Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, 2 years ago this week the House of Representatives forced through the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the dysfunctional cousin of the job-killing trade agreement, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. CAFTA expanded NAFTA into five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic despite widespread bipartisan opposition to it in the United States, in Central America, and in the Dominican Republic.

During the CAFTA debate, the largest ever bipartisan coalition was formed in opposition to CAFTA and in support of fair trade, a very different direction in our trade policy. A coalition of farmers, ranchers, cattlemen, small business men and women, labor groups, human rights organizations, consumer and environmental and faith groups connected the widespread opposition to NAFTA around the country, with Democrats and Republicans, were standing up to the President.

CAFTA passed but not on its merits. In the middle of the night, the vote was held open until enough arms were twisted to secure a win in the House of Representatives by only two votes. CAFTA passed by the slimmest margin of any trade agreement in the modern era. That was because of the overwhelming opposition by those of us who support fair trade. We forever changed the debate on trade.

Make no mistake, we want trade. As Senator Dorgan says, we want trade and plenty of it. However, 2 years after CAFTA, supporters of the failed NAFTA-like model still are trying to force through Congress more of the same--more job-killing trade agreements that hurt U.S. businesses and that exploit workers in developing nations, more fundamentally flawed agreements designed to protect multinational corporations, and big drug companies. They are protectionists all right; they protect large corporations, especially the large drug companies.

More trade agreements can send our trade deficit soaring and hemorrhaging U.S. jobs. In 1992, the year I first ran for the House of Representatives, our trade deficit was $38 billion. Last year, it exceeded $800 billion. From $38 billion, that is an increase of more than 20 times. The first President Bush said for every billion-dollar trade agreement or deficit, it translates into 13,000 jobs. You do the math on what an $800 billion trade deficit means.

CAFTA was passed by two votes. Since CAFTA passed 2 years ago this last week, how has it done so far? CAFTA proponents told us if it didn't pass, poverty would get worse in Central America; CAFTA would promote economic growth, curb the violence in Central America, and serve as a model for strengthening democracy. Let's look at the region 2 years later.

Violence and murders continue to silence the opposition to CAFTA throughout Central America. State violence was responsible for the death of several CAFTA demonstrators in Guatemala. Since 2001, more than 2,500 women and girls have been brutally murdered in Guatemala. Many work in factories built for export and make just a few dollars a week. The Guatemalan Government failed to bring those responsible to justice. And we reward that Government with a free-trade agreement. Four Guatemalan police confessed in the murder of three Salvadoran legislators whose crime was they opposed CAFTA. Despite the threats of violence, still thousands of people are protesting CAFTA in Central America.

CAFTA promoters also said the trade deal would strengthen labor rights. U.S. Trade Representative Zoellick told us:

If CAFTA stumbles, labor rights in Central America will not

be strengthened.

The reality is, there have been disturbing developments in the region, including the recent passage by the Honduran Government of a law to create ``exception zones'' that will allow foreign factories to pay less than the national minimum wage in the southern part of the country. The national minimum wage--think how low it is. It is only a few dimes an hour. This whole idea of a trade agreement is to lift up standards. That is what they say, but what they do is have an exception even from the low wages for foreign companies to come in and pay an even lower wage.

In Guatemala, forced laborers, most of whom are well under the age of 18, are coerced to work 10- to 14-hour days, 6 or 7 days each week.

In Nicaragua, the human rights ombudsman alleges that nearly half of the female employees working in free-trade zones had been subject to physical or sexual abuse.

Consistent with its history of repeating the same act and expecting different results, the administration now wants Congress to approve deals with Peru, Panama, Colombia, and South Korea--still using the failed NAFTA-CAFTA trade model. I think it was Albert Einstein who said the mark of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. This President continues to try to push through trade agreements.

NAFTA failed. PNTR with China is causing a hemorrhaging of industrial jobs from Ohio, in Stubenville, Toledo, Dayton, Cleveland, Canton, Portsmouth--from all over our State. Yet the President continues to push these kinds of trade agreements with Peru, Panama, South Korea, and Columbia through Congress.

This fall, Congress will debate these new free-trade agreements, and this fall I look forward to working with my fair trade colleagues in the House and

Senate in changing our Nation's trade policy. It is clear that an overwhelming majority of the American people want a very different trade policy. It is clear that our communities, people all over my State of Ohio and all over this country understand that these trade policies have cost people their jobs, they have broken too many families, they have hurt too many communities, and they have depleted the manufacturing base in our country.

People want a different direction in trade. We want trade; we want more of it. We want trade under different rules. That is why we demand fair trade.

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

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

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

Mr. President, I yield back my time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, during the last year I have listened to a lot of things Ohioans have said, have told me, as I have traveled from Cleveland to Portsmouth, and from Toledo to Cincinnati and from Youngstown to Lima and Bryan. I have heard repeatedly, particularly middle class and working families talk about lost opportunity, that they do not have the same opportunity for wage increases, do not have the same opportunity to join a union, do not have the same opportunity to send their kids to college.

Earlier today, we passed legislation--overwhelmingly, bipartisanly-- finally, to raise Pell grants to increase the opportunity for young people to go to school. Pell grants had not been increased in years and years and years.

We know for students in Ohio, for example, the cost of a public education at a 4-year public school has gone up, in the last 5 years, 53 percent. The cost of a private education at a 4-year private school has gone up 28 percent. Yet the average wage in Ohio only went up 3 percent. So we have private education going up this much, public education going up this much, and wages increasing only slightly. That is why the legislation the Senate passed earlier and legislation the House is working on absolutely will matter to provide opportunity for middle-class kids.

At the same time, as I traveled the State, I heard people talk about tax policy. It is clear to people in Akron, in Youngstown, it is clear to people in Dayton and Middletown, and Hamilton and Gallipolis and Galion, OH, that too often the wealthy have paid, as their income goes up and up and up, very little in taxes, relatively, while middle-class families get more and more of a burden.

We saw, from 1946 to 1973, in the history of this country, economic opportunities for poor families and working families grew. Then, from 1973 to 2000, we saw it pretty much level out. We have seen those families who are working hard, playing by the rules, not even enjoying increases at all in their wages. In fact, they have fallen behind in too many cases.

That is why today, in addition to passing the bill providing opportunity for students to go to Ohio State or Hiram College or the University of Toledo or the University of Steubenville, students in Ohio have more opportunity--after this bill becomes law, if we can get the President to sign it--than they had yesterday.

Today is also a cause to celebrate. Today the minimum wage goes into effect. It is the first raise in 10 years. For 300,000 working Ohioans, 13 million workers nationwide, they will see their wages go up today.

For 10 years, worker productivity has gone up. In this country, more productive workers meant higher income workers. But too often we have seen a disconnect between productivity and wages. While American workers are continually more productive, their wages have not gone up. Whether that is a minimum wage worker, whether it is a worker making $20 an hour, it is way too common.

Today, we did something about it for those minimum wage workers. Because of workers in this country--minimum wage and higher income workers--because of what they did last November, voting for change, minimum wage workers have the increase in the pay they deserve and have earned.

It is a good day for American workers. It is especially a good day for minimum wage workers. We have lots more work to do.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The purpose of this hearing is to explore efforts to protect children from online predators.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on oversight of Government tax policy in farm country.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at 10 a.m. to hold a nomination hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at 2:15 p.m. to hold a nomination hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at 4 p.m. to hold a briefing on the Gulf Security Dialogue.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at 10 a.m. to consider the nomination of the Honorable James A. Nussle to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice'' on Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in the Hart Senate Office Building room 216.

Witness List: The Honorable Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, to conduct a vote on the nomination of Charles L. Hopkins to be an Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Operations, Preparedness, Security and Law Enforcement). The Committee will meet in the Reception Room, off the Senate Floor, immediately after the first roll call vote that occurs after 2 p.m. of the Senate on Tuesday, July 17.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 24, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Economic and International Issues in Global Warming Policy.''

