Floor Statements

Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks of the distinguished Chairman I be recognized.

Mr. President, during my brief tenure so far in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee has confronted many difficult issues, battles over judicial nominees, complex legislative matters, a historic investigation into misdeeds of the Bush administration's Department of Justice. In that process, the committee saw U.S. attorneys fired for political reasons, the Civil Rights Division run amok, declassified legal theories asserting that the President can secretly ignore his own executive orders. We saw unprecedented politicization of a noble department, and we saw those Office of Legal Counsel memos approving interrogation techniques long understood, long known to be torture. Fortunately, throughout that time, Chairman Leahy sought answers. His efforts were evenhanded but unyielding. We know so much of what we know now because Patrick Leahy was satisfied with nothing less than the whole truth.

Today his work continues, and I wish to speak in support of his efforts. The backdrop is, of course, a grim one. Over and over, as I travel around my State of Rhode Island, I hear from people facing challenges that seem almost insurmountable, challenges President Obama spoke about in his address to Congress last evening. Every day it gets harder and harder to find a job, to pay the bills, to make ends meet. Every day it seems more difficult to see a way out. The Bush administration left our country deeply in debt, bleeding jobs overseas, our financial institutions rotten and weakened and an economy in free- fall. This is the wreckage we see everywhere, in shuttered plants, as my colleague from Pennsylvania sees at home so cruelly, in long lines, and in worried faces. But there is also the damage we cannot see so well, the damage below the water line of our democracy, damage caused by a systematic effort to twist policy to suit

political ends; to substitute ideology for science, fact, and law; and to misuse instruments of power.

If an administration rigged the intelligence process and, on faulty intelligence, sent our country to war, if an administration descended to interrogation techniques of the Inquisition, of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, descended to techniques that we have prosecuted as crimes in military tribunals and in Federal courts, if institutions as noble as the Department of Justice and as vital as the Environmental Protection Agency were subverted by their own leaders, if the integrity of our markets and the fiscal security of our budget were open wide to the frenzied greed of corporations and speculators and contractors, if taxpayers were cheated and the forces of Government rode to the rescue of the cheaters and punished the whistleblowers, if our Government turned the guns of official secrecy against our own people to mislead, confuse, and propagandize them, if the integrity of public officials, the warnings of science, the honesty of Government procedures and the careful historic balance of our separated powers all were seen as obstacles to be overcome and not attributes to be celebrated, if the purpose of Government became no longer to solve problems but simply to work them for political advantage, and a bodyguard of lies and jargon and propaganda was emitted to fool and beguile the American people, something very serious would have gone wrong in our country.

Such damage must be repaired. I submit that as we begin the task of rebuilding this Nation, we have a duty to our country to determine how great that damage is. Democracy is not a static institution. It is a living education, an ongoing education in freedom of a people.

As Harry Truman said, addressing a joint session of Congress back in 1947:

One of the chief virtues of a democracy is that its defects

are always visible, and under democratic processes can be

pointed out and corrected.

We have to learn the lessons from this past carnival of folly, greed, lies, and wrongdoing so the damage can, under democratic processes, be pointed out and corrected. If we bind ourselves to this history, we deny ourselves its lessons, lessons that came at too painful a cost to ignore.

Those lessons merit disclosure and discussion. Indeed, disclosure and discussion makes the difference between this history being a valuable lesson for the bright and upward forces of our democracy or a blueprint for those darker forces to return and someday do it all over again. As we work toward a brighter future ahead, to days when jobs return to our cities, capital to our businesses, and security to our lives, we cannot set aside our responsibility to take an accounting of where we are, what was done, and what must now be repaired. We also have to brace ourselves for the realistic possibility that as some of this conduct is exposed, we and the world will find it shameful, revolting. We may have to face the prospect of looking with horror at our own country's deeds.

We are optimists, we Americans. We are proud of our country. Contrition comes hard to us. But the path back from the dark side may lead us down some unfamiliar valleys of remorse and repugnance before we can return to the light. We may have to face our fellow Americans saying to us: No, please, tell us we did not do that, tell us Americans did not do that. And we will have to explain somehow.

This is no small feat and not easy. This will not be comfortable or proud, but somehow it must be done.

Chairman Leahy has embarked on the process of considering a new commission, one appropriate to the task of investigating the damage the Bush administration did to America, to her finest traditions and institutions, to her reputation and integrity. The hearing he has called in coming days will more thoroughly examine this question to help us determine how best to move forward. I stand with him. Before we can repair the harm of the last 8 years, we must learn the truth.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, for the past several years, it has been my great privilege to travel around my home State of Rhode Island and hear directly from the people I was elected to serve--to listen to what is on their minds, their good news and their worries and the challenges and opportunities they and their families face every day.

I regularly hold community dinners in Rhode Island. We serve pasta and meatballs or hamburgers and hotdogs. We invite people from the community and we talk about the issues that matter to them. Sometimes I ask people to come together to talk about a particular issue, which is what we did Sunday, 2 weeks ago, at the Tri-City Elks Lodge in Warwick. I invited Rhode Islanders to join me to talk about our broken health care system and what we might do to fix it.

More than 200 people came, from at least 14 different cities and towns. The parking lot was jammed; the room was packed; Seniors and students, patients and providers, business-owners and veterans. They know what is wrong with our system--they experience it first hand every day. They came to share their frustration, their anger; to tell what's happened to them in a system that too often leaves them nowhere to turn.

That evening, I launched a new feature on my web site to help people share their stories about health care. At whitehouse.senate.gov/ storyboard, there is a forum where Rhode Islanders can read about others' experiences with this broken system, and tell me about their own. We gave people who came to the dinner the chance to write their stories, right then and there. And one after another, the stories came.

Mr. President, if anyone believes we can afford to wait to fix the health care system, that this is not an urgent, crisis-level problem for the people of this country, I urge them to listen to what these Rhode Islanders had to say.

Sandra from Smithfield wrote:

As of this month I will no longer be treating my Rheumatoid

Arthritis. The treatment costs almost $6,000 every six weeks.

The kicker is that I have help from the drug company to pay

for the drug portion, but that is only half the cost of

administering the infusions. I do not have $3,000 this month.

I am begging for universal health care. I am 52 years old. I

worry every day when the crippling effects of rheumatoid

arthritis will put me in a wheelchair because I cannot afford

to treat my disease. Please fight for universal health care.

Please help.

David from Warwick, stood up at the dinner and explained that he began receiving Social Security and Medicare 3 years ago:

Each year since, the amount I get has gone down because the

Social Security cost of living raise has not kept up with the

rising cost of my medical coverage. This year I had to cut my

coverage. My co-pays are now more than I can afford.

Brande is a young woman from Johnston, Rhode Island who has struggled with juvenile diabetes since age 11. She wrote:

Although I have done everything humanly possible to control

my diabetes, [I] still am not able to achieve tight blood

sugar control. My diabetes doctor believes the best hope for

my health is continuous blood glucose monitoring sensors that

would accommodate my insulin pump. Through many requests, and

many letters to Blue Cross, I have still been denied these

life saving sensors that I desperately need.

Many, many Rhode Islanders at this dinner shared stories of their frustration with the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. Frances in Cranston wrote:

Humana changed its premium from $25 to $39.95 per month and

at the same time the copayment to fill a prescription went

from $25 to $40. When I complained that I would leave for

another Medicare Part D provider, they said I would have to

wait until next November.

Everett from Warwick and his wife saw their Part D premiums go up by 40 percent without notice, and they had to pay a 3-month penalty when they finally decided to switch plans:

Now, my new provider, First Health, wants to charge my wife

another $3.50 per month. I am appealing but why should the

provider get the extra money? It is already costing her more

to have this plan.

Robert, also from Warwick, was flatly frustrated with the whole Part D process. He said:

We have to simplify the Medicare Part D plans. There are

too many choices and too many plans, and too many cards. They

should just all be the same.

The health care stories went on. From Carolyn in Warwick:

All my doctors are dropping out of my insurance plans. My

primary care doctor is going to MDVIP--$1500 a year up front.

I can't afford to see him anymore.

From Amanda in Providence:

My father is a Medicare recipient. My family and I live

with constant worry that he will lose certain benefits. It is

frustrating and painful that in his last few years with us we

have to spend so much time worrying about his healthcare

access.

From Joyce in Warwick:

I take two medications. The insurance will pay for one

medication for 30 days. I am supposed to take two a day!

