Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes as in morning business.

Madam President, today Senator Daschle has come before the HELP Committee for his confirmation hearing as our Secretary designate of Health and Human Services. I know that all of our colleagues and friends in the Senate found it moving and wonderful to see the distinguished chairman of that committee, Senator Kennedy, back in his chair leading that hearing. We are all delighted to see him back at work in the Senate, and we are delighted to see Senator Daschle back with us in this exciting new capacity.

We know every American deserves health care that he or she can afford. Senator Daschle knows that to do that we need basic systemic reform that will improve the way health care is delivered in this country. Senator Daschle has already brought forward ideas, such as the creation of a Federal health board, that have contributed enormously to the health care reform debate, and I hope very much he will pursue those ideas further at HHS. His nomination and President-elect Obama's creation of a new White House Office of Health Care Reform emphasize their serious commitment to solving this bedeviling problem. Senator Daschle will bring distinguished, thoughtful leadership to the crisis in our Nation's health care system.

Health care reform is the signal challenge facing our families, our economy, and our Government. I wish to take a few minutes today to speak about this great challenge and the urgent need for action.

We all know the system is broken. The evidence lies all around us--in my State of Rhode Island and across the country. When a lost job is frightening not just because it means lost income but because it means lost health care, our health care system is broken. When sudden illness strikes and insurance will not cover the costs, our health care system is broken. When families wait to see a doctor until it is too late because they have no health insurance to pay for the visit, our health care system is broken.

We see the evidence of the broken system and the staggering costs of health care in this country. The United States spends 16 percent of our GDP on health care. That is about twice what our major industrialized competitor nations spend. The annual cost of the system exceeds $2 trillion, and it is expected soon to double. Family health emergencies have been the most common cause of personal bankruptcy, and businesses, large and small, struggle under the weight of ever-increasing health insurance costs. There is more health care than steel in Ford's cars and more health care than coffee beans in Starbucks coffee.

Yet for all that money, what do we get? We still leave 46 million Americans uninsured; 46 million wrenching stories of health care foregone, of personal misfortune, even lives lost. That doesn't even include the experiences of our Nation's underinsured or small business owners struggling to provide health insurance or the many Americans who receive poor quality health care.

President-elect Obama is committed to reforming this broken system, and he has taken swift action to engage the American people in a national conversation about what is wrong and what we can do to fix it. Last month, he and Secretary-designate Daschle asked people to hold meetings in their communities to discuss health care reform and to share their ideas.

In the end, there is no better way to understand the deep failures of our health care system and the very real pain, frustration, anxiety, and anger it causes than to talk to the people who have experienced it firsthand. Over the past few years--at community dinners that I have around our State, in my office, as I travel around--many Rhode Islanders have reached out to me to share their stories and to urge that we work urgently to repair this broken system. I wish to take a moment to share a few of those stories.

A mother in Narragansett, RI, shared a story about her 20-year-old son who suffers from severe bipolar disorder and relies on therapy and expensive medications to remain a valued and productive member of his community. He is too old to be covered under her family health insurance plan, and his preexisting condition makes buying insurance on the individual market impossible--prohibitively expensive. So what did they do? This mother and her family came up with a surprising solution. They enrolled her son at the Community College of Rhode Island so he could participate in the student health insurance plan. He takes the absolute minimum course load in order to continue to work, but he remains a student because it is less expensive to pay for college tuition than it is to pay for individual health insurance. Any parent with a child in college knows what a burden this Rhode Island family is bearing to ensure that their son gets the basic treatment he needs to stay healthy.

I also heard from the proud owner of a small bookkeeping and tax preparation business in Warwick, RI. She has worked tirelessly to raise five sons, go back to college, and finally she has become her own boss. Yet despite all her effort and all her success, she wrote me to plead for reform. She wrote this:

I spend over 50 percent of my income just to have health

insurance for my husband and myself. The premiums are over

$1,000 per month, even with very high deductibles. My

employees need health insurance also, but I am unable to

provide them with any benefits because of the poor economic

conditions.

Her employees are like family to her, as with so many small businesses, and it breaks her heart that they are uninsured. Yet she says she simply will not be able to keep her doors open if she tried to contribute toward their benefits.

In the midst of this economic downturn, and particularly in Rhode Island where the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the Nation, this story shows all too clearly how closely linked are the tasks of reforming our health care system and strengthening our economy.

Our health care system manages to fail even those who believe themselves to be covered. A woman who lives in Woonsocket and who has health insurance and was always careful to pay her bills on time, assumed she would be covered in the event of an emergency. Why not? She was current. She paid her premiums. She had insurance. But not too long ago, she suddenly had to have her appendix removed. Despite having health insurance, she left that hospital with a $10,000 bill. She is currently working for a temp service and she has no idea how she can pay off this debt. She had recently bought her own home, a longtime dream and an accomplishment in which she took great pride. Now, because of the fine print of that health insurance policy, she risks losing the home she worked so long to afford. As this Rhode Islander learned in the hardest way possible, health insurance often ends up ensuring very little.