The PRESIDING OFFICER, Without objection, it is so ordered.

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

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, a couple of months ago a distraught mother from Cincinnati wrote me about the private loan her daughter had taken to go to college. Her daughter had borrowed $21,000, was facing a bill for over $100,000 as a result. She sent me the disclosure sheet on the loan represented in this chart because she could not believe what she saw.

She took out a loan for $21,000 for 2 years of school. That loan grew, at an 18 percent interest rate, to almost $35,000 because there was a deferral on payback of the loan during her 2 years in school.

So she ended up owing $67,000 for the life of the loan. That is why she ended up paying $102,000 because of this incredibly high interest rate for student loan, 18\1/4\ percent.

I have shown this statement to a loan officer at a bank and also to my attorney. They both expressed to me they had never seen anything such as this and there must be a mistake. Unfortunately, the only mistake is Congress has failed to act to restrain the costs of these loans, which as we have seen, can carry interest rates sometimes in excess of 18 percent.

It is not an isolated problem. Private loans have been growing at an annual pace of some 27 percent, meaning that because tuition continues to grow at a rapid rate, and the Federal Government has not met, through the Direct Student Loan Program or the Guaranteed Student Loan Program, has not met that increase, the amount that students need has grown at such a rapid rate that private lenders have come in charging interest rates similar to this, 18 percent, 16 percent, 17 percent, whatever.

The cost of college has climbed so much that we have seen this kind of growth. In Ohio, the median house income increased 3 percent between 2000 and 2006. Tuition went up 53 percent at 4-year public schools, 28 percent at 4-year private schools. Tuition went up 28 percent for some, 53 percent for others. Yet the average wage in our State went up only 3 percent.

The Federal loan limits have barely budged over the past several decades. In 1972, a freshman could borrow $2,500 in Federal loans. Last year, that number barely moved to $2,600, even though, in real terms, the limit on borrowing would amount to $12,000, if it kept pace with inflation. To be fair, the law changed this month. A freshman can borrow $3,500 for school. But even though the limits in the first 2 years have been increased somewhat, the overall cap on borrowing remains the same, $23,000 for a dependent undergraduate. This bill does nothing to change the cap because the HELP Committee decided, correctly in my view, the bulk of savings we could achieve should be plowed back into Pell grants. I applaud Chairman Kennedy for doing that.

With the price tag for 4 years of college at $120,000 for private schools, $50,000 for public schools, there is obviously a big gap for many students.

That gap gets filled in many ways: savings, work, grants, PLUS Loans, credit cards, you name it. But for more students, private loans are playing a bigger role.

According to testimony before the Banking Committee last month, Sallie Mae made $7 billion in private loans and $15 billion in Federal loans. In other words, one out of three college student loan dollars originated by the biggest student lender in the country is a private loan subject to much higher rates.

As this chart indicates, the private loan program may well outstrip the Federal program over the next decade. What we have done on this chart is use the growth rates of the two programs over the past several years to predict how large they will grow if current trends continue. The darker reddish-purple there is the unregulated private bank loans that students are getting, growing more than 20 percent a year. You can see how within 7 or 8 years, they will overtake student loans.

More and more students are forced to go through private banks for private loans at higher and higher interest rates every year. Think about these numbers: A 28-percent increase in tuition over the last 6 years for private 4-year institutions, 53 percent for public 4-year institutions. Yet the average wage has only gone up 3 percent.

Congress very often legislates through the rear-view mirror. We wait until a problem becomes close to unmanageable before we feel compelled to act. Today we can take a different approach. We can act to address a problem before it becomes widespread. This amendment I am offering will create an alternative for the fastest growing segment of the student loan industry, private loans.

My amendment creates a supplemental loan program that would be run by the Federal Government. It would provide one more option for students to finance their education. Over the years, my Republican colleagues have defended the private guaranteed student loan program by arguing there should be competition between the guaranteed and the Direct Loan Program and that the competition made both better. Right now there is no competition for these private loans with the results that students have been charged in excess of 18 percent.

I will yield.

I think that is exactly right, what Senator Kennedy said. Because of the efforts of Senator Enzi and Senator Kennedy, in a bipartisan effort in this body last week, to move money that has been subsidizing those private companies into Pell grants and into better rates and better payback periods and all of that for students, we have gone a big part of the way.

But on this chart, as Senator Kennedy suggests, the dollars students will need continue to skyrocket, and the only place they can go is these private banks.

This is actually 2005.

Well, we also had a chart earlier that showed that increase of 20-plus percent, up until now, in real dollars. If the percentage increase continues, and there is no reason it would not, it will grow similar to this. But we have had several years of this already.

Correct.

That is correct. We are not regulating the banks. We are simply setting up a program so that the Government will break even. It will not cost taxpayer dollars. We are setting up a program to compete directly with private lenders, which we are certain, as my Republican friends have said, with the direct student loan program, that competition will make both operate better.

I will briefly summarize the amendment and then reserve our time.

The amendment requires the Secretary of Education to offer two types of loans, a fixed rate and a variable. Each type of loan would be offered for borrowers with or without cosigners. The Secretary would then have the discretion of designing the program to mirror other features offered by private loans such as delayed payment until after graduation or deferment for certain hardships. This amendment will clearly stop situations like this one from happening to a student, where a student goes in with a $21,000 loan and has to pay $500 monthly for 179 times and ends up paying $102,000 for a $21,000 student loan. We will see a competitive situation which will save those students dramatic amounts of money, working with what Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi did last week on debt forgiveness, on the Pell grants--all that will absolutely matter for students.

Yes.

This creates a competitive situation similar to what we have had since 1939 but for students who have to borrow money beyond the $23,000 limit. It doesn't regulate the banks. It doesn't tell the banks what to do. It simply sets up a competitive situation from which all of us will gain.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

How much time remains?

Mr. President, I would prefer to close, if the Senator from Wyoming has any more time he would like to use.

Mr. President, how much time do the opponents of the amendment have?

I thank the Chair. I will close.

We know several things. We, first of all, know that my amendment sets up a competition. It does not set up, it does not run the system. It simply sets up a competition. It does not tilt the playing field. It makes the playing field even so interest rates will not continue to be at a usurious rate of 16 and 17 and 18 percent.

We know the Direct Loan Program works. We have seen the Government involved in the Direct Loan Program, as in Pell, as in Stafford. The Government, in fact, has negative subsidy rates of 7 percent and 4 percent. In other words, the Government has done these so efficiently that the Government either breaks even or actually makes money.

We know my amendment does not take effect until students have exhausted up to $23,000. There are other opportunities to get financing for college. It only goes there. It is not a new program that simply will take people in because it is tilted, as my friend, the Senator from New Hampshire, says. We also know if we do nothing, as USA Today said: There is just one problem. The efforts short of this amendment would do little to rein in the fastest growing area of the market-- loans that are not federally backed whose rates can generally rise without limit. Bills in Congress would not affect rates on these loans, also often called private loans, until this amendment.

The ranking member said he hopes the banks charge lower interest rates. The fact is--as the Senator from New Hampshire talked about gaming the system--the banks are gaming the system. That is why this woman from Cincinnati had to--on a loan of $21,000--pay $102,000 back, at 18 percent interest.

We just want some competition. I do not want to see the easy money-- the Senator from New Hampshire talks about the easy money. It is easy money for the banks. It is huge profits for the banks.

This is really a decision that comes down to, are you going to support students in giving them the opportunity to go to school? This is not buying a car. This is not making car loans. This is providing an opportunity for a lot of students. It is their first chance to go to college.

