Floor Statements

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 793

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise this evening to address, as others have today, the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution that is currently being considered by this body. We take up this budget under the specter of--some would say gloomy, some would say perilous--economic conditions amidst a credit crisis that threatens long-term damage to our economy-- not just to the economy in our country but to economies all over the world. As a result, this budget is very likely probably not the most important vote we cast in the time we serve here but certainly one of the most important we will vote on this year, and maybe in this Congress.

I wish to begin this evening by reminding my colleagues--I know we have been reminded already today and we will be reminded tomorrow--that our friend, former colleague, Barack Obama, took office just 70 days or so ago. Not since the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt has an American President inherited such far-reaching economic turmoil and been asked to do so much in such a short period of time.

Over these last 10 weeks, President Obama has become very well acquainted with the economic mess he inherited from the previous administration. On the day his predecessor took office--this was about 8 years ago--our Federal Government enjoyed multibillion-dollar surpluses as far as the eye could see. We were on track, believe it or not, if you recall, on track to actually pay down our national debt, which at the time was a little under $6 trillion. Since then, sadly, we have seen those surpluses disappear, and they have been replaced instead by the largest budget deficits I think we have witnessed in our country's history. In fact, we ran up as much new debt in the last 28 years as I think we did in the first 220 years of our Nation's history.

When President Bush left office earlier this year, our Nation and the new President were left--and us, here in the Senate and the House--to bear the cost of two wars, tax cuts that tend to favor the wealthiest among us, an increase of more than 50 percent in Government spending, and $10.6 trillion in debt. Again, that is roughly twice what former President Bush inherited on his first day on the job.

The fact is that our badly damaged credit system, our banking system, along with rising unemployment numbers and a contracting economy, have threatened to reduce future revenues to the point where the burgeoning budget deficits of the last 8 years could become a permanent fixture if we are not careful.

The damage of these potential deficits cannot be overlooked. I believe the deficits matter. I think our Presiding Officer knows the deficit matters--it matters for all of us.

Last year, American taxpayers paid some quarter of a trillion dollars, $250

billion, in interest payments--not principal, just interest payments-- to creditors at home and around the world. I am told each citizen's share of today's debt amounts to more than $36,000 per person. Beyond our own borders, we now owe some $740 billion to China. That is almost three-quarters of a trillion dollars. We owe about $635 billion to Japan. We owe $133 billion to Brazil. The list goes on and on.

In all likelihood, the large deficits will eventually drive up interest rates for consumers. They will raise prices for goods and services, and they will combine to weaken America's financial competitiveness.

The bigger our deficits become, the fewer resources we have for investments in energy, education and health care, and we will have fewer resources to help provide tax relief for the middle class and for small businesses that need it the most.

Thankfully, both this President's budget and the Senate Budget Committee's proposed budget for fiscal year 2010, the year that begins this October 1, seek to reverse the trend set in motion by the previous administration. Under both plans, annual deficits will be cut in half over the next 4 years, by 2012.

During his Fiscal Responsibility Summit, which I was fortunate to be able to attend along with Democratic and Republican colleagues, the President said these words:

This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult

decisions.

There is an understatement.

He went on to say we will:

. . . face challenges we have long neglected.

He went on to add:

But I refuse to leave our children with a debt they cannot

repay--and that means taking responsibility right now, in

this administration--

And, I might add, in this Congress--

for getting our spending under control.

The President is right. Meeting this budget goal will not be easy and will require tough choices and discipline by all of us. Some of these tough choices will come from the spending side, and in a difficult economic times, we have to make sure every dollar we collect from the taxpayers is spent wisely and effectively.

As chairman of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I have worked with Senate and House colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, to identify areas of Government spending that are wasteful and in many cases inefficient. One of these areas involves something called improper payments.

According to data reported to the Office of Management and Budget by Federal agencies in their most recent financial statements, the Federal Government made something like $72 billion last fiscal year in overpayments--actually, improper payments, mostly overpayments. During a series of hearings held by my subcommittee, my colleagues and I learned from GAO that some agencies are not taking seriously their responsibility to properly account for Federal dollars they spend. We also learned that others may not have the resources they need to address their improper payments problem.

Just think about this. This is a big budget. This is a budget that is hundreds of billions of dollars. But $72 billion was improperly paid, mostly overpayments.

I plan to introduce legislation in the near future that will direct agencies to focus more of their time and more of their resources on eliminating improper payments--and not just that, but to develop better improper payments remediation plans so they don't continue to make the same mistakes--and finally becoming more aggressive in the use of recovery auditing.

I say to my sons, who are now 19 and 20, there is nothing wrong with making mistakes. We all make mistakes. The only people who don't make mistakes are the people who don't do anything. And if we are doing anything important, a lot of times we make mistakes. But the key here, on improper payments, is to figure out why we are making these mistakes on the improper payments and figure out how not to continue to make the same mistakes and, third, if we made overpayments, to figure out how to go out and recover taxpayers' moneys that have been overpaid.

The proposal we will be introducing with bipartisan support will increase the use of recovery auditing, and the positive impact that recovery auditing will have on Government spending will be measured in billions of dollars.

Even in a day and age where we are looking at a trillion-dollar-plus deficit, billions of dollars still count. A recent test of recovery auditing in just three States' Medicare Programs led to the recovery of $1 billion.

The Presiding Officer heard me talk about this a time or two, along with the President, when he came to our luncheon last Wednesday here in the Capitol. Three years ago, we started doing I call postaudit recoveries in Medicare to try to identify moneys overpaid in Medicare. We went to three States--California, Texas, Florida--and began to try to recover moneys that were overpaid. The first year, we didn't get much of anything. The second year, we captured a little bit of money. Last year, it was close to $1 billion in just three States. What I suggested to the President and my colleagues: We should not just be doing this in three States; we should do it in all 50 States and recover real money. The other thing we ought to do is consider the Medicaid Program and see whether there is some way we can do with Medicaid, in terms of recovering misspent moneys, overpayments--we do that, take the same lessons from Medicare and apply them to Medicaid.