From Maggie in Johnston:

I'm self-employed and am unable to afford health insurance.

My business partner finally had to drop hers. It was costing

her $1,000 a month.

From Annette in Cranston:

I was buying my health insurance for my daughter and myself

from Blue Cross direct . . . I can no longer afford it, so I

had to let it go.

Ronald in Wakefield:

I am middle class, so no one speaks for me. Please don't

forget those of us who have coverage and pay for it out of

our own pocket.

Carol in West Kingston:

I am faced with the option of providing health insurance

for myself or food on the table for my family . . . I decided

to opt out of COBRA. I am taking a risk being a cancer

survivor but what else can I do?

Jean in West Warwick:

I really don't know at is going to happen.

Roberta in Coventry:

Between my son's medications and mine, it is just out of

reach for me. So in order to keep my son healthy, I go

without. Last year, I fell ill and could not afford to go to

the doctor. I have been a nurse for almost 40 years, and I

have worked myself to the bone healing sick people. My health

is failing, and I am afraid I will not see my grandchildren

grow up. Please help us.

And on and on it went. Every time someone at the community dinner took the microphone to speak about the complexity and unfairness of Medicare Part D, heads around the room nodded. Every time someone stood and called for universal health coverage, this Rhode Island crowd applauded. Every time we heard a story from someone battling their insurance company for the care they needed, there were groans around the room of recognition and exasperation. There was not a single person there--even in this economy--who thought health care reform should not be one of Congress's top priorities.

I am looking forward to attending President Obama's State of the Union Address tomorrow evening with one of the Rhode Islanders who attended this dinner in Warwick. Lauren Goddard is a medical student with Crohn's disease who is facing a lifetime of expensive health care costs. I appreciate her attendance and her willingness to share her story of how difficult the health insurance system can be for an individual who has chronic health care needs.

These Rhode Islanders, Lauren, and everyone else who came to our dinner in Warwick need us to listen. They need us to hear their stories, and they need us to get it and to do something about it.

Two weeks ago, Congress took an enormous step toward addressing the overwhelming economic challenges our country faces. We passed the economic recovery legislation that President Obama signed last week. This means extra money in people's pockets, new jobs, and patched holes in the social safety nets on which we count. That will surely help. But it is not enough.

For those 200 Rhode Islanders who joined me in Warwick, burdensome health care costs are the forgotten story. Families are forced to choose between prescription drugs and food, clothes, or transportation. Small businesses cannot afford to hire new employees or provide health coverage. Entrepreneurs cannot take that plunge

because they cannot just walk away from their health insurance. And looking beyond those local family perils and sorrows, we see the $35 trillion unfunded liability for Medicare that is bearing down on us.

Unless we begin to undertake serious and meaningful reforms right away, this recession will seem like only a small hurdle compared to that moment when $35 trillion in Medicare costs come due. That wave of cost, that tsunami of cost is coming at us, and we have to prepare. Knowing what we know, sharing the responsibilities we do as Senators, this is our duty. Failure is dereliction.

Every one of us shares the goal of making sure health insurance coverage reaches all Americans. But as I have said in this Chamber before, it is not enough just to bring everyone into the boat. The boat itself is sinking. It is not enough just bringing everybody into the boat, not with what we know is coming.

What is needed is reform of our health care delivery system, an information technology infrastructure so that every American can count on their own secure electronic health record, improvement in the quality of health care so we maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of care delivered, and to reform how we pay for health care so the health care we are paying for is the health care we want. Nothing less will save this boat.

All of this is doable, but we need to start now. We took a good step in President Obama's economic recovery legislation with a nearly $20 billion investment in health information infrastructure. But there is much more to be done, and because it is a bit complex and will take some doing, we cannot dawdle, we cannot delay, we cannot shirk that duty.

To enact health care reforms that will lower costs by improving the quality of care for all Americans, we have to start now. To improve the way we deliver health care to give us a modern, efficient, interactive, trusted health care system, we have to start now. To improve the way we deliver health care by spending wisely for disease prevention and better health outcomes, we have to start now. If we are to sustain health care coverage for the 46 million Americans--9 million of them children who have no health insurance at all--we have to achieve these reforms and we have to start now.

That is what the Rhode Islanders I met on Sunday are asking for. That is what all Americans deserve. For God's sake, let us not fail them.

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

Mr. President, today all over the country, millions of Americans went to work unsure whether they would bring home a paycheck or a pink slip. Today, millions of Americans got up, put on their suit, left the house, not go to work, but for another interview, another visit to the unemployment office, another spot in the long hiring line. Today, millions of Americans will have that late-night session at the kitchen table trying to figure out how they are going to make ends meet on their stressed family budget. And today, millions of Americans worried how they could afford it if a child or an elderly parent were to get sick. In my home State of Rhode Island, where the unemployment rate is the highest it has been in decades, the second highest in the country, I hear stories like this over and over again.

This past Sunday, I had one of our community dinners that we hold. This one was at the Tri-City Elks Lodge in Warwick. More than 200 people came from all over the State to talk to me about their struggles to afford health care in this economy. From them all, the message was the same: We are trying to get by, but times are tough and we feel the deck is stacked against us so we just can't make ends meet. What can you do to help?

Our economy, our country, is in crisis. Americans are urging us to take action now, before things get worse, before it is too late. So this week, the Senate took action. It was not easy, it is not perfect, and it will not be cheap. But it was the right thing to do. The bill we passed on Tuesday will create or save 12,000 jobs just in Rhode Island over the next 2 years. Many of those jobs will come from new investments in Rhode Islands's infrastructure, including millions for road and bridge repair, to improve drinking water and sewer systems, and to help families weatherize their homes and cut their energy bills.

The recovery plan will provide a refundable tax credit, a downpayment on the middle-class tax cut President Obama promised this country. That credit will reach 470,000 Rhode Island workers and families, giving as much as $800 worth of breathing room in a family's budget in this year when every little bit counts.

I am also proud that the recovery bill will provide a one-time $250 payment to those living on Social Security or SSDI. In the Ocean State, we know that for vulnerable seniors, that little bit of extra help from the Federal Government can make the difference between housing and homelessness, between health and sickness. Approximately 138,000 Rhode Islanders receive Social Security, so this bill will mean more than $34 million into Rhode Island's economy for Rhode Island seniors and those who are disabled.

The recovery plan will send an additional $100 a month in unemployment insurance benefits to 86,000 Rhode Island workers who have lost their jobs, and it will provide extended unemployment benefits to an additional 17,000 laid-off Rhode Island workers.

The bill we passed does not stop there. It increases Pell grants so people who cannot find work can go to college, improve their skills, and come back into the workforce better trained, and in better days. It increases funding for food stamps, for Head Start and other early childhood education programs, and for Medicaid--all to help struggling families just weather this storm.

It includes $18 billion in Medicare and Medicaid incentives to build health information infrastructure to improve the quality and safety and efficiency of our health care system.

The bill we passed will put people back to work. It will jump-start our faltering economy, and it will support struggling families. It is not a perfect bill, but at this moment, in this crisis, it is necessary.

We tried to do this together with our Republican friends. President Obama reached out his hand in unprecedented ways. George Bush never once came to the Senate to talk to us, to Senate Democrats. President Obama traveled to Congress to meet with the House Republicans; he came over here to meet with the Senate Republicans; he did individual calls and meetings. Three Republican Senators, Senators Snowe and Collins of Maine and the distinguished ranking member of our Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter, heard his call, put their country first, and helped us pass this bill. I do not agree with all of the compromises that they required, but without them, we might have had no bill at all.

But from the vast majority of Republicans in Congress, from every Republican Member of the House of Representatives, what did President Obama get for his pains? They slapped away his hand of friendship, and they gloated about it, saying, ``The goose egg you laid on the President's desk, [the goose egg meaning zero Republican votes in the House of Representatives] was just beautiful.''

They claimed--hold your horses here--to take inspiration from the Taliban. They said their boycott of President Obama's bill was a political shot in the arm going forward.

And their party leader said this:

You and I know that in the history of mankind and

womankind, government--federal, state or local--has never

created one job.

I guess his history book ended at the chapter on Herbert Hoover. Mr. Steele, read on; read the next chapter about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Works Progress Administration and the Citizens Conservation Corps and how the Government got us out of the Great Depression.

Another measure of whether our Republican friends are being fair is to look at the arguments they have made. Do they make sense?

