Floor Statements

I do. Can I ask for 5 minutes?

Mr. President, my thanks to Senator Dodd and Senator Lott. My thanks to Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins as well. By working together, they have speeded along reforms that I think most of us agree are badly needed. I am hopeful that the bipartisan approach that they have taken on this issue will rub off on the rest of us, not only with respect to this particular subject but with respect to others that are before us.

I am sure all of us have gone home and heard about how disappointed people are with what they see going on in parts of Washington these days. I think most Delawareans realize we are not all taking bribes and not all lobbyists are crooks. I certainly agree with them. I have met many more good people here during my time in the Senate than bad, and I am sure those sentiments are shared by my colleagues. But similar to those I have spoken to in recent months, news of the Abramoff scandal and of the bribing of Congressmen and their staffs have hit the papers and television news outside the beltway. I am gravely disappointed that our system can allow such excesses and disrespect for the people who sent us here.

The fact is, the American people have lost some of the trust they have placed in their leaders here in Washington. That is dangerous because, as we all know, a lot of the folks around our country did not have a whole lot of trust in us to begin with. That is why I am proud to support today the amendment offered by Senator Reid. It would add several provisions from the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act to the bill that is before us today.

Senator Reid's amendment would make a good bill even better. It would do so by ending certain practices that at the very least create among our constituents a perception of impropriety.

Along those lines, the Reid amendment would prohibit Members and staff from receiving gifts from registered lobbyists. Many offices, mine included, are already implementing this kind of reform. We will no longer accept meals, entertainment or any other gifts from lobbyists, and will abide by that standard until the Congress decides what the new standard should be.

The Reid amendment would also ban congressional travel funded by companies and other special interests that have business before the Senate. Senator Reid's proposals to end the practice of receiving gifts and privately funded travel from lobbyists are, in my opinion, reason enough to vote for this amendment. Unfortunately, we find ourselves at a time and place where even truly significant reforms will be met with skepticism by the American people. While none of us could be bought with a $50 meal, the all too common assumption is that any reform, any new restriction, any new guideline or rule will be written in such a way that Members, staff, and lobbyists will still have loopholes through which to operate.

Bans close all loopholes. In this case, the bans proposed in the Reid amendment would go a long way toward disabusing people of the notion that nothing will change as a result of the reforms that we are debating today.

Let me add one quick comment before I close. However good our rules are in the Senate or House, however well intentioned our rules are, it is critical that the rules be enforced. When we look at what has gone on in the House of Representatives over the last several years, a major problem there was not so much the rules but the failure to enforce the rules that exist, the failure to enforce them with respect to lobbyists and apparently with respect to Members of the House and with members of their staffs.

I hope our work on lobbying reform sends the signal to the American people that we are serious about restoring their trust in us and in this institution. As we all know, that trust is absolutely essential to the good health of our democracy and of our country.

I will yield my time.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 10 minutes of Senator Leahy's time be yielded to me.

Mr. President, in the next several hours, I expect we are going to have a critically important vote, a vote with respect to how we are going to proceed or not proceed with respect to the asbestos litigation reform. There is more at stake than a parliamentary squabble. This is a question to say whether we are going to continue to have a system where the people who are sick and dying from asbestos exposure are going to be quickly compensated for the harm that has been done to their bodies. And there is a question as to whether companies will be bankrupted by the dozens, and you continue to see that sort of thing happen. There is a question of whether we are going to continue to see a situation where a majority of the moneys that are paid out for damages end up not in the pockets of those who have been harmed or their families but in the pockets of others.

The status quo, in my judgment, is not acceptable. We have an opportunity today to take an important step toward improving that situation. The legislation before us today has evolved over the time that I have served in the Senate. A question that has been raised again and again, as it should be, is: Is the money that is going to be set aside in a trust fund that we propose to create adequate?

Earlier in our deliberations, the committee of jurisdiction, as they wrestled with this problem, trying to figure out

how much money to ask of the defendant companies, how much to ask of their insurers--initially, I think thought was given that a $90 billion trust fund would be adequate to compensate people whose breathing has been impaired by exposure to asbestos. Over time, we have seen that number raised from $90 billion to $100 billion, to $110 billion, to $120 billion, to $130 billion, and now to $140 billion. Still the question is asked, as it should be: Is even $140 billion adequate?

CBO has been asked to be the arbiter in this debate. They have come and testified a couple of times before the Judiciary Committee, and I guess they have provided letters as recently as yesterday and today to attempt to deal with this issue and this question: What do we do if we run out of money, if the $140 billion is not enough--with the moneys coming in over the next 30, 40 years, if it is not sufficient to meet the demands of the claims that ought to be paid? Concerns have been raised, sort of leading to this budget point of order, that in the end the responsibility may fall back on the taxpayers. It is a question that ought to be raised and a question that ought to be answered.

There is nothing in this bill that is before us today that stipulates that taxpayers should pay for any shortfall that may occur if the legitimate demand on funds exceeds the amount of funds paid into this trust fund that we propose to establish. There is nothing that stipulates that taxpayers would have an obligation or should have an obligation. In fact, the opposite is the case. The legislation clearly stipulates that any obligation to people who are harmed that exceeds the amount of money in the trust fund would not be borne by the taxpayers. CBO is not absolutely sure that $140 billion is the right number or $130 billion or $120 billion or maybe even $150 billion. But in reading the different letters they have submitted, and reading their testimony, they believe $140 billion is in the ballpark.

What if they should be wrong? What if more money needs to be funneled into the trust fund to meet legitimate claims? What does the trust fund do? The only reason this is a budgetary issue at all is because the moneys paid for by insurers and by defendants are going to go into a trust fund established and administered by the Department of Labor. That is why it is considered even remotely a Federal obligation-- because of the desire on the part of some, including those representing folks who have been injured, that the Department of Labor, that has been able to do this sort of thing and has experience in dealing with these kinds of issues, should play a role. It is because the Department of Labor is playing a role as a conduit through which moneys are paid from the private sector, through which moneys are paid to those who are harmed, that there is even a question of whether a budget point of order can be raised against the flow of funds or against this bill.

What if the moneys are not enough? What if $140 billion is not enough? What do we do? Some have suggested that we are going to go right into the taxpayers and ask them to pick up the tab. That is not the case. What will we do? First of all, there is a recognition that during the first 5 years of the trust fund, when there is going to be a lot of demand on the funds and moneys are going to be paid in by insurers and defendants, there is going to be a shortfall. That is freely acknowledged, I think, by everyone.

With that expectation, there is an opportunity spelled out in the bill for the fund administrator to go to the Federal Finance Bank to borrow moneys against future revenues of the fund--payments by defendants, payments by insurers--to seek those from the Federal Finance Bank. I might add that the cost of Federal funds probably available through that funding mechanism is probably 5 percent in today's environment, maybe even less than that. Some have said that we are so short, so far off target that we are looking for a shortfall of $150 billion or $200 billion or $300 billion over the life of this fund.

Let's say, in the first 5 years, there is a shortfall, and say it is $10 billion a year. I don't know if that is right; it may be high or low. So if there is a $10 billion shortfall and the fund administrator has to go to the Federal Finance Bank and borrow the money--$10 billion for year one and $10 billion for year two and up through year five, at a rate of 5 percent a year for 5 years; how much money would that amount to with respect to the debt service? Well, 5 percent of $10 billion is about a half-billion dollars through year two. So it is roughly $2.5 billion at the end of the 5-year period. That is not a debt service cost of $50 billion or $100 billion or $150 billion. That is a debt service cost of about $2.5 billion. That is a reasonable amount of money that may be needed to borrow from the Federal Finance Bank.

Who has to pay that back? The folks who are paying into the trust fund have to pay it back. The insurers and the defendants have an obligation to repay the money, through the fund administrator, back to the Federal Finance Bank. They have that responsibility.

What if the amount of money that is coming into the trust fund is not repaid--and each year there is an obligation, I think, of $3 billion a year for the defendant companies that had an obligation and have been paying these claims in the past--cumulatively and in the aggregate they have to pay something like $3 billion a year into the fund. What if they are not paying enough and they have an obligation of $90 billion over 30 years? Maybe they are only paying $2.5 billion a year. What can be done about that?

Under this bill, the fund administrator has the discretion to impose a surcharge on the defendant companies to make sure their $3 billion-a- year obligation is being met. What happens, though, if, despite that discretion that might be used and the ability to borrow money for short periods of time from the Federal Finance Bank--what if it becomes clear that there is not enough money coming into this trust fund to pay the claims that are going to be needed? Do we leave people, the victims, the folks who are suffering from an impairment of their breathing who have been exposed to asbestos--do we hang them out to dry? No.

Under the language of the bill--and this is in large part due to the work of Senator Dianne Feinstein--if it becomes clear that people are not going to have a chance to be made whole by the trust fund because it runs out of money, we revert back to the tort system. And folks who have a claim, if they are not going to get satisfied through the fund itself, will go back into the tort system. They can go back into the State where they live, and they can go back to the tort system in the State where they were harmed or they can go back into Federal Court.

There is no obligation that falls on the taxpayers. I believe the committee has done a good job of trying to make sure that at the end of the day the money needed to pay these benefits is adequate. And if, for some reason, it is not, they provide a number of steps along the way that could be taken to provide the funding that is needed, either in the first 5 years or in the years subsequent to that.

If, in the end, it is recognized that this dog is not going to hunt or this fund we are creating is not up to doing the job of meeting the need to pay the claims, we go back into the tort system, and folks will have the opportunity, in their State and their courts or in the State where they were damaged or in a Federal court, to be made whole. Is this perfect? No, it is not. I will tell you this. From the day we started this bill about 2 years ago, 3 years ago, it has sure gotten a lot better. My guess is that it is going to get better still.

I thank Senators Specter and Leahy for their willingness to listen to us and work with us and develop amendments. If you look at the managers' amendment, they have tried to accommodate the concerns that lot of us have raised. Are there more amendments that could be offered? You bet there are. My hope is to be able to support some of those, and I suspect some of my colleagues will as well.

I will tell you what is not acceptable. A system is not acceptable where we have people who are harmed, where their breathing is impaired and they are sick and dying, and for them not to be able to get the money they deserve and their family deserves quickly. What is not acceptable is a system that exists--and for years it has existed--where people who have been exposed to

asbestos, whose breathing is not impaired, and who may never be impaired, for them to be receiving payments and siphoning off money that ought to be going to people who are sick and, in many cases, dying from asbestos-related illnesses. What is not acceptable is a situation where, in a day and age when we are losing manufacturing jobs not by the tens of thousands or by the hundreds of thousands but by the millions, for us to turn our backs on what is a hard-fought and, I think, well-crafted, much-improved proposal to get us to where we need to go.

With that, Mr. President, I yield back whatever time I have not consumed.

Mr. President, today I rise to recognize the lifetime of accomplishments of Dr. Robert W. Gore, who was recently inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

In 1957, during his sophomore year at the University of Delaware, Bob Gore came up with the idea of using polytetraflouroethylene, PTFE, to insulate wire. Little did he know how this seemingly simple idea would impact everything from supercomputers to Arctic exploration.

In 1958, Bob's parent's, W.L. ``Bill'' Gore and his wife Genevieve, began W.L. Gore & Associates in the basement of their Delaware home. Bill was a research chemist at DuPont and, based on Robert's idea, developed and patented a process for insulating wire with PTFE.

Bob Gore went on to graduate from the University of Delaware 2 years later and joined his parents in developing and expanding their home business. After an order for 7\1/2\ miles of insulated cable from the city of Denver, W.L. Gore & Associates opened their first manufacturing plant in Newark, DE, in 1961.

In 1969, insulated cables from W.L. Gore & Associates were used during the

first moon landing, connecting seismic readers to the landing craft during Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk. Also in 1969, Dr. Gore began manufacturing cables for use in high-tech supercomputers.

