Floor Statements

Mr. President, this morning the Senate will be in a period of morning business. I ask unanimous consent that the period be extended until 12 noon with the time equally divided in the usual form.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the majority leader be recognized at the conclusion of morning business.

Mr. President, last night the majority leader filed cloture on the lobbying reform bill. Under the rule, that vote would occur on Friday although it is hoped that the vote could be expedited and occur sometime today.

As a reminder, the majority leader has announced that it is also possible--and indeed we hope--to consider the lobbying reform-related amendments throughout the day today if an agreement can be reached.

Also, Senators should be aware that all first-degree amendments to the lobbying reform bill must be filed at the desk by 1 o'clock today as provided for under rule XXII.

Mr. President, I thank the Democratic leader for his comments. This is an important piece of legislation. It has been completely bipartisan. The legislation reported by the Homeland Security Committee was reported with only one dissenting vote. The bill that was reported by the Rules and Administration Committee was reported unanimously. We have worked very closely with our ranking members, and I appreciate the assurances of the Democratic leader that his side of

the aisle recognizes the importance of enacting this bipartisan legislation. There is no reason why with a good effort we can't complete the bill today.

I thank the Democratic leader for his comments.

I thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I express my disappointment at the words of the Democratic leader urging our colleagues to vote against cloture on the lobbying reform measure. This is important legislation. This legislation matters. This legislation is bipartisan legislation. It is in response to declining public confidence in the integrity of the decisions made by Government officials.

It is extremely unfortunate and unfair for this much needed legislation to be slowed down by an important but completely unrelated issue, regardless of one's views on the Dubai transaction. The Presiding Officer knows I have been outspoken in calling for a full investigation of the national security implications of this transaction, but regardless of one's views on it, this issue should not be tangled up in the debate on whether or not to strengthen our lobbying disclosure laws.

We have worked hard to produce a bipartisan bill, two bipartisan bills, that have been married to strengthen our lobbying laws. It is extremely unfortunate to hear the Democrat leader say we should get it done sometime but everyone should vote against cloture. That leads me to question whether there really is a commitment to strengthening our lobbying laws.

There is no reason we cannot proceed to the many amendments that have been filed, to debate them fully, let the Senate work its will on each of the amendments, and then clear this legislation so we can go to conference with the House and send the bill to the President's desk.

Public confidence in Congress is very low right now, maybe at record low levels. This legislation helps to promote public confidence in the work we do and the decisions we make. This should not be a partisan issue, and it has not been until the Democrat leader came to the Senate to urge his colleagues to oppose cloture.

Why can't we proceed with the measure before the Senate? It is a bipartisan measure.

My colleague, Senator Lieberman, has worked hand in hand with me on the Committee on Homeland Security to produce this bill. Senator McCain, Senator Santorum, Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold--all have been involved and have worked very hard. Indeed, yesterday we were on the verge of enacting a bipartisan amendment with the lead sponsor being a Democratic Senator. I supported his amendment. It had to do with holds being placed on bills. I thought it was a good amendment that would help increase the transparency and accountability of what we are doing.

It is unfortunate the Democratic leader is urging delay, saying we should not proceed to wrap up this bill and, in fact, we should not vote for cloture.

I urge our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support cloture. It is imperative we move ahead with this bill. If we do not act today to pass this legislation to strengthen public confidence in the decisions we make, shame on us.

I am not saying the issue raised by the Senator from New York is not an important issue. As I said, I have spoken time and again in favor of a full 45-day review, and we have gotten that. We need to find out the results of that investigation, have the Committee on Foreign Investment report not only to the President but to us, and then make our decisions.

I am introducing legislation to reform the entire Committee on Foreign Investment to give it a stronger homeland security and national security role and to house it in the Department of Homeland Security. That is an important issue. But it is not the issue before the Senate today. The issue before the Senate today is the lobbying reform measure, two bipartisan bills that have been put together that will help strengthen and promote public confidence in our decisions. Let's get on with the task before the Senate.

Madam President, I object.