``We should do housing first.'' We have heard that one. Well, fixing the housing market is, indeed, important. But actions speak louder than words, and while the Republicans' words call for action, their actions spell obstruction. They still resist the single most important and effective thing we can do to stem foreclosures, which is Senator Durbin's bill to allow bankruptcy courts to modify mortgages on principal residences, the only loans that don't have this authority in all loans in our country.

And when we tried to address the housing crisis only a few months ago, they stopped all those bills, refused to allow us to move forward because they said expanding--remember this--oil drilling was more important and we had to do that first. It's the number one issue facing the American public.

Look where we are now and how important oil drilling is in our crisis. If we had done housing first, can you not see the signs here saying: Jobs first? I fear our friends would rather move the goalposts than move legislation.

``It is full of spending, and it is too big.'' Yes, it is full of spending. The recession of consumer spending and business spending is what is draining the economy. The whole idea is to counterbalance the loss of that spending with Government spending. And you know what? It is probably not enough. Our economy has already lost more than 3.6 million jobs since the peak of the business cycle in December 2007, and 11.6 million Americans are currently looking for work. A report last month estimated that in the absence of this legislation, we could lose another 3 to 4 million jobs. This legislation will create or preserve 3 to 4 million jobs. 11.6 million Americans out of work. This accomplishes the first necessary step of stopping the bleeding. But more, I suspect, will be required to cure the patient. Realistically, the danger that this bill is too small is worse than the danger that it is too big.

``The bill doesn't all create jobs.'' Well that is true. But let's look at two examples of provisions that don't create jobs--Pell grants and Medicaid. The Pell grant money lets people step out of the market for jobs at a time when it is highly stressed, train up, improve their skills, and move back in in better times. Isn't that smart? Doesn't that make sense for the country?

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 more minutes.

The health care spending will protect precarious State budgets and protect people's health care as they ride out the storm. Isn't that the decent thing to do as this storm hits American families?

Another argument: ``Some of it isn't soon enough.'' Well health information technology, for instance, will take a while to ramp up, but it is necessary infrastructure to avert the $35 trillion health care calamity now bearing down on us. It has to be done sooner or later. The recession will almost certainly be here 2 years from now, and if it does take a little while to do, isn't that all the more reason to start now?

And then there are the--what I call the ``oh, please'' arguments. The party that ran up nearly $8 trillion in debt under George Bush--now that Barack Obama has been elected, and now in the one time of crisis when every respectable economist is saying this is the time for deficit spending--now suddenly gets religion about deficit spending? If this weren't so serious, it would practically be funny.

Finally this: If our opponents cared about jobs and putting people to work quickly with effective, valuable infrastructure, why such widespread opposition to the $20 billion for school repair and construction? This money could have put contractors to work on school repairs, green renovation, weatherization, and conservation measures. It would have made schools cleaner and greener. It would have lowered local fuel budgets, and it would have reduced dependence on foreign oil. What does opposition to that tell you?

And what did they argue for? Here is a golden oldie: Reduced corporate tax rates. How many companies do you think are out there reporting big, taxable profits in this economy?

On even brief consideration, the Republican arguments against the bill don't hold water. It is instant replay of the same, tired, flawed ideology that put us in this mess in the first place. Barack Obama did not ask for this mess. He inherited this mess. Barack Obama would rather have come into a budget surplus, a growing economy, and a trajectory to a debt-free America, like George Bush and Dick Cheney did. But that is not what they left him. And now he's the guy who has to dig us out of their mess. In simple decency, you would think the least one could ask is that the party whose President made the mess not slap away Barack Obama's hand of friendship. ``I am sorry, but I won't help you clean up my mess unless you do it my way.''

After weeks to ventilate their arguments, our friends now have an opportunity to show that when all is said and done, they care more about moving the country forward than scoring political points. Now we have the chance to come together and pass this bill and send to it President Obama's desk so we can begin to restore confidence and hope to our country.

I hope--I hope--our Republican friends will join us. There is too much at stake to do nothing.

I thank the presiding officer, I thank distinguished Senator from Texas for her courtesy in yielding me additional time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, off the Senate floor, during a roll call vote on February 13, 2009.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman.

Earlier today we adopted an amendment that prohibits appropriations under this act to aquariums or zoos or beautification projects or other such entities, and Rhode Island was specifically targeted by the Senator who offered that amendment. He mocked a zoo that belongs to the city of Providence that would be, I think, a potential area of support from this bill. He mocked a tree-planting program within the city of Providence.

I urge my colleagues, at their leisure, to reconsider the wisdom of that vote, perhaps in conference.

The Roger Williams Park Zoo is a wonderful facility. Children come through it to get educated through schools. People are employed there. It opens minds to the wonders of nature. It has wonderful science programs. And it's a municipal business that is run for the benefit of the people of Providence. And it needs work. As long as it needs work, as long as cities are broke in this economy, I don't understand why one would single out a zoo as opposed to the Department of Motor Vehicles or some other structure that might need repair. Why take that job away?

Is the Senator who offered this so infallible? Does he know so much about other States he has never even visited that he can impose his views? I would never dream of suggesting that I know more about towns and cities in Oklahoma than the local political establishments of those towns as to what is wise. I really think that that is a mistake.

If a city needs tree planting and that brings real jobs and it puts people and their trucks and their trees and their

nurserymen to work, and if it provides shade, and it provides greenness, and if it absorbs carbon, and if it engages in traffic calming, there are all sorts of good reasons why people would want to do that. Why is it necessary for one Senator to tell the city of Providence that he knows better, having never visited?

And, finally, we don't have an aquarium, but there was a story in the New York Times about ``Japan's Big-Works Stimulus.'' It talks about a bridge they built with their stimulus money. As to the bridge, here is what they say:

``The bridge? It's a dud,'' said Masahiro Shimada, 70, a

retired city official who was fishing near the port. ``Maybe

we could use it for bungee jumping,'' he joked.

Here is what he concluded:

Among Hamada's many public works projects, the biggest

benefits had come from the prison, the university, and the

Aquas aquarium. These had created hundreds of permanent jobs

and attracted students and families with children to live in

a city where nearly a third of residents were over 65.

Of the hundreds and hundreds of projects Japan did for stimulus in Hamada, the three best included an aquarium--and we have ruled that out because one Senator from a State far from Rhode Island who has never been to my State purports to know more about what we should do in our cities than we do ourselves.

I urge that we have a little bit of the spirit of Ben Franklin at the closing of the discussion over the Constitution when he urged all of the Members who were present to doubt a little bit of their own infallibility so that we can get together and get something done. I urge the Senator who proposed this amendment to doubt a little of his own infallibility, and I urge that we have a little bit more confidence in our own local judgments about what might actually provide the most bang for the buck.

I thank the chairman for allowing me this moment and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a feature of the economic recovery legislation that will both create jobs in the short term and help us confront the long-term economic challenges that are facing us.

Clearly, creating jobs is a paramount goal of this legislation. In this time of deepening recession, one in ten Rhode Islanders is looking for a job. At 10 percent, our unemployment rate is second in New England and the second highest across this entire Nation. As I have traveled around my State, I have heard from countless Rhode Islanders struggling to hold on to their retirement savings, their homes, and their livelihoods.

Against this dark background, jobs mean security. Steady employment helps families pay the bills and plan for the future. Jobs mean confidence in an unsettled time. In this weakening economy, job creation should be our highest economic priority.

But at the end of the day, the best jobs this legislation can create are jobs that produce lasting infrastructure, assets that will help our economy function smoothly for years to come, such as highways, bridges, weatherized homes and schools, and water treatment plants. These are win-wins for the American people.

Fortunately, this bill goes beyond a definition of infrastructure as just the things the Romans could build. The last few decades have seen enormous innovation in this country--new communications platforms, the Internet and mobile phones, new sources of energy. This technological revolution is transforming the way we live and work, as the rail system did and the highway system did in decades and centuries past. And as the Federal Government helped build the railways and highways, the bricks and mortar infrastructure of the 20th century, today this recovery bill will support the digital infrastructure of the 21st century. It is a dual benefit: jobs today and a platform for growth tomorrow.

To me, one of the most vital parts of our Nation's infrastructure in this 21st century will be the development of a national health information network to improve the quality and efficiency of health care, to save money, and to save lives. But today this network is growing at the speed of mud. Health care is frighteningly behind the rest of American industry in its development and implementation of information technology. Why? Because of economics, the strange, bizarre, twisted economics of our health care system that fails to reward doctors and hospitals when they invest in health information infrastructure.

