Floor Statements

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2132.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 221, S. 37.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceedings.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that H.R. 2107 be

discharged from the Committee on the Judiciary and that it be referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, September 28; I further ask that following the morning prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate proceed to executive session to continue consideration of Calendar No. 317, John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States; I further ask consent that the time from 10 to 11 be under the control of the majority leader or his designee; the time from 11 to 12 be under the control of the Democratic leader or his designee; 12 to 1 under the majority control; 1 to 2 under Democratic control; 2 to 3 under majority control; 3 to 4 under Democratic control; 4 to 5 under majority control; 5 to 6 under Democratic control; 6 to 7 under majority control; 7 to 8 under Democratic control.

Mr. President, this week the Senate has been considering the nomination of Judge Roberts. Tomorrow we will continue making statements on this important nomination, with the vote on Mr. Roberts' nomination occurring at 11:30 a.m. Thursday. The majority leader is asking that all Senators be seated at their desk for this historic vote. As a reminder, the leader has announced that the Senate will turn to the Defense appropriations bill on Thursday, and votes are expected on Thursday and Friday of this week. The Senate will also need to act on a continuing resolution before the close of business this week.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order, following the 60 minutes allocation of time for the other side which begins at 6:45 and that the Senate now resume executive session.

Mr. President, in a few moments, I will offer several amendments, but I feel inclined, because of what we have heard about the last two or three amendments that have come forward here, to comment.

There are products offered called crop insurance. It is very important for us as a Senate to remember that everything in life has risk. As we look at Katrina and the tremendous issues that have come forward, not everybody who has a loss in this country is entitled for the Federal taxpayers to pay for that loss. If my house burns down and I am underinsured, is that a Federal Government responsibility? At what level do we recognize personal responsibility and risk in terms of natural events?

There is no question we are going to be working hard to do our part at the Federal level to aid those involved in the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, but the very idea that now we are considering helping those people means we jump on with everybody else who has a need in this country right now is a very dangerous trend that I guarantee we cannot afford.

I applaud the statement of the Senator from Utah in recognizing there is a limit to what we can afford. I know these issues will come through in regular order and process, but I think it has to be said that these are meritorious, that is right, but they are going to have to be listed with the rest of the priorities in this country of what has to come first.

We do not have an unending source of funds, although sometimes we act as if we do. These are going to have to be put in that order of priority. I am sure this body will do that in terms of priority, but what we cannot do is continue to mortgage the future of the next two generations by not making those hard choices.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I would like to call up amendment 1773.

I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this is the first of many amendments I am going to be offering the rest of the year to make a downpayment for our grandchildren to pay for Hurricane Katrina. I start small, but there are many in Washington who say we cannot do it, that there is not the waste, fraud, and abuse, there are not significant dollars that are not spent wisely and prioritized. This is one that I am not sure will pass, but it certainly cannot not be recognized by anybody who looks at the books of the rental assistance program that this is an appropriate amendment. The appropriation for this program in 2005 was $587,264,000. The budget estimate for 2006 was $650 million, the House allowance was $650 million, and the committee recommendation is $653 million.

According to the committee, this program and the objective of the program is to reduce rents paid by low-income families living in rural housing service financed with rental projects and farm labor housing projects. That is a meritorious goal. It is something we ought to be doing, and I fully support doing that. However, the payments from the fund are made to the project owner for the difference between the tenant's payment and the approved rental rate established for the unit.

Why would I offer an amendment to trim that back? It is because the rental assistance program has been gaming us, according to the Government Accountability Office. Let me explain how.

In March 2004, they reported that since 1990--this is 14 years--the rental housing program had consistently overestimated its budget needs for the rental assistance program. Concern had arisen about the issue in early 2003 because RLS reported hundreds of millions in unexpended balances tied to its rental assistance contracts. Specifically, in estimating the needs for rental assistance contracts, it routinely uses higher inflation factors than recommended by OMB, did not apply the inflation rates that are recommended to each year of a contract, and based the estimates of future spending on recent high usage rather than the average usage of the rental assistance program.

First, the agency used inflated factors that were higher than those recommended by the OMB budget process, that they didn't apply it separately to each year, but they did it cumulatively to gain the amount of money they were asking from Congress. The result was an inflation rate that was more than five times the rate of the last year than the first year. So therefore the numbers they are asking for and the balances that are retained are high. And they are not utilizing the money we are appropriating. They are just accumulating money. RLS based its estimates of future expenditures on recent maximum expenditures-- and that may very well be right, but that is what we are doing in supplementals, that is what we have done the supplementals for--rather than the average rates for which the units were funded historically.

According to GAO in its most recent report the agency was not following the guidelines, and they actually overestimated their need last year by $51 million or 6 percent of their appropriations. That is not Tom Coburn saying that. That is the General Accounting Office saying it. The GAO has harshly criticized the agency for lacking proper internal control standards through its administration of this program. As a matter of fact, one single employee has largely been responsible for both budget estimating and allocating rental assistance funds. This amendment simply reduces it from a growth rate of 10 percent to a growth rate of 4 percent. That is higher than our rate of inflation, but it brings it back in line.

The agency has proven it cannot forecast its real needs accurately. It has not forecast its real needs accurately. It fails to track its real needs and fails to track its basic expenditures.

Let me underscore one point. This program will still receive a $23.5 million increase this year under this amendment. If we hope to approach any type of fiscal sanity in the Senate or in this country through this Government, then we have to start holding

agencies accountable. We can have all the GAO reports we want. If they keep getting the money on the same basis that they are getting the money, then we are not going to change behavior. What we want to do is not hurt one person who is relying on us for this rental assistance, but what we do want is the agency to apply and come up to the standards that are recognized as necessary in the Federal Government.

This is one of several amendments I will be offering over the next couple of months. But it proves to the American taxpayer that we can do better. My hope is that the committee will look at this amendment, decide that the GAO was right, decide that they have overestimated it, and trim back this money.

This money is money that can be saved and used to start to offset the costs of this catastrophe that is in front of us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will be happy to respond. The Senator from Utah has my great respect. I know he is an accountant and has a tremendous background in terms of finance. But if you overestimate for the 3 years prior to coming into this before you change it, and you have contracts based on that that were overestimated, you do have an excess of funds in there now. There will be no shortage of rental payments because of the over-roll of the overpayments, the overestimate of the contracts that have been made.