I am pleased to see that the Senate budget makes a number of tough choices when it comes to Federal spending. Senator Conrad has shown great leadership and fiscal discipline in his drafting of this Senate resolution, and his counterpart over in the House, our old friend Congressman John Spratt from South Carolina, has managed to do the same in the House. The Senate Budget Committee has sent us a lean budget this year, relatively speaking, that increases discretionary spending, I am told, by about 5 percent over the fiscal 2009 level, despite calls to do much more. Frankly, that is a bit less than was asked for by our President.

While making sure the taxpayer funds are spent wisely is crucial, I would just add that I, for one, reject the philosophy held by some that discretionary spending is the culprit--maybe the major or even the only culprit for our fiscal mess.

Balanced budgets will not come just from reductions in discretionary spending. Fundamental reform of our major entitlement programs, coupled with some changes in our tax codes, must occur if we are to restore fiscal sanity to our Federal budget.

On the entitlement side, the Presiding Officer, among a number of centrist Democrats, met today with our budget director OMB Director Peter Orszag. Among the things we talked about were entitlement programs and entitlement spending.

The entitlement spending on health care consumes an ever-increasing percentage of our GDP, with the U.S. currently spending over $2 trillion a year on health care. That is about 17 percent of GDP, and we are on a track to get up to about 20 percent in the next several years--20 percent of GDP just for health care.

I am told that if you look at three programs now, three entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, if you gather the amounts, they are about 10 percent of our GDP. And we are on a track that in about 25 years, those three programs alone will amount to 25 percent of GDP, and 20 percent of GDP is historically our whole budget--in just three programs. That is obviously not sustainable.

And while we spend a whole ton of money, $2 trillion a year on health care, a number of folks suggest that about $700 billion, $700 billion of that money, that is about 35 percent of it, does not really improve our health outcomes.

We spend more money than any other developed nation for health care and we certainly do not get better results. This cost growth raises the pricetag associated, as I said, with entitlement programs such as Medicaid as well.

And I repeat myself that the current path we are on is clearly not sustainable, both for our fiscal health and for our medical health, and it is not sustainable as far as our being competitive with the rest of the world and our

businesses trying to compete, whether building cars or windmills or building electronic equipment. It makes us uncompetitive around the world.

America must reform its health care system. We have responsibility to help do that so we can reverse the rise in health care costs, while we improve the quality of care. We simply cannot afford to continue on this trajectory. As I have said, and I am sure my colleague presiding has, doing nothing is not an option.

I wanted to commend tonight not only Senator Conrad, but I wanted to commend the Senate Budget Committee for including a deficit-neutral reserve fund in the Senate budget that will enable us to advance a health care reform bill and reduce Medicare and Medicaid's contribution to our budget deficit.

Now, on the tax side, I am pleased the Senate budget provides middle- class taxpayers with a measure of tax relief. They still have to pay taxes, but in this budget package and this spending plan they receive a measure of tax relief, something of which this President is a champion.

Taxpayers need certainty, though, when it comes to making middle- class tax provisions permanent. Taxpayers need certainty when it comes to the alternative minimum tax. And taxpayers certainly need certainty when it comes to the estate tax.

The idea that we are going to have an estate tax this year, we are not going to have one next year, and then a year later after that we are going to go back to the same estate tax we had in 2001 does not make a whole lot of sense to us and to our constituents. But this budget begins the process of addressing those issues, and I look forward to working with my colleagues, both in the Finance Committee and on the Senate floor, in addressing them.

On the estate tax, this budget includes a proposal that looks a lot like one I introduced a year or two ago. And it would permanently extend the 2009 rate of 45 percent, and an exemption of $7 million per couple. It would index that amount, that is exempted from taxes by the rate of inflation each year. So it is not going to be $7 million that is the exempt number forever; it will go up each year by the rate of inflation. And that which is not covered within that exemption is taxed at the rate of 45 percent, which is really right about where we are this year. I think this proposal represents a sensible way to balance our two critical goals, and seems fair and reasonable, is what Fox says.

It helps us to avoid hitting middle-class taxpayers and small businesses. It helps us to avoid the problems we have had with the alternative minimum tax, where we have not indexed it in over 30 years.

Finally middle-class families are finding out they are subject to the alternative minimum tax. And someday the same thing will happen to the estate tax if we do not index it.

In addition to the estate tax provision, this budget extends the previous administration's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the middle class. We are not throwing out everything we have done in 2001 and 2003 in the Bush administration if it is meritorious. And that is an example--those are examples of things we want to preserve. We think that preserving tax relief for the middle class is a high-yield, low-risk investment. It will be the middle class, we think, who lifts the economy out of the recession and ushers us through the decade of innovation and hopefully to prosperity. I believe this extension of these tax cuts will go a long way toward bolstering a resurgence.

While many of these provisions seek to help stimulate growth through revenue modifications, we also need to make some other changes to our current tax policy in order to help increase revenues that will pay down our budget deficit. One way to do this is to close something we call the tax gap, which I am pleased to say is a high priority of this budget resolution. Most Americans, if they knew that something like $400 billion of taxes that are owed to the Federal Government are not being collected--and most people in this country pay their fair share of taxes--the idea that, gosh, almost a half a trillion is not being collected on an annual basis makes my blood boil, and I suspect makes it boil for a lot of other people.

As it turns out, there are a number of things that we can do to address the tax gap. I am delighted in the budget document that we are seeing, it reflects a whole lot of steps we can take. Through my subcommittee that I chair on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and through my work on the Finance Committee, I have been helped by a bunch of people to enable us to craft legislation--I will be introducing it soon--that helps close the tax gap, and we do it by focusing on improving compliance.