It is on behalf of these Rhode Islanders and so many others that I urge my colleagues to come together to support health care reform that will lower costs and improve the quality of care for all Americans. We must improve the way we deliver health care by promoting quality, implementing health information technology, and investing in preventing disease. We must, and will, protect existing coverage when it is good, we must improve it when it is not, and we must guarantee health care for the 46 million Americans, 9 million of whom are children who have no health insurance at all.

We see ourselves now in darkening and tumultuous economic times. Yet looking beyond the immediate economic perils we face, there is a $35 trillion unfunded liability for Medicare that is bearing down on us. It is bearing down on us because our population is aging, because people get sicker as they age, and that makes them more expensive. Unless we figure out a way in this Chamber to stop time, unless we figure out a way in this Chamber to reverse the aging process, unless we figure out a way in this Chamber to make elders have healthier lives and bodies than younger people, this is inevitable. It is coming at us, and we have to prepare. In order to prepare, we have to reform the health care delivery system. We are committed, as Democrats, to making sure every American has health insurance coverage, but it is not enough just to bring everyone into the boat. If you had a boat in the ocean and people swimming around it and to save them you needed to bring them into the boat, you would do that. But if the boat itself was sinking, if the boat itself was on fire, just bringing everybody into the boat is not an adequate discharge of your duties. It is also important that you repair the boat, that you get it steaming forward, that you make sure it is safe for the people whom you bring into it.

That means reforming our health information technology infrastructure so every American can count on an electronic health record, so when you go to see your doctor, you don't have to fill out that clipboard one time after another, when at the same time you can sign on to Amazon and not only do they know who you are, they know what you have bought and they have suggestions for you based on your buying habits. There is no excuse for our health care system being back in the 1950s as the rest of the economy moves forward into the 21st century. It requires improving the quality of health care and it requires investing in prevention.

We dramatically underinvest in prevention and quality. There are market failures that cause those things to happen. They are repairable. In addition to the cost savings, it is estimated that 100,000 Americans die every year--100,000 Americans die every year--because of avoidable medical errors. It is simply not tolerable to allow that to continue, particularly when it is a win-win situation, where improved quality of care means lower costs.

Finally, the third leg of the reform, in addition to helping infrastructure technology and quality and prevention reform, is that we have to reform how we pay for health care to align the price signal that we send by those payments with what we want from health care. Until we do that, we will be constantly struggling uphill against our own financial message.

This is all doable. This is all so doable, but it will take time. These are complex matters. We will have to make adjustments. The adjustments will take time. It is a dynamic environment which will have to make course corrections along the way. That means we need to start now. We do not have the luxury of time on our side. If we do not get started on a thorough-going health care delivery system reform now, then the alternative will be times that are even darker and more tumultuous than we find ourselves in right now.

I see the very distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee on the floor, a man who is an eloquent voice on the dark and tumultuous times and the risks we face from the current fiscal situation, so I will gladly yield at this point, and I thank the Presiding Officer.

Madam President, I wish to ask, through the Chair, a question of the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee with respect to the $10 trillion debt the country is now carrying.

At the time the current administration that is leaving office came into office 8 years ago, my understanding is the situation in America was rather different. It is my understanding that at that time we were actually looking at surpluses in our country, and the $10 trillion deficit is largely the responsibility of the policies that have been followed over the past 8 years.

So through the good times, we could have been laying money aside so that when this situation came, we would be in a strong economic condition. Instead, by squandering all those years, we have put the incoming administration in a very challenging position.

I thank the very distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee for being willing to engage in this colloquy with me.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following staff members from Senator Shaheen's office be granted floor privileges for today's session of the Senate: Maura Keefe, Judy Reardon, and Michael Yudin.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for such time as I may consume in morning business.

Thank you, Madam President.

I come to the floor today to offer my support for S. 147, the Lawful Interrogation and Detention Act, which my very distinguished colleagues, Senator Feinstein of California and Senator Wyden of Oregon, have just spoken about.

This bill would do three very important things. The first is force the closing of the interrogation and detention activities at the Guantanamo Base. I have supported previous legislation that would do this. I enthusiastically support this legislation to do it.

The Bush administration has created a pretty significant mess with the activities down at Guantanamo. Unfortunately, some things you can snarl up so tightly that it becomes very difficult to unsnarl them, and I am afraid that is exactly the situation with Guantanamo. It will be difficult to unsnarl. It is a real challenge for the incoming administration. But it is vital that we do so because it has become a symbol to the rest of the world of America's departure from our core principles. So I am enthusiastically in support of that provision.

Another provision would restrict our interrogation activities to those techniques that are permitted under the Army Field Manual. In effect, it would end our embrace of enhanced interrogation techniques-- indeed, torture.

In support of this notion, I would cite GEN David Petraeus, the Commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq in 2007, who at the time wrote a letter to all U.S. military forces in Iraq. In that letter, he said this:

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we

sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain

information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the

basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that

they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary.

Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone ``talk;''

however, what the individual says may be of questionable

value. In fact, our experience in applying the interrogation

standards laid out in the Army Field Manual . . . shows that

the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in

eliciting information from detainees.

We have heard arguments that, well, you can't really rely on military interrogators. They don't really know what they are doing. They are amateurish. They need the limitations of the Army Field Manual. By contrast, the interrogators of the CIA and of our intelligence community are experts and much more sophisticated and adept and don't need to have the Army Field Manual restricting them, as if it is some sort of a learner's permit for interrogation.

If you look at the facts, the reverse is actually true. It is the military that has officers with literally decades of experience interrogating enemy prisoners, interrogating enemy prisoners in situations where their fellow soldiers' lives are on the line, where men and women will die or live because of the information they are able to elicit. Notwithstanding those high stakes, they live by the terms of the Army Field Manual. By contrast, we know that the CIA really did not know much about interrogations, that when they got into the business, they had to learn about it. The place they chose to learn was from the SERE Program, a program designed to train American soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines who are likely to be captured by enemies that engage in torture how to be prepared for that, how to withstand it. So for training purposes, to prepare them for these ordeals, they used the interrogation techniques of despot, tyrant nations--North Korea, Communist China, Soviet Russia. For some reason, that was where our intelligence community thought it needed to go for expertise in how you interrogate prisoners, never minding the fact that the purpose of those despot regimes was not to interrogate prisoners and get actionable intelligence information; it was to torture those prisoners so they would say things and produce propaganda for those tyrant regimes.

So the notion that the military is a bunch of amateurs in intelligence who need the constraint of the Army Field Manual to prevent them from making amateur errors and the CIA is a bunch of clever, crafty experts who can operate at a graduate level for all of this is absolutely backward.

The damage that has been done to our country by this decision is, in my opinion, incalculable. When I think of the choice that was made to go this road, I am reminded of a phrase of Winston Churchill's. He describes a bad and dangerous decision that leads to worsening consequences in this way. He describes it as going down ``the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. A little farther on, there are only flagstones, and a little farther on still these break beneath your feet.'' That is where we stand now, in this dark, descending stairway, with flagstones crumbling beneath our feet and the world looking on in horror at our departure from our core principles. I believe this legislation will help turn us back away from that dark and descending stairway, back into the light of our own best principles and the good will of our fellow nations.

America has not only suffered grievous and lasting harm from this administration's embrace of torture but also from this administration's embrace of torture's handmaiden. Torture's handmaiden, of course, is secret detention.

The bill Senator Feinstein and Senator Wyden are proposing would require the International Committee for the Red Cross to have access to any prisoners held by the intelligence agencies. The ICRC has been visiting detainees in connection with armed conflict since 1915, nearly a century. In 2007, the ICRC visited over half a million detainees in 77 different countries to ensure respect for their life, dignity, and fundamental right to judicial guarantees. All of those notions are enshrined in our own Constitution. They are our national bedrock.

Thirty-eight retired military leaders, distinguished generals and admirals, have concluded that the ICRC access to prisoners held by our Government is a ``critical measure to ensure continuing respect for the norm that [ICRC] access must be provided to all captives in wartime.'' This letter comes from battlefield warriors and intelligence officers who participated in every major American conflict from World War II until today. One of them, less than 3 years ago, was a member of our Joint Chiefs of Staff. They understand that this is important, and they understand why.

If we go down the corridors of history and survey the evil practices of tyrant regimes, we find one of their most notorious methods of coercion and subjugation is holding prisoners secretly and incommunicado. From the oubliettes of the Bourbon Kings of France to Calcutta's Black Hole, from the Gestapo's secret prisons to the Soviet gulags, from medieval dungeons to the bamboo cages of the Cambodian killing fields, secret and anonymous imprisonment has always been the hallmark of the despot. And now the Bush administration has stamped America with this shameful mark.

Our military leaders who are in the best position to judge are pushing back and saying ``enough.'' Why do they do that? I think they do that because they are not beguiled by the force of arms. They live with the likelihood of armed conflict, of injuries, of fatalities. They understand that we engage in that to defend principles, and to give away those principles without a shot fired accomplishes the very harm that we have a military, that we have intelligence services to protect us from.

What is it, we ask ourselves, that makes our country great? Whence cometh our strength? For centuries, America has been called a ``shining city on a hill.'' We are a lamp in the darkness to other nations. One of our greatest Senators, our friend Ted Kennedy, on the occasion of I believe his 15,000th vote in this institution said America is not a land, it is a promise. Torture, anonymous detention, and secret cells break that promise, extinguish that lamp, and darken that city on a hill.

Our strength as Americans comes from the fact that we stand for something. Our strength comes from the aspirations of millions of people around the globe who want to be like us, who want their country to be like ours, who want to believe in what we believe in. Our strength comes when we embody the hopes and dreams of mankind. Our strength comes, as President Clinton said, not from the example of our power but from the power of our example.