My wife went to college, enrolled at Kent State University 30 years ago. She was the first one in her family to go to college. She probably could not do that today because the loans and the grants are not available the way they were 30 years ago. She probably would have either not been able to go to school because she could not have put the financial package together or she would have seen a situation where she would have been burdened with such huge loans, huge debt when she graduated.

There is the choice, are you voting for students in this country-- giving opportunity to middle-class students, opportunity to working families--or are you going to vote to support the banks so they can continue to charge these kinds of 15, 16, 17, 18 percent interest rates?

Mr. President, I ask for support of the Brown amendment.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I ask for support for the Brown amendment. We know in the last 5 years the cost of public education has gone up for a 4-year degree 53 percent. We know the cost of private education for a 4-year degree has gone up 28 percent. We also know that wages have gone up only 3 to 4 percent for the average person during this 5- year period. The Federal Government is not keeping up with helping students get the opportunity to go to college. We have seen students have no alternative. They have exhausted what they can do with Pell grants. They have exhausted what they can do either through the direct loan program or other federally backed programs. The fastest growing part of their student loan availability is going to private institutions with a 16- to 18-percent interest rate. This amendment is no cost to the Government. It competes with banks.

We reauthorize every 5 to 7 years the Higher Education Act. This is an opportunity we should not pass up. The problem is only getting worse. I ask for support of the Brown amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I object. The informal order established was Senator Alexander, Senator Landrieu, Senator Lieberman, myself, then a Republican, and then Senator Menendez. I ask unanimous consent that be the order.

Mr. President, the American people's opposition to this war is not the political passion of a moment, as some have suggested. It is a majority, a growing majority, a thoughtful growing majority reflecting the will of the people of this country. We need 60 votes because of recalcitrance, because of political game playing, because too many of our colleagues are more interested in protecting the President than they are in protecting our troops. We know to get 60 votes we need 11 Republicans.

Many Republicans, a growing number of Republicans in this body, have spoken out against this war. They have decided that we need to change course in Iraq. The problem is simply this. It seems like almost every Tuesday Vice President Cheney comes and speaks to the Republican lunch. The Republicans meeting in conference, having lunch, Vice President Cheney pulls up, his limousine drops him off at the door of the Senate, he comes in and speaks to them or other administration officials. The arm twisting, the lobbying by the administration, is making it that much harder to change direction in this war. That is why it is so difficult to get to 60. That is why we want a vote, we want an up-or- down vote, we want a majority vote, because a majority vote reflects public sentiment, reflects what the voters said last fall, reflects the policy that the Iraq Study Group has suggested, that the military has advised the President, but the President simply dug in and did not listen.

Last November voters in my State of Ohio, from Galion to Gallipolis, and across this Nation shouted from the ballot boxes that we needed a new direction, that the Iraq war must end. They demanded that we refocus our efforts on securing our homeland so that the darkest day in our Nation's history, 9/11, is never repeated.

With Democrats in control of Congress this session we immediately, in January, began working to end the war. We immediately began to work implementing the full recommendations of the 9/11 Commission in order to make us safer, recommendations that will go a long way toward making this country safer. By working to end the war in Iraq and by passing the Commission's recommendation, we are executing a strategy to combat terrorism and to make our country safer.

Make no mistake, ending the war in Iraq itself is a counterterrorism strategy. Global terrorist attacks have increased sevenfold since we invaded Iraq--seven times, more than 700 percent. Our continued engagement in Iraq, frankly, is the best thing that ever happened to jihadist recruitment. We know America is a less safe country because of the war in Iraq. We know global terrorist attacks have increased sevenfold, seven times worldwide since the war in Iraq began.

Democrats brought to this Chamber not one piece of legislation to redeploy our troops out of Iraq in the safest, most orderly way possible, but many resolutions, many pieces of legislation. Each and every time either Republicans defeated the measure in Congress by threatening a filibuster or the President vetoed it in the White House--each and every time.

This week we find ourselves at the same impasse, the same struggle in this Chamber between a new direction and more of the same failed policies. Again, too many of my colleagues would rather protect the President of the United States than protect our soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. More of the same means supporting the President, but it means something very different to Ohio families. It means more loved ones wounded, more loved ones killed. Mr. President, 156 people in my State have been killed in Iraq, 156 people. More than 1,100 Ohioans have been wounded. Ohio cannot afford more of the same.

Again, too many of my colleagues care more about protecting the President than they do about protecting our troops. Ohio families have had it with hollow promises by the President. From first declaring ``mission accomplished'' in 2003 to his visit last week in my home State of Ohio, in Cleveland, the President used grand pronouncements of success in an effort to buy more time, stay the course and buy more time; continue our involvement in this civil war and buy more time. Time and again those pronouncements were followed by increased violence and expanding chaos in Iraq. Time and again those pronouncements mean more names being added to the list of dead and wounded Americans. Mr. President, 3,617 Americans have died in the war in Iraq. At least 35,000 Americans have suffered serious injuries that will be with them and with us for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

Every year I see Iraq slip further and further into a civil war with our Nation's military caught in the middle. The President sent our Nation's military into a war of choice on failed intelligence and, as we know, without proper body armor. Adding insult to injury, literally just today, a USA Today article revealed that nearly 4 years later our troops are still without the lifesaving equipment they need.

I remember before the attack, before we invaded Iraq, I was a Member of the House of Representatives. I voted against this war in October of 2002. We began questioning Paul Bremer during the beginning of 2003, before the attack. Mr. Bremer was the administrator in Iraq for the U.S. Government, the Provisional Government. We continued to focus on providing the kind of body armor for our troops and Mr. Bremer said we are doing the best we can, but we have not done very well. We have a lot to do. We still attacked that country, we still sent our troops into harm's way without that body armor.

As we discuss this issue, tonight in Baghdad it is early morning. The forecast calls for a high of 104 degrees. While our solders have some protection from the extreme heat, like water, shade, and the mini air- conditioning units, they are not protected from a far deadlier force in Iraq, the improvised explosive devices or IED bombs. The USA Today article highlighted the lack of planning to protect our soldiers riding in Humvees from the impact of IED bombs. Humvees have a very low ground clearance, a little less than a foot and a half. The bottom of a humvee is flat so when it is hit by an IED blast from the bottom, troops suffer the brunt of the explosion.

The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, or MRAP--the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, on the other hand, has a 3-foot clearance, and its body is V-shaped so when the explosion happens, the explosion, if you will, is dissipated and more often than not the troops are not nearly as badly injured. The soldiers are much better protected.

The few MRAPS in theater have proven their effectiveness and clearly saved lives and clearly saved many of our soldiers and marines from injury. What infuriates me and should infuriate everyone across this Nation is that the Pentagon and the administration, similarly to back in 2002 and 2003 when they failed to work hard to provide the body armor to prepare for this war, the Pentagon and the administration again did not immediately work to fix the problem of the humvee's susceptibility to IEDs; the needless loss of life from this willful ignorance to correct the glaring problem of the unprotected humvees could have been prevented, but arrogance and stubbornness from the administration kept the administration from doing the right thing.

The President, in some sense, is proud of his stubbornness. Instead he should be ashamed of it. His stubbornness has led to a failed policy in Iraq and to a failed policy on the war on

terror. The President has yet to define victory. He has yet to tell us how many years it will take to achieve whatever his definition of victory is. Will we be in Iraq for 5 more years, 10 more years, 15 years? Will hundreds more Americans die? Will thousands more of our service men and women die? Will tens of thousands die?

The President has yet to hold himself and his administration accountable for fomenting a civil war, in breeding more global terrorism. Remember, we have seen an increase in attacks of sevenfold since the time of the attack and the beginning of this war.

The path he is wed to has simultaneously increased the threat of terrorism, reduced our nation's capability to protect against it, and made us less safe. That stubbornness is not leadership. That defensiveness is not leadership. That finger-pointing from the White House, from some of my colleagues, is not leadership. And supporting the President's strategy in Iraq, rather than supporting the troops because you support the President, is not leadership.