The good answer for the American people is this is going to throw people out. It is not going to throw a person out. There is plenty of money in this account. There is almost $50 million at the end of this year left in this account that is not expended and can be spent. So it is not accurate to say people will not be able to have the homes that they have.

I think the Senator will agree that if, in fact, you overestimate inflation rates 4 years running, and you have been appropriated all that money looking forward for that, and you had contracts on costs that were less than that, if anything the surplus will grow if the usage is the same.

To make the argument that we should not do this because somebody might be thrown out, when, in fact, it is not accurate based on the funding that is in this account at this time, doesn't do justice to the very problems that we have before us.

I do not expect this amendment to pass, and I probably will not ask for a rollcall vote. I don't know what I am going to do in terms of asking for a rollcall vote. But it is that kind of thing we have to look at. We have to tighten our belts. There is loose money in this program. It can be done better. They have demonstrated they have started to do better, but they have not demonstrated they are doing better. What I would ask is for us to send a message: Do better. It doesn't undercut the first person we are trying to help. We have already sent $62 billion out there for this disaster, and we are planning on sending more. If we need to make an adjustment in one of those appropriations bills, if in fact I am wrong and you are right-- which I do not believe to be the case--we can do it then. But send the signal: Do it right, do it efficiently, and do it for the best price you can because our grandchildren are counting on you.

I hope at some point in time we will start getting to the realization that we have to start making some choices. This is a choice that is not going to hurt the first person, but it is going to change an agency to make them recognize you are going to start playing with real numbers and quit gaming the system. They have a cushion. They know they have a cushion. I believe the appropriators and accounting staff know they have a cushion, and we ought to take that cushion away and make them do what they should be doing.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

Does a decision on a rollcall vote have to be made at this time?

I will defer that at this time and have a discussion with the Senator from Utah about having a vote on this amendment.

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

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1775 and ask to set the pending amendment aside.

Mr. President, this is an amendment I offered earlier in the year on a previous appropriations bill. I want to set the stage for this because I think this is probably one of the most important amendments I will offer in the Senate. It is important the American public recognize what this amendment does.

Appropriations bills start in the House. They come to the Senate. They are met in conference.

In the House bill there is report language. In the Senate bill there is report language. In that report language is where you find out where the money is going to be spent. The purpose of this amendment is to make sure, when a bill comes out of conference, that the Members of this body know where all the money is going to be spent before they vote on the bill.

There is no lack of desire for many of us who want to know that, but it is hard to find out as you approach the conference bill; that is, for us. But it is also difficult for the American people to know.

What this amendment is about is about sunshine. It is about sunshine on the legislative process so that the American people know items that are special projects for Members of Congress, items that have been earmarked or especially directed that we ought to know of, and what that is ought to be in the report language, where it is going and to whom it is going.

This amendment received 34 votes last time. I think it is absolutely imperative for us to keep the integrity of our appropriations process so that we know, No. 1, what is in the bills that we vote on and have available to us--that information on report language, but, No. 2, for the American people to know.

It has been said they can find it on the Internet. They can if they care to really dig through it. But if there is report language that has it where you can go to, you can, in fact, know before we vote what the special interests are that influence the appropriations bills of this country.

This is simply saying sunshine, let us know what is in it, let us print what is in it, and let us not deny what is in it. If it is good, great; if not, take the lumps that go along with it.

If you are doing a special favor for someone, or earmarking one of your political constituencies, it ought to be out there, and it ought to be looked at.

This is a simple, straightforward amendment that we ought to honestly say that we like sunshine rather than darkness and less than straightforwardness.

It is my hope that the body will again consider this and add it to this bill so that, when we go to conference, everybody understands what is in the bill when it comes out of conference. We are going to know what is in the bill, and we will not have to play games to know what is in the bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, so the Members of the body know, I intend to offer this on every bill that doesn't have it. Some of the bills have had it but some have not. So my intention is to offer this amendment for the next 6 years on every appropriations bill that comes through because I believe more information going to the American public is a whole lot better than information hidden and sequestered away from them to know what we are doing.

We are accountable. If we are doing our work, then we ought to be proud of our work, and we ought to put it out.

I will be happy to discuss this with the chairman of the committee. He knows. I have had this debate with him before. I am persistent, and the Senator from Utah knows that. I believe the people of Oklahoma believe it. I believe that the vast majority of Americans believe it. We ought to know what we are voting on, where the money is going and who is going to benefit from it ought to be printed.

On this amendment, I ask for the yeas and nays, and I ask for a rollcall vote on this amendment.

I thank the Senator for his amendment.

Mr. President, this is an area I am all too familiar with. If we are going to solve the health care crisis in America, it starts with prevention. In the year 2070, one out of every $2 of Medicare we spend will be for diabetes. Fifty percent of the diabetes that will occur in the future can be prevented by good nutrition education in the early years, not only of the children but of the parents.

This is a fantastic amendment. I told the Senator from New Mexico I wished I had thought of it. For every $1 we spend on prevention, we get $17 back. For every $1 we spend on computers, we probably get $2 or $3 back. It comes back to the questions of priorities.

This is a great idea. I understand the resistance to not cut anything in a bill that comes to the floor from a Committee on Appropriations. I understand that. But I think of all the amendments I have heard, including mine, other than sunshine, this is the best I have heard because it will have the greatest impact. We get the most value for the dollars we spend. That is what we should be about. I heartily support the amendment and I hope the Senate will too.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1648 on the CJS appropriations bill.

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

Mr. President, this is an amendment to start us down the way of reprioritizing our spending in this country.

With the events of the last 2 weeks, the tremendous deficit we face already, and the significant problems we face in this country, especially in terms of methamphetamine, the Weather Service, and the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, this is an amendment that will eliminate the Advanced Technology Program.

There is no question that the ATP has done some good in its history. It has $140 million in budget authority and has, this year, $22.4 million in outlays. But there has come a time when we need to make decisions. One of the things I have been consistent on in terms of my time in the Senate is insisting that we start reprioritizing the things that work and the things that do not work.

The Advanced Technology Program was scrutinized at a hearing of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this year and had good testimony. I will not demean some of the positive things that have come from this program. There is no question certain positive things have come from it.