I would say this. You and I, most people, if taxes are withheld from our income, we comply. We have a compliance rate of about 99 percent of paying our fair share of taxes. When our income is reported to the IRS on, say, a 1099, there is about a 90-percent, maybe 95 percent, compliance with paying our fair share of taxes.

When there is not withholding of taxes, where there is not reporting of income, the rate of compliance drops way down--as low as 50 percent, even lower than that.

I am looking forward to working with our new President and my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, in a nonpartisan way, of putting together a package of proposals to meet the goals that are laid out in this budget, particularly with respect to making sure people pay their fair share of taxes.

While the Senate budget does extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class beyond fiscal year 2010, it does not do the same for some of our most affluent Americans. During the previous administration, some of the wealthiest Americans shouldered disproportionately less tax burden than do many members of the middle class.

The budget before us seeks to restore a fairer balance while also providing the revenue needed to close our budget deficits over the next several fiscal years.

Finally, I commend Senator Conrad and the President for acknowledging that we have to do more to address climate change in this budget-- something with which I know our Presiding Officer agrees--keeping open all of our options, including a cap-and-trade system which I have worked on for a number of years for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Unfortunately, some of my colleagues have likened a climate cap-and- trade program to a carbon tax. I always find it interesting that people around here seem to embrace the idea or propose the idea of a carbon tax instead of a cap-and-trade approach on climate change. Most of the people that seem to propose and embrace a carbon tax would not vote for one if they had the chance to, which is kind of ironic.

Let me be clear. On a cap-and-trade system--and where we basically say for carbon dioxide emissions, we are going to put a cap on how much can be emitted--over time we are going to bring that cap down, and we are going to give folks, the emitters, the chance to trade as they reduce their emissions, to have an opportunity to trade with other emitters, and find ways to harness economic forces to reduce, in an effective way, an efficient way, our emissions of CO2.

But among the advantages of a cap-and-trade system, it is flexible within our economy. It interacts with folks like in Europe who have been doing this cap-and-trade stuff for a while. It ensures that we get the needed pollution reductions.

A great example of a cap-and-trade program is the Acid Rain Program. It was not set up by a Democrat. It was not set up by Bill Clinton. It was set up by former President Bush. George Herbert Walker Bush set it up in 1990.

That cap-and-trade program, the Acid Rain Program, has reduced sulfur dioxide emissions at half the estimated cost and quicker than expected, making it one of the most successful environmental programs in our Nation's history.

I hope my friends here will not forget that cap and trade is a valuable market tool that has been proven to secure air quality improvements at half the cost. It is not a tax.

We have a chance to test this baby, see how it works. We have seen it work very well.

Let me add in closing that this budget resolution puts the brakes on some of the budgetary tactics used in recent budgets and puts our Nation back on a path toward fiscal discipline. While we can't solve all our budget problems in 1 year, this bill represents the opening

salvo in a multiyear battle to reduce our deficits and prevent our children from bearing the cost of ever greater deficits.

At the President's first fiscal summit a month or so ago, he noted:

While we are making important progress toward fiscal

responsibility this year, in this budget, this is just the

beginning. In the coming years, we'll be forced to make more

tough choices and do much to address our long-term

challenges.

He is right. To paraphrase Robert Frost, we have miles to go before we sleep.

I stand ready to help this President, to work with my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, House and Senate, to make some of those tough choices and to tackle the challenges in the years to come.

I yield the floor.

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

I say to the Presiding Officer, it is kind of ironic that both of us, who are from Delaware, are in the Chamber right now, and I want to start off by telling a short story about the University of Delaware and a visit I had there not long ago. I was invited, as my colleague has been invited, to speak to students and to host and be a part of a townhall meeting a month or two ago.

I opened up by talking to the students for a bit of the time, and then I took questions or comments from the students. I felt one of the most poignant questions was asked at the end of the session. Most of the students there were freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.

One young lady, who asked a question at the end of the session, was a senior. She is going to be graduating in a couple months. The question on her mind is, frankly, on the minds of a lot of graduating seniors at colleges and universities inside of Delaware and throughout our country. I might also add, it is on the minds of a lot of folks who are about to finish high school or who have finished and are still looking for work.

The young lady who spoke recently at our forum at the University of Delaware said: I am going to graduate in

May. I am not sure what I am going to do. She said: There used to be a lot of employers who came to this campus and other campuses looking for people to hire, to come and join them at their companies or at their workplaces. She said: Not so much of that is going on this year, for reasons I think we all understand.

While I am hopeful and encouraged this is not a permanent phenomenon but one that will be short lived, relatively speaking, her concerns are justified. I shared with her that when I graduated from Ohio State many a moon ago I entered a life of service for about 4\1/2\ or 5 years with the U.S. Navy. It was a deal I gladly entered into, Navy ROTC. The Navy helped put me through school at Ohio State, and when it was over, I owed the Navy some years of my life. I was very pleased to give that time, even in the middle of a hot war in Southeast Asia.

What I suggested to the young woman that day at the University of Delaware is that if she decided she did not find the job she wants with a company she wants or some other employer she is excited about working for, she should consider spending maybe not just a couple of months but maybe a year or even two in serving.

There are any number of opportunities to serve in Delaware and throughout the country. In fact, in some ways the need for people to serve is greater than it has been in a long time because nonprofits and others are cutting back and there is a need for those who will volunteer and step forward and say: Here am I. Send me. Or what can I do to help out?

I am not sure to what extent she internalized that message and is going to go out and look for opportunities to serve, but I know there is a great need for people who will serve.

For us, part of the challenge is trying to make sure those who want to serve can identify the opportunities to serve, those who want to make a difference in their lives are given some help and guidance in getting to places where they can make a difference with their lives.