While many people would be satisfied with having one of the most successful and cutting-edge companies in America, Bob Gore and his parents continued to explore the possibilities of polytetraflouroethylene. In 1975, a spinoff of this compound, called expanded polytetraflouroethylene, ePTFE, was used to develop vascular grafts that heart surgeons around the world still rely on today. Recognized for exceptional performance and quality, they have earned the endorsement of renowned surgeons worldwide and are credited with saving countless lives.

In 1976, Bob Gore took the reigns as CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates. This same year, the company received its first order for GORE-TEX fabric, which was the first fabric that was both waterproof and breathable. Initially used to make rainwear, this groundbreaking fabric would revolutionize the clothing industry and forever change how people interacted with their environments.

In 1990, GORE-TEX proved its toughness in the wilds of Antarctica. An international team of explorers wore GORE-TEX outerwear while traversing the polar continent. After braving the wilds of this hostile environment, one member of the team credited the revolutionary fabric with saving his life.

Besides the cutting-edge innovation and consistent quality that W.L. Gore & Associates provides to its customers, the organization has consistently been ranked as one of the ``100 Best Companies to Work For'' by Fortune magazine. This honor is especially significant when you think about the impact that a good corporate environment has on the health and well-being of its employees. The morale and team structure that W.L. Gore & Associates uses in its day-to-day work environment helps ensure that their employees continue to provide the world with cutting-edge products that make our lives easier and better.

Bob Gore was named to the University of Delaware's College of Distinguished Alumni in 1990 and was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 1995. In 2005, Dr. Gore was awarded the Perkin Medal, which is considered to be one of the most prestigious awards for applied chemistry.

By fostering an environment where people are free to test the boundaries of innovation, Bob Gore has created a workplace that encourages energy, enthusiasm, and creativity. Whether it is extreme weather clothing, surgical components, or guitar strings, the employees of W.L. Gore & Associates never settle for second best. The leadership of Dr. Gore has made this possible, and all of Delaware is proud that he continues to make sure that the First State remains a leader in innovative products.

While I fully support efforts by the Postal Service to rationalize its processing operations, I also believe that the Postal Service can engage in consolidation decisions that are rational and justified and can withstand public scrutiny. I believe that this language will improve the consolidation process, and I was pleased to work with my colleague from Iowa in drafting it. I believe that the language strikes the appropriate balance by not stopping the Postal Service from studying proposed consolidations of particular facilities, while at the same time requiring the Postal Service to meet some basic obligations to its customer and affected communities before a consolidation can be implemented.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the life of Coretta Scott King, who peacefully left this world on Monday, January 30, 2006, at the age of 78.

Coretta Scott King was born on April 27, 1927, in Marion, AL, during a time of great social injustice. Despite the many barriers that society had placed in front of her, she refused to let hate and prejudice stand in the way of her dreams. She was valedictorian of her graduating class at Lincoln High School and went on to receive a B.A. in music and education from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH. She also earned a degree in voice and violin at Boston University's New England Conservatory of Music. It was during this time that she met Martin Luther King, Jr., who was then studying for his doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University. They married on June 18, 1953, and began their lives together in Montgomery, AL.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., began his civil rights work, Mrs. King worked closely with him by organizing marches and arranging sit- ins at segregated restaurants to draw attention to the unfairness of Jim Crow laws. She also played a central role behind the scenes of many of the major civil rights campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s. She was by her husband's side when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and walked by his side during the infamous march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 that eventually led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Mrs. King also performed in ``Freedom Concerts'' where she would sing songs and read poetry to help raise money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that Dr. King led during the civil rights movement.

Following her husband's death on April 4, 1968, Mrs. King demonstrated remarkable strength and courage by continuing the struggle to bring equality to all Americans. She established the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to her husband and his dream of social equality. During the 1980s, Mrs. King participated in a series of sit-in protests to highlight the inequality of South Africa's racial policies.

Mrs. King also led the campaign to establish Dr. King's birthday as a national holiday. In 1983, Congress instituted the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission, which she chaired during its duration. And on January 20, 1986, the Nation celebrated the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal holiday.

Mrs. King has received honorary doctorates from more than 60 colleges and universities, has authored three books and has served on, and helped found, dozens of organizations including the Black Leadership Forum, the National Black Coalition for Voter Participation, and the Black Leadership Roundtable.

I rise today to celebrate the life and accomplishments of Mrs. Coretta Scott King. As wife, mother, social activist, musician, and author, she used her words and actions to spread the message of racial equality and justice throughout the world. I hope that her vision, as well as the vision of her late husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will continue to live on in all of us through our work and our deeds.

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

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, later this afternoon, in fact about 3\1/2\ hours, we will gather in the Senate to vote on a motion to proceed to take up and begin debate on legislation that is designed--imperfect legislation but well intended--to ensure that people who have been exposed to asbestos who become sick, whose breathing is impaired from that sickness, will have an opportunity to be compensated for their impairment. As their impairment worsens, if it does, they would be in a position to be compensated further. The legislation also is intended to try to ensure that more money that is paid--if you go by defendants and insurance companies--ends up in the pockets of those victims and of their families.

The question is, Why are we taking this up now? One of the reasons we are taking this up now is because the Supreme Court has been saying, at least since 1997, with Justices including, I believe, Justice Ginsburg and maybe more recently Justice Souter, that the issue of asbestos litigation is one that needs to be resolved by Congress, not by the Court. It is appropriate that finally we are taking this on.

My own experience and involvement with asbestos litigation reform goes back to 2001, when I was called upon by an old friend who had ended up becoming a CEO of a company I had never heard of called Federal-Mogul. Federal-Mogul is a company headquartered in Michigan that manufactures, among other things, Champion spark plugs and a lot of other products. He had become CEO in 2001 and was in Washington and told me about it. I congratulated him and said good luck, and said if I can be of service, let me know. He called me back in about 6 months. He said: Remember, you said if I could ever be of assistance to let you know. We have a problem at Federal-Mogul. And he came back to explain what it was all about.

Apparently, Federal-Mogul acquired a number of years before, long before my friend became CEO, a British company that had an exposure to asbestos, and because of that exposure, Federal-Mogul was drawn into asbestos litigation lawsuits by folks whose health had been damaged, I believe, by the British subsidiary that I think was owned and sold by Federal-Mogul in a relatively short period of time.

At the time, I took my friend around to meet with the two Senators from Michigan, Senator Levin and Senator Stabenow. They were good enough to meet with him. I also took him over to meet with the then- chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and asked Chairman Leahy to meet with the CEO from Federal-Mogul. He did. The long and short of it is Federal-Mogul went into bankruptcy. They have come out of bankruptcy, but a lot of the shareholders who owned stock in the company lost a good deal. Folks who had been employees, pensioners who had their money in 401(k) plans, lost a fair amount of their money if it was invested in company stock. The company ended up with fewer employees than it had in the first place.

Along about the same time I had another visit, this from a trial lawyer who represented, and I presume still represents, people who have been exposed to asbestos in their work and have developed a fatal disease called mesothelioma. This attorney came to say that the system, as it existed in either 2001 or 2002, was not working, and the folks he represented who were sick and dying, many who die within a year or so, were not receiving the help they and their families needed--at least not promptly. And a good deal of the moneys paid by defendants ended up in the pockets of people such as him, the attorney.

He said people who are sick and dying ought to get the money they need, generously; they should get it now. The folks who have been exposed to asbestos but who are not sick and do not have an impairment should not get anything now and folks such as I,

maybe, should get a little bit less in terms of the moneys paid by defendants to victims.

That was how I was introduced to this issue. I did not come to the Senate to be involved in civil justice reform or particularly asbestos litigation reform, but I did come with a number of core values. I think we all did. Among the core values I brought was to try to figure out what is the right thing to do: Try to treat other people the way I want to be treated, try to use a little bit of common sense.

We have been joined in the Senate by Senator Hatch, who preceded and later succeeded Senator Leahy as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He has worked, as has Senator Leahy, and as has the current chairman, Senator Specter of the Judiciary Committee, to try to improve the legislation that was introduced years ago, maybe even before I came here in 2001, initially.

What was originally introduced was not a static use of legislation. It was not the Ten Commandments. It was not carved into stone. It was a legislative proposal. Over time, it has been changed and has been improved and, frankly, I believe it can be improved further. I will talk a little bit about some of the improvements that have been made over time to the earlier legislation and some further changes I would like to see made and would expect to support those changes.

Before I do that, let me back up for a moment and say some Members worked on class action reform legislation which was enacted and signed by the President early last year. Again, Senator Hatch was a leader in that effort. I was involved, to some extent, along with some of my colleagues, including Senators Dodd, Schumer, and Kohl, among others on our side, working with our colleagues on the Republican side.

The history of class action reform goes back to the 1990s. The idea behind class action reform legislation was to try to come up with a legislative approach to make sure, when little people are harmed by big companies or by small companies--harmed not that they lose their arm, leg or eyesight but harmed in a material way--that those little people have the opportunity to be made whole but, at the same time, to make sure, when the class action lawsuit is filed by a group of people that are drawn into a plaintiff class, the defendants have the opportunity to be defended or have their case heard in a courtroom or before a judge so the defendant, as well as the plaintiff, can be given a fair shake.

That legislation was introduced in the 1990s, reintroduced in subsequent Congresses, debated in committee, voted on in committee, and reported out of committee. Class action literally came to the floor, I think, on at least two occasions where we were unable to get the votes for cloture to end debate and to go on to final debate and passage with an up-or-down vote on the bill.

That process, though, where legislation is introduced, maybe over several Congresses, is debated within the appropriate committees, voted on in those committees, amended in those committees, reported out to the Senate, and debated here, amended here, I call that regular order. That is what we call regular order.

When the final compromise was agreed to on class action, including the bipartisan group I alluded to a few minutes ago, we struck an agreement amongst ourselves, an agreement with the House of Representatives that if we would not amend or change that compromise that we struck on class action, the House would accept our proposal, the House would not change one word. As a result, we, the drafters, if you will, of the final compromise on class action reform opposed, for the most part, all amendments. I think I supported one offered by Senator Feingold. But no amendments were approved. No amendments were attached to the bill. The bill passed with a bipartisan majority and was sent to the House of Representatives. They adopted it lock, stock, and barrel.

What I want to see happen on asbestos litigation legislation is that we proceed with regular order. In fact, we have been proceeding with regular order. But there is a difference between asbestos litigation on the floor and class action on this Senate floor a year or so ago. Here is the difference: There is no agreement amongst the bipartisan group that I talked about earlier to pass an unamended bill. As I said a few moments ago, this is not a perfect bill, it is an imperfect bill, but it is a whole lot better than it was when it started out. In my view, it can be made better still.

I would like to see us soon--we vote today at 6 o'clock on the motion to proceed to the bill. My hope is Democrats and Republicans, a majority of us, 60 or more, will vote to proceed to the bill, to debate the bill, offer amendments, debate those amendments, vote on those amendments, and then to see how the bill takes shape during the course of the debate in the week or so ahead.

Let me mention, briefly, some of the improvements that have been made in the bill over what was introduced maybe back in the late 1990s or the earlier part of this decade.

First of all, serious questions were raised, and are still raised, about the size of the trust fund that will be created. Moneys paid into it by defendant companies, roughly $90 billion; by insurers, about $46 billion; by trust funds and others, $4 billion--adding up to, roughly, about $140 billion. That is almost 50 percent more in the trust fund than I think was originally anticipated just a few years ago. So I would suggest one of the improvements that has been made in this bill is just the adequacy of the trust fund.

There is a second thing that I would suggest has been an improvement made in this bill over maybe an earlier version. Now, $140 billion is a lot of money, but there is a history of the trust funds set up to help asbestos victims, there is a history of them, in some cases, running out of money. So what happens if we have a trust fund that is set up where everybody who, in the future, wants to file a claim has to go to the trust fund for an administrative solution and the fund runs out of money? What do we do then?