However, GAO and the Comptroller General noted that 63 percent of the requests for grants through ATP never sought funds anywhere else. ATP is supposed to be the source of last resort on technology.

I have put up a chart to show the American people who has actually been getting the funding. It has not been small businessmen. It has not been new ideas, innovation coming from small entrepreneurs. What it has been for is the major corporations in this country that have billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of sales every year, and billions in profits. Yet we are now asking the American taxpayer to take 30 to 40 percent of this ATP money and fund the likes of General Electric, IBM, Motorola, and 3M, just to name four.

The fact is, good ideas will usually get funded. There is venture capital all across this country looking for good ideas, private capital that will fund great ideas. In this time of fiscal constraint, it is time we reprioritize what we do with this money.

This amendment is intended to take the savings from ATP and put it in three different programs. One of the programs is the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants Program, which is markedly needed today in terms of drug courts, in terms of drug busts, in terms of helping the district attorneys and State attorneys general accomplish the very laws we put on the books in front of them.

It transfers funding to the COPS Methamphetamine Hot Spots Program. There has never been a more devastating drug to our society than methamphetamine. It is growing like wildfire. As a matter of fact, attached to this bill is a methamphetamine bill that limits and restricts the sale of pseudoephedrine throughout this country. It is a compromise worked out by many of us on the Judiciary Committee, along with Senator Talent and Senator Feinstein, to put the brakes on the accessibility of pseudoephedrine in the manufacturing of methamphetamine.

It also helps fund the National Weather Service for two hurricane and tornado monitoring and broadcast programs. Goodness knows, we need that. Different outlay rates for the different programs result in only $124.9 million of the original $140 million being transferred.

In March, during debate over the budget resolution, Senator Levin offered an amendment supporting ATP. One of the reasons for that is last year Michigan got $31 million out of the $140 million. I can understand his desire to support that. But I would also note that methamphetamine is a growing epidemic in Michigan. Law enforcement and the Hot Spots Program to fund the breaking down, the taking of children out of areas that have been exposed to this tremendously derelict drug that is infecting and ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans is important.

It is interesting to note that for every State in the United States, the average funding from ATP has been less than funding for the Byrne JAG Program. The results of this will place $48 million additional into the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants Program, $72 million into the COPS Methamphetamine Hot Spots Program, and $4.9 million into the National Weather Service.

It is interesting to note, also, that many of those who oppose this bill are the ones who seek and have received the most in terms of the grants from the ATP program. If you look at California, where Senator Feinstein will be supporting this CJS bill, California actually received $31 million as an average from 1990 to 2004. However, with the Byrne JAG Program being reduced, their average of $58 million for that program will be reduced.

ATP was created by Congress in 1988 to improve the global competitive position of high-tech industries in the United States. Very few of the things that came out of that ATP program accounted for the tremendous resurgence in the economic activities of the 1990s. Very few of the things have come out of the ATP program, although there have been some. One in Oklahoma in particular, Pure Protein, a company in my home State, had an ATP program. But they also have venture capital funding that would have funded that research anyway.

Many of the program's most vocal supporters believe without Federal funding provided by ATP, countless research projects would receive no money at all, and that ATP exists to remedy the failure of the market to fund research and development. There is no evidence, however, that would support those claims.

Time after time, ATP has been shown to fund initiatives that have already been undertaken by the private sector. Year after year, multibillion-dollar corporations, as noted here, receive millions of dollars from ATP.

Regarding the claim that ATP primarily funds research that does not already exist in the private sector, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found in a 2000 report ATP-funded research on handwriting recognition that began in the private sector in 1950. GAO found that inherent factors within ATP made it unlikely that ATP--and this is a quote--``can avoid funding research already being pursued by the private sector in the same time period.''

A 2002 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that ATP launched major efforts to fund Internet tools companies during periods when venture funding was markedly increasing its flow to these sectors. Furthermore, according to a program assessment and rating tool used by the Office of Management and Budget, ATP does not address a specific need and is not designed to make a unique contribution.

The Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, through the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, the Bureau of Justice Assistance provides leadership and guidance on crime control and violence prevention and works in partnership with State and local governments to make communities safe and improve the criminal justice system. The JAG Program was created in 2004 through the merger of two Federal grant programs, the Edward Byrne Memorial Drug Control and System Improvement Grant Program and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Program. The JAG Program allows States and local governments to support a broad range of activities to prevent and control crime and to improve the criminal justice system.

The program focuses specifically on six separate purpose areas: law enforcement programs; prosecution and court programs; prevention and educational programs; correction and community correction programs; drug treatment programs; planning, evaluation, and technology improvement.

I want to tell you, as a physician, incarceration does not solve drug addiction. It makes it worse. Drug treatment programs solve drug addictions. If we are going to cut the money going to drug treatment programs, we are making a vital mistake, a mistake we will pay additional dollars for in the years to come.

The procedure for allocating JAG funds is a formula based on population and crime statistics in combination with the minimum allocation to ensure that each State and territory receives an appropriate share.

Traditionally, under the Byrne formula and LLEBG Program, funds were distributed 60-40 between State and local recipients. This distribution continues under the JAG Program.

The community-oriented policing services' Methamphetamine Hot Spots Program address a broad array of law enforcement initiatives pertaining to the investigation of methamphetamine trafficking in heavily affected areas of the country. This is the largest growing area of drug abuse in our country. It has a tremendous impact not only on the drug user but on their families because of the danger associated with it. We have seen a marked increase of infants who are delivered whose mothers are addicted to methamphetamine with tremendous negative consequences.

Earlier this year, 53 State attorneys general, including American Samoa and North Mariana Islands and District of Columbia, signed a letter to congressional leadership asking us not to reduce the funding for the Byrne Jag and COPS Program. The letter asked Congress to restore the reductions in these law enforcement programs to a level that allows the States to build on the results of the past, law enforcement partnerships represented by the Byrne JAG and COPS Programs. I will not go into the National Weather Service.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a fact sheet on Ohio, an article by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the meth epidemic striking Ohio, a fact sheet on Virginia, and a fact sheet on Minnesota.