Blocking another vote to bring our troops home, and that is exactly what they are doing tonight by their partisan antics, by their petty political games, blocking an up-or-down vote so the American people's will can be expressed, by blocking another vote to bring our troops home, is not leadership.

Lives are at stake. Our homeland security is at stake. Global security is at stake. Last week, we learned that al-Qaida is at pre-9/ 11 strength. That is frightening news. Of course, it is a cause for outrage because it did not have to be that way. We also learned last week that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is fostering the next generation of al-Qaida at an alarming rate.

What kind of signal exactly do the President and his supporters think we send by failing to secure the region where we know al-Qaida lives and trains and plans with--according to military analysts--relative freedom, the same region that served as the breeding ground for global terrorism through al-Qaida before 9/11, the same region we now know that al-Qaida trained in before the deadliest attack on our Nation's soil, the same region where Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/ 11, not Iraq, Osama bin Laden, the same region where he is believed to be hiding, free to plot the next attack on our beloved homeland?

Over the objection of military advisers, the 9/11 Commission, and the voice of a nation, the President, again that word ``stubbornly,'' insists on staying the course with the failed policy in Iraq. Staying the course with the President's failed policy has not just forced our Government to take our eye off the ball of terrorism, it has caused us to drop it.

Again, global terrorist attacks have increased seven times since we invaded Iraq, sevenfold since we invaded Iraq. Prior to World War II, the French built the Maginot Line. Same thought the line would prevent Germany from attacking France. History proved the French wrong. The President's strategy in Iraq is the Maginot Line of the 21st century. It imperils our Nation by mistakenly focusing our attention in the wrong direction. We have dropped the ball on capturing Osama bin Laden. We have dropped the ball on securing Afghanistan. We have dropped the ball on implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations, and anyone who thinks those are not signals that al-Qaida is paying attention to is surely mistaken.

Supporting the President's policy does not just fail to

effectively target terrorism, it puts the bull's-eye squarely

on our Nation. Ending the war in Iraq is not just about

bringing our troops home. Ending the war in Iraq is not just

about ensuring veterans get the health care and the benefits

they have been denied, and the Presiding Officer tonight has

done perhaps more than anybody in this institution about

that.

Ending the war is not just about a new direction in our foreign policy. Ending the war is not about returning our focus to where it might be if our Nation and our community, our families are to remain safe. Ending the war is about reengaging full force on the war on terror to make us safer.

I applaud my Republican friends who chose to stand up to the President. More and more of them have taken steps of bravery with every vote we bring to the floor. But it is not enough. With every lost vote, we add more lines to the list of men and women lost in Iraq.

Every lost vote we add more names to the list of wounded. With every lost vote, we empower al-Qaida. We keep hearing the same rhetoric: If we do not fight the terrorists in Iraq, we will have to fight them here. Good line but bad logic. The real truth is: If we do not fight the terrorists where they are in cells around the world, in Afghanistan, and where they really are, then we will fight them here.

In the Senate, those of us committed to ending the war of choice and securing our Nation will keep fighting. I appreciate the leadership of so many of my colleagues who have shown courageous leadership on this crisis of our generation. Our fight to end the war and refocus our efforts has just begun. We want to vote, we want a majority vote to reflect the growing, thoughtful opposition to this war. A huge majority of the American people are trying to overcome the furious lobbying effort of the President and the Vice President. Our fight to end this war has just begun. We are going to change this policy. The safety of every American depends upon it.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I yield myself 15 minutes from the bill.

I rise today in support of the Higher Education Access Act. This legislation will give millions of students an opportunity to attend college. As Senator Reed said, it is helping those students with talent get the opportunity to go to college that, in another generation, prior to the last three decades or so, they simply may not have had. In too many cases, if you look at what has happened to students of working class families, they are not getting those opportunities now that they got a generation ago.

We all know what has happened to the cost of college in the last few years. It has doubled since 1980, rising faster than inflation for 20 consecutive years. College tuition has risen faster than the price of any other consumer item, including health care. In my home State of Ohio, between 1981 and 2007, in a quarter of a century, tuition and fees have increased 231 percent at public universities and 94 percent in 2-year institutions. We know that is because government on the State level is simply not funding, in very many States, public higher education the way they had in the past. Family incomes cannot keep up. The median household income in Ohio increased just 3 percent between 2000 and 2006, whereas tuition during that same period went up 53 percent in 4-year public institutions and 28 percent at 4-year private institutions.

Think about that. Income went up 3 percent for those families, all families--including, obviously, families with students of college age-- yet while income went up 3 percent the cost of education went up either by a quarter or a half, depending on what kind of school to which those parents sent their children.

Even after financial aid is taken into account, 42 percent of median family income in my State of Ohio is needed to pay for a year of college in a 4-year public college. A 2006 report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gave Ohio an F in college affordability. Our students, our families, our economy are feeling the impact.

Think again about what that means to a middle-class family. To so many working families, college tuition has gone up 25, 50 percent over a several-year period, while income has gone up only 2 or 3 or 4 percent for most of the students.

My wife was the first in her family to go to college. She grew up in Ashtabula, OH. She went to Kent State University. It was difficult for her family, but in those days her dad held a union job. Her mother went to work about the time she went to school. Her mother was a home care worker. She didn't make very much money, but she had a decent union job. She had a lower paying job, but with grants and aid and all of that, she was able to go to a State university, as were her three younger siblings, two daughters and a son. So all four of them, the first four in their family to go to college, were able to do that. That was in the 1970s and 1980s. This is a different era where, unfortunately, because of decisions made in the State government and, frankly, because of a stinginess from the Federal Government, it has made it that much harder for students to go to school.

More and more students are going out of State to attend college. Ohio students are. The ones who stay find they can't afford it. This is unacceptable. If we are asking our students to be competitive, we must make the investment in them.

For students lucky enough to make it to college, they are rewarded not only with a degree, we hope, but also saddled with crippling debt. Sixty-six percent of students in Toledo and Dayton and Steubenville and Youngstown, Galion and Gallipolis, 66 percent of students graduating from 4-year institutions in the 2004-2005 school year graduated with debt. Two-thirds of all students graduated with debt. Those students owed an average of $19,259. That affects their future. It affects the job they choose. It affects their ability to marry and have children and what they are able to face with the financial challenges and the debt that they bear from the moment they graduate.

Even worse, the purchasing power of the Pell grant--Senator Reid talked about that--the main source of grant income assisting lower income students--has dropped dramatically. Students and parents are finding it harder and harder to figure out a way to finance their education.

Look back at this whole picture. Tuition has gone up 25 percent to 50 percent, depending on whether you go to a private or public college, over the last few years. Wages have gone up 3 or 4 percent. Students who are able to go to college at all and face that get the grants and loans that can get them through their 2- or 4-year institution and end up with a debt--two-thirds of these students end up with a debt on the average of $20,000. Think of what

that does. All this at a time when privately subsidized student lenders such as Sallie Mae are reporting record profits and raking in millions of dollars off the backs of the students.

The Presiding Officer and I and several Members of the freshman class today had a news conference decrying what has happened with the privatization of parts of the military, what has happened with private contractors, the kind of fraud they have committed, how it doesn't save taxpayer dollars, how it doesn't make for a stronger military, how it doesn't mean a more efficient government. What we are seeing, with the leadership of Senator Webb and Senator McCaskill, is the graft and fraud and inefficiency they are exposing in the Pentagon budget and in the private contracting in the Pentagon. We also see that same kind of privatization and the impact it has on Medicare, with the drug companies and the insurance companies rewarded at taxpayer expense. We see it, obviously, in Social Security, where some in this institution want to privatize Social Security. We see it in public education. We are having a big battle this week on No Child Left Behind, in the same committee Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi jointly run, the Health, Education, Labor, Pension Committee. We will see that there, with some of the private education efforts on for-profit schools. We have seen it especially in the student loan program where this kind of privatization means fewer dollars are available to go directly to students. Taxpayer dollars are wasted. It is less efficient. It leads in many cases to fraud and graft. It also leads, frankly, to political contributions for those politicians who support these privatization efforts.