What we do then is really take the path suggested by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. In anticipation of just that kind of problem down the road, she offered language, which was adopted and made part of this bill, which says if the trust fund runs out of money at some point down the line and it does not look as if we are going to have enough money in the trust fund any time soon to pay victims' claims, then those victims can return to the tort system. They can go back into court in the State in which they live. They can go back into court in the State where they were injured. Or they can go back into the tort system in Federal courts.

Another area where I think improvement has been made deals with folks who have been injured, where they have been receiving workers' compensation, and now they will, in the coming months or years--if we establish this fund--have the opportunity to file a claim with the asbestos trust fund. The question was: Well, can a person receive money out of the trust fund and also have received previously workers' comp or currently receive workers' compensation funds? Or do they have to pay that back somehow out of the money they receive from the trust fund?

I think the authors of the bill, wisely, and the committee, wisely, said no. If the person is receiving workers' comp from a separate source of funds, they can keep that. It does not have to be reclaimed or repaid. And the claimant, the victim, can then also receive the moneys from the trust fund that we would set up, establish under this legislation.

If you look at the legislation, a fourth improvement deals with something called medical monitoring. But if you look at the legislation, there are a number of levels of impairment, starting with level I, and I think going up to level IX. And there may be some various gradations within each of those levels.

Level I is something called medical monitoring. It has been a matter of some contention. Some of the companies, some of the defendants, some of the insurance companies were very skittish and reluctant, understandably so, given the history of some of the ways people were recruited to file some, not all but some, asbestos claims in the past. They were concerned the medical monitoring might be an effort to recruit all kinds of people to file claims on the trust fund.

But medical monitoring is included as level I for impairment. And level I means a person has been exposed to asbestos--maybe in their work or another part of their environment--but they do not have an impairment, there is no discernible impairment that we can attribute to asbestos. But by establishing medical monitoring, what we say to those who have been exposed, who do not have an impairment, at least we acknowledge you could have a problem down the road, and we are going to provide, every year or two, for the opportunity for someone--a health professional who really does know their business--to examine that victim and see whether any impairment has developed. If so, they can go through other levels and become eligible for sums of money, from several tens of thousands of dollars to over $1 million in the worst cases.

A fifth improvement I think has been made deals with what are called exigent claims. Those are claims filed traditionally by people who have mesothelioma, the disease I talked about earlier, caused by asbestos, solely by asbestos exposure. We know mesothelioma victims, folks, are going to die, unfortunately, and not a pleasant death, and die fairly soon, generally within less than a year.

For exigent claims like that, or other people who are believed by doctors to be in a terminal situation where their lifespan is less than a year, those claims, under this improved version of the bill, will be treated on an expedited basis. I believe that is an improvement.

There are other improvements. I mention one: silica claims. There are mixed death claims that are not just asbestos. They might be silica. A good thing that happened last year during the course of the committee's hearings is they brought in medical experts and actually talked to them and listened to the medical experts talk about: What do the x rays look like for people who have been exposed to asbestos as opposed to those who have been exposed to silica?

We know people can die from both, do die from both. But as it turns out, if we establish an asbestos trust fund, and someone has been exposed maybe to asbestos but does not have the markings from asbestos, and someone has been exposed to silica, and they have the impairment that relates to silica, can they come to the trust fund and be made whole out of the asbestos trust fund? The answer is no. The silica victims are welcome to go back into the tort system, to stay in the tort system. Again, there is apparently a real difference in the appearance of the x rays of the lungs of people who have been exposed to asbestos who have asbestosis and those who have lung disease that has been caused by silica.

Those are some of the improvements that have been made to the bill. I want to mention maybe one or two others that I think ought to be made and have been drawn to my attention, and I suspect to most of our colleagues' attention as well.

One deals with the startup provisions and the steps we need to take to help ensure the trust fund is set up and running quickly and efficiently. We are on a tight time period, a tight timeframe. There is a whole lot of work that is going to be done that we have not done, at least not with asbestos. It is going to be a real challenge to the Department of Labor getting the right people to run this operation and assembling the money quickly and putting in place a system that is user friendly and will actually provide relief to a lot of victims.

I believe there are some further steps we will debate on the floor and, hopefully, be able to adopt.

Some folks from the insurance industry have shared with me, and I am sure shared with others, the concern they have about potential leakage issues, as people file claims in the tort system for alleging impairment of breathing from exposure to asbestos. And the question is, At what point do we say to the victim, to the plaintiff, you have to go into the trust fund or you may continue through the tort system? There are concerns raised by the insurance industry that we, frankly, have not done the kind of job that needs to be done with respect to what they call leakage in the system. That is one we want to revisit and consider.

I am not an attorney. We all know people who are. I have a concern, and I know it is a concern shared by others, that if we cap it at 5 percent, the amount of money that can go to an attorney, in some cases that is adequate. This is a system that is not designed to, frankly, need a whole lot of assistance. And, hopefully, some people will be able to go through this system and apply for money from the trust fund and receive their claim, their payment without the assistance of an attorney or anybody else.

But in some cases you are going to have an attorney who has worked for not just months but maybe a couple of years to help prepare a case to be heard in a court, only to find that before they could actually bring the case to a judge and jury and have a verdict, they are cut off because of the establishment of this trust fund. In that case, where you may have had attorneys work for months or a couple years, to say that person can only receive a 5-percent payment out of the payment from the fund, I think, is just unfair.

Again, it goes back to one of my core values I talked about earlier: treat other people the way we want to be treated. If I were the attorney and I had actually done work for a couple of years, I would want to be paid more than 5 percent of, say, a million dollars for the work I had done. Attorneys today, not uncommonly, get 25, 30, 35, 40 percent in attorney's fees for the work they do in conjunction with these victims. I am not suggesting we have those kinds of payments to attorneys, but I would suggest maybe the better part of valor is to say that the attorneys could receive 5 percent, and in cases where they have done work give the administrator of the fund the discretion to provide something in addition, something on top of, above the 5-percent cap--at the discretion of the administrator. And maybe we want to cap it at 20 percent or something like that. But I would suggest that is a fair thing to do and a just thing to do, particularly where an attorney has done a great deal of work.

Let me close by saying this. I came here, like I think all my colleagues, because I wanted to get things done. I want to right wrongs and try to help people as best we can. Sometimes it is best for people who are hurt to take those grievances to the courts, and to address, through the judicial system, the wrongs they believe they have incurred. The highest Court in our land, the Supreme Court, has said on several occasions in the last decade, we have a problem with asbestos litigation that needs the attention of the Congress and the President and we should try to improve on a situation that is flawed.

I am an old Navy guy and spent a number of years of my life as a naval officer, and not as much time on ships. I spent a little time on ships. I know a lot of folks served in the military--and a lot of them were in the Navy who served on ships--who were exposed to asbestos, had their breathing impaired, and, in a number of cases, died.

They are not in a position to go into court and sue the Federal Government to be made whole. They can get some help through the VA system, and they have, but they are not in a position to receive the kind of payments and recovery of damages that others have been able to in the courts because private sector employers have been sued as defendants by victims, and those victims cannot sue the Federal Government. Under this legislation, a veteran from any part of the armed services who is precluded from receiving much in the way of damages will now have the opportunity to go into the same trust fund and apply for the same dollar payments that any other person who has been injured could apply for. As a veteran, that is especially noteworthy. It goes a long way to explaining why so many veterans groups strongly support this legislation.

Again, what is our goal? Our goal is to try to make sure that when people have been exposed to asbestos for an extended period of time, when their health has been damaged, that they have an opportunity to receive some compensation for that harm, to try to do so in a way that is prompt and where the amounts of money they can receive actually vary from fairly modest, when the impairment is slight, to rather substantial when the impairment is substantial or maybe life threatening. We want to do this in a way where we put more money in the pockets of victims and their families

and in a way that acknowledges the work that is done by attorneys when they have done a considerable amount of work in preparing for a case that then ends up in the trust fund.

Is this bill perfect as it comes to us today? We have been joined on the floor by the chairman of the committee. I thank him and those with whom he serves, certainly Senator Leahy. I also want to say a word about Judge Becker, former chief judge of the Third Circuit, who has worked very hard as a mediator to try to help us get to a better place with this legislation. I have met a lot of people in my life, but here is a man who suffers from very serious health problems himself. He has non-Hodgkins lymphoma and is in his early seventies. He travels from Philadelphia on the train, pays for his own way. When he spends a night here, he stays in a hotel and pays his own way. He pays for his own meals. He does all this work because he believes it is the right thing do to--and it is.

For all who have been working on this for a lot longer than I have to get us to this point in time, we need to vote at 6 o'clock to proceed to the bill, debate it, change the parts we think need to be changed, and go forth from there.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I was joking earlier with the occupant of the chair, and I said I would like to be recognized so I could tell you what I thought of the President's State of the Union message last night. I appreciate the chance to offer some thoughts and comments.

First of all, the Presiding Officer may recall that when he kicked off his speech, he called for a return to civility. That is called for around here from time to time. Sometimes it is called for earnestly and other times it is something that we just say. I hope that it was offered in earnest and that all of us, Democrats and Republicans, will respond in like kind. I always found that in my old job in Delaware as Governor, I got a lot more done when we were civil to one another. Regarding the kinds of issues before us that the President talked about last night, if we are going to be successful, we need to do that.

One of things I have been calling for, for I guess about a year or 2 now, ever since the President laid out his Social Security reform initiatives, was the notion of, if we are making progress on something as politically explosive as Social Security reform, it would be helpful to go back in time maybe 23 years to when President Reagan was President and Tip O'Neill was Speaker of the House. At the time, I was elected to the House of Representatives, where the Presiding Officer also served. In 1982, when I got there, we learned that Social Security was about to go bankrupt and that we needed to do something not to ward off the problem in 10, 15, 20, or 25 years but that next year, in 1983, because we were going to run out of money to pay benefits to our seniors. What President Reagan and Tip O'Neill did and maybe the Democratic leader of the Senate, who may have at the time been our colleague, Robert Byrd--I am not sure--they created a commission chaired by Alan Greenspan.

The members included people such as Senator Robert Dole, whose wife serves with us now, and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, now deceased. He was chairman of the Finance Committee, either then or at a later time. It also included Claude Pepper, from Florida, chairman of the Aging Committee in the House, and a number of other notable people. So Alan Greenspan chaired the Commission. They went to work in 1982 and came up with a whole raft of ideas. The Commission endorsed them in total.

We endorse all these ideas to raise revenues, to slow the outflow of spending from the Social Security trust funds. Because they embraced the ideas in total, it gave the rest of us cause to believe that maybe there is some merit to them.

Not only that, President Reagan said we are going to take the politics out of this. If you, the House and Senate, pass this package, I will sign it. Ronald Reagan, a Republican President, gave political coverage to the Democrats in the House and Senate. Tip O'Neill and the majority leader of the Senate gave political coverage to the Republicans. I describe it as drinking the Kool-Aid together, holding hands and jumping off the bridge together.

We passed a major overhaul of Social Security, and the President signed it into law. It put Social Security on firm footing, not just in 1983 but for a couple of decades to come. We know, looking down the road in 20, 30 years, we will have a serious problem with Social Security. The sooner we get started on it, the better off we all will be.

It reminds me a little bit of compounded interest. Save a little, and as time goes by, it adds up to a lot of savings. To the extent we can get started on Social Security sooner rather than later, it will help us more quickly than we might imagine.

As worrisome as the Social Security trust funds may be, the Medicare trust fund is an even greater, more urgent problem that needs to be addressed. I was very pleased to hear the President say last night not only a blue-ribbon commission with an eye toward the

boomers and their effect on retirement but also Medicare and Medicaid. As you know, more than half the money we spend in Medicaid ends up with senior citizens in long-term care facilities. So I think that was a very good thing.

Going back to the President's call for civility, a bipartisan approach, unless we have it, this kind of deal may see the light of day, but we will never make any progress on it. And, frankly, we need to make progress on it for the sake of our parents and for the sake of our children and grandchildren, some of whom are the ages of the pages sitting in front of me today.