This is an area where there will be some controversy. I don't know if we will win the vote on this amendment. If we start looking at the human faces of what we, as Government, can do versus what business on its own can do and venture capital on its own can do, what we will see is that our parochialism needs to stop in terms of benefits to limited numbers, and we need to increase benefits to the masses. What I am asking by this grant is to eliminate a program that is marginal at best and put the money where it is going to make a tremendous difference in people's lives, born and unborn. It is my hope the Senate will concur with the amendment and that we can have a bipartisan vote to do it. It is also my hope that this is the first of many amendments, as we continue the appropriations process, where we will start making the hard choices--not easy, not black and white, but gray--that are necessary for us to meet the growing needs of the Federal Government in this time of tremendous tragedy along our gulf coast and in a time of tragedy for our budget.

It is my hope we won't vote this based on what we feel our own State gets but what is best for the country and how we move forward.

I yield the floor.

amendment no. 1668

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on the nomination of John G. Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States on Monday, September 12, 2005 at 12 p.m. in the Russell Senate Office Building, Room 325.

Witness List

Panel I: The Honorable Richard G. Lugar, U.S. Senator [R-IN]; the Honorable John Warner, U.S. Senator [R-VA]; the Honorable Evan Bayh, United States Senator [D-IN].

Panel II: The Honorable John G. Roberts.

Mr. President, I thank the leadership for giving me an opportunity to talk this evening and to express some views. We heard a very good talk about the budget. The points I was going to make have to do with the disasters we face. It is ``disasters''--it is not one, it is two. One is slowly creeping upon us, and the other is right in front of us.

The tragedy that we see on the gulf coast is something to which we have to attend, something for which we have to supply the funds. It is important that we offer aid, that we come to the aid of those people. One of the most disheartening things I have seen in the last week-and- a-half has been finger pointing by politicians at all levels of our country that benefits no one, accomplishes nothing except to prove to the American people partisanship tends to trump any issue. It is disheartening that we as a body would fall into that, when such great responsibilities are in front of us.

I said ``disasters'' because the other disaster we are not looking at is the Federal budget that the Senator from Illinois discussed. I take a very different view. I am disappointed in our President for not bringing forward with this bill recommended spending cuts that would easily be achieved in the discretionary budget of this country to pay for the disaster assistance. We heard Senator Lott talk about the sacrifices of the people, both those who are involved and those who have contributed to help in this tragedy. It is no sacrifice on the part of Congress to steal $51.2 billion from our grandchildren to supply the need now without doing the hard work that Americans would expect of us to make sure our priorities are right. It is a time for leadership in this country.

Our budget deficit, after we pass this bill, will be $670 billion this year. That is the real deficit. That comes to over $2,000 per man, woman, and child in this country this year alone. So we have two disasters. One is that we have chosen political expediency over the

future of our country. The heritage that our country leaves us and has been given to us is one of sacrifice to preserve the opportunities for the next generation.

We are going to do what is right for the people on the gulf coast, I have no doubt. But we are not doing what is right for the generations that are beyond us, for our children and our grandchildren. It takes courage to stand up and say we can do better. We have heard that. But we have not ever talked about how we can do better. We have talked about how agencies can do better. The way we do better is by finally starting to make the hard choices on priorities for our country.

The President, in his budget proposal this year, recommend 99 programs to be eliminated that did not meet an assessment rating program that was developed by OMB. That program was many times agreed to by many people in this body. That was $19.6 billion. There is not the courage coming from the executive branch to offer those, to say we are not going to spend another $19.6 billion of our grandchildren's money. Yet we are going to do the easy thing. We should pay for this. We should pass this bill, but we should not pass it on the backs of our children and our grandchildren.

I have a message for Americans out there. We have seen so many great efforts at contribution. Oklahoma has 3,800 people from Louisiana now, and we are going to love them and care for them and do everything we can to help those individuals in our State. But everybody else in this country can make a sacrifice, too. There is no charity without sacrifice. If it doesn't cost you anything, it is not worth much.

What we have to do is look at every level of the Government, every operation of the Government, and say: Where can we do better? I have talked to hundreds and hundreds of Federal employees who know where the waste is in their departments and in their agencies. Now is the time to come forward. The doctors in this country, you can save Medicare a ton. The hospitals in this country, you can save Medicare a ton. This year alone, trim your bills, cut back 4 or 5 percent. Do what is hard for you but gives benefit to the future. We need to set a standard that we are going to do what is right, both in this generation and in the generations that follow us.

We have an oath to uphold the Constitution, but we have a higher oath, and that higher oath is to keep the obligations that our forefathers put forward to create the best, brightest, the country providing the most opportunity of any in the world.

We will borrow internationally this year $1.4 trillion. How many years do you think the international financial community will continue to allow us to borrow that money without some cost coming home?

I believe we should have made the effort to pay for part of this supplemental spending.

I believe it is easy for us not to make that effort. I think it is very hard if we choose to make the effort. I believe if we do not step up to the responsibilities given to us by not attempting to make us better, by not attempting to make us more efficient, by not attempting to root out the waste--examples: Last year, 2004, the Federal Government overpaid $41.5 billion for things it bought or handed out. That would almost pay for this bill, if we would eliminate that. We can eliminate it. We choose not to do the oversight that is necessary to find the problems to make us more efficient, to accomplish the very goals to create the opportunity in the future for the next generation.

I will vote for this bill. But I am noticing our Members that we should do better; we should do what is expected of us; we should make the hard choices people expect us to make rather than to go to an unending piggy bank of debt and defer those choices to our grandchildren.

What does that mean? It means our grandchildren are going to have a far lower standard of living as we try to continue to load this debt on them. That is not opportunity. That is not a heritage I want to be involved with. I want to follow the heritage of our forefathers and the great generation of World War II where sacrifice was made.

I believe it is incumbent upon us to do better. I challenge every Member of this body to start doing the oversight, to find the areas where we can be better, where we can spend less money now--not because it may not be a great project--where we don't spend $26.5 billion in earmarks on a highway bill, the New York Times today listed ways we could help pay by eliminating earmarks and pork.

I find it ironic that I am agreeing with editorials in the New York Times. But they are right. The American people should demand of us now to make the very hard choices of ordering our priorities. Not doing that is below what every individual Member of this body is about.