Mr. President, let me begin by commending the two sponsors of this proposal. I know that each of them has worked so hard and so long trying to end the practice of secret, indefinite holds being put on either nominees or placed on legislation. I believe this proposal is consistent with the goal of this legislation which is more accountability and more transparency. I commend both of them for their effort.

I would like to engage the sponsor of this amendment in a colloquy in order to clarify that his proposal is not intended to reach a very temporary hold that is placed on a bill in order to allow for review of that legislation.

Let me give a specific example. Occasionally, bills will be discharged from their authorizing committees. These are not necessarily on the calendar. They are discharged from the committee, and the bill will be hotlined on both of our sides to see if there is any objection.

Obviously, putting a temporary stay on the consideration of a discharged bill in order to allow a few hours for review or even a day for review is completely different from the practice of secretly killing a bill by putting an indefinite anonymous hold.

I wonder if, through the Chair, I could inquire of the sponsor if it is his intention to distinguish between those two situations. I would call one a ``consult hold'' perhaps, and one a ``killer hold.''

Mr. President, I very much appreciate the explanation and clarification of the sponsor of the amendment. I am in complete agreement with the differences that he described. I believe his proposal would inject needed transparency and accountability into the process, not to mention that I would know who puts those holds on my bills.

I hope this proposal will be adopted. I intend to support it.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their cooperation. I realize I need to talk very rapidly.

I understand that the Senator from Oklahoma listed earmarks that the Senator from Maine and I have jointly sponsored. I want to tell my colleagues that I am very proud of those projects, and I will stand here and defend every single one of them. But the fact is, that is irrelevant to the debate before us right now.

I think it is so unfortunate to see this breakdown as certain States in certain parts of the country oppose what is a program that is absolutely essential to those of us who live in colder States.

I supported all of the aid for Hurricane Katrina's victims in the gulf region. I routinely support programs that benefit other regions of the country. I think it is unfortunate and unfair and very disappointing for colleagues to oppose a program simply because it doesn't benefit their region as much as others.

This is a program that is a matter of literally life and death to those of us

representing low-income and elderly constituents.

I realize my time has expired. I urge my colleagues to support the motion to invoke cloture.

Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, let me begin by applauding both Senator Dodd and Senator Lott for their work on the membership part of this bill, and for the outstanding statements explaining the provisions and urging us to act.

Senator Lott mentioned that the Rules Committee bill was reported unanimously, and that the bill that came out of our Homeland Security Committee was reported with only one dissenting vote. That is a remarkable show of bipartisanship. But to my colleagues in the Senate, it is probably more remarkable to see two Senate committees working together very carefully, outlining the jurisdiction of each committee and working in concert to produce a comprehensive and well-balanced piece of legislation.

Title I of this bill is the Rules Committee bill; title II is the Homeland Security bill.

Today the Senate begins consideration of the first significant lobbying reform legislation in a decade. The bills we are debating today and over the course of this week represent the good work of their sponsors, Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman--and Senator Lott and Senator Dodd as well--and the hard work of the two committees I have mentioned.

The committee I am privileged to chair, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, marked up the Lieberman bill this past Thursday. The committee reported out the

measure, as I mentioned, on a 13-to-1 vote.

The issue we take up today is serious, and it is pressing. Recent scandals involving Jack Abramoff and Representative Duke Cunningham have brought to light Congress's need to strengthen the laws and rules governing disclosure, and to ban practices that erode public confidence in the integrity of government decisions. That is what this debate is all about.

We know that if we are to tackle the tough issues facing our country, whether it is entitlement reform or other vital issues, the public must have confidence that our decisions are not tainted by special interests and are not subject to undue influence.

I want to emphasize that all of us here today recognize that lobbying, whether done on behalf of the business community and environmental organizations or children's advocacy groups or any other cause can provide us with very useful information that aids but does not dictate our decisionmaking process. Indeed, lobbying is a right guaranteed by our Constitution--the right to petition our government. But, unfortunately, today the image of lobbying often conjures up images of expensive paid vacations masquerading as factfinding trips, special access that the average citizen can never have, and undue influence that leads to tainted decisions. The corrosive effect of this image--and in a very few cases the reality on the public's confidence-- in the political process cannot be underestimated.