The thing I like most of all about this legislation--we talk a lot here about that we ought to be more bipartisan. And God knows I believe that. I know the Presiding Officer feels that way. But one of the great things about this legislation is that it is about as bipartisan as it gets.

I want to take a moment to commend a couple of folks who are on the floor. I see Senator Hatch talking with Senator Dodd. Both of them have been very instrumental in this legislation. I commend Senator Mikulski, Senator Hatch, Senator Enzi, Senator McCain--I do not know if he is a cosponsor of this bill. He has been a big champion of service over the years. I commend Senator Kennedy, who I believe was here yesterday. He is a huge champion of this legislation. This legislation enjoys broad bipartisan support.

I say to my friend from Connecticut: Good going. Thank you for being the wind under our wings on this issue for a long time and for continuing to inspire us and encouraging us to go forward.

A couple years from now--maybe not even that long--I hope I run into that young woman again who asked that question at the University of Delaware a month or so ago. I hope she says to me: I took your advice. I looked around and I found a couple of opportunities where I could serve, and I decided to do that for a year or so. At the end of my year or so, the job market improved, the economy improved, and I went to work for some other employer and went on with the rest of my life.

One of the things I look for as an employer, one of the things I look for when there is a downtime, like right now, a downtime in our economy--when a lot of people are looking for employment opportunities and maybe not finding them, and they have some space to fill in their lives--how do they fill up that space? How do they fill up that dead time?

I am always encouraged when I find someone who says: I decided to go out and work with young people to help make sure they were going to be successful in life. I worked with veterans. I worked with Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. I worked in Boys & Girls Clubs. I mentored. I did all kinds of things.

The idea behind this legislation is to better ensure that those who want to serve--maybe who do not have a lot to do in their lives right now; they have some free time they have not had for a long time because their studies are over--we want to make sure they will have some opportunities, good opportunities, to serve.

I will close with this: These are the words I actually shared with the University of Delaware students the other day. I talked about the sources of joy. We always look for joy. Everybody wants to be happy. Almost everybody I know wants to be happy. There are any number of sources of joy people turn to from time to time.

In my own life, I have always found the best source of joy--the one that never goes away, the one that never disappears, which always can be counted on--the best source of joy in our lives is helping other people, finding ways to give of ourselves to help other people.

For those young people in this country who decide to seize on the opportunities that will be provided through this legislation's enactment, they will have the opportunity to get something. Maybe it will provide good letters of recommendation going forward. Maybe it will provide for a stronger resume going forward. I think even more importantly than that, they are going to do a lot of good for folks with their own lives. They are going to do a lot of good for folks. They are going to help those people who need to be helped, and maybe, as important as anything, the one who serves will enjoy a sense of satisfaction that, frankly, is sometimes hard to come by.

So I again applaud those who provided leadership on this bill, and I look forward to supporting it as we go forward this week. Thank you very much.

Mr. President, I have come to the floor of the Senate many times to discuss the importance of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Over the past several Congresses, I have introduced legislation to create a mandatory cap-and-trade program to help utilities reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide, while also regulating unhealthy emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide. Hopefully, later this year, Congress will consider an economy- wide, cap-and-trade bill to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But one area that has not received enough attention or comprehensive treatment in climate change proposals is the transportation sector.

In all fairness, it is tricky to address. Mobile sources--like cars and trucks--are numerous and do not stay in any one jurisdiction. The amount of pollution they produce is impacted by the efficiency of the vehicle, the type of fuel it uses, as well as how far, fast and often the vehicle is driven. Managing all of those different inputs is not an easy thing to do. But we must find a way if we are serious about addressing climate change.

The transportation sector produces 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and is the fastest growing source of pollution. If we do not curb emissions from transportation, we will either fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the level scientists tell us is necessary to stave off climate change. Or we will have to ask other sectors to make up the difference.

When the transportation sector has been considered before, the focus has always been on vehicle fuel economy standards or tailpipe emissions standards. Last Congress, I was extremely proud to play a role in increasing the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, CAFE, standard for cars and trucks for the first time in 32 years. The new standard requires the entire U.S. fleet of cars and trucks to average 35 mph by 2020.

The new standard has a better chance of success because it applies across the entire U.S. fleet, removing the loophole that encouraged auto manufacturers to build larger cars. At the same time, we structured the standard in a way that allows manufacturers to specialize in the vehicles for which they are known. Instead of having every manufacturer meet the 35 mph standard, those that build smaller cars will meet a higher standard and those that build larger cars will meet a lower one. But in the end, the fleet as a whole will reach 35 mph. We increased CAFE in a way that garnered the support of both environmentalists and the automobile industry--a model I hope we can follow in developing climate change legislation.

In the same bill that raised CAFE, Congress also established a Renewable Fuel Standard, RFS, requiring that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel is sold in 2020--up from 9 billion gallons today.

Taken together, the CAFE and RFS is expected to save two million barrels of oil per day and save consumers more than $80 billion at the pump. It will also reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 18 percent.

While this is a major improvement, we must remember that our goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent. We need to look for other ways to make the transportation system cleaner.

That is where the bill we are introducing today comes in. The Clean Low-Emission Affordable New Transportation Act, or CLEAN TEA, would reserve a portion of any auction proceeds from a climate change bill, and dedicate it to funding transportation projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This is a critical piece of the puzzle which, if left out, hampers the effectiveness of the other measures taken by car companies and fuel producers. For example, in 1975, we created CAFE standards to reduce oil use. But at the same time, we closed down transit systems and built homes far from workplaces, schools, groceries and doctors. As a result, driving increased by 150 percent. Therefore, even though cars got significantly more efficient, American use of oil increased 50 percent. We cannot afford to make that mistake again.

