we start this debate to talk about some of the most important issues that we must address in this bill. First, we need an airtight lobbyist gift ban. No loopholes, no ambiguity. We took a first step towards banning gifts from lobbyists, including meals, tickets, and everything else, in last year's bill, but we left open a big loophole. If we do nothing else to improve last year's effort, we have to close that loophole.

I am not going to stand here and say that any Senator's vote can be purchased for a free meal or a ticket to a football game. But I don't think anyone can argue that lobbyists are providing these perks out of the goodness

of their hearts, either. At this point, no reform bill is going to be credible unless it contains a strict lobbyist gift ban.

No one has ever explained to me why Members of Congress need to be allowed to accept free meals, tickets, or any other gift from a lobbyist. If you really want to have dinner with a lobbyist, no one is saying that you can't. Just take out your credit card and pay your own way. I can tell my colleagues from personal experience that you will survive just fine under a no-gifts policy. The Wisconsin Legislature has such a policy and I brought it here with me to Washington. I don't go hungry. We need to just stop the practice of eating out at the expense of others. It is not necessary. It looks bad. And it leads to abuses.

I am happy to say that Senator Reid agrees that the lobbyist gift ban is not a ban if organizations that retain or employ lobbyists can still give gifts. He is prepared to close the loophole in S. 1 that would allow that to continue. His amendment does that and I support it.

Another important shortcoming of S. 1 is in the area of privately funded travel. That was the issue that leapt to the fore when Jack Abramoff pled guilty just a little over a year ago. Abramoff took Members of Congress on ``fact finding trips'' to Scotland where they went shopping and golfed at St. Andrews. It was a scandal and Members of Congress were falling all over each other in a race to do something about it. But just a few months later, the Senate passed a bill that did almost nothing at all about it.

My staff keeps a file of invitations for fact-finding trips for staff. Here are a few from over the years. A ``legislative issues seminar'' on St. Michaels Island, sponsored by MCI World Com, with dinner at the Inn at Perry Cabin; a trip to Silicon Valley sponsored by the Information Technology Industry Council, with dinner sponsored by the Wine Institute; a ``congressional field trip'' sponsored by GTE to Tampa and Clearwater Beach. The invitation reads:

To take advantage of the terrific location beside Tampa Bay

and the Gulf of Mexico, we'll demonstrate that you can place

a cellular call over water, either while dining aboard a boat

or fishing for that night's dinner.

These kinds of ``fact finding trips'' paid for by industry groups were left untouched by the bill the Senate passed. That was one of the reasons I voted against the bill.

Fortunately, the new House leadership recognized the need to do something about privately funded travel, even if they weren't prepared to prohibit it entirely. The House passed a rules change on the first day of the session to allow only trips sponsored by groups that don't employ or retain lobbyists. The only trips that groups that lobby can offer are to a one day event--to make a speech, for example. This is a major improvement, especially because lobbyist participation in organizing, arranging, or planning these trips would be strictly limited.

There are many things that could be done about privately funded travel, but at the very least we should not have more lenient travel rules than the House of Representatives. Again, I am pleased that Senator Reid supports the House travel rules and I hope we will adopt his amendment that brings us in line with those rules.

When I introduced my lobbying reform bill back in July 2005, it included a provision addressing the abuse of Members flying on corporate jets. At that time, I have to say, it seemed like a fantasy that we would actually pass such a provision. I heard complaint after complaint about it, that we shouldn't do it.

Slowly but surely, many people have come around to where the public is: Corporate jet travel is a real abuse. Sure, it is convenient, but it is based on a fiction--that the fair market value of such a trip is just the cost of a first class ticket. And when that fiction is applied to political travel, it creates a loophole in the ban on corporate contributions that we have had in this country for over a century. Any legislation on corporate jets must include campaign trips as well as official travel because one thing is for certain--the lobbyist for the company that provides the jet is likely to be on the flight, whether it is taking you to see a factory back home or a fundraiser for your campaign.

Our bill does that. It covers all of the possible uses of corporate jets, and amends all of the Senate rules needed to put in place a strong reform, and the Federal election laws as well. From now on, if you want to fly on a corporate jet, you will have to pay the charter rate. And these flights shouldn't be an opportunity for the lobbyist or CEO of the company that owns the jet to have several hours alone with a Senator. Our bill prohibits that as well. This is what the American people have been calling for. There are no loopholes or ambiguities here. Politicians flying on private planes for cheap will be a thing of the past if we can get this provision into the bill. Senator Reid's amendment includes a tough corporate jet provision. I am pleased to support that portion of the amendment. This is a big deal, and I commend the majority leader for taking this step.