I think it is also important to emphasize, however, that the vast majority of people in Washington, the vast majority of elected officials care deeply about their constituents and this country, and are making decisions which they believe are in the best interests of both. Nevertheless, we in Congress have an obligation to strengthen the crucial bond of trust between those of us in government and those whom government serves.

At the committee hearing last month on lobbying reform, we heard from several of our colleagues. We heard from business and labor organizations that engage in lobbying. We heard from a representative of a lobbyist organization, and from public policy experts. I mention this because I want my colleagues to understand that we had a wide- ranging hearing that reached out to people with various views on how we could reform our lobbying disclosure laws. The package before the Senate, the comprehensive package of bills, represents the culmination of what we have learned.

Again, I thank Senators McCain and Lott for their leadership in the development of this bill, along with the ranking members of Homeland Security, Senator Lieberman and Senator Dodd. We have crafted a bipartisan package.

I also want to thank Senator Rick Santorum for convening a bipartisan working group to help us find some common ground on the principles that underlie both bills.

Before describing the details of the bill we reported last Thursday, I want to point out that the committees addressed only those issues within our jurisdiction--the Lobbying Disclosure Act and the Ethics in Government Act, and congressional organization. But here on the floor we have married the two bills to produce a comprehensive package.

Let me quickly run through some of the major provisions of what is now title II of the bill we are debating.

The first section of this bill, title II, will enhance the lobbying disclosure provision. It will require quarterly filings rather than the present semiannual filing, and it ensures that the information is made available to the public on the Internet.

To facilitate this effort, it specifies that lobbyists must submit their filings electronically. This will ensure that the public information is widely available on a more timely basis. So our goal here is to have an easily accessible, transparent, and searchable database available on the Internet so the public is fully aware and able to access these reports.

To ensure timely disclosure, the substitute doubles the maximum penalty for noncompliance to $100,000.

To increase public confidence and enforcement, the legislation requires disclosure of reports to the Justice Department for enforcement. The enhanced disclosures will make the process of lobbying far more transparent to the public.

I note that the committee also adopted an amendment that would require the disclosure of so-called ``grassroots lobbying efforts.'' I did not support this amendment because of my concern that we don't want to chill any effort to encourage citizens to contact their members of Congress, but I nevertheless appreciate the efforts of the sponsors of the amendment--Senators Lieberman and Levin--to address some of the legitimate concerns and to craft it in a way that is far more focused than the original provisions in the underlying bill that was before our committee.

Section B of what is now title II focuses on enforcement of congressional ethics. In some cases, there have been concerns about the enforcement effort.

We have included provisions that will include auditing and oversight of lobbyists' disclosure filings by the comptroller general who will also provide recommendations on how compliance could be improved and to identify needed resources and authorities.

This section of the bill would also provide for mandatory ethics training for Members of Congress and congressional staff. It also includes a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that there should be greater self-regulation within the lobbying community. I am thinking of the kinds of self-regulatory organizations--SROs, as they are often called--such as the securities industry, for example, employs.

Subtitle C of our bill, now title II, addresses the revolving-door problem, whereby Members of Congress and high-ranking staff leave Government for jobs focused on the institution they had once served in. We made essentially two changes in this provision of the law.

First, we doubled the cooling-off period that applies to Members of Congress who become lobbyists. We require a 2-year cooling-off period rather than the 1-year that is in current law. The second important change we make is we prohibit those high-ranking former congressional staffers from lobbying the entire Senate--not just the office in which they once worked. Those are two significant provisions strengthening the revolving-door provisions of the bill that will help to promote public confidence in the integrity of decisions by ensuring there is not undue special access by people who have inside information. Those are important provisions.

I point out in response to a comment made by Senator Dodd that we do extend these provisions to high-ranking members of the executive branch who are covered now by the revolving-door provisions of the Ethics in Government Act.