I challenge Members as we look forward to the next supplemental which we consider if there is an area in the Federal Government that isn't working well where we could save money. The assumption on other side of that is the Federal Government is 100-percent efficient. If there is not any place where we can find money to trim to pay for that, that means the Federal Government is working perfectly. There is not a person in this country who believes that.

I know this talk about finding the money falls on deaf ears to many Members of this body. I am not partisan in any way except I am partisan for the future of our country. We cannot continue to live beyond our means.

The individuals out there who sent $20 to the American Red Cross didn't go freely to get $20 to buy the next ice cream cone or go to the next Starbucks. They gave up something to give that money. We need to be doing the same, and hardship is required. We need to stand up-- Democrats, Republicans, individuals--and lead on the issue of efficiency and accuracy and the ordering of priorities; it is most important.

Is it important right now to spend $200 million on a bridge to 50 people in Alaska? Is that important? Should we be doing that when we could spend $200 million helping people in New Orleans or Mississippi? There isn't going to be anybody except 50 people and two Senators and one Congressman who thinks that is a good priority. We ought to be adjusting what we have done to pay for this.

The other final point I would make, it was suggested to the administration and it was rejected, but we need a controller for this money under the Office of the President to make sure it is spent properly. If we have the legislation that is already authorizing that, it is available, it should be put forward. I am going to offer that legislation next week to make sure it is spent right. The President has authorized in good will an inspector general increase to look at it, but they won't be controlling the money. What they do is see how it is spent after the fact. We need somebody in charge of spending before it is spent to make sure it is a priority before it goes down there, as we should be doing here.

I thank the body for the time and the effort. I believe it is incumbent on us to secure the future of this country. We can be critical of FEMA, but if we are not critical of our own positions in how we have spent our children's and our grandchildren's future, we have no right to be critical of any other agency of this Federal Government.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from Idaho for his unwavering faithfulness to the Constitution and upholding his oath as a Senator, as a Member of this body.

The Bill of Rights is important to us, and I rise today in support of that Bill of Rights and, in particular, the second amendment. Not only do I believe the right to bear arms is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, I exercise that right personally as a gun owner. I stand on behalf of the people of Oklahoma who adamantly believe in the second amendment and the right to carry arms and against the attack on that right by the frivolous lawsuits that have come about of late.

We have seen many attempts to curtail the second amendment. Nearly a decade ago anti-gun activists tried to limit the right of law-abiding citizens under the banner of ``terrorism'' legislation by slipping in anti-gun provisions.

In another line of attack, the anti-gun lobby responded to decreasing enthusiasm for limiting handguns by promoting a new form of gun control--a cosmetic ban on guns labeled with the inflammatory title ``assault weapons.'' While that ban expired in 2004, we will likely see Members of this body attempt to add a renewal and expansion of that ban on this bill today.

Now anti-gun activists have found another way to constrict the right to bear arms and attack the Bill of Rights and attack the Constitution, and that is through frivolous litigation. They have not succeeded in jailing thousands of law-abiding Americans for having guns, or making the registration and purchase process so onerous that nobody bothers to buy a gun. They have failed to get their cosmetic weapons ban renewed. So now they must attack the arms industry financially through lawsuits--frivolous lawsuits, I might say.

This is why we are here today--to put a stop to the unmeritorious litigation that threatens to bankrupt a vital industry in this country.

As an important aside, I strongly believe it is important that we not write legislation that provides immunity for an industry that knowingly harms consumers.

It is also important that those who commit crimes, with or without the use of firearms, should be punished for their actions. I have always been a strong supporter of tough crime legislation. However, make no mistake, the lawsuits that will be prohibited under this legislation are intended to drive the gun industry out of business. With no gun industry, there is no second amendment right because there is no supply.

These lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers are not directed at perpetrators of crime. Instead, they are part of a stealth effort to limit gun ownership, and I oppose any such effort adamantly.

Anti-gun activists have failed to advance their agenda at the ballot box. They failed to advance their agenda in the legislatures. Therefore, they are hoping these cases will be brought before sympathetic activist judges--activist judges--who will determine by judicial fiat that the arms industry is responsible for the action of third parties.

Additionally, trial lawyers are working hand in glove with the anti- gun activists because they see the next litigation cash cow, the next cause of action that will create a fortune for them in legal fees.

As a result of some of the efforts of the anti-gun activists and some trial lawyers, the gun manufacturing and sales industry face huge costs that arise from simply defending unjustified lawsuits, not to mention the potential of runaway verdicts. This small industry has already experienced over $200 million in such charges. Even one large verdict could bankrupt an entire industry.

Since 1988, individuals and municipalities have filed dozens of novel lawsuits against members of the firearms industry. These suits are not intended to create a solution. They are intended to drive the gun industry out of business by holding manufacturers and dealers liable for the intentional and criminal act of third parties over whom they have absolutely no control.

In testimony before a House subcommittee in 2005, the general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., said:

I believe a conservative estimate of the total, industry-

wide cost of defending ourselves to date now exceeds $200

million.

What does that produce in our country other than waste and abnormal enrichment of the legal system?

This is a huge sum for a small industry such as the gun industry. The firearms industry taken together would not equal the value of a Fortune 500 company.

The danger that these lawsuits could destroy the gun industry is especially threatening because our national security and our civil liberties are at stake.

First, the gun industry manufactures firearms for America's military forces and law enforcement agencies, the 9, the 11. Due in part to Federal purchasing rules these guns are made in the U.S. by American workers. Successful lawsuits could leave the U.S. at the mercy of small foreign suppliers.

Second, by restricting the gun industry's ability to make and sell guns and ammunition, the lawsuits threaten the ability of Americans to exercise their second amendment right to bear arms.

Finally, if the firearms industry must continue to spend millions of dollars on litigation or eventually goes bankrupt, thousands of people will lose their jobs. Secondary suppliers to gunmakers will also have suffered and will continue to suffer.

This is why it is not surprising that the labor unions, representing workers at major firearms plants, such as the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in East Alton, IL, support this bill. This union's business representatives stated that the jobs of their 2,850 union members ``would disappear if trial lawyers and opportunistic politicians get their way.''