You can look at Halliburton, you can look at many of these companies--the drug industry which was rewarded on the Medicare bill with literally $200 billion more because of that bill over a 10-year period than they would have had otherwise. Look at the Medicare bill and private insurance companies, how they were ``enticed'' is the word we use around here; another more direct word might be ``bribed''--but they were enticed to enter the Prescription Drug Program by Government subsidies. Again, the money makes for less efficiency, more waste, more money lining the pockets of individual contributors, whether it is Medicare in a prescription drug benefit or students in a student loan benefit and ultimately more costs for already overburdened taxpayers.

That is why this legislation is so important. It will finally start to trim back as well as stop this privatization of our Government, stop these companies from basically taking money that is public dollars and putting it into their pockets without providing the service they should provide directly to the beneficiaries we have designated.

This legislation will finally start to trim back those bloated subsidies to private lenders and focus those scarce dollars where they are needed most, to our students. It will begin to hold colleges accountable for rising costs and assure that students and parents have the information they need to make informed decisions about what college to attend. It will raise the maximum Pell grant to $5,100 next year, increasing to $5,400 by 2011. The average grant in Ohio will increase $430 next year to $2,850.16.

This Pell grant was stuck, in spite of the President's promises in 2000 in his first Presidential campaign--the Pell grant had been stuck at that level for 5 years. Senator Kennedy's leadership, Senator Reid's leadership early in this session, increased the Pell grant in the continuing resolution back in January. We are increasing it again over the next 3 years.

This bill will help nontraditional and community college students by making them eligible for Pell grants. It will help protect students by reforming a broken student loan system, a far too privatized student loan system that now provides too much in the way of subsidies to private lenders. It will make sure student interests are the motivating factors behind college decisions to recommend lenders. This bill promotes innovative teacher preparation programs so our students are better prepared for college.

This bill doesn't do everything we need. We need to work to keep interest rates down in the totally privatized student loan system, the most rapidly growing part of the student loan system, because prices have gone up so dramatically the Federal programs have not been able to keep up. More students have to turn to totally private loans, and those totally private loans have seen interest rates go as high as 18 percent.

Senator Kennedy is interested in that legislation. We have introduced separate legislation to do that. That is something we hope to pursue down the line. But this legislation begins to stop the privatization of student loans. This legislation we are voting on, the legislation Senator Kennedy brought to the floor, will begin to arrest the privatization of this system, where too many people outside of the student and the Government have benefited from the privatization of this system. It is time that taxpayer dollars go directly to students to create the opportunities so they can go to college so they can be productive citizens.

That is what we did 30 years ago, in this institution, before many of us were here. Senator Kennedy was there. The leadership he showed 30 years ago in making this system work to give opportunity to middle- class kids, to working-class kids, to poor kids--this bill moves in that direction.

All students, regardless of their family, regardless of their privilege, regardless of who their parents are, should be able to afford college.

We still have so much to do. This legislation is a good step in the right direction.

I yield.

I would love to yield.

I thank Chairman Kennedy for his leadership. It is clear to me, as it obviously is to him, that we made tremendous progress in this legislation, with putting dollars that have gone into the excess profits of a relatively small number of companies--putting those dollars either back in taxpayers' pockets or giving it directly to students through this loan program. There is more work to do, and I appreciate his interest in doing that.

I yield my time.

Mr. President, 35 years ago, thousands of young people entered politics for the first time by working on the Presidential campaign of George McGovern--a champion for social and economic justice and leading progressive.

Senator McGovern's legacy of progressive politics dates back to volunteering for Henry Wallace's Presidential campaign in 1948.

At 19, and still in college, I was one of those who volunteered for Senator McGovern during a time of great social and political upheaval in our Nation.

We looked to Senator McGovern for his leadership on ending the Vietnam war; for his vision of a nation defined by equal rights, equal opportunity, and unwavering support for those in need.

I remember being struck by the strength of his faith and by his patriotism.

When he thought our Nation needed to go to war, he served in uniform--earning the Distinguished Flying Cross during World War II.

And when he knew it was a war that was wrong, he spoke out early, and often, as was the case with the Vietnam war.

Whether he courageously spoke out against the war from this Chamber as a U.S. Senator, or spoke out for social justice on the Presidential campaign trail, Senator McGovern gave hope--and purpose--to a generation of Americans.

He changed lives and improved a nation.

Senator McGovern's work continues today.

A former U.N. Global Ambassador on World Hunger, Senator McGovern's outreach has helped feed literally millions of families around the world.

Together with Senator Bob Dole, he founded the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, which helps feed children in developing nations.

And Senator McGovern continues to influence the national debate, speaking out on the Iraq war and weighing in on behalf of disenfranchised populations in our Nation and throughout the world.

Senator McGovern changed forever political activism and grassroots organizing. He opened the door for millions of activists attracted by his idealism, many of whom remained in public service their entire lives.

More than public servant, Senator McGovern has been a beloved husband and father.

The Senator was married to his wife Eleanor for nearly 64 years, before her passing earlier this year.

Together, they raised five children, Ann, Terry, Susan, Mary, and Steven.

Nearly 35 years after running for President, and marking his 85th birthday, Senator McGovern is ready to help lead us all into the next progressive era of our Nation.

I am humbled by Senator McGovern's service to our Nation and feel privileged to call him my friend.

Mr. President, in November, voters in my State of Ohio and across this Nation shouted from the ballot box: The Iraq war must end. They demanded we refocus our efforts on securing our homeland so that the darkest day in our Nation's history, 9/11, is never repeated. With Democrats in control of Congress this session, we immediately began to work to end the war. We set out to implement the full recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, recommendations that will go a long way toward making our country safer.

By working to end the war in Iraq and passing the commission's recommendations, we are executing a strategy to combat terrorism. Make no mistake, ending the war in Iraq is a counterterrorism strategy. Global terrorist attacks have increased sevenfold since we invaded Iraq--sevenfold. Unfortunately and tragically, our continued engagement in Iraq is the best thing that ever happened to jihadist recruitment.

Democrats brought to this Chamber not just one piece of legislation to redeploy our troops out of Iraq but many. And each time, every time, either Republicans defeated the measure in Congress by threatening filibuster or the President vetoed it in the White House--each time, every time.

Two days ago, the President was in my State in Cleveland trying to buy more time for this war. The President has yet to define ``victory.'' He has yet to tell us how many years it will take

to achieve whatever his definition of ``victory'' is. Will we be in Iraq for 5 more years, for 10 more years, for 15 more years? Will more thousands of U.S. service men and women die, tens of thousands? The President has yet to hold himself and his administration accountable for fomenting a civil war and breeding more global terrorism.

The President is proud of his stubbornness. He should be ashamed.

The path he is wed to has simultaneously increased the threat of terrorism and reduced our Nation's capacity to protect against it. Stubbornness is not leadership. Defensiveness is not leadership. Finger-pointing is not leadership. Supporting the President's strategy in Iraq because you support the President is not leadership. Lives are at stake. Our homeland security is at stake. Global stability and security are at stake.

Yesterday we learned that al-Qaida is at pre-9/11 strength. That is frightening news, and it is cause for outrage because it did not have to be that way, and it does not have to be that way.