The next subtitle of the bill creates a commission to strengthen confidence in Congress. This is a proposal included at the recommendation of my friend and colleague, Senator Norm Coleman. It would establish a commission to review and make some additional recommendations if needed. The commission would report its initial findings and recommendation to Congress by July 1, 2006. This is not a big, longstanding commission. It is a commission that is expected to act quickly, where we take a look at the whole area and report back.

I am very proud of the hard work of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on this issue. We have produced a strong bill, a strong bill that significantly increases the disclosure, that toughens the revolving-door provisions, and that will make a real difference in increasing the oversight of ethics and lobbying.

However, we need to take another look at a provision that did not get included in the bill that was included in the mark that Senator Lieberman and I put forward but was deleted as a result of an amendment. That is a provision to create an Office of Public Integrity within the congressional branch. I will be talking more about that later, but let me say that proposal by no means is an indication of disrespect for or lack of appreciation of the Senate Ethics Committee. We know the Senate Ethics Committee has a very difficult job and does a good job. The members who serve on it are individuals of great integrity. It address a problem of perception.

It is difficult for the public to trust us to set our own rules, investigate violations, act as jury and judge--which is what the current system is now. So we carefully crafted a proposal intended to strike a better balance while still recognizing and maintaining the preeminent role of the Ethics Committee. Regrettably, there was a lot of confusion about this provision in committee because it resembles a provision that has been introduced on the House side. But Senator Lieberman and I modified that provision and came up with our own proposal that ensured that the Ethics Committee was involved in every step of the process. We will have a further debate on that issue, but I raise it now for the benefit of my colleagues.

Again, we can make a real difference by passing this bill which marries the two bills that were reported by the Rules Committee and the Homeland Security Committee. The Senate has a very important opportunity to make Government more transparent and more accountable. At the end of the day, the public is going to review this legislation and ask one question: Does it promote more public trust and confidence in the decisions we make? I hope when we have the final vote on this bill, we will see the same kind of strong, bipartisan support the legislation enjoyed in both the rules and the Homeland Security Committee.

Mr. President, I commend the ranking member, the Senator from Connecticut, for his excellent statement and for his championship of this bill. He is a longtime champion of good government. It has been a great pleasure to work with him on this legislation.

I see that the Senator from Ohio is in the Chamber. I believe he has a unanimous consent request to speak as in morning business. As one of the managers of the bill, I inform the Chair that I have no objection to that request.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I commend you and Senator Snowe for working so hard on this very vital issue.

I want my colleagues to understand exactly what is at stake here.

Early Tuesday morning, my State suffered a terrible tragedy--three people, including a woman and her 10-year-old son, died when their house caught fire and burned to the ground. There was the most deadly fire in Maine in 6 years. They lived in Limestone, ME, a town in northern Maine. On the night of the fire, temperatures were below zero. The family had run out of heating

oil, and as a result, was using wood stoves to provide the heat. According to the firefighters, the fire started near one of the wood stoves in the kitchen.

This is literally a matter of life and death.

At Christmastime, when I was home in my hometown of Caribou, ME, two elderly women were hospitalized with hypothermia.

This is not theoretical. It is not theoretical when there is ice in the toilet and when our elderly and low-income are at risk of illness, disease, and, yes, even death because they cannot afford the high cost of home heating oil.

The least we can do in a country as wealthy as ours is to provide some modest assistance. And those who say that the winter is almost over, come to where I am from in northern Maine. Believe me, there is a lot more winter to come.

Maine has run out of its LIHEAP funding. It is time for us to provide this modest help.

Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleague from Maine.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a joint resolution disapproving the conclusion of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS, to allow Dubai Ports World, DP World, to take over certain port operations in the United States. My colleague and good friend, Congresswoman Jane Harman, will be introducing this resolution in the House of Representatives.

This resolution would do the following: 1. Disapprove the CFIUS review of the transaction; 2. direct the CFIUS to conduct a 45-day investigation in order to ensure that the sale will not have an adverse effect on national security; and 3. direct CFIUS to brief Members of Congress on the findings of its investigation before the transaction is allowed to proceed if the Committee maintains that it should go forth.