The economic impact of this problem may be felt in other ways. In my home State of Oklahoma, hunting and fishing creates an enormous economic impact. It is tremendously positive. Hunters bring in retail sales of over $292 million per year; 6,755 jobs in Oklahoma are dependent on hunting; $137,122,000 in salaries and wages in Oklahoma alone; and $22 million in State sales tax per year. The financial insolvency of gun manufacturers and sellers would have a devastating effect on my State and many other States similar to Oklahoma.

Insurance rates for firearm manufacturers have skyrocketed since these suits began, and some manufacturers are already being denied insurance and seeing their policies canceled, leaving them unprotected and vulnerable to bankruptcy.

That is the ultimate goal of these suits--bankruptcy and the elimination of this arms industry. Because of that, 33 State legislatures have acted to block similar lawsuits, either by limiting the power of localities to file suit or by amending State product liability laws. However, it only takes one lawsuit in one State to bankrupt the entire industry, making all of those State laws inconsequential. That is why it is essential that we pass Federal legislation.

Additionally, plaintiffs in these suits demand enormous monetary damages and a broad variety of injunctive relief relating to the design, the manufacture, the distribution, the marketing, and the sale of firearms.

Some of their demands: One-gun-a-month purchase restrictions not required by State laws; requiring manufacturers and distributors to ``participate in a court-ordered study of lawful demand for firearms and to cease sales in excess of lawful demand; ``prohibition on sales to dealers who are not stocking dealers with at least $250,000 of inventory--in other words, we are going to regulate how much you have to have in inventory before you can be a gun seller; a permanent injunction requiring the addition of a safety feature for handguns that will prevent their discharge by ``those who steal handguns''; and a prohibition on the sales of guns near Chicago that by their design are unreasonably attractive to criminals.

These lawsuits are frivolous. Anti-gun activists want to blame violent acts of third parties on manufacturers of guns for simply manufacturing guns and sellers of guns for simply selling them. This doesn't make any sense. This would be the equivalent of holding a car dealer responsible for a person who intentionally runs down a pedestrian simply because the car that was sold by the dealer was used by a third party to commit negligent homicide.

Guns, like many other things, can be dangerous in the wrong hands. The manufacturer or seller of a gun who is not negligent and obeys all applicable laws should not be held accountable for the unforeseeable actions of a third party. This is a country based on personal accountability, and when we start muddying that aspect of our law and culture we will see all sorts of unintended consequences.

Most of the victims of gun injuries I have seen in the emergency room as a practicing physician were people who were intentionally shot by other people. The gun was the mechanism that was used, but it was the individual who carried out that act. The gun was a tool. Should we ban all tools that are capable of committing homicide or committing injury? These people were not injured by defective guns or defective ammunition. The individuals who shot these patients deserve aggressive prosecution, not the industry that made the guns or the legal sellers of the guns. Even when I treated individuals who injured themselves with guns, these tragedies were accidents. It was not part of a quality or product defect. It was an act of stupidity on the part of people. Part of our freedom comes with the ability to make wise choices. If we limit our ability to make choices, then we limit our freedom.

These lawsuits are part of an anti-gun activist effort to make an end run around the legislative system. We have seen that in multiple areas in our country. When you can't pass it in the legislature, you get an activist judge to get done what you wanted to do in the first place, even though a majority of Americans and a majority of legislatures don't want it. But one judge decides for the rest of us.

We are coming up on a judicial nomination for the Supreme Court. One of the questions that has to be asked is what is the proposal, What is the role in terms of judges making law rather than interpreting law? It will be a key question.

So far judges have not been convinced by their arguments. Here are a few examples. The Louisiana Supreme Court struck down the right of New Orleans to bring a suit in the face of a State law forbidding it, in an opinion stating clearly:

This lawsuit constitutes an indirect attempt to regulate

the lawful design, manufacture, marketing and sale of

firearms.

Judge Berle M. Schiller of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania struck the nail on the head when dismissing all of Philadelphia's allegations, stating that ``the city's action seeks to control the gun industry by litigation, an end the city could not accomplish by passing such an ordnance.''

The Delaware Superior Court adeptly stated that ``the Court sees no duty on the manufacturer's part that goes beyond their duties with respect to design and manufacture. The Court cannot imagine that a weapon can be designed that operates for law-abiding people but not for criminals.''

A word of caution. Most new tort ideas took a while to work. All it would take is one multimillion-dollar lawsuit to severely damage this industry. This bill is limited in scope. It protects only licensed and law-abiding firearms and ammunition manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits that seek to hold manufacturers and sellers responsible for the crime that third party criminals commit with their nondefective products.

Manufacturers and sellers are still responsible for their own negligent or criminal conduct and must operate entirely within the Federal and State laws.

Firearms and ammunition manufacturers or sellers may be held liable for negligent entrustment or negligence per se; violation of a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product where the violation was the proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought; breach of contract or warranty; and product defect. They still are responsible for all that through this bill. It takes none of that away. It holds personal accountability solid and steadfast. It does not infringe on it. Claimants may still go to court to argue that their claims fall under one of the exceptions.

In my opinion, gun manufacturers and sellers are already policed enough, too much, through hundreds of pages of

statutes, hundreds of pages of regulations. To name a few sources of regulations of guns and ammunition: the Internal Revenue Code, including the National Firearms Act postal regulations restricting shipping of handguns; Federal explosive law; regulations for gunpowder and ammunition manufacture; the Arms Export Control Act; the Commerce Department export regulations; the Department of Transportation regulations on ammunition explosives and hazardous material transport.

In addition to keeping explicit records that can be inspected by BATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, licensed dealers have to conduct a Federal criminal background check on their retail sales either directly by the FBI through its national instant criminal background check or through State systems that also use the NICS system. All retail gun buyers are screened to the best of the Government's ability.

Additionally, the industry has voluntary programs to promote safe gun storage and to help dealers avoid sales to potential illegal traffickers.

Manufacturers also have a time-honored tradition of acting responsibly to make recalls or make repairs as they become aware of product defects.

In the past, Congress has found it necessary to protect other classes; for example, the light aircraft industry. Jim Inhofe, a Senator from Oklahoma, moved that through the House and ultimately through the Senate, an industry that was killed, literally destroyed by frivolous lawsuits. Community health centers, same thing; the aviation industry; the medical implant makers; Amtrak--we have created a special exception for Amtrak--the computer industry members who are affected by Y2K. We took the nonsense out of the courts and put it where it belongs, into statutes with common sense that requires personal accountability and responsibility.