If we can solve the health information network problem, private industry will develop technology to allow doctors to prescribe drugs electronically and help remind you to take them. Technology will help doctors update your vital information in real time and cross-reference your health issues with the best illness prevention and treatment strategies. And technology promises decision support programs implementing best medical practices which will help health care providers avoid costly, life-threatening, and completely unnecessary medical errors that now bedevil our health care system.

Look at what private technology and innovation have already done with the Internet--Google, e-Bay, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook. Whose life has not been changed?

Imagine what can happen in health care. Wonderful opportunities beckon, both in the near term, because funding this infrastructure will create jobs in the information technology sector, and in the long term to help us bring down the spiraling health care costs that threaten to engulf our economy.

But the broken economics of the health care system mean that those opportunities will not arise without help. Unless the Federal Government gets involved to set standards for this technology on which everyone can agree, the resolution of a digital x-ray image, for instance, or requirements protecting a patient's privacy or leveling economic obstacles, we will never get to a national system.

The Romans could not build an electronic health information infrastructure, but we can and we must, and this legislation will.

There are rumors that an amendment will shortly be adopted that would, among other things, strip out this investment in health information technology. Of all the dumb mistakes we could make in this bill, that would be the very dumbest of all. It would harm the immediate element of job creation that is important to this infrastructure. It would slow down the development of a national health information infrastructure, and it would compromise our ability to deal with the health care crisis that is looming behind the economic crisis we are dealing with now.

As I see it, we have three waves stacked up. We have an economic crisis that is upon us that we need to address. Immediately behind that is a bigger and worse health care crisis, bigger and worse than the crisis we are facing now. And behind that is an environmental, global warming, and climate change crisis that is bigger still.

Now is the time to prepare for that next health care crisis, the one we will have to address as soon as we begin to get our arms around the economic crisis.

I have been a champion of health information technology since I was attorney general of Rhode Island years ago, and the snail's pace of adoption has both perplexed and disappointed me. I frequently ask doctors from all across the country why they insist on using paper, and I always get the same three answers. One: I can't afford in my practice to put all this machinery in. Two: I tried using health information technology, but it was too complicated. Or three: I don't want to invest in this and then get it wrong. I don't want to invest until I know what the standards are. I don't want to take what I call the Betamax risk of investing in the wrong technology.

There is an additional problem, at least for electronic prescribing. The Federal Government insists on doctors maintaining a paper system for controlled prescriptions. If you tried to move to an electronic system, you have to maintain two. It does not make any sense.

The doctors' concerns about health information technology are answered in this recovery package.

First, the bill addresses the cost issue in a number of ways. If you are a doctor who cannot afford to purchase a health information system so that your patients can have an electronic health record of their own that is private and securely theirs, this bill has grant money to help you. If you are a doctor doing well enough not to need a grant but could certainly use a loan to make this happen, the bill has loan money for you. Or maybe you are a doctor who can afford the upfront investment but have not been able to make the business case for the ongoing use of the technology and the change it will require in the day-to-day administration of your practice. This bill reverses the backwards incentives that discouraged the use of health information technology and that discouraged quality improvement efforts.

For the first time, Medicare and Medicaid are going to pay for meaningful use of health information technology in doctors' offices. Starting with this recovery bill, keeping people healthy will keep the business of medicine healthy.

Second is the challenge of technology. Health information technology is about much more than digitizing data, more than going from illegible handwriting to clear electronic type. Health IT is about coordinating care between multiple providers. Anybody who has a serious illness is aware of the confusion that surrounds having to deal with multiple doctors. Health IT is about helping patients and their loved ones manage those complex, chronic conditions. Health IT is about using best practice protocols so the wide variation--the wide and unexplained variation--in American medicine can be narrowed down to the best practices we know of and Americans can be assured they are getting the best quality of care. Health IT is about better care for patients who are ill, and it is also about preventive care for patients so they do not become ill.

The recovery bill recognizes that the goal is not health IT in every pot, but higher quality, more efficient care for every single American who interacts with our health care system. The economic recovery bill also recognizes that for some doctors, this is a lofty goal and that they will need more than money to get there.

Everyone knows that new technologies are hard to learn, hard to adapt to, and hard to incorporate into an existing system. You can be a brilliant doctor, a master at the healing arts, and still have trouble coping with the demands of a new information technology. It often seems easier to keep doing things as they have always been done. So this bill does not just hand out grants to buy big fancy new boxes of equipment to sit in office closets. This bill includes implementation assistance so the doctors have a little help opening that box, installing that technology, and putting it to work on behalf of their patients.

That assistance will be offered through regional extension centers, not unlike our agricultural extension service that has been helping farmers all over this great Nation for decades. Every Senator in this body from a rural State knows how helpful and effective the agricultural extension model is. And for those of us from urban areas, think of it as a ``geek squad'' for American doctors.

Third, the standards issue. Our esteemed colleague Dr. Coburn has often noted that the greatest challenge he sees in building up our national health information infrastructure is the lack of national standards. Doctors are

often afraid to adopt new technology before they are sure their health information system will be able to talk to other doctors' health information systems. Fortunately, significant progress has been made in creating a broad set of standards for health information technology products, thanks in large part to the leadership of outgoing HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. The recovery bill acknowledges that progress and builds upon it, establishing a new health information technology standards committee and establishing a process for the adoption of future standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria so you know what you are buying meets the standards.

All that said, we all know that health information technology is ultimately about patients. Patients must trust and participate in the health information technology revolution if it is going to reach its full potential. Therefore, the recovery bill includes a number of vital privacy protections to ensure the security and the confidentiality of electronic patient records. These protections include changes in notification policy if there is an unauthorized acquisition or disclosure of health information. It includes the establishment of privacy officers in HHS regional offices, new restrictions on the sale of health information, improved enforcement of violations to privacy law, and other strong provisions.

I am well aware that privacy is a controversial and highly charged area of debate. I think it is important we all view the privacy provisions in this bill as the beginning and not the end of our national discussion about health care privacy.

These provisions will require oversight and, perhaps over time, adjustment. I look forward to this ongoing challenge and remain committed to being engaged in it. But for now, this is a good, strong privacy package. It has, I think, solid agreement in this building.

Last, but certainly not least, I wish to acknowledge the extraordinary work of the man who has been committed to health care in the Senate longer than anyone else--the incomparable Senator from Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy. He has been a tremendous supporter of advancing health information technology for years, and was the primary architect of this language in the Senate. As always, we are in his debt for the expertise and the leadership, the passion and the compassion he provides, and we look forward to his speedy return to the floor.

I will conclude, Mr. President, by saying I know there is an enormous amount of politics now surrounding this economic recovery plan. But in order to try to make the politics look good, let us not hit what is probably the smartest and the best investment in this whole plan, one that not only works to provide jobs in a key American industry today but that lays the foundation for addressing what is probably the next biggest, most dangerous problem that is facing Americans behind this immediate economic crisis. Let us not be fools here in the service of political expedience. Let us stick with these health information technology elements of the bill, support them energetically, and I hope every colleague will see the wisdom of them and support their inclusion in this bill.

I thank the Presiding Officer very much for his courtesy, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I thank the distinguished vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee for his words. It is a pleasure to work with him on the committee. I think we are both looking forward to a new relationship with the Department of Justice under a new Attorney General.

I see my friend and colleague, Senator Sessions, here waiting to speak, so I just wanted to make two quick points. The first is that this is a man of really exceptional experience. Our distinguished Presiding Officer--who I don't think can be seen on the television right now--is the distinguished Senator Udall from New Mexico who was an Attorney General himself. He understands the value of experience in these jobs. This is a man who has been a U.S. attorney, who has been a Federal judge, who has been the Deputy Attorney General of the United States--the No. 2 position in this Department, and who, by all standards, has acquitted himself with remarkable distinction during the course of his tenure in those three positions.