CLEAN TEA requires States and metropolitan planning organizations to review their long-range transportation plans to determine what they could do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making their transportation system more efficient and providing alternative forms of transportation. Once they establish a goal that is appropriate for their area and a list of

projects to help them meet that goal, they would receive funding to build those projects. Eligible projects are anything that is proven to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including transit, freight or passenger rail, sidewalks and bike lanes, carpools and vanpools, intelligent transportation systems, congestion pricing measures and coordination of development and transportation plans.

Ten percent of auction proceeds might sound like a lot. But as I mentioned before, the transportation sector is 30 percent of the problem and growing faster than any other sector. In addition, these projects that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions will save Americans money and create jobs.

The American Public Transit Association recently found that people who use transit regularly save $1,800 a year in transportation costs. The Surface Transportation Policy Project has found that those who live in areas with access to public transportation incur significantly lower costs than those who do not. This is incredibly important in a weak economy or when gas prices are high. Most people do not realize that transportation is the second highest expense in most American households--more than health care. For some, transportation costs are even higher than their mortgage or rent.

Last spring and summer, when gas prices went to $4 a gallon across the country, Americans sought ways to save money by driving less. Many of them found that their transportation options were quite limited. Their neighborhoods had no sidewalks and there was little or no transit service. Those who had options, exercised them. But those who didn't either had to pay the price of gas and skimp elsewhere or reduce their quality of life. This is unacceptable.

We fund our transportation system through a gas tax, which is to say that we pay for roads and transit by burning gasoline. When people drive less, our transportation budgets dry up. So states and localities that seek to reduce oil use, lower greenhouse emissions and save their constituents money, get their budgets cut. CLEAN TEA reverses that by sending money to states and localities based on how much they reduce emissions.

As we develop a climate change bill, we must consider how every sector of the economy can play a part in lowering greenhouse gas emissions. When it comes to the transportation system, we--right here in Congress--have a lot to say about how that system is developed, how efficient it is and how polluting it is. We should make sure that, as we tell American businesses to get their houses in order, we clean up our act as well.

Through CLEAN TEA, we have the chance to make progress addressing many problems at once--finding additional funding for transportation infrastructure, building money-saving transportation alternatives and lowering greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 615

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay and the table was agreed to.

Project Attribution Correction

Mr. President, I am pleased to ask my colleagues to join

me in recognizing Ms. Betsy J. Keeling as she retires after nearly 32 years of Federal service, which included working for 6 years in the U.S. Senate. Her dedicated public service and tireless commitment to keeping appropriate congressional committees fully and currently informed of the activities of her agency should be recognized and appreciated by all in this Chamber.

A native of Nashville, TN, Ms. Keeling graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1977. She then joined the staff of our esteemed former majority leader, Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, in June of 1977, where she served as an office manager, formulating the Senator's office budget and supervising 30 full-time employees with a variety of responsibilities.

In August of 1983 she joined the office of Commissioner Frederick Bernthal of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC. As his administrative assistant, she handled all day-to-day operations of the office and managed work flow within the Commissioner's office.

At the end of Commissioner Bernthal's term in June of 1988, Ms. Keeling joined the staff of NRC's Office of Congressional Affairs. She served as a congressional affairs officer for almost 12 years and was then promoted to senior congressional affairs officer in 2000. She served in that capacity until September of 2005. As a senior congressional affairs officer, she assisted in formulating congressional relations policy and programs, performed liaison duties, analyzed legislation and coordinated congressional briefings and hearings.

Ms. Keeling was recognized for her outstanding service by the NRC with a Meritorious Service Award, the agency's second-highest award given to its employees, in 2003. She received this award ``in recognition of her exceptional versatility, dedicated service, and adroit handling of Congressional affairs.'' Ms. Keeling was also the recipient of numerous performance and special achievement awards throughout her career at the NRC.

In September 2005, Ms. Keeling was appointed associate director for congressional affairs in NRC's Office of Congressional Affairs. She has been in this position since that time and it is from this position that Ms. Keeling retired from Federal service on February 27, 2009. She will be returning to her beloved State of Tennessee to be with her family and friends in Nashville.

Mr. President, I am pleased to ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Ms. Keeling on her retirement and thanking her for her service to the U.S. Senate and her country through her work at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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

Mr. President, yesterday morning, at about 8 o'clock, down

in, I think, S. 115, there was a prayer breakfast. Actually, that happens about every week. And for many weeks in the last year or two, our Acting President pro tempore was one of two Members--one a Democrat and one a Republican--who brought people together for an hour of fellowship. They would have breakfast together and sing a hymn--or at least try to sing a hymn--or a song of some kind, and they would share their story, if you will, their spiritual journey with one another.

I usually do not get to go to those; I am on a train coming down from Wilmington, DE. But I have been a time or two, and I find it very uplifting. There is a smaller gathering that will occur today a little after noon, right here off the Senate floor, and it will be a group convened by our Chaplain, Barry Black, who is a retired Navy rear admiral. He used to be Chief of Chaplains for the Navy and the Marine Corps.

What we have is a little bit like an adult Sunday school class. There are people of different faiths who show up. Sometimes we may have five or six or seven or eight or nine people there, Democrats and Republicans.

I always like to tell the story that happened about a couple years ago, when we were having orientation for new Senators--something our Acting President pro tempore has been a part of establishing--but we had a last session of orientation for new Senators--I think it was about 2004, right after the election--a last session where John Breaux, a Democrat, was leaving and Don Nickles, a Republican, was leaving the Senate, and they both were talking to our new Senators and their spouses about bridging the partisan divide.

Don Nickles talked--he has a great sense of humor; so does John Breaux, as we know--and Senator Nickles was about to leave the Senate. He was talking to the Democrats and Republicans who had just arrived, and their spouses, and he said: You all ought to think about going to this Bible study group. It is uplifting. It is inspiring. It is refreshing. You get to know your colleagues better. It does not take that much time every week. He said: You ought to try to do it. Tom Carper and I go to that Bible study group. He is a Democrat and I am a Republican.