Another issue on which I hope we will make some improvements in this bill is the revolving door between between Government service and lobbying firms. One of the things that really sticks in the craw of the people back home is the idea that politicians use their government service as a stepping stone to lucrative lobbying careers. And they also believe, rightly in some cases, that former Members who are lobbyists have special access and influence over their former colleagues. We have a criminal statute that prohibits former Senators from lobbying the Congress for a year after they leave office. The same tough provisions apply to top officials in the executive branch.

But experience has shown that these provisions don't really get at the problem. The cooling off period is too short. Our bill doubles it. And the cooling off period has become more of a warming up period for some Members of Congress who move on to work for an organization with interests in legislation. They basically run the lobbying show behind the scenes during the time they can't lobby their colleagues directly.

Is it too much to ask a Member of Congress who leaves office to take a 2-year breather before accepting money from an employer for trying to influence Congress? I don't think so. We are talking here about highly talented and highly employable people. There are so many employers, so many worthy causes, that would benefit from their talents and experience, doing things other than trying to influence legislation. Fortunately, the Lobbying Disclosure Act has a ready made definition of ``lobbying activities'' that is broader than lobbying contacts. Our bill's revolving door provision prohibits Members of Congress from engaging in lobbying activities for 2 years after leaving office, not just lobbying contacts. That would make the revolving door restrictions really mean something.

I believe that is what the public wants--restrictions that mean something, not rules for show, with hidden loopholes and not a system of rules with lax enforcement. That is why our bill includes the Lieberman-Collins proposal for an Office of Public Integrity to investigate ethics complaints and make recommendations to the Ethics Committee on whether to take action. It is certainly time that this proposal receive very serious consideration. We are on the cusp of making some very significant changes to our own rules. Let's not undermine what we are accomplishing by leaving unaddressed the very real need for tough and independent enforcement.

I also believe this bill must go further in addressing earmarks. Senator McCain's bill, which I have cosponsored, includes a provision that would allow the Senate to strip out earmarks for unauthorized spending. This is an important reform and I hope it can be added to the bill.

Thus far, I have talked only about ethics rules, but the bill on the floor contains some very significant improvements to our lobbying disclosure laws as well. The current law, the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which was enacted in 1995, was itself a landmark reform, the first change in nearly 50 years to the original Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act. I was here when the LDA passed, under the leadership of the Senator of Michigan, Mr. Levin. It is an important and effective law.

A decade of experience has shown, however, that it has shortcomings. The

bill on the floor includes some important improvements. My bill incorporates those improvements and also adds some--requiring disclosure by lobbyists of the earmarks they try to get for their clients, and requiring lobbyists and lobbying organizations to file separate reports on their political contributions and fundraising. The use of campaign contributions as a lobbying tool is well known in this city and in this Senate. It is time that our lobbying disclosure laws reflected that. And we should cover all of the tools in the lobbyist's work bench, not just direct contributions but the collection or bundling of the contributions of others. Lobbyists wield influence by serving as fundraisers, not just be giving money themselves.

I have high hopes for this debate. After a false start last year, we can get this job done. The House has moved quickly to pass new ethics rules. It is our turn now. And we can lead the way with serious lobbying disclosure reforms. I am looking forward to working with my colleagues on both sides to start this Congress with a real accomplishment. If we do this, the public's confidence in how we tackle the many pressing issues before us will be greatly enhanced. That, in the end, is the best reason to undertake these reforms. They are the foundation on which the rest of our work together stands.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I will once again introduce with the, Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, and the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, a bill to bring Senate campaigns into the 21st century by requiring that Senate candidates file their campaign finance disclosure reports electronically and that those reports be promptly made available to the public. This step is long overdue, and I hope that the fact that we now have two dozen or so bipartisan cosponsors indicates that the Senate will act quickly on this legislation.

A series of reports by the Campaign Finance Institute has highlighted the anomaly in the election laws that makes it nearly impossible for the public to get access to Senate campaign finance reports while most other reports are available on the Internet within 24 hours of their filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The Campaign Finance Institute asks a rhetorical question: ``What makes the Senate so special that it exempts itself from a key requirement of campaign finance disclosure that applies to everyone else, including candidates for the House of Representatives and Political Action Committees?''