It is also noteworthy that the Department of Justice has fallen on very hard times recently. People from both sides of the aisle from recent and distant administrations have come forward to try to be helpful to express their concern and their dismay about what was allowed to happen to this great Department. From all of my experience with the--I guess you could call them group of friends at the Department of Justice, people who served there and who have great affection for that Department, they view Eric Holder as a special person who has a unique capacity to fight for the principles the Department has long prided itself on: independence, talent, pure legal analysis, and courage. I think it is going to be very reassuring for the friends and family of the Department of Justice who have been so concerned about what has happened to it in the last few months to have this man now in charge. There will be a huge sigh of relief. I compliment my colleagues on the bipartisan way in which this has gone forward. Clearly, there were concerns early on and they were addressed fairly. This is a nomination that passed out of the Judiciary Committee 17 to 2, which, in a highly partisan environment in Washington, is as close to a perfect score as I think you are going to get. It continues to receive broad support from both sides of the aisle on the floor. I know many people who are significant in the history of the Department of Justice have spoken in support of Eric Holder, including former Attorneys General Barr and Jim Comer, two of the most distinguished people who have done so.

Without further ado, I will yield the floor so my friend, Senator Sessions, can speak. I think this is a great moment of opportunity for the country and the Department of Justice. I hope we can confirm Eric Holder to be Attorney General with a very strong number when we get to the vote.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me say, first, what a pleasure it is to hear the distinguished Senator from Utah speak about his beautiful State and his beloved Utes.

Thank you, Mr. President. I have a different topic today. This speech is about a stove, a jet, and $40 billion.

The stove belonged to Margarita Fuentes, and a local deputy sheriff in Florida repossessed it for the finance company. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and became the famous case of Fuentes v. Shevin, which every first year law student has to read.

The court held that you couldn't take away Ms. Fuentes' stove, not without giving her a hearing; that she had a constitutional right to a hearing. The court stated:

[T]he constitutional right to be heard is a basic aspect of

the duty of government to follow a fair process of decision-

making when it acts to deprive a person of his possessions.

Important rule: The finance company may well have been right about the stove, but the sheriff still cannot take property without due process.

That is the stove. Now the jet.

Citigroup has received billions and billions in Federal funds--$45 billion in preferred stock purchases alone--to prevent Citigroup from failing. What did they do? Bought a $50 million French-made luxury private jet.

It took the new Secretary of the Treasury to personally talk them out of it, with a helpful push from our colleague, Senator Levin. And that's not all. Here's how Maureen Dowd reports they spent the money on executive office furnishings at Merrill Lynch, just bought by Citigroup:

. . . big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a

pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a ``Roman Shade'' for

$11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for

$2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and

six dining chairs for $37,000, a ``custom coffee table'' for

$16,000, an antique commode ``on legs'' for $35,000, and a

$1,400 ``parchment waste can.''

A lot of executive compensation goes to the same executives who led their companies into this mess, while reaping vast sums.

For example, Wells Fargo, which received $25 billion in bailout money, is planning layoffs but is keeping its CEO and chairman who were paid $12.5 million and nearly $23 million in 2007, respectively.

JP Morgan received $25 billion in bailout money, but is keeping its CEO who was paid $28 million in 2007.

Capital One bought and closed GreenPoint mortgage--1,900 layoffs, 1,900 families where someone lost a

job--received about $3.5 billion in bailout money, and is keeping its CEO who was paid more than $73 million in 2007.

And this week's New York Times reports that despite ``crippling losses, multimillion dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most important names in the business,'' an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses were paid out to Wall Street employees in 2008--the sixth highest total in history--in what was most certainly not the sixth best year in Wall Street's history.

In other words, firms on the brink of extinction that were saved only by the U.S. taxpayer still saw fit to reward people who created the mess with over $18 billion for their performance this past year. President Obama rightly called this shameful.

So that jet is symbolic of a Wall Street culture of unrestrained self-indulgence that now, because of the bailouts, begins to happen at public expense and shows no signs of abating.

And now we come to the $40 billion.

According to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, the executive- deferred compensation obligations of bailed out Wall Street firms amount to more than $40 billion. As shown on this chart: Banks Owe Billions To Executives. Financial giants getting injections of Federal cash owed their executives more than $40 billion for past years' pay and pensions as of the end of 2007, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.

By the way, this whole executive-deferred compensation scheme is nothing but a big tax dodge to begin with.

Banks participating in the bailout program carried these obligations on their books, and the cash from our bailout is being used to pay them, or will be used to pay them. Mr. President, $40 billion in taxpayer dollars will end up in the pockets of the very executives who tanked those firms.

How much is $40 billion? Here is how it breaks down State by State based on population.

If you are the Governor of California, you can look forward to $4.780 billion as your State's share of that $40 billion bailout.

If you are, as the wonderful new Presiding Officer is, from Colorado, you can look forward to $636 million as your State's share of deferred executive compensation for Wall Street.

If you are from Missouri, as is the distinguished Senator in the Chamber, you are looking at $768 million as Missouri taxpayers' share of the $40 billion bailout.

Generally, when a company goes into bankruptcy, the executives who are owed the $40 billion in deferred compensation would have become general unsecured creditors and have to wait in line with other such general unsecured creditors.

Experts report that in most cases this means losing all deferred compensation or recovering pennies on the dollar. Executives at Lehman Brothers, which was allowed to go into bankruptcy, will probably lose out on their deferred compensation.

By contrast, nothing has been done to address the deferred compensation obligations of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan, and other banks that have been given a lifeline.

As shown on this chart, you will see the estimated debt to executives at Goldman Sachs is actually bigger than the capital injection. It is an astonishing sum of money.

I should throw in my own home State of Rhode Island. We are a small State. Here is our share of it: $140 million. That is our entire budget for our two 4-year State colleges for a year--the entire State budget for them; $140 million out of Rhode Island to pay for $40 billion in tax-dodged, deferred executive compensation.

As people who are on the floor will recall, that is more than the entire program we spent so many hours fighting about for the U.S. auto industry. Remember that. That was sort of $18 billion to $35 billion. This is $40 billion, and nobody is even talking about it. And we fought for days about whether to support our own domestic auto industry.

Well, I think the jet shows that the Wall Street culture of lavish self-indulgence is not likely to change. But something very important has changed, and that is the taxpayers are now starting to pay for it, and they are not going to stand for it for long.

If something is going to change, we in Congress have to change it; we need to do it now, and we need to do it in a way that sticks. That's where Ms. Fuentes' stove comes in.

The constitutional right to be heard is a basic aspect of

the duty of government to follow a fair process of decision-

making when it acts to deprive a person of his possessions.

That is the case of Ms. Fuentes' stove.

If it takes due process before poor Ms. Fuentes can have her stove taken away, then it takes due process before certain adjustments can be made to the obscene and grotesque executive compensation paid for by bailouts.

It takes some due process before anything can be done about this $40 billion in executive-deferred compensation.

Without a due process forum, we have unilaterally disarmed the powers of Government that can make those adjustments. That is a choice we make to unilaterally disarm the powers of Government that could do something about the $40 billion.

I submit if we don't make some reasonable adjustments, that failure will so damage public credibility and faith in the entire exercise; in addition to being profoundly unfair, in fact, that it will eliminate or diminish our ability to manage the crisis. People will not want to hear any longer from us.

The ordinary due process forum for troubled companies, bankruptcy court, is not the best forum for this, for the very reasons that corporations need rescue: they serve a public utility for us in the economy. But the fact that they provide that vital public utility function is no reason to say these other things cannot also be adjusted. That does not mean they should not have to change their ways.

As I said, the only way to change their ways, it appears, is to make them change. So, I will shortly be filing legislation to create a Temporary Economic Recovery Oversight Court, a forum that could provide due process, short of a full bankruptcy filing, and empower Government to take reasonable steps to restrain the lavish self-indulgences to which these masters of the universe have become accustomed. I am also exploring other ways of addressing this critical issue.

But I encourage colleagues of mine who are interested in this issue to talk to me about how we can make this right. There are technical issues. If anybody is interested, please contact me. I think this is a bipartisan issue. I do not think a Republican is any happier about $40 billion in deferred executive compensation coming out of the public fisc than a Democrat, and if we do not take action, the swelling river of the righteous and proper anger of the American people will rise up, and overswell its banks. I have lived through difficult economic situations in Rhode Island, where public anger overswelled its banks. It is not a good place to be.

The people's confidence in their Government's ability to treat them fairly will be justifiably compromised, and we will have lost their confidence, the old-fashioned way: We will have earned it.