I believe Senator Feinstein's legislation will restore across this darkening world the power of America's example, turn us back from that dark and descending stairway, and restore us to the place where America belongs as an ideal and an example for other nations. I appreciate Senator Feinstein's hard work in putting this legislation together. I appreciate the support of Senator Wyden.

Many months ago, I offered the first amendment in the Intelligence Committee that would apply the Army Field Manual to interrogation techniques used by our intelligence agencies, and Senator Feinstein was kind enough to cosponsor that amendment. We worked together in conference to get that amendment passed into legislation that was subsequently vetoed. I submitted the International Committee of the Red Cross access provision last year.

I cannot find words strong enough to explain the strength of my view about the things we sacrifice for whatever small, short-term, tactical intelligence advantage we may achieve from torture and secret cells, assuming there even are any. Most intelligence professionals believe that what you get from torture is people who will say anything to get away from the pain. But let's assume there is some value to it for the sake of argument. I cannot find words strong enough to explain how overwhelmed that small tactical value is by the loss of our reputation and our standing and the confidence and trust of our friends and allies when we engage in behaviors that have been associated with despots and tyrants and the worst of history's regimes.

Let's put this behind us. Let's support this bill. As we go through this time of transition in American Government, let's also go through a time of transition in America's reputation in the world.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S.J. Res. 3 introduced earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the joint resolution be read three times and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand there are 12 bills at the desk, and I ask for their first reading en bloc.

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

Mr. President, I now ask for a second reading en bloc, and I object to my own request en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 8, submitted earlier today by Senator Reid.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 11:30 a.m., Wednesday, January 7; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there then be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, and that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to accommodate the weekly Democratic caucus lunch.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order in honor of the late Senator Claiborne de Borda Pell of Rhode Island under S. Res. 8.

Thank you, Mr. President. And I say to Senator Reed, thank you.

I rise in honor of a great friend and mentor. I look around me at a room that just this morning was filled with Senators. It was a crowded Senate floor, with packed galleries, as a group of bright and promising new Senators began their careers, with all that joy and hope.

Now, as my senior Senator, Jack Reed, and I speak, the room is quiet, the galleries are mostly empty, and colleagues are gathering in remembrance because yesterday Rhode Island saw the sunset on a Rhode Island era with the funeral of our friend, Senator Claiborne Pell.

I am deeply honored by Senator Reed's kind words, and he has a unique position as the successor to Senator Pell.

It must be an interesting feeling to have served in the Senate for 36 years, to have loved this institution, to have accomplished extraordinary work in this institution, and then to walk away and leave your seat to a new, young Senator to replace you.

Senator Pell had great confidence in Senator Reed from the very beginning. He was, indeed, able to assure that there was no primary to succeed a seat that was open for the first time in 36 years, and it was because of his confidence in Jack Reed that he put in that effort. I know firsthand how extraordinarily proud he was of the Senator Jack Reed has shown himself to be.

We in Rhode Island are a little, tiny State, but over the years we have had some towering and remarkable Senators. Claiborne Pell, obviously, was one. John Chafee was one. John O. Pastore was one. Theodore Francis Green was one. Even the gentleman once known as the general manager of the United States, Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, was a towering presence. Certainly, Senator Reed has shown himself to have joined that pantheon. I probably have another 10, 20 years of work before I get there, but I will keep trying. But certainly Senator Reed is in that category, and I am deeply honored by his kind words.

Many in this body knew Claiborne Pell and served with him. I wish to say on behalf of Rhode Islanders who watched the service yesterday how grateful we are to Majority Leader Reid, Majority Whip Durbin, Claiborne Pell's dear friends, Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden, and Senators Pat Leahy, Dick Lugar, Orrin Hatch, Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman, John Kerry, and Joe Lieberman, all of whom honored Senator Pell by attending the funeral. Of course, I give special thanks to President Bill Clinton, who came to Rhode Island, a place where he is beloved, and spoke for his departed friend.

Senator Pell was there for me in my own career at key junctures in so many important ways, and I should give him credit and in front of all my colleagues express my deep gratitude for what he did. He recommended me to President Clinton for appointment as U.S. attorney. After I served my term as U.S. attorney, I ran for attorney general. I served with the Presiding Officer, Senator Salazar of Colorado, as an attorney general.

I had a three-way primary for attorney general. Claiborne Pell endorsed me in the primary. He actually did a television ad with me. In his 36 years in the Senate, he wanted no part ordinarily of primaries. For two people he got involved in a primary and endorsed a candidate. One was me. The other was Congressman Patrick Kennedy. It is almost unimaginable what a difference it made in my fledgling campaign, my first bid for elective office in the Democratic primary to have a man of Senator Pell's towering reputation stake his reputation on me and express that kind of confidence. It is something for which I am indebted to him and to his memory and to his family forever.

To me and to so many people in the Ocean State, Claiborne Pell was a mentor and an example, a leader whose vision, grace, and authentic kindness left an indelible imprint.