The President also lamented the fact that we have this terrible addiction to imported oil and that we have to do something about it. That was great. In fact, when John Kerry was running for President, one of the centerpieces of his campaign was energy independence I think by 2020, or something such as that. The President echoed some of the same concerns last night in his speech. I welcome those. People on our side welcome them as well.

It is important we not just say the words but we go forward and make sure we fund the technology initiatives and other initiatives that will help make renewable energy a reality, not just biodiesel and ethanol, but that we do a better job than we are doing now on solar energy, wind, and geothermal.

The President also mentioned last night a new generation, not just encouraging more wind, solar, soy, diesel, ethanol, and so forth, but he also called for a new generation of nuclear powerplants. I know people have concern about the waste, and we should, but I also think we ought to be smart enough to figure out in the next 10 to 20 years what to do with the waste, how to recycle and better control it and reduce the threat that someone will get hold of it and turn it into nuclear weapons. We are too smart a people not to solve that problem.

The President mentioned in his speech--I was kind of concerned by this--I think he said let's replace 75 percent of our oil dependence on the Middle East by 2025. I don't think all our oil comes from the Middle East. I think 60 percent is imported today, not all from the Middle East. A lot comes from other places around the world. To say we are going to reduce our oil from the Middle East is not good enough and I don't think good enough to do it by 2025. It is my hope that we can move up that timetable sooner and maybe eradicate not only our dependence on oil from the Middle East but from other places outside our borders as well.

The President talked about affordable health care. The cost of health care is killing our competitiveness as a nation. One of the reasons-- not the only reason--but one of the reasons why GM and Ford are struggling, losing money, laying people off, and closing plants is the huge legacy costs they carry with their pensions and health care costs for their employees today and for people who are retired.

GM alone provides health insurance for about a million people--folks working in the plants and their families, people who used to work in the plants and are retired. It is about a million people. Some folks describe GM and some of these auto companies as basically a health care provider that happens to build cars and trucks on the side. I know they say that with tongue in cheek, but it is not far off the mark.

A couple things the President mentioned I think made a lot of sense. One was electronic records. For a lot of people, it doesn't mean much. I will use an example.

We had hearings this morning on Katrina, a followup to what went wrong and what didn't go wrong on the heels of Katrina in New Orleans. When most people were evacuated--and we spent a fair amount of time this morning talking in our hearing about the evacuation of people who were in nursing homes and how it didn't go well. A lot of times people who were in nursing homes ended up in places outside Louisiana. Frankly, the people who received them in other nursing homes and other hospitals did not have a clue what medicines these folks were taking, they didn't know what their lab tests were, they didn't know the condition they were in. They had no real record of their x-rays or their MRIs. Basically, all these older people were dumped in the laps of these nursing homes and hospitals outside the gulf coast. It was a mess.

Compare and contrast that with the folks who are veterans and are being cared for by the VA in VA nursing homes and hospitals in the same area. When they were transferred to their new sites and other States surrounding the gulf coast, going with them, figuratively and literally, were their electronic health records. When they ended up in a new hospital or nursing home, the receiving entity knew they had the medical history of this veteran. They knew what medicines they were taking. They knew what their lab tests were, MRIs, x-rays. They had a running history of the health care provided to these veterans. The veterans had an electronic health care record.

We have a similar system put in place for Active-Duty folks in the Department of Defense. When I was in the Navy, we carried around manila folders that literally had our health care records. We would take them from station to station, base to base, as we were transferred. We don't do that anymore. Frankly, we do something similar to that in civilian life. We ought not do it.

My little State of Delaware is trying to provide something similar to that. It is called the Delaware Health Information Network. That would allow everybody in our State to have an electronic health record. If you go into a hospital or doctor's office, they can figure out a little bit about your health history and how they can provide better care for you.

We obviously need to do that for our country. The Congress and the President can do something to help that. It is not just money either. It is having standards so we are basically singing off the same sheet of music. People who go to a hospital in South Dakota, North Dakota, or Delaware can have standards that are interoperable, systems that are interoperable and using the same standards so we can get good care, better care because the folks receiving us know something about our medical history.

The President talked about health savings accounts. They are about a year or so old. He talked about ideas to make them better. I know not everybody is crazy about health savings accounts. I know it is not a silver bullet, but it is part of the solution to provide health care help for those who don't have health care insurance, which is about 45 million people. It is an option that we can try to improve.

I want to mention one last point. Here on the Senate floor not too long ago, I was with our colleague, Lamar Alexander from Tennessee. He is a very thoughtful guy. Senator Alexander shared with me an idea that grew out of the National Academy of Sciences. It is an idea of looking ahead and figuring out how we are going to provide job opportunities for children who are the same age as my children--15, 17, the age of these pages. I guess they are about 15, 16, 17 years old as well.

The folks at the National Academy of Sciences came up with this idea. Senator Alexander was good enough to give this to me, Mr. President. I don't know if you have seen this. It is titled ``Rising above the Gathering Storm.'' It is the executive summary, a quick read. I commend it to everybody. When I heard the President talking about his idea last night of making sure our young people coming out of our high schools are better steeped in math and science and making sure the people teaching in our schools can actually teach math and science--I think the President said double the investments in technology that lead to innovation. I said that sounds vaguely familiar to me.

As it turns out, it is basically in the recommendations shared with me by Senator Alexander that came out of the work done by the National Academy of Sciences. It is good stuff.

As we look forward, trying to figure out how we are going to be competitive with the rest of the world in this century, I am not sure we have all the answers. Part of it is, frankly, making health care more affordable for our people and employers. That is part of it. Part of it also is making sure our kids, our students, our young people who walk out of our high schools and colleges and go off into the world can read, write, think, they can do math, they know science, and are familiar with technology. There are a lot of good ideas in this publication, and I

think the President has embraced this proposal and we, as Democrats and Republicans, might want to do the same.

P.S., sometimes we say things in speeches that sound good and a lot of people stand up and applaud and say: That is right, that is good, I like that. But the followthrough is not always there. It is important, if we are going to go down this road--and we probably should--that the followthrough be there.

What do I mean by that? The President is going to submit a budget proposal to us in about a week or so. It will be interesting to see how the administration funds these initiatives. When we go through the budget process, at the end of the day--we will adopt our appropriations bills later this year--it will be interesting to see how hard the administration pushes for these kinds of provisions outlined in the proposal from last night and from the National Academy of Sciences. It will be interesting to see what the administration proposes next year and the year after that and the year after that and how hard they push for funding.

I will be watching, and to the extent the administration wants to support these proposals, I suspect they will have my support and probably the support of other Democrats and Republicans. It would be nice not just to hear words from the President but deeds as well.

I say to the Presiding Officer, I don't know how he felt about the President's speech last night. I didn't catch his interviews. I know he did them. I did them back in Delaware, and they don't cover much in South Dakota either or in Washington, for that matter. I heard encouraging things in what the President said. I wanted to mention those.

I will close. I know the Senator from North Dakota is waiting for me to get out of his way so he can take the floor as well. I will close with this. Just about every Member of the Senate has been over to Iraq in the last year or so. I was in Iraq in December. I met with our military leaders, I met with our civilian leaders, and I met with Iraqi military leaders and Iraqi civilian leaders. I was encouraged on several fronts.

It was just before they had their elections. It was encouraging we had so many people wanting to run for the parliamentary seats--275 seats and 7,000 candidates. That is a pretty amazing outcome in terms of participation, trying to put a coalition government together, stand it up, rewrite their constitution, build the economy. That is a whole lot to do at once in the middle of an insurgency.

One of the more encouraging comments I had was from GEN George Casey. We were talking about whether the Iraqis are able to stand up, take on more of the fight, cover the responsibilities geographically and otherwise. We got an encouraging report, not one that said we are going to be able to leave in 6 months, 12 months, or even 24 months. But in General Casey's words, what he said with reference to our presence in Iraq is it is time for us, the United States, to start moving toward the door.

Our President has said consistently that when the Iraqis are ready to stand up militarily, we, the United States, will be ready to stand down. He has been pretty consistent in saying that. What I heard from our own military leaders there, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is that the Iraqis are able to militarily stand up in ways this year that they could not a year ago: Battalions can lead the fight, and there are some that can actually go out and fend for themselves; how the Iraqis control the border with Syria, control roughly one-third of Baghdad; have taken over a bunch of the bases where the United States used to be.

They are standing up, and as they stand up, at least in the words of our own military leaders, maybe it is time for us to head toward the door. The President said last night--this is almost a quote--those decisions as to troop level will be made by our military commanders and not by politicians in Washington, DC. I heard that last night.

Most people applauded, but I thought, what our military commanders in Iraq are telling me is that it is time for us to begin moving toward the door--not to leave, not to close the door, but to begin moving toward the door.

I was a little disappointed last night. I think the President may have missed an opportunity to signal that we are in a position to begin reducing, to some extent, our troop presence there.

In a way, a perverse kind of way, what that is likely to do is, as the Iraqis move up and stand up and the other Arab nations come to support this new government in Iraq, in a perverse kind of way our beginning to reduce our presence undercuts the latent support the insurgency enjoys.

I could not understand why there is this latent support for the insurgency over in Iraq, but one of the reasons is when the Iraqi people hear--or at least a lot of them hear--our President say or us say we are there until we have complete victory, we are there for as long as it takes, what they hear is: The Americans are here for our oil, and they are not going to leave until they get it all or at least control it all. Hence this latent support for the insurgency.

I hope we will look for opportunities--not to pull out lock, stock, and barrel by the end of the year; that doesn't make any sense--we are going to be there for some time--but to find a way for us to be, in the words of one Iraqi I heard over there, less visible and less numerous. To the extent we are able do that and they stand up and assume the new responsibilities, maybe we will be able to enable them to do a bit more with a bit fewer of us, which would please the American people; I believe it would please the Iraqi people; it would help reduce, a little bit, our budget deficit and maybe actually promote the day when Iraqis are running the show on their own and making them proud and us proud of them.

I have gone on long enough. Thank you for the opportunity today to share some reflections from last night.

With that having been said, I yield the floor. I see my friend from North Dakota is ready to take the floor and say a few words.

Mr. President, I would like to set aside a few moments today to reflect on the life of SPC Prince Koa Teewia. Prince epitomized the best of our country's brave men and women who fought to free Iraq and to secure a new democracy in the Middle East. He exhibited unwavering courage, dutiful service to his adopted country, and above all else, honor. In the way he lived his life--and how we remember him--Prince reminds each of us how good we can be.

Born in Liberia in 1979, Prince was separated from his mother when she

visited the United States, and civil war broke out in her native country. Due to security concerns, she was not allowed to return to her homeland to be with her children. After his father fled the war-torn region in 1990, Prince stayed with an aunt and eventually found refuge in neighboring Sierra Leone.

One by one, his mother managed to find ways for her eldest sons to join her in the United States. Prince was finally reunited with his parents when he moved to Durham, NC, in 1998 to live with friends and relatives. Shortly after his return, his parents moved to Delaware in the hopes of finding better paying employment. Prince stayed behind in North Carolina with the hopes of furthering his education and to enroll in classes at North Carolina Central University.

Prince Teewia had always wanted to join the military of his adopted homeland and, in 2004, he signed up for the 101st Airborne Division, based out of Fort Campbell, KY. He had been deployed in Iraq for less than a month when he was killed on December 29, 2005, by a roadside bomb that detonated next to the humvee he was riding in.

Specialist Teewia was granted full status as a U.S. citizen shortly after his death. This distinction was bestowed upon him because of his honorable service in the Armed Forces and his willingness to pay the ultimate cost while performing his duty in Iraq.

Prince was laid to rest with full military honors in Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Bear, DE, on January 13, 2006. He is survived by his parents John and Rebecca, his maternal grandparents, as well as eight brothers and six sisters.

I rise today to commemorate Prince, to celebrate his life, and to offer his family our support and our deepest sympathy on their tragic loss.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the achievements of Dr. Katherine Esterly. Kitty, as she is known to her friends, has had an enormous impact on the lives of countless people, many of whom were too young to even realize that she was helping them.