The poet William Blake spoke of times when we should not let our sword sleep in our hand. American Government gives us a vital sword, one that can trim away the lavish excesses of the lotus years, and treat all Americans fairly, not create a favored taxpayer-supported Wall Street class that is treated differently than workers in Michigan and elsewhere. I submit we must not let that sword sleep in our hands.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I see my colleague and friend from Virginia, Senator Webb, who is prepared to speak, and we will recognize him in just a moment.

I would note there would have been, by our estimates, 3.3 million children who would have been covered had the bill passed in 2007. That would have been one very good way to reduce the number of children in this country who are not protected by health insurance.

Of course.

As I understand it, the bill contained both funds and programs for outreach that would have supported the States in their initiatives to find the children who, because their parents were moving or for one reason or another, were eligible but had not entered into these State programs. So I think the answer to that question would be yes.

I think the increase in enrollment would have spread wherever the program went. There are very few areas, as the Senator knows, where the eligibility level is 400 percent of poverty. In the vast majority of the country, in my State, for instance, it is well below that. It is a program that supports working families, that supports low-income working families, that makes sure their children get health care.

But for a number of reasons, probably the most prominent of which is people moving from location to location and not being registered with the local program, there are outreach requirements. I would be happy to work with the Senator on improving those outreach requirements in any way he wishes. But I think to hold the entire bill and his support--I think in this case we are estimating it will now reach 4.1 million children--hostage because of not having gotten the outreach better is a strategic mistake.

If your goal is to insure more children, then you should go about it by insuring more children. If the outreach is a problem, then we can happily make that better. But for outreach to be criticized, when it was President Bush who vetoed that bill, I am not sure how the distinguished Senator from North Carolina voted on that--

I understand the Senator from Virginia wishes to speak. I will simply respond before I yield the floor to Senator Webb that I have had quite a number of years of experience with our Children's Health Program in Rhode Island, back to the years when I came in with Governor Sundlun in a bad economic crisis in Rhode Island--probably the largest percentage deficit in the State budget of any State ever recorded. Even in that very gloomy fiscal environment, Governor Sundlun insisted we build a statewide universal health care program that protected children.

SCHIP is very much in line with that. The people who have been working on that for these many years in Rhode Island--and I suspect it is the case in many other States--feel a real passion for trying to make sure children get health care, that they get the health care to which they are entitled.

So I am not sure the notion that by just putting more pressure on them, by just refusing to add any other children until they have done this, is really a productive or fair way to go about

reaching the children who have not been reached. What the bill does is provide outreach funds and empower these people who care so deeply about this issue to actually get out there and work harder to find them, have the additional resources to find people. From my work in law enforcement, my work with schools, my work on health care, there are a lot of people who live apartment to apartment, very hand to mouth, and it is a very significant challenge to keep up with them. The resources to do that, I submit, would be the best way to solve that problem, not holding one set of children hostage to providing health care for another set of children.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor for the distinguished Senator from Virginia.

Mr. President, this week we have the chance in the Senate to provide health insurance to 4.1 million children in this country who now don't have it, to cover 11 million children total. All we have to do is the right thing and pass H.R. 2, the Children's Health Insurance Program.

I know the distinguished Presiding Officer from Nebraska and the distinguished Senator from Virginia, who has just spoken so eloquently, have shared the experience I have had in my home State of Rhode Island, and that is to travel around and hear personal stories from people whose lives and whose health have collided with our broken, dysfunctional health care system. Too often, families in this country can't afford to pay for the care they need. As our economic troubles worsen, that problem only grows more acute. Too often, they can't even get in to see a doctor. Too often, when they do receive care, it falls short in quality, in efficiency, in effectiveness, and in timeliness.

The crisis in our health care system affects all of us, but it is greatest and it is most tragic when it affects our children. That is why Congress created the Children's Health Insurance Program which for years has given millions of uninsured, hard-working American families access to health care for their kids.

The program has not only expanded health care coverage for children, it has encouraged States to be flexible, innovative, and responsive in meeting their families' health care needs. We come from 50 different States with 50 different sets of history, demographics, and economics, and as a result, the States come up with different programs. That is something to celebrate, not to bemoan. The program has safeguarded the vulnerable, it has united families, and it has invested in the future of our Nation. It is a special program of all the things that we do here.

The Children's Health Insurance Program means that children are more likely to receive medical care for common conditions such as asthma or ear infections. It means that children end up with higher school attendance rates, and that children have higher academic achievement. It means that children have more contacts with medical professionals. It means that children receive more preventive care. It means that children go to the emergency room when it is an emergency, and when it is not, they have someplace else to go that allows them and their families to stay out of those expensive urgent care settings. So as we have done for the past 2 years, this week we are working to pass legislation to ensure that every eligible uninsured child in America can get regular checkups when they are well and can get medicine when they are sick.

Not long ago, former President Bush denied children needed health care coverage by vetoing this legislation. But the American voters have spoken and we are in a new era in this country--a new era for peace of mind, for security, and for dignity for American children and for their families. With a new Congress and a new President committed to health care for all American families, I could not be more hopeful as we discuss this bill today.

I am especially proud to serve with my senior Senator, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, and to support him in this fight. I have been in the Senate for 2 years now. Before I even got here, Jack Reed was one of the most prominent, most ardent, and most determined fighters for our Nation's children. Frankly, it is in significant part due to his relentless work that we have come this far.

I am proud also to represent a State that has one of the lowest rates of uninsured adults and children in the Nation. It was not easy. Rhode Island worked hard over the past 15 years to achieve this success. It began with the RIte Care Program in 1993. In 2001, the creation of the Children's Health Insurance Program allowed Rhode Island to further reduce uninsurance rates in the State. I am proud to be on the team of former Governor Bruce Sundlun who turned 89 a few days ago. When he was Governor, he created the original RIte Care Program. His vision and determination to do this, in a time of grave economic straits for Rhode Island, has yielded immense rewards. Now, as health care costs skyrocket and the number of people in this country who lack health insurance approaches the staggering number of 50 million--50 million Americans, and so many of them children--we in Congress have an obligation to strengthen initiatives like RIte Care through which States have made health care more accessible.

Today, 4.1 million uninsured children are waiting for us to pass this bill; 4.1 million children who might not see a doctor this winter when they get the flu because their parents can't afford to pay out of pocket for the visit; 4.1 million children who might delay needed vaccinations or other preventive care because their parents have to buy food instead; 4.1 million children who might not get an inhaler or insulin or--heaven forbid--chemotherapy because in this economic downturn, the money just isn't there.

Who could say no to uninsured, vulnerable children? Should we not at least be able to agree on that? Why would anyone say no? We plan to raise taxes on cigarettes, a tax that the American Cancer Society says could prevent nearly 1 million deaths and keep nearly 2 million children from starting to smoke; a tax with health savings that could ultimately decrease government costs for government health care programs; a tax that the Congressional Budget Office confirms will fully offset this bill so as not to add to our deficit. I don't think that would be a good reason to deny vulnerable children the safety and security of health insurance.

During the course of this discussion, some Members have tried to make this debate about illegal immigration. It is not. We should not permit the very difficult issue of illegal immigration to affect this bill to deny millions of children the health care they badly need. That would be a grave mistake. That would be a wrong.

Let me be very clear: Only children who are legally in the United States are eligible to receive coverage under Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. They must document their immigration status. Medicaid agencies use information provided by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services to confirm the status of legal immigrants applying for benefits. Further, this bill does not even require States to cover legal immigrant children. It simply provides and supports that option.

Legal immigrants pay taxes, they serve in our Armed Forces, and just like the rest of us, they play by the rules. They are our future citizens, and insuring their children makes sense. This was the law until 1996 when sweeping restrictions affecting legal immigrants were made. Since 1996, we have become wiser, and many of those restrictions have been reversed on a bipartisan basis by Congress. The provision in this legislation covering legal immigrants is fully consistent with that trend back to 1996 levels.

This Nation is slowly emerging from a dark time when our ideals and our virtues were too often hidden in the shadows, when we let our fear overcome our principles and our better judgment, when we lost sight of our priorities and left millions of people in the cold and millions of children uninsured. That time can end now.

This bill is a chance to show these millions of Americans that we have heard them and that we stand ready to help. We know how tough it is for working families in this economy. If there is one worry, one burden we can take off those parents' shoulders so they can be sure their children have the health insurance every American deserves, we should stand ready to help. This country should once again own its duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves and to restore dignity and hope where it has diminished.

I close by applauding Chairman Baucus and the Finance Committee for bringing this vitally important and long overdue legislation to the floor.