We learned yesterday that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is fostering the next generation of al-Qaida at an alarming rate. What kind of signal exactly does the President and his supporters think we send by failing to secure the region where we know al-Qaida lives and trains and plans, according to military analysts, with relative freedom--the same region that served as the breeding ground for global terrorism through al-Qaida before 9/11, the same region we now know that al-Qaida trained in for the deadliest attack on our Nation's soil, the same region where Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11, is believed to be hiding, free to plot the next attack on our homeland.

Over the objection of military advisers, the 9/11 Commission, and the voice of a nation, the President stubbornly insists upon staying the course with a failed policy in Iraq. Staying the course with the President's failed Iraq policy hasn't forced our Government to take its eye off the ball, it has caused us to drop it.

Prior to World War II, the French built the Maginot Line, assuming this line would prevent Germany from attacking France. History proved the French wrong. The President's strategy in Iraq is the Maginot Line of the 21st century. It imperils our Nation by mistakenly focusing our attention in the wrong direction.

We have dropped the ball on capturing Osama bin Laden. We have dropped the ball on securing Afghanistan. We have dropped the ball on implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Anyone who thinks those aren't signals al-Qaida is paying close attention to is sorely mistaken.

Supporting the President's policy doesn't just fail to effectively target terrorism, it puts a bull's-eye squarely on our Nation. Ending the war in Iraq isn't just about bringing our troops home. It isn't just about ensuring veterans get the health care and the benefits they have long been denied. It isn't just about a new direction in our foreign policy. It is about returning our focus to where it must be if our Nation, our communities, and our families are to remain safe. Ending the war in Iraq is about reengaging in full force on the war on terror.

I applaud my Republican friends who have chosen to stand up to the President. More and more of them have taken steps of bravery with every vote we bring to the floor. But it is not enough. With every lost vote, we add more lives to the list of the men and women lost in Iraq. With every lost vote, we empower al-Qaida.

In the Senate, those of us committed to ending this war of choice and securing our Nation will keep fighting to end the war. I appreciate the leadership of Senator Webb, of Senator Hagel, Senator Reid, and Senator Levin, all of whom have shown courageous leadership on this crisis of a generation. Together, we are going to change this policy. The safety of every American depends on it.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the senior Senator from Iowa and his terrific work on North Korea and what we need to do, and I thank him for that.

Today, new trade figures were released by the Department of Commerce. The news continues to be bad, as our trade policy continues on its merry way. We saw the numbers--$20 billion trade deficit in May, the most recent number they released--$20 billion, leaving us for the year, at this point, a $96 billion trade deficit with China. That is a 15- percent increase over last year. That means we are buying $96 billion more from China than we are selling to China, and that is just through the first 5 months of 2007.

To understand a billion dollars, which is pretty hard to do, if you had a billion dollars and you spent a dollar every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day, it would take 31 years to spend $1 billion. The pages who sit in this Chamber, Mr. President, have lived about a half billion seconds. They are a little older than half of 31 but not much. So our trade deficit with China, so far this year, up through the first 5 months since January 1, is $96 billion.

Our trade deficit with the whole world, just in the month of May, was $66 billion. President Bush the first said a trade deficit of a billion dollars translates into 13,000--mostly manufacturing jobs--13,000 jobs for a $1 billion trade deficit. You can do the math and see what this continued persistent insidious trade deficit is doing to our economy.

Those are just numbers. Last week, in my State of Ohio, just to put faces with those numbers, I was in the town of Lima, the town of Mansfield, where I grew up--my mother had her 87th birthday--I was in Lorain and Marion and Zanesville. Each of those are medium-sized cities of 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, and 60,000 people. Each of those cities contributed so much to the muscle of this country, to our war effort in World War II, to the building of a middle class, and to doing all that industrial America has done, and in each of those communities--Lima, Zanesville, Mansfield, Lorain, and Marion--and I could add Springfield, Xenia, Findlay, Ravenna and Ashtabula--my wife's hometown--I could add all those cities, and in too many cases the growth in this economy that the President trumpets when he comes to Cleveland--a more prosperous area--the President trumpets this economic growth, an economic growth that is passing by too many of these communities.

When I grew up in Mansfield, we had the international headquarters of Tappan-Stowe, Westinghouse, General Motors, and we had a Mansfield Tire Company, and the corporate headquarters of Ohio Grass, and tens of thousands of industrial manufacturing jobs. Today, of those companies I mentioned, only General Motors is still there.

Mr. President, we know what that kind of job loss does to communities when a company closes and lays off 2,000 people to move to Mexico, to China, or whatever happens. When 2,000 people lose their jobs, or 200 people lose their jobs, we know what that does to the community and to the families and to those individuals. We also know it means layoffs for teachers, police officers, firefighters, and that the community is less safe, less prosperous, and there is less opportunity for young people in those communities to go to school and get a good education in hopes of achieving the American dream.

The President's answer to this--and I don't put all of this decline in manufacturing, where my State of Ohio has lost literally hundreds of thousands of jobs, onto the Bush administration. I don't put all of this at the President's feet nor at the feet of failed trade policy, but clearly NAFTA, PNTR with China, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, trade agreements that are now on the table, all of these clearly have contributed to the decline of manufacturing in a big, big way.

So what is the President's answer? We had NAFTA, we had PNTR, we had CAFTA, and so the President's answer is let's do four more trade agreements. Let's do a trade agreement with Panama, let's do a trade agreement with Peru, let's do a trade agreement with Colombia, and let's do a trade agreement with South Korea. Again and again it is the same NAFTA failed model.

This time the President said it is going to be better because we are going to include labor and environmental standards in Peru and in Panama.

First, if that is the case, why today, literally this week, were workers in Peru demonstrating on the streets? Because they think these trade agreements are bad for workers in their country too. The fact is, these trade agreements might be good for some investors short term but they are never good for the workers in Peru, they are not good for workers in Panama, they are not good for the workers in the United States, and they are not good for our communities or families.

The President says: Well, this trade agreement is different because we have labor and environmental standards

that are going to be negotiated alongside them. But the fact is that is what they said about NAFTA. They passed labor and environmental standards in a side agreement and it did nothing to raise the labor and environmental standards in NAFTA, but it did turn a trade surplus that we had with Mexico in 1993 into a trade deficit into the tens of billions of dollars. We know that.

We also know what happened when we signed a trade agreement with Jordan--one I voted for when I was in the House of Representatives--a trade agreement that had solid labor and environmental standards in the middle of the agreement, at the core of the agreement. We also know that happened in 2000.

In 2001, when President Bush took office, his trade representative, Robert Zoellick, wrote a letter to the Jordanian Government saying we were not going to use the dispute resolution and not going to actually enforce the labor and environmental standards. What has happened? Jordan is now a sweatshop with a whole lot of Bangladeshi workers exporting textiles and apparel all over the world and has undercut all that trade agreement has been. It has undercut all that trade agreement should have been. So when I hear the President say we are going to do a trade agreement with Peru and Panama and South Korea and Colombia, it is the same old story. The trade policy is not working. We need something different.

We need to go back and relook at NAFTA, relook at PNTR, relook at CAFTA. We also need a trade policy that will have strong labor and environmental standards and strong food safety standards. Look at what has happened with China in the last few weeks. Look at the news stories about China--contaminants or worse in toothpaste and dog food, defective consumer toys for children. We are exposing American children, American families, Americans generally to the products coming from a country with no regulation, with no health and environmental standards, with no consumer product safety standards--none of those. Yet our market is wide open for them to sell into this country and just end run all the protections we have built to raise our standard of living and to protect our families and our children.

As Senator Dorgan said, we also need trade agreements with benchmarks to allow us to gauge whether these serve the national interest. We should have objectives of opening markets and creating jobs ensuring these benchmarks, so each year we have a report card whether this trade deal is actually helping us export or is this actually exporting jobs. Is this trade deal helping American workers bring their wages up or are these trade agreements pulling wages down? Are they helping to build a middle class or are they, like they have in the past, taking them piece by piece and pulling apart the middle class in this country?