Dr. Esterly has dedicated her life to advancing the field of neonatology, which is the field of pediatric medicine that deals with the care of newborn infants. She has helped countless mothers-to-be and their young children by helping bring healthier babies to term and assisting those newborns who need a little extra care after their delivery. This work transcends the concepts of reduced health care costs and decreased infant mortality rates. It

means healthier babies and stronger families and that is an accomplishment worthy of our praise and admiration.

Katherine Esterly grew up in Norristown, PA, knowing that she wanted to work with children. After graduating from Temple University's medical school in 1951, she moved to Delaware to work towards that goal. Delaware was truly blessed when she made this decision.

Despite her diminutive size and warm personality, Dr. Esterly has always approached her efforts to care for Delaware's babies with a steel will and an unwillingness to accept ``no'' for an answer. She demands high standards from her colleagues and has lived her life by this same commitment to excellence.

One of the hallmarks of her care is how she continually goes above and beyond the traditional role of simply caring for the newborn child. She uses a gentle hand and an open style of communication to develop a level of trust with parents that greatly improves their hospital experience during such difficult times. Whether it is a reassuring word or a simple explanation of a complex procedure, Kitty is always willing to do whatever it takes to assure parents that their newborn is receiving the best possible care.

Katherine Esterly became a practicing pediatrician in 1954 after completing her internship and residency at the Delaware Hospital. Dr. Esterly then served as an associate in pediatrics for the Children's Bureau of Delaware from 1954 until 1968. During this time, Kitty worked tirelessly to help adoptive and foster children. In 1968, because of her outstanding record of leadership and her dedication to her profession, she was named director of this organization.

After the merger of community hospitals in Wilmington in 1967, the Medical Center of Delaware was formed and a new department of pediatrics was created. Unfortunately, there wasn't a neonatologist on staff at this new institution. Dr. Esterly took the initiative to get the necessary training so she could fill this void in the department's neonatal intensive care unit. She went on to become the director of the neonatology division in 1975. Throughout the 1980s, Dr. Esterly expanded the division and added additional full-time neonatologists to her staff, resulting in a world-class practice where even the sickest of newborns could be cared for.

Dr. Esterly also advanced the cause of nurses by working with colleagues and government officials to highlight and promote the qualifications of professional nurses. Her actions led to nurse practitioners being able to treat patients and write prescriptions, which greatly reduces the workload of practicing physicians and allows for greater responsibility on behalf of nurses.

In addition, Katherine Esterly helped create a neonatal nurse practitioner program for schools in Delaware and New Jersey that continue to train the next generation of caregivers. Her ability and willingness to share her knowledge has ensured that future generations will continue the work that Kitty pioneered so many years ago.

In 1995, while serving as Governor of Delaware, I appointed Dr. Esterly to serve as the chair of Delaware's Perinatal Board. In this capacity, she spearheads Delaware's efforts to promote the health and welfare of countless numbers of children. The First State and her children are better off because of her efforts.

Most recently, the Katherine L. Esterly Nursing Education Scholarship fund was established for the College of Health Sciences at the University of Delaware. When asked if she would allow her name to be used to distinguish this scholarship, Dr. Esterly, in her customary selfless fashion, not only agreed but also made a personal contribution to the very fund that now bears her name. Her generosity will help ensure that her legacy of caring for Delaware's youngest residents will be preserved and passed on to future generations of caregivers.

Kitty's dedication and innovation in the field of neonatology serves as an example to us all. I rise today to honor her achievements and to thank her on behalf of all Delawareans for her years of hard work, dedication, and constant championing of Delaware's youngest residents.

Mr. President, of the three branches of our Federal Government, the Supreme Court seems the most removed from the American people. There are, as we know, only nine members of the Supreme Court. None of them, in the end, is accountable to the public. They certainly do not have to face groups of angry voters as you and I do from time to time, at townhall meetings or local potluck dinners, and they are probably thankful for that.

However, their actions can have a tremendous and lasting effect on the lives of every American, probably more so than any Senator or Governor, or perhaps even more than many Presidents. For, in the end, the Supreme Court exists as the last bastion of protection for the rights and freedoms we enjoy as Americans. That is why I take so seriously, as I know you do, our obligation as Senators to provide advice and consent to our Presidents, as required by our Constitution, to determine whether their nominees truly merit a lifetime appointment to serve on our Nation's highest Court.

When I voted for Judge John Roberts' nomination to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court last fall, I said standing here that it was a close call, at least for me. Ultimately, though, I chose to take what I described then as a leap of faith. As someone whose political and legal opinions are perhaps somewhat more conservative than mine, I knew Chief Justice Roberts would sometimes render decisions with which I may not be comfortable or entirely agree. But after carefully reviewing his testimony, and discussing that testimony with Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, meeting with him and other interested parties, and talking to his colleagues, colleagues of his who had known and worked with him in the past, I concluded John Roberts was a worthy successor to Chief Justice Rehnquist and was not likely to shift the balance of the Court in any significant way.

Obviously, more than three-fourths of our colleagues agreed with that decision. When the time had come to cast my vote, I concluded that Chief Justice Roberts' decisions would not be guided by ideology alone, but also by legal precedent and the combination of his life's experiences as a judge, as an attorney, as an academic, as a father, and as a husband. In short, by supporting John Roberts' nomination I voted my hopes and not my fears.

After we confirmed Chief Justice Roberts and turned to face yet another impending Supreme Court vacancy, I urged President Bush to send us a nominee similar to the person he or she would replace--Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. I noted that his next choice could divide this Congress and our country even further, or it could serve to bring us closer together. In my view, we needed that type of consensus candidate to replace Justice O'Connor and her legacy on the Court.

For more than 20 years, Justice O'Connor has been a voice of moderation during often difficult and tumultuous times. As we all know, her decisions oftentimes determined the direction of the Court. Not infrequently, the opinions she wrote reflected the prevailing sentiment of our country and its citizens, too. In my view, she was the right Justice at the right time.

Unfortunately, and with some regret, I rise today not fully convinced that Judge Samuel Alito is the right person to replace Justice O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Unlike a few months ago, when I rose to support the nomination of John Roberts, I will not be supporting Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. In sharing that decision today, though, let me be clear on several points. I will not be voting against his confirmation because I don't believe he has the legal qualifications, the intellect, or the experience necessary to sit on the Supreme Court. I do. He is clearly very bright and demonstrates an excellent grasp of the law.

I will not be voting against him because I don't like him or respect him. I do. He is described by a number of his colleagues as collegial, as hard working, and as a devoted father and husband. I believe Samuel Alito is an honorable person and that he has lived an honorable life.

Having said that, though, I don't believe we should vote for Supreme Court Justices based solely on their qualifications and likeability. We must also consider their judgment, their legal opinions, their judicial philosophies, and what they said or did not say during the confirmation hearings, in order to determine whether we are truly comfortable with the direction a particular nominee will take our Nation's highest Court. After all, these are lifetime appointments that will have consequences for decades into the future.

In the end, I found myself asking one simple question. Here it is: Is Judge Samuel Alito the right person for this vacancy, not just for now but for decades to come? For me, the answer to that question is, regrettably, no. Let me take a few minutes to explain why.

As we all know, our Constitution provides for three separate but equal branches of Government--the legislative branch, that is us, the Congress; the executive branch, the Presidency and his or her administration; and the judicial branch, the courts. The Framers of our Constitution believed no branch of our Federal Government was superior to another, so our Founding Fathers established an intricate system of checks and balances to ensure that each branch kept a watchful eye on the others.

For instance, it is Congress's job to represent the people and write the laws of our land, but the President can refuse to sign a bill the Congress has passed if he or she disagrees with our conclusions. Congress can then come

back and override a President's objections, if we can muster the necessary votes. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court can rule that a law is, in part or in whole, unconstitutional, providing yet another important check on the power vested in the Congress and in the Presidency.

Admittedly, it is not the most harmonious or quickest form of Government, but it has served our country well for over 200 years. Perhaps it was Churchill who said it best when he described democracy as the worst form of government devised by wit of man, but for all the rest.

I am concerned that, if confirmed, Judge Alito, during the decades he is likely to serve may well take the Court in a new direction that serves to undermine our system of checks and balances, threatening the rights and freedoms many of us hold dear.

Let me elaborate, if I may. In the past, Judge Alito has advocated for what is known as the ``unitary executive theory.''

Until a couple of months ago, I had not heard of that. If you are like me, Mr. President, and you didn't go to law school, you are probably wondering what that means. Let me put it simply. It basically means that Judge Alito feels that the President should largely be allowed to act without having to worry much about Congress or the Supreme Court stepping in and saying: With all due respect, you are out of line.

This line of thinking deeply concerns me and, I believe, many of my colleagues and the people we represent. And it should. Remember, our Nation declared her independence from Britain because we no longer wanted to be ruled by a king, or, frankly, by anyone with king-like powers. Our Founders wanted power to be invested in the people and shared equally by the three branches of Government.

To say then that there are times when a President's power should go largely unchecked except in very rare instances, in my opinion, goes against what our Founders intended. Moreover, unfettered Presidential power could have dangerous consequences, given how a particular President--either now or in the future--chooses to exercise that kind of unchecked power.

Let me give you a recent real-world example. Over the past few months, the Bush administration has been embroiled in several controversies, as we know, over its policies concerning the torture of detainees, as well as its decision to spy on or intercept phone calls and e-mails apparently of thousands of people living in the United States who are suspected of being agents of foreign countries or entities. In both cases, the administration asserted that it should be able to act without the consent of Congress or the courts.

I disagree. I believe that our courts have an obligation under our laws to monitor an administration's actions concerning foreign prisoners and criminal suspects, and I believe administrations should have to justify, within reasonable periods of time, their decision to spy on Americans. I will be the first to acknowledge that there are times when the President--this one or another President--needs the ability to conduct secret wiretaps. And I think most of us agree on that point.

The issue, however, is do Presidents have a constitutional right to conduct secret wiretaps without court authorization, without some other branch of Government making sure that that administration isn't breaking the law?

Again, the fundamental issue for me is the issue of checks and balances.

In these instances, Congress and the courts provide a needed and important backstop to make sure that the administration doesn't became overzealous and abuse the rights of innocent people.

Americans may not understand why these issues are such a big deal. They may even agree with the reasons the Bush administration give, for instance, for circumventing the law--a law that has been in place since 1978 which we modified I think about 4 years ago.

But it is not a stretch to understand how a President--maybe not this one but one in the future--could overstep his or her authority and thereby infringe on the civil rights of innocent Americans.

For that reason alone, we should all have grave concerns about an unchecked Presidency--or a Supreme Court Justice who has routinely sided and ruled in favor of unchecked Executive powers.

Jeffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, is a supporter of the Roberts nomination--and initially a supporter of the Alito nomination--wrote recently:

Given the times in which we live, we need and deserve a

Supreme Court willing to examine independently these

extraordinary assertions of Executive authority. We can fight

and win the war on terrorism without inflicting upon

ourselves and our posterity another regrettable episode like

the Red Scare and the Japanese internment--

Of the 1950s and 1940s, two shameful episodes in the history of our country where our Government seriously infringed on the rights of average Americans under the guise and excuse of national security.

But as Professor Stone went on to say, we will only avoid such terrible excesses of governmental power ``if the Justices of the Supreme Court are willing to fulfill their essential role in our constitutional system.''

Based on his history and his opinions--in his own words--I fear that Judge Alito may well change the Court's approach and rule in favor of expanded Presidential power--not just at the expense of Congress and the courts but ultimately at the expense of the American people. We cannot and should not play witness to an unchecked Presidency, regardless of political party, regardless of whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican.

We need in this country for the courts and the Congress to ensure that this administration and future administrations abide by the laws of this land and the principles we hold dear.

Just as I am concerned about Judge Alito's views on expanded Presidential power, I am also concerned about Judge Alito's opinion on the role and powers of Congress.