Furthermore, Congress may enact litigation reform when lawsuits are affecting interstate commerce. In many of these lawsuits cities and individuals are trying to use the State court to restrict the conduct of the firearms industry nationally, often contrary to state policies expressed through their own legislatures.

A single verdict in favor of an anti-gun plaintiff could bankrupt or regulate an entire segment of the economy--and of America's national defense. It could be out of business, but most importantly, my right, Oklahomans' right, all of America's right to a guarantee of the second amendment to the Bill of Rights secured for them in their ability to own and use firearms responsibly.

This bill will protect our national security. It will protect our constitutional rights. It will protect an industry responsibly, and it will protect thousands of jobs. It also will ensure that people who have suffered a real injury from a real cause of action can be heard and taken seriously while law-abiding manufacturers and dealers of firearms may continue to serve the law-abiding citizens exercising their constitutionally guaranteed second amendment rights.

Mr. President, I thank you, and I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I will make a few comments before I call up a couple of amendments.

No. 1, I am disheartened that the committee, as well as the administration, would not take our restrictions on the USAID program for malaria. The Federal Financial Management Subcommittee of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had a very insightful and revealing hearing that revealed in testimony that the vast majority of the funds to help those in Africa suffering from malaria, both in terms of prevention and treatment, were not going for that purpose, but yet were being consumed by consultations and travel, and very little of the $90 million that is allocated each year actually is going to treat malaria.

One million African children under 5 years of age each year die from a totally preventable disease, malaria. It takes 90 cents to treat them and cure them of that disease.

I am markedly disappointed in the process that even though the administration has a great new program for malaria in Africa, limitations on the present program would not be agreed to and put in place. I assure this body and the administration that within 3 months, we are going to look at the USAID program for malaria again and if, in fact, they are still wasting money the way they are today and not achieving the goals of prevention and treatment for malaria, then we will be bringing another piece of legislation to the floor to modify the expenditures and put a limitation on them.

I also am somewhat disheartened that the State Department failed to recognize the contribution of 47 individuals in Iraq and that, through their own inappropriateness and lack of ability to follow the law, overpaid these individuals. Their average work time was 16 to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week over the last year, and the State Department has now made a very onerous and difficult situation for those people, who are still in Iraq, to now have to pay back money inadvertently overpaid. This is a small price to pay. The cost to collect the overpayments is going to be more than the forgiveness would have been. But yet we have a stiff rule that we seem to be more interested in doing what the State Department wants in terms of its technical problems instead of doing what is probably the best thing to do for these people who have sacrificed greatly in Iraq.

We are going to be debating a couple of amendments in a few moments. One amendment will be an amendment under which Senator Boxer and I limit some funds of the Export-Import Bank in terms of financing sales of nuclear powerplants to China. It is a fairly straightforward amendment. There is no question we want to promote jobs in this country. It is important for us to stay competitive. But competing with the French in terms of subsidizing a British corporation, not an American corporation, and subsidizing that to the intent that it will, in fact, allow technology that Westinghouse Electric, which is owned by British Nuclear Fuels which is owned by the British Government, that technology 10 years from now will belong to the Chinese. We are in essence through an American taxpayers' loan, subsidizing the Chinese to take more of our technology.

The press is rife, the reports are rife, our trade people also recognize intellectual property is not something that is honored by the Chinese Government. There are some very significant inconsistencies in our policy that I think we need to reinforce, and this amendment with Senator Boxer is intended to do that.

The other amendment I will be calling up has to do with the expenditure of USAID in terms of entertainment. There is no question that we have much to do in terms of our foreign policy internationally and that the USAID can and should be the agent of a lot of those changes. However, there are significant problems associated with that, and we will be discussing that.

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment.

I call up amendments Nos. 1241 and 1242.

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

Amendment 1241 has to do with entertainment expenses associated with USAID. I have a couple of charts that I will refer to. We are going to run a true on-budget deficit this year of $541 billion. It is inappropriate for bureaucracies of our Government to spend money in ways that are not appropriate when, in fact, that money can do much greater things.

In the current bill, and since 1999, there has been a limitation of $5,000 in the USAID budget for entertainment. Much of this entertainment has gone for personal gifts, for live entertainment, for dinners. One of the things I found quite striking was what the USAID handbook states about spending.

The USAID handbook states: For budget purposes, entertainment includes food and drink, receptions, banquets, live or recorded music, live artistic performances, personal gifts and furnishings.

The USAID handbook also states: The USAID has the authority to use program and regular operating expense funds for entertainment under the necessary expense doctrine. GAO decisions to the contrary are not binding on the executive branch. There are no restrictions on the use of the entertainment account or representation allowances for alcoholic beverages.

Let us talk about what $5,000 per pop could do. Five thousand dollars per pop in Africa today is enough to prevent 1,250 babies from getting HIV. Are we going to have a party or buy gifts for officials of African governments, or are we going to cure babies of HIV and prevent the transmission?

Five thousand dollars is enough to prevent 5,000 children from dying of malaria. Are we going to have a party with USAID, are we going to have entertainment, or are we going to direct USAID back to their directed purpose, which is carrying out the good will and the financial assets of Americans to make an impact on the health, lives, and prosperity of those we are attempting to serve?

Five thousand dollars would buy 5,000 5-gallon bottles of clean water for the multitudes of cities that have no clean water. Are we going to spend it on entertainment--and we do not care what the GAO says, we do not care what Congress says--are we going to spend it on entertainment and furnishings?

Five thousand dollars would buy 300 bags of rice, oats, and wheat for communities in need of food and nourishment. Are we going to have entertainment for USAID, or are we going to send the money?

The problem the American people have with our foreign aid is not that they do not want to help people. They want to help. The problem is they have become skeptical that their tax dollars are actually getting to the very people they intend and want to help. USAID can limit this. They can make a bigger difference if, in fact, they will eliminate the entertainment portions of their budgets.

Five thousand dollars can buy 10 additional body armor units for our troops. Are we going to have entertainment by USAID, or are we going to have additional body armor units for our troops?