The pending sale raises potential maritime security concerns. The sale would transfer control of Peninsular & Oriental, P&O, Ports North America to DP World, a foreign government-owned entity. P&O Ports has extensive terminal and stevedoring operations along the eastern seaboard and on the gulf coast. It encompasses not only terminal facility leases in six major U.S. ports, as has been reported widely in the media, but also stevedoring and terminal operations in a total of 21 U.S. ports, including my home State in Portland, ME.

We have long acknowledged the vulnerability of our ports--both as a potential target and as a conduit through which terrorists, their weapons or other contraband may enter the U.S. coming from a State with three international cargo ports, I am keenly aware of the importance of our seaports to our national economy and to the communities in which they are located. In addition to our ports' economic significance, the link between maritime security and our national security is evident.

The attacks of 9/11 have forced us to reassess and rebuild our entire approach to security. Against an enemy determined to cause maximum harm to both the American people and the American economy, we are building a structure that, in great part, relies upon private-public partnerships. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our ports--where terminal operators, longshoremen, port authorities, importers, carriers, and others have worked with the United States Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and state and local law enforcement to put security plans in place.

The foreign government in question, that owns DP World, is the government of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, UAE. While UAE is an ally in the war on terrorism, it also has been used as a base of terrorist operations and financing. In fact, the 9/11 Commission reported that UAE was ``both a valued counterterrorism ally of the United States and a persistent counterterrorism problem.'' The attacks of 9/11 were planned in part in the UAE, and much of the financing for those operations was funneled through the UAE banking system. The facts warrant a thorough 45-day investigation by CFIUS, not a cursory review.

This incident has revealed significant shortcomings in the CFIUS process. It is not adequately transparent and does not provide for sufficient oversight reporting to appropriate committees and the leadership of Congress. The Exon-Florio provision of the Defense Production Act gives the President the authority to suspend or prohibit any foreign acquisition, merger or takeover of a U.S. corporation that is determined to threaten the national security of the U.S. Through Executive order, the President established the CFIUS to review transactions pursuant to Exon-Florio and make a recommendation regarding the exercise of his authority. It may be appropriate for the reviews, which may involve proprietary data and classified information, to be held confidential. However, once a decision has been reached by the CFIUS, it is wholly appropriate, and even necessary, that Members of Congress be briefed on the findings of the review and the basis for the decision.

I am truly troubled by the review process that was followed with respect to this purchase. The more I learn, the more questions are raised. The law requires a 45-day investigation in cases where an acquirer is controlled by a foreign government, as in the case of DP World, and the acquisition could affect the national security of the

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a joint resolution disapproving the conclusion of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS, to allow Dubai Ports World, DP World, to take over certain port operations in the United States. My colleague and good friend, Congresswoman Jane Harman, will be introducing this resolution in the House of Representatives.

This resolution would do the following: 1. Disapprove the CFIUS review of the transaction; 2. direct the CFIUS to conduct a 45-day investigation in order to ensure that the sale will not have an adverse effect on national security; and 3. direct CFIUS to brief Members of Congress on the findings of its investigation before the transaction is allowed to proceed if the Committee maintains that it should go forth.

The pending sale raises potential maritime security concerns. The sale would transfer control of Peninsular & Oriental, P&O, Ports North America to DP World, a foreign government-owned entity. P&O Ports has extensive terminal and stevedoring operations along the eastern seaboard and on the gulf coast. It encompasses not only terminal facility leases in six major U.S. ports, as has been reported widely in the media, but also stevedoring and terminal operations in a total of 21 U.S. ports, including my home State in Portland, ME.

We have long acknowledged the vulnerability of our ports--both as a potential target and as a conduit through which terrorists, their weapons or other contraband may enter the U.S. coming from a State with three international cargo ports, I am keenly aware of the importance of our seaports to our national economy and to the communities in which they are located. In addition to our ports' economic significance, the link between maritime security and our national security is evident.

The attacks of 9/11 have forced us to reassess and rebuild our entire approach to security. Against an enemy determined to cause maximum harm to both the American people and the American economy, we are building a structure that, in great part, relies upon private-public partnerships. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our ports--where terminal operators, longshoremen, port authorities, importers, carriers, and others have worked with the United States Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and state and local law enforcement to put security plans in place.