Traditionally, Congress has enjoyed broad authority, as a coequal branch of Government, to debate and adopt laws that we believe protect the interests of the American people, such as keeping our water clean and our air clean and ensuring that fair labor laws and employment standards across the country are fair.

Back in the 1990s, Congress used that authority to pass a bill that banned the possession or sale of machineguns across State lines among everyday Americans. To me, that ban wasn't about whether people had the right to own guns for recreation or self-protection. Those rights are forever enshrined in our Constitution, as they should be. This was about whether people had the right to own, to buy, or to sell across State lines Army-style machineguns, which I think reasonable people can agree have little, if anything, to do with protecting our homes or going hunting.

Nevertheless, the constitutionality of the law was challenged in the courts. All nine Federal appeals courts that heard the subsequent challenges upheld the validity of the original law.

Judge Alito, as a member of the Federal appeals court that covers Delaware and our surrounding region in the Delaware Valley, heard one of those challenges. He ended up disagreeing with his own court's decision and that of eight other Federal appeals courts which ruled that Congress does indeed have the authority under our Constitution to ban the sale of machineguns across State lines.

My primary concern is that if Judge Alito thinks Congress shouldn't have the right to pass laws that arguably keep Americans safer, then what other laws might he believe Congress does not have the authority to adopt under the commerce clause of our Constitution? Laws that protect the air we breathe or the water we drink? Laws that allow men and women to take unpaid leave from their jobs to care for members of their family during times of crisis? I don't know, and that uncertainty--at least for me--is a cause of real concern.

A third concern I hold about Judge Alito relates to his views on other rights and freedoms we enjoy as Americans, particularly a woman's right to end a pregnancy prior to fetal viability. My own opinion about abortion is we have far too many of them, and we need to put a lot more effort into reducing the number of abortions that still take place in America. I am sure on that point Judge Alito and I agree.

But I am not certain Judge Alito agrees with me that we should not go back in time to a place where almost all abortion laws were illegal, where women who wanted to end a pregnancy were in too many instances forced into unhealthy behavior that often put their lives and their reproductive futures at risk. That is why, during his confirmation hearing, I was disappointed that Judge Alito, unlike Judge Roberts, declined to acknowledge that the Supreme Court decision that granted women the right to end an early term pregnancy is ``settled law.''

Justice O'Connor, whom Judge Alito has been nominated to replace, has been the deciding vote on numerous cases that challenged this precedent. That is why I believe replacing Justice O'Connor with Judge Alito--given his rulings and statements on this subject--may well be putting this precedent in jeopardy.

Let me explain why. In the historic Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, Judge Alito voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law requiring married women to notify husbands before obtaining an abortion even during the early stages of pregnancy. That case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which ruled against Judge Alito's position, as we know.

Justice O'Connor, who cast the deciding vote in the Supreme Court overturning the Pennsylvania law and Judge Alito's position, wrote that women do not leave their Constitutional protection at the altar. Married women are entitled to the same protections as single women. I believe she is right.

I had the opportunity to talk with Judge Alito at length recently. I asked him--a conversation that I very much enjoyed--why he ruled the way he did in this instance. He told me he did not think the requirement placed an undue burden on married women. I asked him if he felt the same way today, especially in light of the Supreme Court ruling in opposition to his view. He told me he basically thought the same way. While I respect that honesty, I respectfully disagree and question what other undue burdens he may decide to place on women in the future.

Let me close by saying that this is not an easy vote for me. I know it is not an easy one for a lot of our colleagues. As a former Governor, I believe strongly that this administration or any other administration has the right to nominate judges of the same mind and philosophy. There are consequences in elections. If you win, you have the chance, if you are a Governor or a President, to nominate candidates of your choice for the bench. And I believe Senators should not automatically reject judges outright because of political affiliation or beliefs.

However, politicians of both stripes must take a stand and reject nominees that we believe will take the courts too far to the extreme right or to the extreme left. Wisely, in my State, Delaware's constitution requires overall political balance in our State's courts.

For every Democrat who is appointed to serve as a judge, Delaware Governors have to nominate a Republican. The result has been an absence of political infighting and a balanced, exceptionally and highly regarded State judiciary that we are enormously proud of in our State.

Our Federal Constitution, regrettably, does not require similar political balance when it comes to the judiciary, but political balance should be one of our goals. The Founders of the U.S. Constitution tasked the Senate with finding that balance.

I fear, in the end, that Judge Alito may well upset the balance that exists on the Supreme Court for the better part of my lifetime and move the Court in a direction that will not be best for many of the people of this country.

So this time, unlike my vote for the nomination of John Roberts a few months ago, I will be voting my fears--not my hopes. Having said that, I sincerely wish Judge Alito well.

I hope, if he is confirmed--and I believe that he will be--that he proves my concerns wrong and unfounded. I hope he remembers that our Constitution--that our entire democracy--is both an everlasting and ever-changing experiment. Our Constitution is not something to be strictly interpreted, nor is it something to be recklessly abandoned.

Success in life is often measured not just by the stances we take but by the results we achieve. I believe that is one of the reasons why Justice O'Connor is so revered. It is not because she was always predictable or that she advocated an intractable world view. It is that she found the right balance, even in the most difficult, controversial, and emotional cases of our times.

My fear is that too often Judge Alito may not do so, and thus I will not be supporting his nomination.

My hope, though, is that once he is confirmed to the Supreme Court he will balance the scales of justice and not tip them too far in either direction.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, today I rise to honor an outstanding group of young choir members who have brought joy and musical harmony to countless people in Delaware and around the world.

The Cathedral Choir School of Delaware has been chosen to perform on January 25, 2006, for an audience at the White House that will include First Lady Laura Bush. They will also be presented with the Coming Up Taller Award. This award is the Nation's highest honor for afterschool and out-of-school programs that use arts and humanities to enrich the lives of children. Created in 1998, this awards program is a project of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in partnership with Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Cathedral Choir School has had an enormous positive impact on the lives of the students who pass through its halls. The more than 50 students, ranging in age from 7 to 17, who attend the school are encouraged to learn the enduring values of discipline, responsibility, leadership and teamwork.

With more than 800 alumni since its inception in 1883, the Cathedral choir school has had a positive impact on both the lives of the students who have had the privilege of participating in this choir school and the lives of those around them. By training Delaware's young people in life skills and community involvement, the Cathedral Choir School has consistently enhanced the lives of all that it touches.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication that the paid staff and volunteers of the Cathedral Choir School have demonstrated over the years. Under the direction today of Dr. Darryl Roland, these dedicated men and women have helped the lives of countless children. During his time of overseeing the Cathedral Choir School, Dr. Roland has served as a shining example of what is possible when good and caring adults decide to make a positive difference in the lives of children.

I would especially like to acknowledge the commitment and enthusiasm that the individual members of the choir have shown during their time with the choir. These outstanding young people have made a personal commitment to themselves and to their communities to challenge themselves and try their best to live up to the high standards of the Cathedral Choir School. The rehearsals and afterschool music training are done with a sense of love for artistic expression. It takes a special type of person to share that gift with the rest of us.

The faculty and students of the Cathedral Choir School are to be commended and applauded for their extraordinary efforts. Their dedication and love of music continues to serve as an example of what is possible when young people are given the opportunity to follow their dreams. All of Delaware is proud of them.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 2 minutes on a motion I have at the desk.

Madam President, for the last 3 years that we have been in the Senate, I have been pushing my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, and pushing the administration and my colleagues in the House of Representatives to reauthorize Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. We first authorized it in 1996. There was a 5- or 6-year authorization that had lapsed, and we need to renew it and establish a path forward for welfare programs in my State, your State, and all other States across this country.

The Senate Finance Committee has approved unanimously, without dissent, legislation to reauthorize it for another 5 years. It is out of committee and ready to come to the floor. We should take it up, debate it, amend it, if we see fit, pass it, and go to conference with the House.

The House passed their own reauthorization measure, which is imperfect in my view. I will mention a couple of problems I have with it. As the Governor of Delaware and lead Governor of the National Governors Association on welfare reform, it occurred to me that if you want people to get off welfare and go to work, they need help with taking care of their kids, and we needed to make sure they had decent health care for the children. If they don't have that, they are not going to be successful in going to work. The measure reported out of the Committee provided extra money for childcare support. It is needed.

There is another problem. Under current law, if you are on welfare, you have to work 30 hours a week. However, if you have young kids under the age of 6, you can work as little as 20 hours a week, not 30 or 40 hours. The House measure says everybody has to work 40 hours a week if you are on welfare. That may sound good at the outset, but if you don't have money for childcare to help with the extra time people are going to be working, it is not going to work. Say somebody has a week-old or month-old or year-old child. They are going to have to work 40 hours a week.

I ask for support on the motion. Let the committee bring the bill forward and debate it and vote and go to conference.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, 10 days ago, I returned home from a bipartisan, bicameral congressional factfinding mission that took a number of Members, including Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, myself, and Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher from California, to a number of Middle Eastern countries. There we met with, among others, the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, as well as with our own civilian and military leaders. For me, our visit was informative, highly informative, even illuminating, and provided me with a number of insights that I wish to share today with my colleagues and with the American people.

For the past several months, Americans have become increasingly skeptical about our ongoing military presence in Iraq, leading to a fierce debate on how to succeed in Iraq and when to begin to redeploy American troops. With so much discord at home, I was surprised and, frankly, heartened to learn during our mission that there is a growing consensus among both U.S. and Iraqi civilian and military officials on a reasonable path forward that I believe many Americans can embrace.

As our President acknowledged somewhat belatedly today, a number of

grievous mistakes were made during his administration following the ouster of Saddam Hussein--for example, literally telling the Iraqi army to go home, you are disbanded, not needed anymore. Having said that, there is a whole lot at stake, too much at stake, for us to just cut and run. But somewhere between withdrawing all U.S. forces within 6 months and staying the course is a commonsense policy and a path forward for the United States, for Iraq, and for its Arab neighbors.

I believe tomorrow's parliamentary elections and the likely emergence of a coalition government in Iraq gives us a great opportunity, not so much to stay the course but to begin to alter it. This altered course would provide for a moderate but significant redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq beginning early next year. It could start with our National Guard men and women, might start with our Reserve Forces. We might bring some of them home. Some of them we may wish to deploy to a place such as Afghanistan where they probably would be needed.

Redeployment or drawdown is, maybe, a good beginning, but by no means does it end there. We must also redouble our effort to enlist the full cooperation of the Arab League and others to stabilize Iraq politically and economically as we continue to help Iraq militarily and their police force shoulder more of the burden in providing security in their country.

On the sensitive issue of withdrawing U.S. troops, I believe if we were to withdraw all of our military forces within the next 6 or even 12 months, we would leave that country in danger of a civil war, and America and Iraq's neighbors would be less safe, not more safe, than they were before we invaded Iraq. The truth is, though, a modest American force may well be needed in Iraq for some time. While it will not be close to the 160,000 or so troops we have there now, America will likely maintain some kind of military presence in Iraq, if the Iraqis want us to, just as we currently do in Afghanistan and Kosovo and several other places around the world.

The President's open-ended statements, however well intentioned, about staying the course cause many Iraqis to question our Nation's true intentions. More and more, Iraqis view our troops as occupiers, not liberators. To a lot of them, the President's rhetoric is code for ``We are here for your oil, and we are going to stay until we get it.'' That is an interpretation that fuels the very insurgency we are trying to defeat.

That is why it makes sense to me to announce as early as January that we plan to redeploy a significant number of American troops from Iraq in 2006 and then begin to do so shortly thereafter. Taking this step will help make clearer to most Iraqis our desire ultimately to leave Iraq and its natural resources where they belong--in the hands of Iraqis.

These views are not mine alone. They reflect the views of Iraq's civilian and military leaders as well as those of top American officials on the ground. We should listen to them. In the words of one of our top American military commanders, he said, pointing toward the door of the room in which we were meeting, it is time for us to begin moving toward the door. And I believe he is right. Otherwise, I fear our troops, who continue to perform courageously under incredibly difficult circumstances, will remain targets of opportunity for months or even years to come.