He said: Week after week, month after month, you sit together, you read Scriptures together, you talk and share with one another your thoughts and problems and what you are facing in your life. You pray for each other. He said: You know, after I do that, it is hard to walk out on the Senate floor and stab Tom Carper in the back. He said: It is not impossible, but it is hard.

One of the other things that is hard is for us to actually figure out how our faith should guide us in the decisions we make here. I am always inspired by the depth of conviction of the floor manager, the chief sponsor of this bill, Senator Lieberman, and how his faith guides him in the work we do here.

But Barry Black, our Chaplain, often challenges us in the Senate-- Democrats and Republicans--and not just there, but, later today, in our Bible study class, and also at the Wednesday morning prayer breakfast, and throughout the week--he is always challenging us: How should we use our faith to help guide us in the decisions we make?

The other thing he is good at doing is reminding us, about every other week, of the two great Commandments in the New Testament. The first: Love Thy Lord Thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy mind. And the second one is: To love thy neighbor as thyself--which we also call the Golden Rule: Treat others the way we want to be treated. Chaplain Black likes to say the ``CliffsNotes'' of the New Testament is the Golden Rule: Treat other people the way we want to be treated.

When I run into great leaders in my life, in this country and in other countries, a lot of times the good leaders are those who actually internalize the Golden Rule, who do try to treat others the way they want to be treated. I am pleased to say that the two Senators who are here on the floor right now certainly embody that rule too.

How does that pertain to the legislation before us? Well, I think it pertains to the legislation before us because there are about 600,000 people who live in the District of Columbia. Some of them actually work here with us, but they live here in the District of Columbia and they pay taxes. They pay Federal taxes. They don't get to vote. They don't have a vote here in the Senate. They don't have a Representative, if you will, who can vote for them and for their interests and concerns in the House of Representatives.

Delaware has about 850,000 people, so we have a few more people than the District of Columbia. There are some other States that have fewer people than we do. There is actually probably a State or two that has fewer people living in it than does the District of Columbia. I won't call out those States here this morning. They are pretty big in geography but not so big in population. They have two Senators and at least one U.S. Representative. Whether the issue is foreclosures, budget, or stimulus package, they have somebody here to vote, to represent them, to speak on the floor and to offer legislation, amend legislation, and to vote on legislation. We saw in the stimulus package how critical one or two votes can be. The District of Columbia has nobody here and they have nobody voting for them in the House. They have a delegate--a very good one--who can vote in committee, offer legislation, offer amendments, and introduce bills, but can't actually vote when the time comes. There is something about that that seems unfair to me. It seems unfair to me. I think it certainly seems unfair to the sponsor of the bill, Senator Lieberman, and to a lot of people who cosponsored the legislation, as have I.

None of us is suggesting that there ought to be two Senators representing folks from the District of Columbia. In allowing the delegate to become sort of a full-fledged U.S. Representative over in the House, there is a trade that--we would expect that person to be a Democrat, at least initially; maybe someday Republican--but the idea would be to provide an additional Republican representative, in this case from the State of Utah. That seat may become a Democratic seat. I wouldn't want to bet my paycheck on it, but it might. So we are trying to come up with an equitable, a fair, a reasonable compromise. Isn't politics the art of compromise? This is a compromise.

There are some who have suggested that is unconstitutional. I am not a constitutional expert. I know a lot of smart people have considered it. We will have an opportunity--if this legislation is passed and signed by the President, there will be an opportunity for an expedited process and the Federal courts, the appropriate courts will determine whether this measure, this statute actually is constitutionally sound. My hope is it will be. A lot of forethought has gone into this issue already.

In closing, let me say in the minute or so that is left on our side, I wish to thank Senator Lieberman for his steadfast leadership on this issue and for making it not just a bipartisan issue but a tripartisan issue, by making sure we have both Republicans and Democrats and Independents such as himself and Bernie Sanders to weigh in and to support this legislation; not just to offer the bill but actually to stand up and call on the rest of us to do what we know in our hearts is fair and just, and to put ourselves in the shoes of the folks who live here in Washington, DC and who work and pay their taxes and who deserve a full-fledged vote, at least in the House of Representatives. We will wait another day to take up that battle here in the Senate.

That having been said, I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I rise for the purpose of entering into a colloquy with the senior senator from Montana regarding the car purchase tax credit introduced by Sen. Mikulski and included in this conference report.

Mr. Chairman, my home State of Delaware does not have a State sales tax, which this provision addresses. However, a ``document fee'' of 3.75 percent is collected when a new vehicle is sold in Delaware. This fee is the equivalent of a State sales tax, although it is not called that term.

Alaska, Montana, Hawaii, Oregon and New Hampshire lack State sales taxes. Instead, these States levy fees and/or taxes or allow local governments to levy fees or taxes on new vehicles. For example, in your home State of Montana, there is a county option tax on vehicles. In New Hampshire, towns and cities can collect fees on motor vehicles. Hawaii levies a four-percent excise tax on goods, which includes automobiles. This tax is passed along to Hawaiian new car purchasers.

As the purpose of the Mikulski amendment is to encourage Americans to purchase new automobiles, is it the chairman's understanding that it is the intent of Congress that the document fee in Delaware is the functional equivalent of a State sales tax?

I thank the Senator. Additionally, in lieu of paying States sales taxes or in the case of Delaware, a document fee, is it the intent of Congress that the motor vehicle registration fees on new vehicles collected by State or local governments in Alaska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Hawaii and Montana qualify for a deduction as defined under section 1008?

I thank the Senator and yield the floor.

Like my colleagues, I support comparative effectiveness research that builds on the principles set forth in S. 3408 from the 110th Congress. Clinical comparative effectiveness research has the capability of improving health care quality by advancing evidence-based decisionmaking in our health care system. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this important issue.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, today I honor Marlene Elliott Brown, who was appointed in 2001 by former President George W. Bush as the Delaware/Maryland Director for USDA Rural Development where she oversaw housing, business, water and waste loan programs, community facilities and grant programs for my State of Delaware and neighboring Maryland.