He was born in New York City in 1918, and he first came to the Senate in 1961, after a colorful primary battle, described by Senator Reed, that pitted him as an essential unknown against two established Democratic powerhouses: Dennis J. Roberts and J. Howard McGrath, contending for the seat that was being vacated by Theodore Francis Green.

It did not look good. Pell was the ultimate outsider. He was so much the underdog in that race that John F. Kennedy, who was running for President at the time--and who knew Claiborne quite well because he was a dear friend of Mrs. Kennedy, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, and was in Rhode Island a good deal because of her family associations with Rhode Island; so he knew Claiborne Pell quite well--he called him the least electable man in America.

At his funeral yesterday, I saw Pell buttons from that race back in 1961 on mourners' lapels.

The Providence Journal described the race that ensued as ``the first modern political campaign the state had seen.'' Senator Pell invested his own money in television ads and polling, and he won the Democratic primary. He was the first unendorsed candidate in the history of Rhode Island to ever win a Democratic primary.

He went on to win the general election. He won it by the largest margin ever at the time, 69 percent of the vote. To his great satisfaction, more Rhode Islanders voted for Claiborne Pell in that election than voted for John F. Kennedy--so much for being the ``least electable man in America.''

The fact that John F. Kennedy road on Claiborne Pell's coattails was a point Claiborne Pell, in his quiet way, loved to remind President Kennedy of whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Of course, Rhode Island, in that election, got its first look at the one-of-a-kind political temperament that was to define Senator Pell for the rest of his life: courteous, innovative, and always quietly humorous.

Senator Pell looked back on that election in an interview with the New York Times, and he said this:

I remember my first campaign. My opponent called me a cream

puff. That's what he said. Well, I rushed out and got the

baker's union to endorse me. Frankly, I think a little bit of

humor is sorely lacking now.

How many people in today's politics being called a cream puff would go out and get a baker's union endorsement rather than trying to find some other way to hit back?

Claiborne Pell believed, as he once told the Providence Journal, something that is so important:

[T]hat government--and the federal government in

particular--can, should and does make a positive impact on

the lives of most Americans.

He lived by that observation, and certainly Senator Pell's positive impact on the lives of the people he served will be remembered for generations.

Two years after taking office, Senator Pell sponsored legislation that became the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, now known, thanks to its champion, as the Pell grant. At the time, the Nation's colleges wanted Federal aid for themselves, but Senator Pell wanted the aid to go directly to students.

He enlisted in the Coast Guard 4 months before Pearl Harbor, serving in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and after that he used the GI bill scholarship to get an advanced degree from Columbia University.

The GI bill showed him the transformative power of a college education, and Claiborne Pell resolved then that all Americans would have the opportunity for a college education that he and millions of veterans had received after World War II.

So every year in September a new group of students goes off to college, and we see anew the work of Senator Pell, enlivening millions of young Americans who use Pell grants to pursue their dreams. In 2008, this Pell Grant Program was nearly 5.6 million grants, worth $16.4 billion--all from his idea.

I am delighted the distinguished Senator from Colorado is presiding at this moment because I remember in Rhode Island a few years ago I was at an event with a number of Senators, and

the distinguished Senator from Colorado, now our Interior Secretary designate, was present. Senator Pell came to the event. He was very disabled, and he came in a wheelchair. I went over to greet him. Senator Salazar--I say to the Presiding Officer, you will remember this--also came over to greet him. He took his hand, and he told him: Senator, my brother and I went to college because of the Pell Grant Program. Now here I am standing in front of you as a Senator, thanks to the vision and foresight you showed years ago--your vision that every American should have the dream of higher education at their disposal. I say to the Presiding Officer, you were then in your first term as a newly elected Senator.

It was an unforgettable moment, I say to the Presiding Officer. It happened because Senator Pell understood the difference that higher education could make in the lives of America's young people--from a young Ken Salazar from rural Colorado, to toddlers across this country now who will seize the opportunities of America in years to come because of this man.

Senator Pell knew that the arts, too, could transform lives. He authored the landmark legislation that gave rise to the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities. These institutions have secured a place for the culture and the arts in the public life of this Nation. Over the years they have helped bring poetry, drama, dance, painting, sculpture, song, literature, and history to millions of Americans.

Of course, we New Englanders are deeply indebted to Senator Pell for his passion for public transportation and in particular for his long fight to develop for the Northeast corridor a transit system to support the cities of today and tomorrow. As we face the challenges of rising energy costs, economic recession, and urban stresses on our congested highways, Americans will rely more heavily than ever on systems such as Amtrak. Senator Pell's foresight again has served us well.

Here in the Senate, Senator Pell is remembered for his big ideas. In Rhode Island, we remember him also for his gentle, generous spirit. He had lived all over the world. He had been honored with medals from at least 18 different nations. But Newport, RI, was always home. In both his personal and his political life, he was a consistent model of civility and kindness to his fellow Rhode Islanders--always, without fail--even sometimes at his peril.