We know what we need to do. We know, unfortunately, what the Bush administration wants to do on trade policy. Now is the time to start by rejecting these trade agreements the administration continues to push down our throats.

At the same time, when we pass trade agreements that work for workers and work for the middle class in this country and work for poorest workers in the developing world, we also need a manufacturing policy in our country. We need a tax system that rewards work, a tax system that encourages production in this country, the enlargement of the manufacturing extension partnership Senator Kohl from Wisconsin so eloquently spoke about, and we need a real alternative energy policy in this country, one that really will mean more manufacturing of wind turbines--the University of Toledo does some of the best wind research in the country--and of solar panels. My State has a variety, a whole bunch of manufacturing capabilities. There is simply no reason we can't help to turn my State into a Silicon Valley of alternative energy.

It is an opportunity whose time has come. It is an opportunity for us, as a Senate and a House, and for Governor Strickland in Ohio and Lieutenant Governor Fisher and all of us to work together, not just to change the direction of trade policy or change our tax system to help the middle class and help American workers but to embark on an alternative energy policy that will help stabilize energy prices, that will help wean us off Middle Eastern oil, and ultimately will help produce good-paying industrial jobs in our State.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

As in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following treaty transmitted to the Senate on July 12, 2007, by the President of the United States:

International Conventions for the Suppression of Nuclear Terrorism (Treaty Document No. 110-4).

I further ask that the treaty be considered as having been read the first time; that it be referred with accompanying papers to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed; and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9 a.m., Friday, July 13; that on Friday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired and the time for the two leaders reserved for their use later in the day; that the Senate then resume consideration of H.R. 1585 and conduct debate on the Dorgan amendment, No. 2135, as amended, until 9:30 a.m.; that the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment at 9:30 without further intervening action or debate; and that of the time available until then, Senators Dorgan and Sununu each control 10 minutes.

If there is no further business today, I now ask unanimous consent the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Madam President, I rise in support of the Employee Free Choice Act which will be in front of this body this week. Historians who take a clear-eyed look at the last 30 years will tell you productivity has been rising, our economy has been expanding, corporate profits are up, executive salaries are way up, and yet the workers responsible for our Nation's prosperity have not reaped anywhere near their share of the benefits.

The hallmark of our economy for generations has been those people who produce the wealth, people who work with their hands, people who work with their minds, the employees of this country. Those who produce wealth will share in the wealth they create. As productivity goes up, through most of our history, certainly in the last 100 years, so have wages. But things have changed.

In 2005, the real median household income in America was down 3 percent from the median income in 2000. In Ohio, my State, it was down almost 10 percent. Meanwhile, the average CEO makes 411 times more than the average worker. In 1990, the average CEO made 107 times more. We can see, as productivity goes up for workers, executives make more, profits are higher, but workers are not sharing in the wealth they create. That is what made the 2006 elections so important because the middle class spoke up, the middle class understanding their wages are stagnated, understanding they have not shared in the wealth they created. That is what makes today so important.

We are considering today landmark legislation supported by workers, employers, religious organizations, civil rights groups, advocates for children's legislation, which will give employees a real choice on whether they want to join a union.

This legislation probably won't pass this week. Republicans have again, one more time, threatened to filibuster and one more time we probably won't get the 60 votes to pass this legislation. But it is clear a majority of the American people want it, a majority of the House of Representatives wants it, a majority of the Senate wants it. We will keep coming back year after year

supported by these workers, employers, religious organizations, civil rights groups, and advocates for children.

I would point out, in pursuit of economic justice, why this Employee Free Choice Act is so important and what has happened to our economy in the last six decades. Each of these bars represents 20 percent of wage earners in this country, the lowest 20-percent wage earners and the highest 20 percent. We can see, from 1947 to 1973, the height of unionism in our country, the period when the most American workers belonged to unions, what happened. There was strong economic growth for all of society, for all workers in every category, but the strongest economic growth in wages was the lowest 20-percent of wage earners from 1947 to 1973.

In the seventies and eighties, the percentage of American workers in unions declined. Other things were going on too, such as the trade surplus went to a trade deficit, and other things. The big part of that was unionization. Look at 1973 to 2000; there was still economic growth in all segments of our society. On average, in each category, workers' incomes went up, but the lowest 20 percent had the lowest percentage growth in income, and the highest 20 percent had the highest growth in income. We can already see a splitting apart, where wage growth did not quite track productivity.

Since 2000, we can see something else happened. This trend has exploded. Since 2000, all five categories have seen their wages go down. The lowest 20 percent has had the biggest decline. Only when we cut off the top 1 percent have we seen incomes go up. The top 1 percent has seen their incomes go up 6 percent; the lowest has seen their incomes drop about 5 percent. Again, that is in large part because fewer and fewer Americans belong to labor unions, and it is more and more difficult to join a union.

Employers are stronger. Employers spend more money. Employers hire more firms with great expertise on how to stop union drives, to defeat unions, to refuse to bargain if a union is voted in. Literally there have been tens of thousands of infractions those employers have engaged in against their employees. This bill makes sense.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

Madam President, as we debated energy and immigration issues in this body for the last 3 weeks, there has been palpable anxiety that we all see in our States, we all see in our homes, about our economy and about the future of the middle class--the squeeze on the middle class, the declining or stagnant wages of way too many middle-class households. In 2005 the real median household income in America actually went down 3 percent, from the year 2000. In Ohio it was down almost 10 percent. The average CEO makes 411 times the wage of the average worker; in 1990 the average CEO made 107 times as much. We know what has happened.

More important, we need to look at what has happened to wages in this country in a historical sense in the last 60 years. From 1947 to 1973, when our country, after World War II, was growing, you can see how wages grew among different people in our economy. The bar on the left is the lowest 20-percent wage earners, up to the highest 20-percent wage earners.

So those are the lowest wages. The lowest incomes in our country saw their wages grow the fastest of any one of those groups.

From 1973 until 2000, you can see the increase. Every group still increased, but growth changed sharply. The lowest 20 had the lowest economic growth; the highest 20 percent had the highest. I would add, 1973 was the year we went from a trade surplus in our country to a trade deficit. In other words, before 1973, we exported more goods in terms of dollars, in terms of value, than we imported.

Since 1973, that number has gone the other way. It has gone dramatically the other way in the last 10 or 15 years. Now, since President Bush took office in 2000, we have seen an even greater change in income for all Americans. The lowest 20 percent had an annual decrease, as I mentioned earlier, but so did the second quintile, the middle, the slightly upper middle, and the top 20 percent all had income decline. The only group that had an income increase in this 5- year period or so was the top 1 percent.

We have seen clearly that our economy is not working the way it should for middle-class Americans. That is why there is such anxiety among middle-class Americans. That is why so many of us who were elected for the first time, including the Presiding Officer, to the Senate in the year 2006, we knew of that anxiety and talked about middle-class issues: about health care, education, about jobs, about trade, about income.

Here is the real story. Since around the time of the trade deficit, the trade surplus prior to 1973 turning into the trade deficit, we have seen wages and productivity go like this. For many years, from World War II, for about 25 years, if you were a productive worker, your wages reflected your productivity. In other words, the more money you created for your employer, the more you shared in the wealth you created.

That was the American way. That is how you build a middle class. You are more productive and you share in the wealth you create. But something happened in the early 1970s. Again, in 1973 we went from a trade deficit to a trade surplus. We can see from about that time on, that productivity in this country kept rising, but wages in our country have been relatively flat.

One other thing happened, in addition to in 1973 going from a trade surplus to trade deficit, that was the time with the most pronounced decline in unionization. As Senator Kennedy pointed out earlier today, as we have seen fewer people who are organized into unions, we have seen more stagnation of wages, even with productive workers

With the decline in unionization and with the trade deficit, wages have stayed relatively flat. That is why we need a very different trade policy. That is why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.