Although much of the debate in America has focused on withdrawing troops, if all we do by the end of next year is reduce our troop levels, we will not set Iraqis up for success; we will set them up for failure. There is also a political war to win, and it is not going to be easy. I believe America's Ambassador to Iraq, the gifted Zal Khalilzad, has done a remarkable job this year in narrowing the differences among competing factions in Iraq. Now it looks like tomorrow's turnout for the parliamentary elections will be strong, even among minority Sunnis, and result in the need to form a coalition government.

In fact, when we were there, we heard that the Sunnis--of which only 3 percent of them voted a year ago when they formed their interim government, and barely a third of them voted 2 or 3 months ago when they voted on their constitution--I understand now that over half the Sunnis are going to vote tomorrow. They will elect anywhere from 50 to 55 to maybe 60 members of this new parliament. The Kurds are expected to elect a similar number, and the Shiites will elect maybe 100, 110. There is not enough among any of them to have a majority. That outcome will create a need, and that is a need to form a coalition government.

The real challenge will come, though, after the vote, as Iraqis confront at least two enormous tasks. One is setting up a functioning government, and the second is rewriting or amending the constitution they just adopted a couple months ago, while at the same time trying to subdue an armed insurgency.

America must do all we can to make sure that the Iraqis' experiment with democracy does not founder, even if this experiment results in something less than a Jeffersonian democracy. But to succeed and become a new and prosperous country, Iraq will need more than just our help. European countries and other nations, including democratic nations, can do their part by helping Iraq set up government ministries and agencies designed to oversee everything from defense and finance to human services and environmental protection.

In fact, I strongly support a proposal that would call for individual countries to adopt a new ministry in Iraq and help them to develop and implement and execute sound policies. For example, Nation A might adopt a finance ministry, Nation B might adopt a foreign ministry, Nation C might adopt the petroleum industry, Nation D might adopt the transportation industry, and on and on and on. It should not be just us; it should be a whole lot of countries joining with us in this effort.

Arab countries that have been extremely critical of the war and of America's occupation must realize they have a dog in this fight, too. On that point, I am more optimistic than I was before my trip. As Saudi King Abdullah told us a week or so ago--these are his words--``In Iraq, what's done is done.'' That is coming from a monarch, a King, who, frankly, did not appreciate, nor did his people much appreciate, our invading Iraq and taking down the regime of Saddam Hussein. But his words: ``In Iraq, what's done is done.'' And from that, I infer he means it is time to turn a page. It is time for them and other Arab nations in that region to get off the bench and get into the game. And they sure need to.

To that end, I sense that many of Iraq's neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar, realize it is in their interest to make sure that Iraq does not erupt into civil war, a civil war that could become a regional war or turn Iraq into a haven for terrorism. Those nations could help ensure a better outcome in Iraq by, among other things, forgiving the Iraqi debt they hold while also working to improve political relations within Iraq. The United States, perhaps through the Arab League, should exert considerable influence in the region to make sure this happens.

Another area in which the United States and other nations can be helpful is to assist Iraq in formulating and implementing, next year, an economic recovery and growth strategy. Iraq, as we all know, is blessed with enormous oil and gas revenues. Yet it is almost beyond belief that today, some 30 months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the lifting of the oil embargo in Iraq, oil production in that country is really no higher today than it was on the day of our invasion. In fact, we were told on our visit that oil production today continues to hover at barely one-third of Iraq's capacity of some 5 million barrels of oil per day. But, roughly, that leaves 3 million barrels of oil a day untapped in the ground, even though there is the capacity to draw it out and to refine it and to sell it. At $50 per barrel and 3 million barrels per day, that means that Iraq is leaving approximately $150 million per day on the table in unrealized revenues. That is about $1 billion a week. For $1 billion a week, you could hire several armies to protect the generating capacity, the oil production capacity in that country.

That kind of revenue also would allow the Iraqis to have some money left over to meet a number of their needs. And they have plenty of needs to

meet. That is money that could be used to lower the 25-percent unemployment rate among young Iraqis, along with the unemployment rate among adults in that country. How? By putting them to work on a host of worthy projects around the country--schools, health centers, roads and transit projects, housing, wastewater treatment, electricity generation, telecommunications infrastructure, and the list goes on.

Speaking of economic development, Saudi Arabia continues to increase its oil revenues by more fully integrating their oil and gas business to include surveying, exploration, drilling, recovery, refining, and transportation, as well as providing feedstocks to a growing petrochemical industry. There is no reason why Iraq could not also do the same over time.

But unlike a number of other Arab nations, Iraq's economy does not have to be what I call a one-trick pony. Iraq is blessed with an adequate water supply and plenty of fertile land. Crops, produce, and fruits raised on that land can feed all of Iraq and much of that region. We can help the Iraqis figure out how to realize their potential, and we ought to do it.

Iraq is also blessed with a well-educated workforce, many of whom would like to be entrepreneurs in their country as they move away from a command-and-control economy to more of a free enterprise system. I am told that last year some 30,000 Iraqis applied for business licenses to start their own businesses. A lot of them could have used an infusion of capital to get started, too. They did not need $50,000 or $100,000, either. In a number of instances, as little as a couple of hundred dollars is all they might have needed.

One of the missing ingredients in Iraq in terms of an economic recovery is a banking system that can make and service loans, including loans to small businesses, which generate a lot of the jobs. In America, we know banking. So do some other nations. We need, collectively, to do more to help Iraqis establish a banking system to fuel, among other things, the growth of small businesses--the engine for job creation.

On a positive note, USAID has begun operating in Iraq trying to develop those micro-loan programs that they are putting in place in other nations around the world where maybe $100 or $200 or $300 is extended in a loan to a small businessperson. That is a good program. It is just beginning, but it is one we ought to kick into high gear there.

The idea of Iraq as a tourist mecca was not the first thing that came to mind as we headed for that part of the world. Having said that, Iraq is the home of several of the holiest shrines in the Muslim world, and, lest we forget, it was also the cradle of civilization. Muslims come from all over the world already to visit a number of those holy shrines in Iraq. Given the chance, I believe a lot more of them would come to visit some of those holy places, other holy places, in Iraq if there were airports to serve them, along with restaurants and hotels, bus service, auto rental agencies, and the like.

Next, let me add a word or two about Iran, a largely Shiite nation that borders Iraq, as we know. Iraq's Shiite population lives primarily in the southern part of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people have crossed over the border from Iran into Iraq over the past year or two. Tens of millions of dollars have followed them into Iraq. Many in the region fear, understandably, that Iran is attempting to expand its influence through southern Iraq all the way to its border with Saudi Arabia. Others fear a balkanized Iraq divided into three parts, and maybe eventually three countries, will evolve, and those fears are understandable.

Last week, in an unprecedented move, Iran's supreme religious leader, the real boss in that country--not the President, the real boss in that country--sent a personal emissary to Saudi Arabia to meet with its King, King Abdullah, apparently to begin a dialog. That was 2 weeks ago. I said 1 week. It was 2 weeks ago.

Recently, Iran has also sent word to U.S. officials in Iraq, through the U.N., through Shiite persons in Iraq, that the Iranians would also like to send, I believe, their national security adviser to meet in Iraq with our representatives there. I am told that our administration, apparently, is not prepared to give the green light for those talks, arguing that any talks should involve much lower level Iranian representation.

The words of another Arab leader we spoke to on this subject are instructional. That Arab leader said to us during our stay--he was talking about the U.S. unwillingness to join multilateral talks over Iran's nuclear policy but this monarch said to us:

Ignoring someone doesn't mean they cease to exist.

Think about those words: ``Ignoring someone does not mean that they cease to exist.'' I would encourage our own administration to give American officials in Iraq the green light and find out what is on the Iranians' minds. It is hard to imagine much damage coming out of such a conversation, and there may be some upside to it. Time will tell.

If we are willing to engage in multilateral discussions with some of those wild and crazy North Koreans, I don't know that there is a lot of danger in sitting down and being involved in direct or multilateral relations with Iranians, all the while making clear that their possession of nuclear weapons is not acceptable to us and the views they have toward Israel and pushing Israel into the sea is anathema to us and something we would never countenance.

Let me conclude on the Middle East by sharing with my colleagues an old Navy story. Long before I came here, I served as a naval flight officer during the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia and later on as a Reserve naval flight officer and mission commander of a Navy P-3 airplane, a four-engine airplane. Our Presiding Officer may have seen the Navy P-3s land at Jacksonville, FL, any number of times in our job to hunt for Red October and patrol the oceans of the world.

Every now and then, we would have to change an engine in one of our planes. They break. You land the plane. You pull into the hangar and pull off the engine and put another one on. It takes a day or two, and you have to test it before you go up in the air again. In the Navy, if you had a really hard job to do, we would liken it to changing an aircraft engine in one of our planes. But a really tough job is one that we had to do by changing the engine of the airplane while the airplane was in flight. When you are doing that, that was a tough job.

What the Iraqis face in the coming weeks and months is the political, economic, and military equivalent of changing the aircraft engine while the aircraft is in flight. Tomorrow, they are going to hold elections. The good news is that for 275 parliamentary seats, some 6,500 candidates have filed and are running. That is an astounding number. When the smoke clears literally and figuratively later in the week, they will have to figure out who won and who of those 6,500 lost. They will have to seat a parliament. Then they will have to start putting together a coalition government, not unlike what the Israelis do from time to time. Nobody is going to have a majority. The Shiites may have 100 or 120. But they will need other forces. Or maybe some of the rest of the people who are there, the Kurds or the Sunnis and others, can create a majority coalition on their own.

They will have to figure out who is going to be the prime minister or deputy prime ministers. They have to figure out who is going to be the minister of finance, of foreign affairs, of transportation, of housing, the environment, petroleum, on and on. They have to put the right people in the leadership roles of those agencies and have good people up or down the line in those agencies so they can formulate, implement, and execute policy.

While they are doing all of that, they will have to rewrite their constitution, or at least part of it. To make matters more challenging, they have to do it all while in the face of an armed insurgency. I suggest to my colleagues, doing any of those things in and of itself-- going through the elections tomorrow, electing a parliament, standing up a government, putting the right people in place to lead those ministries, rewriting the constitution--any one of them by itself is a hard thing to do. Doing them all almost simultaneously during the course of an armed insurgency, achieving that would be

like the triumph of man's hope over experience.

I returned from Iraq more hopeful than when I left. I acknowledge that a lot of hard work lies ahead for us and, hopefully, for a new coalition of the willing in the Middle East. While there are no easy choices or solutions, I acknowledge that. I think we know that. But if we do begin to alter course, as I have outlined earlier, I believe we increase the likelihood that America, Iraq, and its neighbors will arrive at the destination we all seek.

Sergeant First Class James ``Shawn'' Moudy

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a young man who lost his life last Sunday in Iraq. He is an Army sergeant first class who grew up in Delaware, a graduate of Tatnall High School. His name is James ``Shawn'' Moudy. He is the ninth soldier from Delaware to have died in Iraq.

Shawn epitomized the best of our country's brave men and women who fought to free Iraq and to secure a new democracy in the Middle East. Shawn exhibited unwavering courage, dutiful service to his country and, above all else, honor. The way he lived his life and how we remember him, Shawn reminds each of us how good we can be.

Shawn was born in Wilmington, DE, on July 14, 1968, to James and Thelma Moudy who now reside in Newark, DE. Shawn attended the Independence School and graduated from Tatnall School in 1986, where he enjoyed playing football and lacrosse. Shawn then attended 1 year at Marion Military Institute in Marion, AL.

After earning a nomination to the Coast Guard Academy, Shawn decided instead to enlist in the Army. For almost two decades, Shawn traveled the world on tours of duty in Korea, Germany, Bosnia, and later at Ft. Benning, GA. It was in Korea that he met his wife Myong Sun, and today they have a daughter, Sandra Rebecca. She is 13 years old.