For example, in his final bid for reelection in 1990, Senator Pell reportedly insisted on warning Congresswoman Claudine Schneider, his Republican opponent, every time he was about to air a new television ad. He told his campaign staff that he would not permit a self- promoting press release to go out, chiding: ``No, no, no, we never boast.''

In a debate I remember watching, he was given two huge political softball opportunities. One, he was asked to criticize his opponent, to critique her capacity to defeat him and serve in the U.S. Senate. The only thing he had to say was she has been a very fine Congresswoman. Then he was asked what his most significant legislative achievements had been during the previous term that had helped Rhode Islanders. He said:

You know, I really can't think of one right now. My memory

is not as good as it should be.

One would think those answers would be lethal politically, but Rhode Islanders loved it and they loved him for it because he was as genuine and as authentic as a man could be. I guess one of the great lessons of his life is that voters don't want you to be perfect; they want you to be you. They want you to be authentically who you are and from there to fight for them, and he certainly lived that. For his authenticity and gentleness of spirit, Claiborne Pell was beloved by all of us in the Ocean State who were privileged to know him or work with him or learn from his example.

We all will miss him deeply. To his wife Nuala, to his children, Toby and Dallas, and their families, and to the families of his departed children, Bertie and Julie, I know I join my distinguished senior Senator and all in this body and indeed all of America in holding them in our thoughts and prayers.

As his family reminded us last week, Senator Pell summarized his role as a Senator with seven simple words: Translate ideas into actions and help people. Would that all of us could have ideas as big as Claiborne Pell's and the strength, grace, persistence, and courage to translate them into action.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

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

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

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

Madam President, I rise today to address what I feel is an unfortunate omission from our economic rescue strategy to date. This week, we are considering another bailout which would give $15 billion in so-called bridge loans to America's struggling automakers.

Now, when we debated a bailout program to protect our Nation's financial system back in September, we created legislative branch roles and executive branch roles. We ultimately passed legislation that empowered the Department of the Treasury to invest up to $700 billion. Debate was rushed. The Treasury Secretary came to us on a Friday in September and told leaders of both parties in both Houses that our economy would collapse if we did not take immediate action. With the threat of immediate financial calamity and the apparent good faith of Secretary Paulson, Congress moved quickly to pass the best bill we could. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut and my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Jack Reed, worked heroically, almost around the clock, to negotiate for taxpayer protections and several levels of oversight. In the end, we created a program of congressional and executive roles but no judicial role. We ignored the role that courts can play here or, more correctly, that executive agencies can play when supported by judicial or even quasi-judicial due process. We are about to ignore that role again in the auto bailout.

Why is this point important? This is important because under our American system of government, there are important powers of government that can only be exercised after due process opportunity for a hearing. The famous Supreme Court case of Fuentes v. Shevin is on point. I quote:

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 citation 407 U.S. 67 at 82.

In other words, some means of restructuring require due process if they involve adjusting people's financial rights and claims. When we fail to provide that process, we unilaterally disarm government's response, taking away its ability to restructure using those means.

The price of this repeated omission has been high. Going back before we even got into this current mess, when there was only a subprime mortgage problem, Senator Durbin of Illinois proposed a bill that would have empowered bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of a mortgage on a person's primary residence. One needed a due process hearing such as that in order to adjust the rights within that mortgage of the banks and the myriad investors who bought strips of that mortgage when it was carved up and sold to the four winds. Our Republican colleagues stymied this provision which we now see could have kept tens of thousands of families in their homes. Because the clarity and finality of a court decision on a troubled mortgage was not available, there was little alternative to foreclosure, and troubled mortgages, by the tens of thousands, cascaded into foreclosure--numbers never before seen in our history. Our fault. Bad design. And every day we don't get it right, every day we don't pass Senator Durbin's bill, that foreclosure problem worsens.

Similarly, as part of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, we could have addressed lavish and indefensible executive compensation by providing for some judicial power to restructure these packages. Because we didn't, these grotesque liabilities remain on the books of the bailed out entities as obligations to their disgraced management. 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. 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. Taxpayer dollars will end up in the pockets of the scoundrels who tanked those firms. I contend we have to find ways in which the court system, due process, can be brought to bear on this problem. But again, the inaction on that so far is our fault. Bad design. Unilateral disarmament in the face of the Wall Street meltdown.

Now we have the auto bailout plan with its provision for a ``car czar,'' but once again, lacks a role for those due process powers of government. Once we are committed to this deal--once we are in--the only tool we will have at that negotiating table is Uncle Sam's checkbook--that, and the somewhat improbable threat to walk away and tank the auto companies after having put $15 billion into them. So now we will have to negotiate about the companies' continuing lavish executive and board compensation packages and other obligations impeding a fair and rational recovery. As for looking backwards at preexisting obligations, as we say in Rhode Island, forget about it. That requires due process. We have created no process to even invoke government's power to review those. So the effect of all of this is to encourage special interests to play the holdout in the auto negotiations and dare us to tank the companies. It is going to be a high stakes game of chicken and, no matter who wins, the taxpayers lose.