The answer, of course, is nothing. The United States Senate is special in many ways. I am proud to serve here. But there is no excuse for keeping our campaign finance information inaccessible to the public when the information filed by House candidates or others is readily available. A recent Washington Post editorial called this delay ``completely unjustified.'' I couldn't agree more, especially now, when the Senate is debating ethics reforms designed to increase transparency and accountability to the public. I ask unanimous consent that the text of this editorial be printed in the Record following the text of the bill.

My bill amends the section of the election laws dealing with electronic filing to require reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 hours. The FEC is required to make available on the Internet within 24 hours any filing it receives electronically. So if this bill is enacted, electronic versions of Senate reports should be available to the public within 48 hours of their filing. That will be a vast improvement over the current situation, which, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, requires journalists and interested members of the public to review computer images of paper-filed copies of reports, and involves a completely wasteful expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars to re-enter information into databases that almost every campaign has available in electronic format.

The current filing system also means that the detailed coding that the FEC does, which allows for more sophisticated searches and analysis, is completed over a week later for Senate reports than for House reports. This means that the final disclosure reports covering the first two weeks of October are often not susceptible to detailed scrutiny before the election. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, in the 2006 election, ``[v]oters in six of the hottest Senate races were out of luck the week before the November 7 election if they did Web searches for information on general election contributions since June 30. In all ten of the most closely followed Senate races voters were unable to search through any candidate reports for information on `pre-general election (October 1-18)' donations.'' And a September 18, 2006, column by Jeffery H. Birnbaum in the Washington Post noted that ``When the polls opened in November 2004, voters were in the dark about $53 million in individual Senate contributions of $200 or more dating all the way back to July . . .''

It is time for the Senate to at long last relinquish its backward attitude toward campaign finance disclosure. I am encouraged by the supportive statements from a number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including the new Minority Leader and Minority Whip, and the new Chair of the Rules Committee. I urge the enactment of this simple bill that will make our reports subject to the same prompt, public scrutiny as those filed by PACs, House and Presidential candidates, and even 527 organizations. I close with another question from the Campaign Finance Institute: ``Isn't it time that the Senate join the 21st century and allow itself to vote on a simple legislative fix that could significantly improve our democracy?'' This Congress, let us answer that question in the affirmative.

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

Mr. President, today I will once again introduce with the, Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, and the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, a bill to bring Senate campaigns into the 21st century by requiring that Senate candidates file their campaign finance disclosure reports electronically and that those reports be promptly made available to the public. This step is long overdue, and I hope that the fact that we now have two dozen or so bipartisan cosponsors indicates that the Senate will act quickly on this legislation.

A series of reports by the Campaign Finance Institute has highlighted the anomaly in the election laws that makes it nearly impossible for the public to get access to Senate campaign finance reports while most other reports are available on the Internet within 24 hours of their filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The Campaign Finance Institute asks a rhetorical question: ``What makes the Senate so special that it exempts itself from a key requirement of campaign finance disclosure that applies to everyone else, including candidates for the House of Representatives and Political Action Committees?''

The answer, of course, is nothing. The United States Senate is special in many ways. I am proud to serve here. But there is no excuse for keeping our campaign finance information inaccessible to the public when the information filed by House candidates or others is readily available. A recent Washington Post editorial called this delay ``completely unjustified.'' I couldn't agree more, especially now, when the Senate is debating ethics reforms designed to increase transparency and accountability to the public. I ask unanimous consent that the text of this editorial be printed in the Record following the text of the bill.

My bill amends the section of the election laws dealing with electronic filing to require reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 hours. The FEC is required to make available on the Internet within 24 hours any filing it receives electronically. So if this bill is enacted, electronic versions of Senate reports should be available to the public within 48 hours of their filing. That will be a vast improvement over the current situation, which, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, requires journalists and interested members of the public to review computer images of paper-filed copies of reports, and involves a completely wasteful expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars to re-enter information into databases that almost every campaign has available in electronic format.