My staff and I have had the great privilege of working with her on rural development projects including economic development, housing and the provision of critical public utilities throughout rural Delaware.

She started her remarkable career in politics in 1982 when she served as State director for my predecessor, Senator Bill Roth. While Senator Roth was known for his many accomplishments on the national level, in Delaware, he was best known for providing outstanding constituent services. No one was more responsible for building and sustaining this high level of service than Marlene. Striving to meet this standard has been one of my highest priorities as a U.S. Senator and a great challenge for my staff because Marlene set the bar so high. She truly represents the highest level of excellence in public service. More importantly, Marlene has the heart of a public servant which is a rare quality but one that is sorely needed in the world today.

First and foremost, Marlene was a proud southern Delawarean. She grew up on a family farm near Laurel, DE, graduated as valedictorian of her class at Laurel High School, and subsequently graduated from Delaware Technical and Community College and Salisbury University with a major in business administration. In addition to her public service, she has been, and remains, very active in her church and community, having served as past president of the Georgetown-Millsboro Rotary Club, former vice chairman of the Republican State Committee, a past Honorary Wing Commander at the Dover Air Force Base, a member of the Laurel Chamber of Commerce, a board member of the Delmarva Christian High School, and a member of the Delaware Tech Educational Foundation Council.

She has also received numerous awards, including Outstanding Young Women of America in 1982, Delaware Young Careerist for Delaware Business and Professional Women in 1985, and the first recipient of the William Roth Outstanding Achievement Award in 2004, just to name a few.

I have had the great pleasure of working with Marlene Elliott Brown for many years and joined her frequently to announce USDA funding for projects throughout southern Delaware. Her hard work and dedication to the betterment of rural communities has helped enrich the lives of many Delawareans. Marlene's vibrant spirit is unwavering and her fervent commitment to public service reflects the desire of an individual devoted to making a difference. She is truly a generous and caring friend who has provided inspiration to many. While representing the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Delaware and Maryland, Marlene somehow found time to help train not one but two people who have served as my county directors in Sussex County. For that, I will always be grateful.

Marlene and her husband still live on a family farm near Laurel where she grew up, and I know that her family, community and our state are very proud of her accomplishments. I want to personally thank Marlene's family for their willingness to share her with all of us. Marlene is quite simply a very good person with a great heart, and I wish her well on the next stage of her noteworthy career.

Mr. President, actually it is not the first time I have been recognized as senior Senator. For about 2 months now, since Joe Biden was nominated and elected as Vice President, people have been referring to me as the senior Senator. I always have to correct them and I say no, it is 4 days, 3 hours, 12 minutes away. Today we counted down, today we counted down to zero.

Yesterday, when Senator Biden resigned at 5 o'clock, I think for 17 hours I was both the junior and senior Senator. Dick Durbin was that for almost 2 months, from Illinois.

I asked one of my colleagues, Do you think I will get paid more for that? He said no, probably not. You shouldn't be.

We lament the loss of Joe Biden from the Senate. I am thrilled he is going to have the opportunity to become the first Delawarean ever to be the Vice President of the United States. As wonderful as he is as a Senator, he will do more good for his country in his new role than he could have done in this service, so it is a good thing for the administration and for the country and ultimately for Delaware.

If we have to lose Joe Biden to the Vice Presidency of the United States, we could not ask for a better person to take his place than Ted Kaufman. Sometimes people come here and they have never served in elected office. Ted has not. But he comes here steeped in the knowledge of the Senate. He knows the place, knows the way this place works, has a pretty good idea of how to make it work better.

He has served as Joe Biden's chief of staff for about 20 years. Joe has been in the Senate for 36 years. For over half those years, Ted was his chief of staff and maybe in a sense his alter ego. We all have those. You couldn't ask for a better one than Ted Kaufman.

Our leader said, Ted couldn't get into University of Delaware but he was able to get into Duke as an undergraduate and studied mechanical engineering there. Later he couldn't get into the University of Delaware MBA program but he did get into the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and went on to work for the DuPont Company for a while and met a guy running for the Senate at the tender age of 29. A lot of people in our State got excited by Joe Biden, signed up to volunteer for his campaign, and then ended up being his chief of staff.

I think it is fair to say that Joe Biden would not have been maybe the only Senator in our State's history to be elected to 7 terms as U.S. Senator but for the support of Ted; not just for those 19 years, but for being his friend all those years and all the years since to work with Joe through two Presidential campaigns, to be his adviser and counselor, and to always have his back.

Ted is smart. We have a lot of smart people here. But he is also wise. Ted is very well spoken. He is a wonderful speaker. There are a lot of good speakers here. He is also a very good listener.

Ted takes his work seriously, takes our work seriously. One of the things I love about Ted is he doesn't take himself all that seriously. He is a lot of fun to be with. He will be a good colleague and a good friend.

He inherits a good staff. He shared with me he expects to largely keep that staff together. People come and go in these jobs, but the good news is most of the people on board now will stay on board. For us, myself and our at-large Congressman Mike Castle, I think that is very good news. He will be taking over the same committees Senator Biden has been serving on, in Judiciary and Foreign Relations, and I am sure he will do an excellent job there.

In addition to working for DuPont and spending 20 years as Joe's chief of staff, he has also taught. He taught at Duke in a couple of capacities there. He taught at Sanford, as I recall. And for the last, gosh, I want to say for 15 years, he served on the board of governors that oversees and tries to make sure we promote democracy in other countries. We do that through a variety of ways but in part through our media operations. He has been confirmed, I think, on the board of governors maybe four terms. I don't know he will serve four terms here. He promised his wife he would not but time will tell.