The foreign government in question, that owns DP World, is the government of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, UAE. While UAE is an ally in the war on terrorism, it also has been used as a base of terrorist operations and financing. In fact, the 9/11 Commission reported that UAE was ``both a valued counterterrorism ally of the United States and a persistent counterterrorism problem.'' The attacks of 9/11 were planned in part in the UAE, and much of the financing for those operations was funneled through the UAE banking system. The facts warrant a thorough 45-day investigation by CFIUS, not a cursory review.

This incident has revealed significant shortcomings in the CFIUS process. It is not adequately transparent and does not provide for sufficient oversight reporting to appropriate committees and the leadership of Congress. The Exon-Florio provision of the Defense Production Act gives the President the authority to suspend or prohibit any foreign acquisition, merger or takeover of a U.S. corporation that is determined to threaten the national security of the U.S. Through Executive order, the President established the CFIUS to review transactions pursuant to Exon-Florio and make a recommendation regarding the exercise of his authority. It may be appropriate for the reviews, which may involve proprietary data and classified information, to be held confidential. However, once a decision has been reached by the CFIUS, it is wholly appropriate, and even necessary, that Members of Congress be briefed on the findings of the review and the basis for the decision.

I am truly troubled by the review process that was followed with respect to this purchase. The more I learn, the more questions are raised. The law requires a 45-day investigation in cases where an acquirer is controlled by a foreign government, as in the case of DP World, and the acquisition could affect the national security of the

Mr. President, are we in morning business?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 12 minutes in order to introduce a bill.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, in recent years, we have become increasingly aware of the great challenges facing our Nation as our population ages. While much discussion revolves around health care, social security, and pension systems, there is another daunting challenge that is rarely addressed in a comprehensive way.

I am referring to the challenge of senior transportation.

We Americans love our automobiles. From the time most of us were old enough to drive, we have been behind the wheel. Cars mean freedom--not in some grand philosophical sense--but in the real and practical sense that matters to us in our everyday lives. Having a car, and being able to drive it, means the freedom to go where we want, when we want.

But as we age, we will find it harder and harder to use the freedom given to us by automobiles. Because as we age, our abilities decline, and driving becomes less and less simple. And then the day comes when we wonder whether we should keep driving at all, and if we don't, how we will get about our daily lives.

That day has already come for millions of our senior citizens.

All around the Nation, older Americans are struggling to stay active and independent while their ability to drive themselves declines. A few live in communities with well-developed public transportation services geared to our senior citizens, but most do not. Many seniors drive as long as they can, perhaps longer than they think they should, simply because they feel they have no alternative.

That is why I am today introducing the Older Americans Sustainable Mobility Act of 2006. Despite its rather

awkward name, this legislation has a great purpose. It would create a 5-year demonstration project, overseen by the Administration on Aging, to establish a national, nonprofit senior transportation network to help provide some transportation alternatives to our aging population. The goal of this network is to build upon creative, successful models that are already showing how the transportation needs of older Americans can be met in a manner that is economically sustainable.

This last point is important. Senior transportation is a complex and expensive logistical problem. We cannot expect to address this problem by creating a brand new, expansive, Federal Government program that requires the commitment of vast sums year after year in order to succeed. We can't afford that, and that really isn't what older Americans want.

What older Americans want is what most of us have and take for granted--the freedom and mobility that our automobiles provide.

My legislation would build upon models that have demonstrated how senior citizens can stay active and mobile even after they stop driving. One such model is ITNAmerica, which has been operating in my home State of Maine since the mid-1990s and has since branched out to communities across the Nation. ITNAmerica uses private automobiles to provide rides to senior citizens whenever they want, almost like a taxi service. Riders open an account which is automatically charged when the service is used. Riders can get credits for rides through volunteer services, through donations--and this is what I think is most intriguing--by donating their private car to the program after they have decided that they should no longer drive.