We created this ``hold out'' problem by not providing a judicial role in the restructuring. We could, for example, give the car czar the powers of a judicially appointed conservator or receiver--those are roles I have held--and the power to go to court for an order approving his plan or her plan over the objections of any holdouts. If we did that, it would change the bargaining position of the holdouts. This judicial due process would allow the strong powers of government that require due process to be brought to bear on this mess. We do this in a lot of different contexts.

Bankruptcy courts oversee restructuring all the time and so do other quasi-judicial bodies. For example, the FDIC has the power under current law to place a troubled bank into receivership and wind it down as if in chapter 7, or put it under conservatorship to restructure it as if in chapter 11. The bankruptcy courts and the FDIC possess the tools necessary to cut through whatever Gordian knots may snarl restructuring plans absent that power.

The judicial imprimatur will also increase public confidence in the fairness and the propriety of these plans. There is flexibility about how we do this. We don't have to have it be the FDIC. We don't have to have it be a bankruptcy court to recognize the due process powers of government.

Fuentes v. Shevin again, and I quote:

Due process tolerates variances in the form of a hearing

``appropriate to the nature of the case,'' and ``depending

upon the importance of the interests involved and the nature

of the subsequent proceedings, if any.''

I hope my colleagues will recognize the importance of authorizing judicially supervised powers in these bailout plans. I pledge to work hard with anyone who wants to achieve this goal. It is vital, I contend, to recognize that directed judicial oversight expands government's powers and authorities to do the things the public and the circumstances demand. It gives us a means to unsnarl the foreclosure mess on Main Street, to restructure obscene executive compensation on Wall Street, and to force good-faith negotiations in Detroit.

We cannot ignore the judicial power in restructuring companies and industries. We must not let that sword sleep in our hands. Times are bleak in Detroit, as they are around the country. The automobile industry stands on the brink of collapse, and the jobs of thousands-- some say millions--of workers hang in the balance.

Michigan shares the sad distinction with my home State of Rhode Island in having the Nation's highest unemployment rate, 9.3 percent, in October. Families are struggling in Rhode Island and across the country. That is the background against which we must consider whether to bail out yet another industry. In making such a weighty decision, I implore my colleagues, we must not consider just whether but how we go about doing this.

I contend that we should empower our Government to take steps that we have, to date, foreclosed--steps that exercise the power of Government that can be only exercised after due process of law. I hope we consider that.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal article to which I referred be printed in the Record.

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

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

Mr. President, a moment ago I had the honor of presiding before the distinguished Senator from Florida replaced me in the chair, and I was presiding during the time the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, and the distinguished Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, came to the floor to discuss the timing of the nomination proceedings for the President-elect's candidate for Attorney General, Eric Holder. I had the chance to hear the points that they made, and I wish, just briefly, to respond to a few of them.

As the junior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am certainly in no position to speak for the chairman. Obviously we heard Senator Kyl ask that the timing be done on a reasonable basis, and I think Senator Leahy, the very distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is nothing if not reasonable and has shown enormous reasonableness with the timing of all the nominees that have come before him. And I would expect this to be no different. But in evaluating the reasonableness of the schedule that the chairman has proposed, or, I should say, announced, it may be worth putting it into the context of the history of these sorts of nominees.

If you go all the way back to President Carter, for more than 30 years, whether the Senate was controlled by Republicans or Democrats, or the President was a Republican or a Democrat, we have had nominees for Attorney General come through the process. And throughout that long span of time, the average time between the announcement by the President of his choice for Attorney General and the nomination hearing, the average amount of time has been 29 days. And the average amount of time until a committee vote has been 37 days.

So that is the background. If you average over 30 years, from the announcement, 29 days to the hearing, 37 days to the vote. The schedule that Chairman Leahy has proposed is 39 days to the hearing, and he hopes for 50 days to the vote.

So instead of the average that it has been over 30 years of 29 days, the Republicans have 10 extra days beyond the average to do the work that they assert that they need to do, and the vote may not come for 50 days, which is 11 days longer than the average.

I think everyone in this body understands the importance of a new President having his new Attorney General in place quickly. The President is going to be sworn in on January 20, and I think it is in all our interests as Americans to make sure that his choice is honored in a reasonable timeframe so that when the President takes office, he has an intact team. Certainly with the Attorney General as such an important part of the President's national security team in this time of national security concerns, he should have an intact team.

And so it seems to me that the average is a pretty reasonable place to start, and when the chairman has given an extra 10 days beyond the average just to the beginning of hearings, and hopefully an extra 13 days beyond the average for the vote, it's a pretty good signal that the chairman is being very reasonable about this.