The current filing system also means that the detailed coding that the FEC does, which allows for more sophisticated searches and analysis, is completed over a week later for Senate reports than for House reports. This means that the final disclosure reports covering the first two weeks of October are often not susceptible to detailed scrutiny before the election. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, in the 2006 election, ``[v]oters in six of the hottest Senate races were out of luck the week before the November 7 election if they did Web searches for information on general election contributions since June 30. In all ten of the most closely followed Senate races voters were unable to search through any candidate reports for information on `pre-general election (October 1-18)' donations.'' And a September 18, 2006, column by Jeffery H. Birnbaum in the Washington Post noted that ``When the polls opened in November 2004, voters were in the dark about $53 million in individual Senate contributions of $200 or more dating all the way back to July . . .''

It is time for the Senate to at long last relinquish its backward attitude toward campaign finance disclosure. I am encouraged by the supportive statements from a number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including the new Minority Leader and Minority Whip, and the new Chair of the Rules Committee. I urge the enactment of this simple bill that will make our reports subject to the same prompt, public scrutiny as those filed by PACs, House and Presidential candidates, and even 527 organizations. I close with another question from the Campaign Finance Institute: ``Isn't it time that the Senate join the 21st century and allow itself to vote on a simple legislative fix that could significantly improve our democracy?'' This Congress, let us answer that question in the affirmative.

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

Mr. President, I will oppose this measure. In addition to containing some questionable policy provisions, such as the provisions relating to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and granting Vietnam permanent most-favored-nation trading status, the bill before us contains expensive entitlement spending and tax cuts that have not been fully offset. As a result, the legislation will increase the deficit by $40 billion over the next 5 years.

I can count votes as well as the next person, and it is obvious that this measure will pass and pass by a large margin and with bipartisan support. That is disappointing, because while Members of my own party have rightly called for a return to the budget rules requiring that tax cuts and increased entitlement spending be offset, some are nevertheless pushing for the enactment of this measure without any serious effort to require such offsets.

One might wonder why that is. At least two reasons come to mind. First, there are reasons to believe that some in my party are anxious to get this bill through this year because they know full well that the new incoming Democratic majority in the House and Senate would bristle at some of the trade provisions in this proposal. Those who have supported the trade policies of the past several years understand that this may be their last chance to pass questionable trade measures.

If that is the reason, I have little to say other than thank goodness the 110th Congress is just around the corner. I am not sure the country could withstand another week of the kind of trade policy that we have seen promoted by both members of both parties since the early 1990s.

It was during the session following the 1994 elections that a lameduck Congress passed legislation implementing the GATT trade agreement that established the World Trade Organization. The trade model that the GATT and NAFTA established has been devastating to thousands of communities across our country. We can only hope that the action taken by this lameduck Congress will mark the end of a disastrous period of deeply flawed trade policies. And there is some hope because the November elections did result in dozens of new Members in both Houses who reject that ruinous trade model.

Beyond the trade issues, I have heard indirectly that some may want these bills to go through during the 109th Congress so that their cost would be assigned to the current budget rather than to a budget that the new Democratic majority will craft next year. I certainly hope that this scuttlebutt is unfounded because it reflects a cynical view of governing that we should reject. It certainly won't help those future generations of taxpayers who will be stuck with the additional debt that will result from this bill.

The bill also includes a fiscally irresponsible provision that will result in Outer Continental Shelf drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Just a few months ago, the Senate approved this same misguided policy, which will redirect billions of dollars in Federal revenues to just four States. While I support efforts to provide needed assistance to those affected by Hurricane Katrina, we should not do so by creating a massive and long-term new entitlement for a handful of States.

This measure has also been used to jam through a provision to expand the income eligibility of the District of Columbia school voucher program. I oppose school vouchers because such programs funnel taxpayer money away from the public schools and instead direct Federal dollars to private schools that do not have to adhere to the same Federal, State, and local accountability provisions, civil rights laws, and regulations that apply to public schools.

However, as is the case of nearly any bill of this size, there are some good provisions in it. This bill provides relief for physicians who would have seen

a reduction in payment of 5.1 percent in the absence of legislative action, and it goes a step further to provide payments for physicians who report quality-of-care data. This is a first step toward implementing some kind of pay-for-performance in Medicare, and I think this is something that should be pursued. Quality improvement is certainly something that the State of Wisconsin has been a leader in, and I am happy to see that there are Federal incentives for quality improvement.