I might point out the Employee Free Choice Act does not abolish the secret election process. That would still be available. The bill simply enables workers to form a union through majority signup, if they prefer that method. So workers under current law may use the majority signup process only if their employers say yes. We think workers should make that determination, that we either want an election or we would like to do the simple card check. That will, in fact, increase unionization. We will also see that it will mean more mirroring of productivity in wages.

I would like to shift for a moment to some of my earlier comments about how in 1973, as we went from trade surplus to trade deficit, some of the things that happened in our economy. We know, going back not quite as far as 1973, only 15 years ago, the trade deficit in this country was $38 billion the year I first ran for the House of Representatives down the hall.

Today, the trade deficit in our country exceeds $700 billion. It has gone from $38 billion to $700-plus billion. President Bush, the first, said $1 billion in trade deficit translates into 13,000 jobs--$1 billion in trade deficit translates into 13,000 jobs. So do the math. We now have a $700 billion-plus trade deficit. We know what kind of havoc that wreaks on Steubenville, Toledo, and Portsmouth, Marion and Mansfield and Springfield and Xenia and Zanesville and all of these communities that were industrial towns that have had such damage done to their communities. They have had plant closings, they have had layoffs. Every time a plant closes, it means fewer firefighters, fewer police officers, fewer teachers in the public schools. We know what that does to our quality of life.

So the answer from the Bush administration, as we passed NAFTA and PNTR with China and CAFTA and every other trade agreement, as this trade policy has clearly failed, is: Let's do more of it. Let's do more trade agreements.

So now the President is likely going to bring in front of this body a trade agreement with Peru and a trade agreement with Panama. The President's U.S. Trade Representative, Susan Schwab, an honorable woman, straightforward, candid when you talk to her about this, she says: Yes, but now we have environmental and labor standards in these trade agreements.

But there are a couple of problems with that. First of all, we do not yet. We have not seen the text of the agreements. We have not seen, in fact, nor are we at all certain, that the labor and environmental standards will be inside the agreements; they may be side agreements. We tried that once with the North American Free Trade Agreements. The labor and environmental standards were outside the agreements. They were in a special side agreement, and they had virtually no impact. Where we had a trade surplus with Mexico when NAFTA was signed a decade and a half ago, now our trade deficit with Mexico is some $70 billion.

That same trade situation has exploded to a huge trade deficit with Canada also. So clearly we know in our communities how many plants have closed and companies have and jobs have moved to Mexico.

So the second thing we know about Jordan, about the trade agreements with Peru and Panama, the proposed agreements, is that the Secretary says they will enforce these labor and environmental standards as they unveil them, again not specific, not in writing yet.

The lesson again from this administration is when Congress, in the year 2000, passed the Jordan trade agreement, there were strong labor and environmental standards in that agreement. But when his U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Zoelleck, assumed his position at USTR, Mr. Zoelleck sent a letter soon after to the Government of Jordan saying he was not going to, because of the dispute resolution, he was not going to enforce the labor and environmental standards.

Jordan has since pretty much become a country of sweatshops, where Bangladeshi workers, many workers imported from Bangladesh work at substandard wages and terrible conditions in sweatshop-like atmospheres and use Jordan as an export platform.

All of that tells me our trade policy simply is not working. If we are going to get serious about building the middle class--we spent a lot of time yesterday in Senator Enzi's committee, and Senator Kennedy's committee, we passed legislation on higher education, the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, passed bipartisanly. Senator Enzi showed great leadership, as did Senator Kennedy and others. We need to do better to make education affordable for the middle class.

We need to do better with health care and better with prescription drug benefits. We need to continue to keep up with the minimum wage. We raised the minimum wage earlier this year. All of those things are important. But at the same time, two of the most important things that this body needs to do is to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to give the tens of millions of workers in this country who want to join a union the opportunity to organize and bargain collectively because it will mean higher wages and higher benefits. History absolutely proves that.

The other thing we need to do is to understand we need a very different trade policy, not more of the same, not Panama, not Peru, not Colombia, the way these agreements are written, not South Korea, the way that agreement is written, but agreements that serve the middle class, that lift up workers in the United States and lift up workers of our bilateral trading partners. Because we know that our trading policies will not be judged effective until the poorest workers in the poorest countries in the world are not just making products for Americans to use but that those workers are actually able to buy those products themselves.

We have seen that. Where we do trade right, we know it can work. We have clearly seen a trade policy that has failed. It is important, as this Congress looks at the trade agreements coming forward, Panama and Peru, and looks at trade promotion authority, legislation that may come in front of this body sometime this summer, that we keep our eye on looking at what has failed in trade policy and what has worked.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use Senator Tester's time for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise to speak for a moment on the Employee Free Choice Act, the legislation we will be considering this week and legislation which will, frankly, help to build the middle class. That is something I know the Presiding Officer spoke about in Pennsylvania often in the last year, as I did in Ohio.

We know what has happened to manufacturing jobs in this country, many of them good-paying union jobs. In my State, we have lost literally hundreds of thousands of them--more than 3 million in the last 5 years nationally. We know what has happened as profits and wages have gone up in this country--excuse me--as profits and top executive salaries have gone up. We know that for most Americans, their wages have been stagnant. Part of that is the decline of unionization. Poll after poll after poll shows that most people in this country, if presented with the opportunity, would like to join a union, but most are denied that opportunity because of the kind of workplace they are in oftentimes but oftentimes simply because management--employers--is able to beat back any kind of unionization effort.

That is the importance of the Employee Free Choice Act. Let me illustrate by an example. The Presiding Officer and I sit on the Agriculture Committee together and one day back in February, our first month on the job--roughly the first month--we heard from a woman from southwest Ohio who came and testified on food stamps. The food stamp benefit in this country on the average is $1 per person per meal. She and her son, as a result, get about $6 a day in food stamps. She works full time. She is a single parent with a 9-year-old son. She is the president of the local PTA of her son's school. She teaches Sunday school, and she volunteers for the Cub Scouts for her son. She works full time making about $9 an hour. She is a food stamp beneficiary. She occasionally makes her son pork chops, which he likes to eat once or twice at the beginning of the month. During the first couple of weeks, she takes him to a fast-food restaurant once or twice. Almost invariably, the last couple of days of the month, she sits at the kitchen table with her son, just the two of them, and she says she doesn't eat.

He says: Mom, what is wrong?

She says: I am just not feeling well today, son.

She has run out of money. It happens almost every month. She is playing by the rules. She works hard. She is doing almost everything we ask. She is involved in the community.

My belief is that, through talking to people like her, if she had the opportunity to join a union, she would see several things happen. She would see a higher wage. She would be more likely to have health insurance to build toward a pension. All the things everybody in this institution has, everyone who sits in the U.S. Senate--everyone who works in this institution, on that side of the Capitol or on this side of the Capitol, has health care, has a decent wage, and has a decent pension.

The single force that gives people an opportunity for health care, a decent wage, and a decent pension is unionization. We know that. If you trace the numbers of people joining unions and you draw a graph about wages in this country, the lines are almost parallel. We are a more productive workforce than we have ever been. Yet wages have not kept up with productivity. When you measure, for decades and decades in our country, as productivity went up, wages went up. But during the last few years, as productivity has gone up sharply, wages have continued to remain stagnant. That is in large part because of the decline of unionization.

That is the importance of the Employee Free Choice Act. That is why it matters to our country. That is why it matters for building a strong middle class. That is why the Senate this week should pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15 today, there be 60 minutes remaining for debate with respect to the Bunning and Tester amendments, that the time be equally divided and controlled, and that the remaining provisions of the previous order remain in effect.