Most recently, some of the Attorneys General whom we have seen, Attorney General Mukasey had a period of 30 days from his nomination to the start of the hearings. That was at President Bush's request. Remember, he indicated that he wanted to get him in place soon. The Department was in grave distress and we needed to act quickly. We acted in 30 days. We are acting here in 39 days, more than was given for Attorney General Mukasey. The vote hopefully will be the same as for Attorney General Mukasey: 50 days from the announcement to the vote.

It doesn't sound unreasonable. Nobody said it was unreasonable when Attorney General Mukasey was put through that schedule. I don't see how it can be unreasonable that Eric Holder should have a more generous schedule, and somehow that is no longer reasonable.

For Attorney General Ashcroft, it was 25 days to the hearing instead of 39; 39 days to the vote instead of the hoped-for 50. For Attorney General Reno, 26 days to the hearing instead of 39 days; 27 days to the vote instead of the hoped-for 50. Nearly twice as much time as for Attorney General Reno.

So I think the point is pretty clear. It is the tradition and the history of

this body to honor the President's request to act quickly, and in terms of the reasonableness of the schedule that Chairman Leahy has proposed, he has proposed a schedule that is on the generous side of the average and of recent history.

With respect to the concern that there is a lot to look at in Eric Holder's history, well, every lawyer who is experienced and active enough in the profession to be a candidate to be Attorney General of the United States has got a long history to look at. That is a given. That is a constant. That is not something that is different about Eric Holder than about any of his predecessors.

Indeed, if anything, the opposite concern would be justified, which is that we have already had a lot of time to look at Eric Holder. First of all, he has an astonishingly distinguished record to be Attorney General. It is remarkable--his personal story, his career. It is all spectacular, truly. But specific to the question of nomination, this is a lawyer who came right after law school to the Department of Justice and served as a prosecutor for a decade prosecuting public corruption cases. So he had to be cleared by the FBI to come in as a Department of Justice attorney, and he served there for all those 10 years. That is all a matter of clear public record. Everybody has had a chance to look at that forever.

The next thing that happened, in 1988, Eric Holder was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to the bench to serve as Superior Court judge in Washington, DC. Again, he was confirmed by the Senate. We had a full look of everything up to 1988.

After his service on the bench, Eric Holder was nominated by President Clinton to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. United States Attorney Holder and I were colleagues; me in Rhode Island, him down in DC. I went through that process of nomination and confirmation. It is exhaustive. It was done for him. He was confirmed at that time. So as of the date he was appointed United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, we had done a complete Senate look of his record to that point.

And that wasn't the last time. In 1997, President Clinton nominated United States Attorney Holder to serve as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Attorney General Reno's No. 2 in that department. And he was then confirmed by this body, the Senate, unanimously. And, again, we had that full record of his before us at that time.

So this is a guy who has been the subject of very public attention as a public official, the Deputy Attorney General. There isn't a whole lot that one does as Deputy Attorney General that isn't available to the public, that isn't in the news media. This is not somebody who has come out of nowhere and who has a great, vast mysterious past history that we need to have a look at. Indeed, this body has had three looks at him, confirmed him three separate times. The most recent time as late as 1997, unanimously. So I think the notion that--with only 1997 to now to look through, a period of a mere decade--the idea that he is being shoved unreasonably rapidly through the process, when he is substantially slower than the average, simply doesn't hold water.

And I would urge my Republican colleagues--again, they can have discussions with the chairman that obviously are at a rank higher than mine--but I would urge my colleagues to consider their views in that context: in the context of a spectacularly qualified individual who has thrice been confirmed by this body, as recently as 1997, and who is being given more time for scrutiny than the average or the recent Bush appointees, and in an environment in which I think we can all agree that after the Bush management of the Department of Justice, we badly need a new Attorney General in there and soon.

So with those observations I will yield the floor. I thank my colleagues for waiting while I finished my remarks. I see the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma on the other side of the Chamber and I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I appreciate that very much. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his courtesy for yielding.

I wanted to make sure the distinguished Senator was not suggesting that when the Senate allowed 26 days between Attorney General Reno's announcement and her nomination hearing, or allowed 25 days between Attorney General Ashcroft's announcement and his nomination hearing, or allowed 30 days between Attorney General Mukasey's announcement and his nomination hearing that the Senate was then underprepared or had not done its job in evaluating, or didn't have enough time to evaluate those candidates. I think they probably did. They appeared to going forward. By comparison, the 39 days----

If I could finish the question----

I wanted, while the Senator from Oklahoma is still on the floor, to let him know I appreciate his concern and I am grateful for his kind words. I would hope the one or two red flags that he has mentioned are not such as to justify necessarily extending the period between nomination and confirmation hearings more than 2 weeks beyond what the Senate gave for other nominees such as Attorney General Thornburgh, Attorney General Barr--almost 2 weeks for Attorney General Reno, 2 weeks longer than for Attorney General Ashcroft, 1 day short of 2 weeks longer than for Attorney General Meese. Some of these people have some red flags too, but the Senate was able to do its job timely and I hope we will do so again.

I yield the floor.