I urge all of my colleagues--it would be wonderful if we could do this together--to allow these 11 million children to be covered by health insurance, to have access to the health care they need, to grow up healthy and strong and ready to seize the boundless opportunities that are at the heart of the American dream.

I think we will find in the months and in the years ahead that there will be things we cannot do to help families. I know everybody in this Chamber wants to do everything they can, and we want to work as hard as we can, but the economic situation is dire, and we are not going to be able to do everything we would like. But this is something we can do. This is something we can do for American families and for their children, and I hope very much we will do it.

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

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I see the very distinguished Senator from Arkansas in the Chamber to take over managing this bill.

Before I leave the floor, I want to make two points. I have been here while a great deal of discussion has taken place about 5.4 million children who are eligible for children's health care but who, through lack of effort, it is claimed, the State programs are not finding. The purpose of the argument has been to argue if we could make the States find these kids, they would be the ones for whom the program was truly designed, and that the 4.1 million additional children we are going to help with this legislation are sort of a distraction from that figure.

I have not been able to source that 5.4 million number to anything. I would note on a population basis, my State of Rhode Island is one three-hundredth of the country. So if there are 5.4 million kids out there, in that circumstance, Rhode Island should have, by my math, 18,000 of them. We only have 12,000 kids in the CHIP-funded portion of what we call the RIte Care Program.

From my own experience, the likelihood of there being 18,000 eligible children in our small State who cannot be found makes no logical sense at all, which gives me significant pause about the validity of this 5.4 million number upon which so much of our colleagues' argument stands.

The other point I would make is there are many States that could reach more eligible children, but the funding is not there for them. Rhode Island is one such State. When other States return funds, we get access to that pool, and we can expand our coverage.

So, in fact, by supporting this legislation, you will enable the State programs to reach whatever that group of kids is, whether it is 5.4 million or 540,000. I do not know what the number is. Madam President, 5.4 million sounds very unlikely. But even setting that question aside, the fact that we would vote against this piece of legislation in order to help those 5.4 million kids makes no sense whatsoever because this legislation contains both the funding and the outreach tools to allow the State programs to reach those very kids.

So that argument, at least from this Senator's perspective, appears to hold no water whatsoever, or at least requires substantially better justification and support before it should be counted on, at least in my view, by any Senator as a reason to oppose this piece of legislation.

With that observation, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Madam President, I rise as we celebrate a new President, a new administration, a new mode of governing, and a new future for America.

Even in the gloom of our present predicaments, Americans' hearts are strong and confident because we see a brighter future ahead. President Obama looks to that future. Given the depth and severity of those present predicaments, we need all his energy to look forward to lead us to that brighter day, forward to what Winston Churchill in Britain's dark days called ``broad and sunlit uplands.'' But as we steer toward this broad and sunlit future, what about the past?

As the President looks forward and charts a new course, must someone not also look back to take an accounting of where we are, what was done, and what must now be repaired? Our new President has said, ``America needs to look forward.'' I agree. Our new Attorney General- designate has said: We should not criminalize policy differences. I agree, and I hope we can all agree that summoning young sacrificial lambs to prosecute, as we did after Abu Ghraib, would be reprehensible.

But consider the pervasive, deliberate, and systematic damage the Bush administration did to America, to her finest traditions and institutions, to her reputation, and integrity. I evaluate that damage in history's light. Although I am no historian, here is what I believe: The story of humankind on this Earth has been a long and halting march from the darkness of barbarism and the principle that to the victor go the spoils, to the light of organized civilization and freedom.

During that long and halting march, this light of progress has burned, sometimes brightly and sometimes softly, in different places at different times around the world.

The light shone in Athens, when that first Senate made democracy a living experiment, and again in the softer but broader glow of the Roman Empire and Senate. That light burned brightly, incandescently, in Jerusalem, when Jesus of Nazareth cast his lot with the weak and the powerless.

The light burned in Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba, when the Arab world kept science, mathematics, art, and logic alive, as Europe descended into Dark Ages of plague and violence.

The light flashed from the fields of Runnymede when English nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, and it glowed steadily from that island kingdom as England developed Parliament and the common law and was the first to stand against slavery.

It rekindled in Europe at the time of the Reformation, with a bright light flashing in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his edicts to the Wittenberg Cathedral doors, and faced with excommunication stated: ``Here I stand. I can do no other.''

Over the years, across the globe, that light, and the darkness of tyranny and cruelty, have ebbed and flowed. But for the duration of our Republic, even though our Republic is admittedly imperfect, that light has shown more brightly and more steadily in this Republic than in any place on Earth as we adopted the Constitution, the greatest achievement yet in human freedom; as boys and men bled out of shattered bodies into sodden fields at Antietam and Chickamauga, Shiloh, and Gettysburg to expiate the sin of slavery; as we rebuilt shattered enemies, now friends, overseas and came home after winning world wars; and as we threw off bit by bit ancient shackles of race and gender to make this a more perfect Union for all of us.

What has made this bright and steady glow possible is not that we are better people, I believe, but that our system of government is government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Why else does our President take his oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America? Our unique form of self-government is a blessing, and we hold it in trust, not just for us but for our children and grandchildren down through history; not just for us but as an example out through the world.

That is why our Statue of Liberty raises a lamp to other nations still engloomed in tyranny. That is why we stand as a beacon in this world, beckoning to all who seek a kinder, freer, brighter future.

We hold this unique gift in trust for the future and for the world. Each generation assumes responsibility for this Republic and its Government, and each generation takes on a special obligation when they do. Our new President closed his inaugural address by setting forth the challenge by which future generations will test us: Whether ``with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.''

There are no guarantees that we will. This is a continuing experiment we are embarked upon and a lot is at stake. Indeed, the most precious thing of man's creation on the face of this Earth is at stake. That is what I believe.

So from that perspective, what about the past? No one can deny that in the last 8 years America's bright light has dimmed and flickered, darkening our country and darkening the world. The price of that is incalculable. There are nearly 7 billion human souls in this world. Every morning, the Sun rises anew over their villages and hamlets and barrios, and every day they can choose where to invest their hopes, their confidence, and their dreams.

I submit that when America's light shines brightly, when honesty, freedom, justice, and compassion glow from our institutions, it attracts those hopes, those dreams, and the force of those 7 billion hopes and dreams, the confidence of those 7 billion souls and our lively experiment is, I believe, the strongest power in our national arsenal, stronger than atom bombs. We risk it at our peril.

Of course, when our own faith is diminished at home, this vital light only dims further, again, at incalculable cost. So when an administration rigs the intelligence process and produces false evidence to send our country to war; when an administration descends to interrogation techniques of the Inquisition of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, descends to techniques that we have prosecuted as crimes in military tribunals and Federal trials; when institutions as noble as the Department of Justice and as vital as the Environmental Protection Agency are systematically and deliberately twisted from their missions by odious means of institutional sabotage; when the integrity of our markets and the fiscal security of our budget are open wide to the frenzied greed of corporations, speculators, and contractors; when the integrity of public officials, the warnings of science, the honesty of government procedures, and the careful historic balance of our separated powers of government are all seen as obstacles to be overcome and not attributes to be celebrated; when taxpayers are cheated and the forces of government ride to the rescue of the cheaters and punish the whistleblowers; when a government turns the guns of official secrecy against its own people to mislead, confuse, and propagandize them; when government ceases to even try to understand the complex topography of the difficult problems it is our very purpose and duty to solve and instead cares only for those points where it intersects with party ideology so that the purpose of government becomes no longer to solve problems but only to work them for political advantage; in short, when you have pervasive infiltration into all the halls of government-- judicial, legislative and executive--of the most ignoble forms of influence; when you see systematic dismantling of historic processes and traditions of government that are the safeguards of our democracy; and when you have a bodyguard of lies, jargon, and propaganda emitted to fool and beguile the American people, well, something very serious in the history of our Republic has gone wrong, something that dims the light of progress for all humanity.

As we look forward, as we begin the task of rebuilding this Nation, we have an abiding duty to determine how great the damage is. I say this in no spirit of vindictiveness or revenge. I say it because the thing that was sullied is so precious. I say it because the past bears upon the future. If people have been planted in government in violation of our civil service laws to serve their party and their ideology instead of serving the public, the past will bear upon the future. If procedures and institutions of government have been corrupted and are not put right, that past will assuredly bear on the future.