Kathy Freund, the founder of ITNAmerica, sees this as a way of taking something people see as a liability, and turning it into an asset. Through Kathy's extraordinary vision and hard work, ITNAmerica has developed a model that works because it allows older Americans to make the transition away from driving themselves without asking them to sacrifice their independence, or to learn at an older age how to navigate public transportation systems that may simply be inappropriate for their needs, or widely unavailable in many parts of the country. They can still be mobile, they can still go where they want and when they want, and they can go by car.

Senior citizens will often keep their vehicles long after they have stopped driving. I am sure you have seen these vehicles in your State as I have in mine. You will see them sitting in driveways--unattended and poorly maintained, sometimes not driven for many months at a time. In this form, these cars are ``wasting'' assets. But ITNAmerica has found that the value of these cars can be unlocked by allowing seniors to exchange them for rides. That is why my bill calls for the creation of a once-in-a-lifetime tax benefit for seniors who exchange their cars for rides, valued at the amount of the ride-credit they are provided.

One of my senior citizen constituents, June Snow from Falmouth, ME, has been using the system that I described--the ITNAmerica system-- since 1995, when her eyesight began to fail. At first, she used the program only to get into the city, Portland, and only after dark, when she found it more difficult to drive. But more recently she has traded her car for rides, and now she depends on the system to go everywhere she needs to go. She finds that the program allows her to get around town, to run errands, and do the things she has to do and wants to do without worrying about whether she will be able to get safely from one place to another. She told me: It's not like riding a bus, where you have to work with their schedules, and they won't stop and help you with your groceries. They won't make you get your feet wet walking through the snow to the bus stop.

But what she loves most is the personal attention she gets from the drivers, most of whom are volunteers. ``They help you to the door, and they even carry your bundles and put them in the trunk,'' she says.

My bill also creates a limited-time matching grant program to help communities establish sustainable transportation alternatives for seniors as part of a national network. Programs that wish to compete for these matching grants must be able to show that they can become self-sustaining after 5 years, and that they can operate after that period without reliance on public funds. So what I am proposing, is that we just provide some seed money as a catalyst, to get these programs going, with the full expectation--indeed the requirement--that they become self-sustaining without any public funds after the initial period. My bill also provides smaller grants to help transportation providers acquire the technology they need to connect to this network, and grants to encourage efforts to get the baby boomers more involved in supporting transportation alternatives in their communities. The total cost of these grant programs would be only $25 million over the full 5 year period. Then the program sunsets, and these wonderful transportation programs that would be created all over the country would be sustainable on their own without public funding.

The challenge of providing transportation alternatives to our Nation's senior citizens is literally growing by the day. The bill I am offering is one step toward a reasonable, practical, solution to this important challenge. I think all of us know of neighbors and family members who reach their senior years and really shouldn't be driving anymore but are very reluctant to give up those car keys because there are simply no workable alternatives for them. This bill would provide those alternatives, and I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

Mr. President, in recent years, we have become increasingly aware of the great challenges facing our Nation as our population ages. While much discussion revolves around health care, social security, and pension systems, there is another daunting challenge that is rarely addressed in a comprehensive way.

I am referring to the challenge of senior transportation.

We Americans love our automobiles. From the time most of us were old enough to drive, we have been behind the wheel. Cars mean freedom--not in some grand philosophical sense--but in the real and practical sense that matters to us in our everyday lives. Having a car, and being able to drive it, means the freedom to go where we want, when we want.

But as we age, we will find it harder and harder to use the freedom given to us by automobiles. Because as we age, our abilities decline, and driving becomes less and less simple. And then the day comes when we wonder whether we should keep driving at all, and if we don't, how we will get about our daily lives.

That day has already come for millions of our senior citizens.

All around the Nation, older Americans are struggling to stay active and independent while their ability to drive themselves declines. A few live in communities with well-developed public transportation services geared to our senior citizens, but most do not. Many seniors drive as long as they can, perhaps longer than they think they should, simply because they feel they have no alternative.