Speaking of his wife, Ted tells me he started dating his wife when she was 12--no, it was 18--and they have been married since 1960. They have three kids. They are not kids--daughters, and they have seven grandchildren, something like that. It is a wonderful family.

I was talking about Joe Biden when he stepped down yesterday and gave a beautiful speech. I said Joe is the real deal in terms of family values--a loving father, grandfather, and Ted is very much out of that same mold.

While we lament the departure of Joe and are thrilled about his opportunity to be our Vice President, we very warmly welcome Ted to this family. I think in the history of this country there are maybe 1700 or so people who have been privileged to serve as Senator. Add a few extra ones this week out of the regular order. But this is a good thing for our State, for the Senate. As a point of personal privilege, it is a special joy for me.

Ted Kaufman, to you and Lynne and your family, welcome to this family. God bless you.

Mr. President, we are joined on the floor today by Senator Biden. He is standing back here talking to three of our new Senators. Unfortunately, he cannot speak as a Senator, but we will find an opportunity for him to preside from time to time and get some things off of his chest. But I know if he could speak he would like to share with us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I was elected State treasurer at the age of 29, 4 years after Joe Biden was elected to the Senate. For the last 30 years or so, I have had the honor and in some cases the misfortune of following him as a speaker, throughout the State of Delaware and in some cases around the country. It is a tough act to follow and I wouldn't pretend to be able to do that.

Over the last 200 years that we have had a Senator, we have seen any number of great orators come here and speak in this Chamber, in some cases to mesmerize us, in other cases to inspire us and to change our minds. Joe has done all of those things again today and he does it perhaps as well as anybody.

People speak here today, as in the years in the past, and they quote Churchill; we quote John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King. I am surprised he didn't quote one of his favorite Irish poets, Seamus Heaney, I think. He quotes him a lot. But the person I think I have heard Joe quote the most in his life has been none of those folks, none of those Irish poets, but it has been his mom and his dad. I wish I could ask for a show of hands, how many times have you had Joe Biden say to you: I give you my word as a Biden. If we could count them all up today in this room and if we could get a dollar a week--maybe we couldn't pay for the stimulus package but make a pretty good downpayment. Many times I have heard him say--he quotes his dad--I will paraphrase it: It is a lucky man who gets up in the morning, puts his feet on the ground, and knows the work he is about to do has consequence, substance, is meaningful.

A guy doesn't turn out like this by chance--to become the youngest, not only one of the two youngest Senators elected in the history of our country, he is also the youngest seven-term Senator in the history of our country.

His mom is still living. She lives in a property close to Joe and Jill's home. His dad is deceased. But I know we owe them a huge debt of gratitude because the values they instilled in him, the need to serve other people, and the Golden Rule. This is a man of deep faith. You wouldn't always know it, he doesn't talk a lot about it, but this is a person whose life and values were shaped as much by his family and his faith as anybody I know. I know his parents taught him to treat other people the way he would like to be treated. That led to his great involvement and support of the Civil Rights Act and underlies everything he does today.

All of us have families. All of us love our families. I do not think I know anybody in public life or outside of public life who is more committed to and who loves his family any more than Joe: Jill, his first wife Neilia, whom I never had the pleasure of knowing--I tell you he has a wonderful wife Jill. It is clear he loves her with all his heart. The three kids are not kids anymore; they are in their thirties and twenties. Beau is over in Iraq today serving in the National Guard. But there is an extraordinary bond between a father and a child.

It has been said the greatest gift that a father can give to his children is to love their mother. He doesn't just love their mother, he loves the kids, he loves the grandchildren. This is a loving guy with a family that is as strong as any I have ever seen. You heard the old saying I would rather see a sermon than hear a sermon. When it comes to family values, you see the sermon. You don't just hear it, you see it. We see the sermon.

In politics, I like to say our friends come and go but our enemies accumulate. When you think about the people Joe has talked about here today, from Eastland to Jesse Helms to Senator Thurmond--he didn't mention Phil Gramm--you would never imagine a guy who has his convictions, his philosophy, his commitment to civil rights and other causes--you would never imagine he would become their friend, confidant--and not so much for them to change him, but for him to change them and in fact this country.

Joe, you have been part of the glue that holds this place together. As we have said goodbye to a lot of good men in the last several weeks, it is a real sort of sense, not of bitterness, not of sweetness, but maybe bittersweet that we say goodbye to you today. The 8 years I have been here, I know there have been a lot of times when we sought to try to make sure the Vice President didn't come and cast a tie-breaking vote. My guess is in the time you serve for Vice President--4 years or 8 years, however long it is going to be; I hope it is 8--my guess is there will be times we orchestrate the votes so you will have to be here. I don't know if we can do it in a way that will allow you to come to the floor and give another speech like you have just given. Maybe we can figure it out.

But as a friend, as we say goodbye and move on to this next assignment in life: God bless our President-elect. He has made a terrific choice not just from Delaware, which is hugely happy and excited, but I think for our country and I think for the world. But I want to say, for the last 8 years, thank you for being my friend, my confidant. Thank you for being my adviser. Thank you for asking for my advice from time to time and listening to my advice. To your staff that is gathered here today, and your family up in the balcony, thank you for sharing with us a wonderful human being, for nurturing and bringing him along. The staff has provided such terrific support, almost like an extension of my own staff. We love your family and we love your staff and we are going to miss you. Thank you for always having my back, and for looking out for me and for making possible the extraordinary experience as a junior Senator for the last 8 years.

I understand your resignation becomes effective, is it 5 p.m. today? As I look at this clock here, I know for the next 5 hours, 49 minutes, I get to be a junior Senator and then after that I move up in the pecking order. But I will always be your junior Senator and your colleague and I hope your friend. God bless you in all your life ahead and thank you for all you have done for us and for me especially. God bless you.