In an ongoing enterprise such as government, the door cannot be so conveniently closed on the closets of the past. The past always bears on the future. Moreover, a democracy is not just a static institution. It is a living education, an ongoing education in freedom of a people.

As Harry Truman said, addressing a joint session of Congress back in 1947:

One of the chief virtues of democracy is that its defects

are always visible, and under democratic processes can be

pointed out and corrected.

Entirely apart from tentacles of the past that may reach into the future are the lessons we as a people have to learn from this past carnival of folly, greed, lies, and sabotage, so that it can, under democratic processes, be pointed out and corrected. If we blind ourselves to this history, if we pull an invisibility cloak over it, we will deny ourselves its lessons. Those lessons came at too painful a cost to ignore. Those lessons merit discovery, disclosure, and discussion. Indeed, disclosure and discussion is the difference between a valuable lesson for the bright upward forces of our democracy and a blueprint for darker forces to return and do it all over again.

A little bright, healthy sunshine and fresh air so that an educated population knows what was done and how can show where the tunnels were bored, when the truth was subordinated, what institutions were subverted, how our democracy was compromised; so this grim history is not condemned to repeat itself; so a knowing public, in the clarity of day, can say: Never, never, never again; so we can keep that light, that light that is at once America's greatest gift and greatest strength brightly shining. To do this, I submit, we must look back.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, may I, first, thank you for your courtesy in volunteering to take over the duties of Presiding Officer for a moment so I could be relieved of those duties and come to my desk and have the chance to say something about a very dear friend whom we will miss enormously. I know we have something very important happening in a few minutes, so I will speak very briefly, but I don't want to let this opportunity pass.

We had an energetic group of freshmen Senators come in 2 years ago, and we found Ken was feeling kind of lonely because his class had been sort of a bit smaller than ours. So we sort of adopted him into our group. He has been kind of a big brother to all of us. I have had the privilege of knowing him as an attorney general, and I will not belabor the point, but what people have said about him as a peacemaker, about him as a friend, and about him as somebody who cares deeply about the duty of public service, I can attest to firsthand from many years of experience.

So I will only say we will miss you very deeply. We are enormously confident in you. The Department of the Interior is lucky to have you, President-elect Obama is fortunate to have you join his Cabinet, and we wish you Godspeed, my friend.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak on President-elect Obama's nomination of Eric Holder to be the Attorney General of the United States. It is nothing new in Washington for it to be said of a nominee that he or she is the best person for a job. That happens all the time. We have all heard it. It will surprise no one in this room or elsewhere in Washington to know it is not always the case. But in this case, for this appointment at this time, I believe it is true. I believe Eric Holder is the best person to be Attorney General of the United States.

It is hard to overstate the significance of the work of the Department of Justice to the American people.

It is hard to overstate how vital it is that the American people have confidence in that Department, from the Attorney General down to the most junior line attorney. It is hard to overstate the importance of our trust that this great Department makes decisions on the merits, proceeds on the facts and the evidence and the law, and carefully protects itself from political interference.

The Bush administration has compromised the American peoples' faith in their Department of Justice by compromising the integrity of the Department at its highest levels. We need that back.

What we need now is an Attorney General who first, understands the inner workings of the Department so he can set the ship right; second, will be fiercely independent and will make decisions based on the facts and the evidence and the law, not on politics or pressure from the White House; and third, has the temperament and experience to be strong and fair through all of the pressures that mount up on that office. Eric Holder is the best possible person for this difficult job at this difficult time.

We all know Mr. Holder's long and distinguished experience at the Justice Department and within the justice system. He has been a line attorney in the Public Integrity Section, prosecuting corrupt public officials of both parties; he has been a judge nominated by President Ronald Reagan; he has been the Deputy Attorney General, the No. 2 position in the Department; he has been the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia; and he has been a highly regarded attorney in private practice. One would be hard pressed to find a more experienced candidate. It is no surprise, then, that so many organizations and individuals who work with the criminal justice system every day have endorsed Mr. Holder's nomination, including the National Fraternal Order of Police, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Association of Police Organizations, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, the National Center for Victims of Crime, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Mr. Holder's experience is unquestionable, but it is not only experience that makes him the right person for this uniquely challenging post. I know Eric Holder. When I was a U.S. attorney, he was my colleague, as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and then my boss when he became Deputy Attorney General. I have great personal confidence in him. In our work at the Department, the U.S. attorneys saw firsthand in Eric, over and over, the qualities of temperament, intelligence, judgment, and independence that are essential for an Attorney General and especially for an Attorney General who takes office during a time when the Department is in distress.

As I know Eric Holder, so also do I know the damage and destruction that was wrought by the Bush administration on our Department of Justice. In the Judiciary Committee, under the distinguished leadership of Chairman Patrick Leahy, we worked hard to find out what has been done there and to bring it to light. My colleagues, Senator Schumer of New York and Senator Feinstein of California, deserve particular credit in that struggle.

Because I had worked in the Department, I was familiar with many of the institutions, the traditions and the practices of the Department that have been cast aside or ignored. The result? The result was a damaged institution, its reputation compromised, its integrity challenged, and its morale sadly diminished. Now, more than anything else, someone needs to put that right. Eric Holder has the knowledge, the experience, and the character to do that.

I have listened with a great deal of interest to some of the things that have been said in this Chamber about Eric Holder and his character. Indeed, there has been a not-so-subtle effort to question whether Mr. Holder is sufficiently independent of political influence to serve this Nation as our Attorney General. I cannot speak to the motivations behind this effort, but I can say this: Eric Holder is a man who spent 12 years as a line prosecutor prosecuting corrupt politicians of both parties. He is a man who was sufficiently politically independent for President Ronald Reagan to nominate him as a judge. This is a man who, as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, indicted and convicted Dan Rostenkowski, the Democratic chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful men in Washington. This is a man who recommended to Attorney General Janet Reno that she appoint an Independent Counsel to investigate President Clinton's Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt. This is a man who advised Attorney General Reno to expand the scope of the investigation by Kenneth Starr into the Monica Lewinsky affair investigation.

It is not just me with this confidence in Eric Holder and in his independence, his character, his judgment, and his temperament. Let me read what former Attorney General William Barr, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, and former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Louis Freeh have said about him.

In a letter to Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Specter, Mr. Comey wrote this:

From my professional and personal association with Mr.

Holder, I believe him to be a man of strong character, and

first-class ability. I think he has the institutional

knowledge, humility, and integrity to be a fine Attorney

General.

My colleagues will remember that James Comey was the Deputy Attorney General for Attorney General Ashcroft. He was the Acting Attorney General at the time of that sickening raid by the White House Chief of Staff and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales at the

hospital bedside of stricken Attorney General Ashcroft. He is the man who stood up against the warrantless wiretapping program and stopped it until it was brought right. He is the center, by all accounts, of what would have been essentially the resignation of the attorneys at the top of the Department of Justice if the White House had not blinked and backed down. This is a man who knows something about independence and integrity, and he vouches for Eric Holder.

Louis Freeh, who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wrote this:

I am certain that Eric has the highest legal competence,

total integrity, leadership, and, most importantly, the

political independence to discharge faithfully the immense

trust this Nation reposes in its Attorney General . . . In

all of Eric's interactions with me as FBI Director, as well

as in his close coordination with my Deputy and other

Assistant Directors who also had extensive and sometimes

daily contact with him, Eric always displayed total

integrity, courageous leadership, complete fairness, and,

once again and most importantly, political independence.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger, and others wrote that:

Mr. Holder's 30-year professional career has consistently

been characterized by unfailing integrity and a commitment to

political independence . . . Eric Holder is the right man at

the right time to protect our citizens in the critical years

ahead.

There is a powerful record behind Eric Holder of political independence. The measure of independence is not whether you decide against the President or your party on every question, every time; the measure is whether you decide against the President or your party when the facts and the law direct it. In my view, Eric Holder has met that standard. And in the view of Republican Attorney General and Deputy Attorney Generals and people who have served with distinction and know him well, they agree he has fully met that standard.

I take the Senate's role in the confirmation process very seriously. I believe the Judiciary Committee must and, under the leadership of Chairman Leahy, will closely examine Mr. Holder's record and his qualifications. It is our duty. At the end of that process, I believe the majority of colleagues will agree with me and with so many others that Eric Holder is the right person at the right time to restore our Department of Justice to its rightful standing as the defender of what is good and what is honorable and what is true in our Nation.

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