That is why I am today introducing the Older Americans Sustainable Mobility Act of 2006. Despite its rather

awkward name, this legislation has a great purpose. It would create a 5-year demonstration project, overseen by the Administration on Aging, to establish a national, nonprofit senior transportation network to help provide some transportation alternatives to our aging population. The goal of this network is to build upon creative, successful models that are already showing how the transportation needs of older Americans can be met in a manner that is economically sustainable.

This last point is important. Senior transportation is a complex and expensive logistical problem. We cannot expect to address this problem by creating a brand new, expansive, Federal Government program that requires the commitment of vast sums year after year in order to succeed. We can't afford that, and that really isn't what older Americans want.

What older Americans want is what most of us have and take for granted--the freedom and mobility that our automobiles provide.

My legislation would build upon models that have demonstrated how senior citizens can stay active and mobile even after they stop driving. One such model is ITNAmerica, which has been operating in my home State of Maine since the mid-1990s and has since branched out to communities across the Nation. ITNAmerica uses private automobiles to provide rides to senior citizens whenever they want, almost like a taxi service. Riders open an account which is automatically charged when the service is used. Riders can get credits for rides through volunteer services, through donations--and this is what I think is most intriguing--by donating their private car to the program after they have decided that they should no longer drive.

Kathy Freund, the founder of ITNAmerica, sees this as a way of taking something people see as a liability, and turning it into an asset. Through Kathy's extraordinary vision and hard work, ITNAmerica has developed a model that works because it allows older Americans to make the transition away from driving themselves without asking them to sacrifice their independence, or to learn at an older age how to navigate public transportation systems that may simply be inappropriate for their needs, or widely unavailable in many parts of the country. They can still be mobile, they can still go where they want and when they want, and they can go by car.

Senior citizens will often keep their vehicles long after they have stopped driving. I am sure you have seen these vehicles in your State as I have in mine. You will see them sitting in driveways--unattended and poorly maintained, sometimes not driven for many months at a time. In this form, these cars are ``wasting'' assets. But ITNAmerica has found that the value of these cars can be unlocked by allowing seniors to exchange them for rides. That is why my bill calls for the creation of a once-in-a-lifetime tax benefit for seniors who exchange their cars for rides, valued at the amount of the ride-credit they are provided.

One of my senior citizen constituents, June Snow from Falmouth, ME, has been using the system that I described--the ITNAmerica system-- since 1995, when her eyesight began to fail. At first, she used the program only to get into the city, Portland, and only after dark, when she found it more difficult to drive. But more recently she has traded her car for rides, and now she depends on the system to go everywhere she needs to go. She finds that the program allows her to get around town, to run errands, and do the things she has to do and wants to do without worrying about whether she will be able to get safely from one place to another. She told me: It's not like riding a bus, where you have to work with their schedules, and they won't stop and help you with your groceries. They won't make you get your feet wet walking through the snow to the bus stop.

But what she loves most is the personal attention she gets from the drivers, most of whom are volunteers. ``They help you to the door, and they even carry your bundles and put them in the trunk,'' she says.

My bill also creates a limited-time matching grant program to help communities establish sustainable transportation alternatives for seniors as part of a national network. Programs that wish to compete for these matching grants must be able to show that they can become self-sustaining after 5 years, and that they can operate after that period without reliance on public funds. So what I am proposing, is that we just provide some seed money as a catalyst, to get these programs going, with the full expectation--indeed the requirement--that they become self-sustaining without any public funds after the initial period. My bill also provides smaller grants to help transportation providers acquire the technology they need to connect to this network, and grants to encourage efforts to get the baby boomers more involved in supporting transportation alternatives in their communities. The total cost of these grant programs would be only $25 million over the full 5 year period. Then the program sunsets, and these wonderful transportation programs that would be created all over the country would be sustainable on their own without public funding.

The challenge of providing transportation alternatives to our Nation's senior citizens is literally growing by the day. The bill I am offering is one step toward a reasonable, practical, solution to this important challenge. I think all of us know of neighbors and family members who reach their senior years and really shouldn't be driving anymore but are very reluctant to give up those car keys because there are simply no workable alternatives for them. This bill would provide those alternatives, and I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.