In September 2004, Shawn was transferred to Ft. Drum in Watertown, NY, where his family resides today. He was deployed to Iraq in August 2005, a few months ago. Shawn's mission was to train Iraqi troops, and he joined in the security patrols there. Shawn was a member of the 71st Cavalry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. He always knew he wanted to be a soldier. He had several uncles who served in the military. As a child, his mom and dad told me, he always drew pictures of soldiers. According to his mom, with whom I was privileged to speak the night before last, Shawn believed that ``the world needs to be safe and protected and free. That's what his whole life was dedicated to.'' Those are her words and his.

Shawn's parents take comfort in knowing their son was doing what he believed was right. Their son was resolute in his belief that the United States should not leave Iraq until a free society has been established. He died Sunday in western Baghdad when the humvee he was driving struck another one of those roadside bombs we hear so much about.

I rise today on behalf of Senator Biden and our whole congressional delegation and the people of Delaware to celebrate his life, to commemorate his life, and to offer his mom and dad and family our support and our deepest sympathy on their tragic loss and on ours.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, on behalf of our leadership, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be recognized to speak as in morning business:

Senator Clinton for 1 hour, followed by Senator Collins for a time to be determined; Senator Kennedy for 30 minutes to make a motion to instruct; Senator Landrieu for 20 minutes.

I further ask unanimous consent that Republican Senators be accommodated, if seeking recognition, in between two Democratic Senators, and that Republican Senators be allocated time that is equal to that consumed by the minority Senators.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to urge our colleagues in the Senate to instruct the conferees to the budget reconciliation bill to reject the House provisions dealing with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF, Program.

Like several of our colleagues, I have a long history of working to improve our Nation's welfare policies to, first of all, make them more effective for States, but also more effective for families.

When I was privileged to serve as Governor of the State of Delaware, I also served, at the same time, as cochairman of the National Governors Association's Welfare Reform Task

Force, along with then-Governor John Engler, and played a lead role in helping to craft welfare reform legislation for Delaware and for our Nation.

As Senator, I have pushed, for the past 3 years, for welfare reauthorization legislation that emphasizes work while also providing help to welfare participants with respect to childcare and educational opportunities.

Because of my extensive involvement with welfare reform for more than a dozen years and my belief that the program can work for both States and families, I am troubled that the House of Representatives has chosen to include its welfare reauthorization bill in the budget reconciliation package. Doing so gives the Senate no opportunity to debate the needed changes in this important program.

The TANF provisions included by the House would reauthorize and make significant policy changes to our Nation's welfare program. Those changes include far more stringent work requirements than under current law while failing to provide sufficient childcare funding or other work supports to help participants meet those new requirements. The House bill would dramatically increase requirements on States without giving them additional resources. And the House language would make it more difficult for TANF recipients to make the successful leap from welfare to work.

The budget reconciliation process is not the right place to reauthorize our country's welfare program. Instead, we should take the opportunity to reauthorize welfare through the regular legislative process, using the bipartisan bill reported out of the Senate Finance Committee as our guide.

Earlier this year, you may recall, the Senate Finance Committee reported out a welfare reform bill--it is called the Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone Act, lovingly known as the PRIDE Act--on a bipartisan basis. This legislation would make commonsense changes and reauthorize the welfare reform program for the next 5 years. The measure would also provide long overdue stability to States and beneficiaries who have been waiting since 2002 for us to provide long-term reauthorization, a path forward.

I would like to commend this afternoon Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Baucus, their Finance Committee colleagues, and their staff for their hard work in crafting the bipartisan PRIDE Act. That legislation is a testament to their dedication and their commitment to enabling Americans to move off welfare and, most importantly, be better off. That committee was able to find consensus on issues that can be both complex and, at times, controversial.

The PRIDE bill can and should be taken up by the full Senate and debated on the Senate floor early next year. This is not a debate that should consume weeks but, rather, a debate that should consume at most a few days. I pledge today to work closely with my colleagues on our side and the Republican side of the aisle to ensure that the bill does not get bogged down in the Senate and that we move it along.

A full debate, though, on the issues would give the Senate, not just a few Senate conferees to a reconciliation bill, the opportunity to have a real discussion about the future of welfare and what policies we should accept or reject during reauthorization. That is what we need to do. And I believe it need not take weeks to develop a consensus and pass a bipartisan bill by a wide margin.

In my view, the House welfare reform bill, called the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2005, is, unfortunately, decidedly partisan. The bill was reported out of both subcommittee and committee by party-line votes and was then dropped wholesale into the budget reconciliation bill.

While I am opposed to the inclusion of the House TANF provisions in the reconciliation bill, I encourage my Senate colleagues to oppose including it for a number of other reasons as well.

I fear that the House's inclusion of a welfare reauthorization bill in a budget reconciliation bill sets up two likely possibilities: No. 1, that the conferees will simply recede to the House TANF provisions; or, No. 2, differences between the House TANF provisions and the Senate PRIDE bill will have to be worked out during a hurried conference committee, in which a few conferees will be faced with tough choices on an incredible array of other issues. Neither scenario is acceptable. Welfare will likely be overshadowed in this context and is not likely to get much thoughtful review.

The work-first approach to welfare reform has enabled States to reduce caseloads dramatically over the last decade or so, while helping members of low-income families to move into jobs and toward financial self-sufficiency. We should build on these successes, not jeopardize them. By giving welfare the proper legislative consideration in both the House and the Senate, we can do just that.

The House TANF provisions differ greatly from the Senate's, and I believe a number of the House provisions are flat out unacceptable. The House bill would dramatically increase, for example, the number of hours that welfare recipients must work. You may recall, under current law, welfare recipients must work an average of 30 hours per week. However, under current law, mothers with young children under the age of 6 must now work at least 20 hours per week. The House bill, by comparison, requires that all welfare recipients--if you have a child a week old or a month old or a year old--even mothers with young children must work 40 hours per week. That is a doubling of the required hours for single parents with young children.

I have been supportive of increased work requirements in the past, but the House bill increases work hours while failing to provide adequate funding for badly needed childcare.

My friends, we can do better than that. To me, it is just basic logic, basic common sense that in order to move parents off welfare into work, we have to give them access to decent childcare. The House bill provides only $100 million per year in additional childcare funding to meet a doubling of work hours. Spread out over 50 States, that does not come close to meeting the needs of families. In fact, over 5 years, this level of funding is $500 million less than what has been included in previous House-passed bills, and $5.5 billion less than what the Senate would provide. What is more, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it is $4.3 billion less than what is needed to keep pace with inflation and almost $8 billion less than the amount needed to offset increased demand for childcare caused by the increased work requirements.

Again, when I was privileged to serve as Governor of my little State, I saw firsthand that parents cannot move to work successfully if they do not have an answer to this question: Who is going to take care of my children and how will I pay for it?

If we want to help parents find jobs--and I know we do--we need to help them secure childcare. It is just that simple.

In addition to what I feel are inadequate provisions surrounding work and childcare, the House bill also limits the ability of welfare recipients to participate in educational activities such as vocational education, allowing participants to participate in that activity for only 3 months in a 2-year period instead of the current 12 months.

The Senate bill, on the other hand, continues to allow 12 months of vocational education and also establishes something called a Parents as Scholars Program, which allows welfare recipients to go on to higher education, not forever but for at least a limited period of time.

In my view, the House bill is not friendly to States either. It asks States to make dramatic changes to their programs. Yet it gives them no additional funding to accomplish those changes and little time to meet those requirements before they would be subject to harsh penalties. The Senate bill, on the other hand, gives States time to meet new requirements. If States make improvements but for some reason are not able to immediately ramp up to the strenuous new targets, penalties will be temporarily waived--not permanently, temporarily. Perhaps some of my Senate colleagues on the other side of the aisle could find common ground with the House provisions. Perhaps some believe we could improve upon the House provisions in conference to

come up with something that is more workable.

I argue, however, that no matter what my colleagues think about the House proposal, we can all agree that the Senate should have the chance to consider welfare reauthorization under regular order, and soon. If we are allowed to debate welfare reform in this body, I am confident we could come up with a bipartisan agreement that truly advances our shared goal of making work pay more than welfare.

The motion I will offer tomorrow would urge conferees to give the Senate a chance to do just that, by rejecting provisions related to the reauthorization of TANF. Instead, the motion I will offer would urge that the Congress enact freestanding legislation that builds on the bipartisan Senate Finance Committee PRIDE bill.

I cannot emphasize enough that the Senate bill was reported out of the Finance Committee on a bipartisan basis. The House bill, on the other hand, has consistently enjoyed the support of only one party. Further, welfare reform should not be considered in the whirlwind of budget reconciliation. Reform should be based on sound policy, and we should seek to find bipartisan consensus on this most important issue, something I am confident we can do.

Tomorrow, when the motion to instruct is offered, I urge and invite my colleagues, both Democratic and Republican, to support it.

Mr. President, I am pleased to voice my support for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and for the Reed amendment that I cosponsored to S.2020, the tax reconciliation bill. The Reed amendment would have fully funded LIHEAP in fiscal year 2006 and would have paid for the increased funding with a temporary tax on the windfall profits of major oil companies.

The Senate fiscal year 2006 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill took an important first step toward providing adequate LIHEAP funds by including $2.183 billion for the program for next fiscal year. This is a good starting point.

However, $2.183 billion represents only a very slight increase over fiscal year 2005 levels and is likely not enough to meet the needs of LIHEAP beneficiaries in the coming winter.

For this reason, I have worked to find ways to increase funding for the LIHEAP program and to do so in a manner that is fiscally responsible. The Reed amendment would have added $2.92 billion to the LIHEAP program and paid for this increase by taxing the windfall profits of major oil companies.

Some have criticized this windfall profits tax. Yet I believe that a temporary, limited tax on the windfall profits of energy companies is a reasonable way to help the least fortunate among us pay for their home energy needs.

Indeed, I believe that the country's oil producers can afford to help pay for LIHEAP. Last month they posted record profits. ExxonMobil reported that their profits rose 75 percent, and in just 3 months they made $9.92 billion in profit. Similar record profits have been reported by all of the major integrated oil companies. Some of this increase in profit is due to oil prices that started to rise this summer even before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the gulf coast. After the hurricanes, though, the price of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined oil products soared.

Our Nation is still struggling to recover from the disasters along the gulf coast. All Americans have had to make sacrifices as a result. This winter the country is facing another crisis, record energy prices and associated increased household heating bills.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, consumers who heat their homes with natural gas prices--about 55 percent of U.S. households--are expected to see their heating bills rise by 48 percent this winter. Those who heat with oil will pay 32 percent more, those who heat with propane will pay 30 percent more, and those who heat with electricity will pay 5 percent more.

These increases will take the greatest toll on the least fortunate among us. Low-income Americans will have a harder time heating their homes and may turn their heat down dangerously low in hopes of being able to pay their monthly bills.

That is why the LIHEAP program is so important. LIHEAP provides vital home energy assistance to low-income families to help them weatherize their homes and pay their energy bills.

The Reed amendment would have asked the oil companies that have profited so much from recent rising energy prices to help ease the burden of this winter's high prices.

I am pleased with the approach taken by the Reed amendment because I believe that we should try to pay for increases in spending. I have been uncomfortable supporting some previous amendments to increase funding for the LIHEAP program because they did not find a way to pay for the increased spending.

Senator Reed has found a way not only to fully fund this vital program, but to pay for it as well.

Unfortunately, Senator Reed's amendment was not accepted by the full Senate during consideration of the tax reconciliation bill. The amendment needed 60 votes to overcome a point of order and received only 50.

We will keep trying though.

The LIHEAP program serves a vital function in helping as many as 5 million low-income households who need a bit of help paying their energy bills or weatherizing their homes. I'm pleased to have been a cosponsor of the Reed amendment and I will continue to look for ways to increase funding for the LIHEAP program.