I am especially pleased to see that this bill includes a measure that is very important to Wisconsin and other rural States--an extension of a provision enacted in the Medicare Modernization Act, MMA, that will keep physicians in rural States paid at a comparable level to those in other States. Under current Medicare law, Wisconsin physicians are paid less than physicians in other areas of the country, even though the work they do is identical. This provision helps address this inequity so that physicians who practice in States with large rural areas will not be at a disadvantage. I am pleased to see that Congress has taken the right steps to ensure that Medicare dollars are more fairly distributed throughout the State of Wisconsin and our Nation.

These fixes for physician payment will be paid for with the Medicare slush fund that provided ``bonus'' payments to insurance companies. These payments were unnecessary and simply provided a cash flow of taxpayer dollars to an industry already awash in money. I have long advocated for elimination of this fund, and I am glad to see it used in a way that actually benefits the American people rather than big business.

There are other good measures in the health portion of this bill. These include technical corrections to the so-called Deficit Reduction Act, an extension of a provision to help Medicare beneficiaries have better access to physical therapy, and a provision to help protect State Medicaid budgets. These are all important to the health care of people in our country, and are policies that I support.

It is unfortunate that this bill does not include a measure agreed to in the proposed Senate bill that would have preserved children's health care in our country. This measure was budget neutral, a good policy, and the right thing to do, but the other body would not agree to this provision that would have prevented budget shortfalls in State Children's Health Insurance Programs, SCHIP, in 14 States in fiscal year 2007. Wisconsin is one of the States that will see a shortfall next year, and I will work aggressively to see that this shortfall is addressed before it harms children in Wisconsin. It is shameful that Congress will add $40 billion to our deficit for tax breaks, but we cannot agree to a budget-neutral measure to provide health care to children who would otherwise not have it.

Despite some worthy provisions, this bill, on balance, is fiscally irresponsible, and I cannot support it. Perhaps the most telling gauge of this bill's cost is that it even violates the lax budget rules set forth in the last budget resolution adopted by this Congress, the 2005 budget resolution. That is right,this bill violates the loose fiscal rules adopted by Congress 2 years ago.

In some ways, this bill is a fitting end to the 109th Congress. It is a fair summary of the fiscal recklessness in which the White House and this Congress have engaged. I very much hope that when they take their seats in the 110th Congress, the new majority will govern in a more fiscally responsible manner, adopt tough, commonsense budget rules, and put an end to this kind of budget-busting, debt-swelling legislation.

Mr. President, I think we all can agree that North Korea remains one of the greatest challenges to our country's foreign and national security policy, and it is clear that approaches to date haven't been successful. This year saw Kim Jong Il launch seven ballistic missiles into the sea of Japan and successfully detonate a nuclear device, defying the clear will of the international community and forcing us to confront the reality of a nuclearized North Korea.

The Bush administration's policy on North Korea has been a complete failure. The 1994 Agreed Framework which this administration inherited was not perfect, and the North Koreans cheated by pursuing uranium enrichment. But the collapse of the framework, which had kept North Korea's fuel rods under IAEA supervision, has been a disaster.

As the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet testified publicly in 2004, ``the IC judged in the mid-1990s that North Korea had produced one, possibly two, nuclear weapons. The 8000 rods the North [now] claims to have processed into plutonium metal would provide enough plutonium for several more.''

But that is the past; our problem now is to find a way forward. For far too many months we have been waiting on the sidelines, hoping, passively, that conditions will turn our way. We have been distracted by Iraq--it took a series of missile launches and the actual detonation of a nuclear device for us to get fully engaged again. And still we wait for the Six Party Talks to reconvene.

I welcome the news that North Korea has agreed to come back to the Six Party Talks. That is a good starting point, but it cannot be the end point; the Six Party process has dragged on for years now, and the only objective result has been that Kim Jong Il now has nuclear weapons. There must be results that come from these talks, and we must have in place benchmarks for what success means. I hope that we can convince Kim Jong Il to give up his nuclear weapons, but history does not provide a great deal of reassurance on that score. At a minimum, we should seek steps in that direction, such as partial dismantlement or a freeze on further production of fissile material, as a starting point.

Ultimately, North Korea needs to be brought back into the international fold. Unfortunately, we can't do that if we signal that our true desire is ``regime change'' and we continue to refuse to consider other options, such as direct negotiations. When dealing with such an important matter to our national security, we should not keep any option off the table. It is high time for a change of course in President Bush's North Korea policy.