I am not a prude. I think there is an appropriate time for us to greet in a diplomatic fashion, in a way that is commensurate with what is protocol, but I do not think USAID has to be doing that. There are other areas within the State Department that should be doing that.

The last thing I would say is $5,000 may seem like an inconsequential amount one at a time, but when it is done multiple times, it is not inconsequential, No. 1. No. 2, it could be the difference of life and death for the very people USAID proposes to want to help.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of an amendment that I called up earlier, the Coburn-Boxer amendment, banning the Export- Import Bank of the United States from funding construction of nuclear facilities in the People's Republic of China.

I want the American people to know, and especially this body, that we are walking down a road using taxpayers' funds for low-interest loans to finance a British Government-owned company to sell U.S. nuclear technology to the Chinese Government, which has already said that after they get that technology, they are going to take it and then they are going to start utilizing it to resell the same nuclear technology around the world. To me, that seems insane, that we would give a subsidy to finance the export of technology--American technology owned by the British Government through the British Nuclear Fuels Corporation--to the Chinese, who will then take that technology, once they build nuclear plants, own it themselves, and then sell that product around the world.

We are going to take the largest amount of money the Export-Import Bank has ever used, $3.2 billion, a sum bigger than the Export-Import Bank has ever loaned--$1.8 billion was the highest in the past--and we are going to subsidize a country that is holding $165 billion worth of our notes. We already owe them $165 billion. They have plenty of cash to finance this themselves. And the reason we are told we are going to do this is it is going to help hold on to 5,000 jobs.

The fact is, if we take that same kind of subsidy, through our Export-Import Bank, and put it into venture capital, small business, research in this country, we would create hundreds of thousands of jobs. So the only rationale for doing this is to hang on to some jobs. And we are going to ask the American taxpayer to subsidize this.

What happens if the Chinese do not pay back the loan? The American taxpayer has to pay $5 billion. That is what happens if they, in fact, do not pay it back. I do not know if that is realistic or not. I don't know what is going to happen over the next 10 years to a $5 billion loan to a country that already is attempting to buy, through their Government, assets of this country's oil infrastructure.

I think it behooves us to have a vigorous debate on what our policy should be with the Export-Import Bank and whether it is a shortsighted policy to save 5,000 jobs. The actual logic behind that is that if we don't do it, France will do it; France will beat us on this contract because the French Government will do it.

If we are going to invest $5 billion or put that on the line, let's loan it to small businesses across America. Let's invest in technology here rather than invest in a corporation that is owned by the British. Let's invest in American corporations. Let's give American companies this kind of benefit.

But, in fact, we have chosen to go down this path for a very good reason. It is important to save jobs. I don't mean to demean that whatsoever. But it is a short-range answer to a very long-range problem. If, in fact, $5 billion will save 5,000 jobs in the United States, that is $100,000 a job. It is important for us to be clear about what the intent is. The Export-Import Bank was designed to help us enhance our exports.

First of all, there are some jobs in California and Pennsylvania and Louisiana that are affected by this deal. It is not to say that those jobs will not be there if this deal doesn't go through. As a matter of fact, I would say, as we look at the need for nuclear energy in the future in this country, most probably we are going to see some greater demand from these companies. But I find it very ironic that a country that has a trade surplus with us approaching $200 billion, that has a significant growth factor that is greater than ours, that is ``cash rich'' at this time to the tune of $165 billion just in U.S. Treasury securities, that the taxpayer ought to be financing the sale of nuclear powerplants and nuclear technology to China.

With that, I reserve the remainder of my time.

How much time remains?

I will yield such time as I may consume. I ask the Presiding

Officer to notify me when I have 5 minutes remaining.

A couple of points: No. 1, this is not just the British- owned corporation; this is a corporation owned by the British Government. There is a big difference. It is not a privately held corporation. The British Government owns British Nuclear Fuels, which owns Westinghouse. If there is a subsidized loan that ought to go anywhere, it ought to come from the British, not the American taxpayers.

Second, I spoke in error. It is not $100,000 per job but $1 million per job; $5 billion for 5,000 jobs is $1 million a job. That is what we are putting at risk to save 5,000 jobs.

The third point I make is we are not just offering a loan subsidy and guarantee to a Westinghouse power generation subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels owned by the British Government. We are also allowing a subsidy for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that also has a large portion of this deal. What we are doing is financing just as many jobs out of the country as we are in the country. So the claim that we want to do this to save 5,000 jobs means we are going to enhance the ability of the Japanese steel manufacturers to compete with our steel manufacturers because we are going to give them a guaranteed loan to supply the steel for this facility.

It makes no sense. How do we best create more jobs in this country? We trim Government spending. We cut taxes. We allow the entrepreneurs of this country, the people who have paid 14 percent more taxes this year already, to have the money with which to invest. If we are not going to do that, then let's subsidize the small businessmen, the venture capitalists in this country. Let's put it into our own research and development, our own science and our own technology. If we are going to put the taxpayer on hold for $5 billion, I would much rather do that than trying to collect it, because I think we would have a tough time trying to collect it from the Japanese if they did default. I don't think that would happen. But we start putting American taxpayers', Americans' future at risk on something that does not make any sense.

I have a difference of opinion with the Senator from California about the need for nuclear power. We differ on that. There is no question about that. I happen to believe this very deal will come back to haunt us. I believe 20 years from now we will be buying nuclear powerplants from the Chinese rather than them buying from ourselves or from the British, because if you look at every other major manufacturer that has a deal in China, one of the components to have the deal in China is to give up your technology at the specified period of time. There isn't one manufacturer over there today that has not agreed to license or give away their technology for the opportunity to enter that market. That is not free trade. That is extortion and that is what is going on in China today. To get into that big market and to have access to that labor market, what American companies are doing is giving up their future. They are giving away their technology. And this is more of the same. It is bad medicine for America. It is bad medicine for American workers. It is bad medicine for investment in our own future technology. And it is bad medicine for the American taxpayer.

With that, I will reserve the remainder of my time.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Will the Senator yield?

I understand we are competing in the global economy and the French or the Russians are going to subsidize it, but the fact is this is a

very low interest rate. We are borrowing money from China today and paying over 4 percent and we are going to finance this at less than that, so the cost to the taxpayer is real. There is a real cost to the American taxpayer. It is the difference between at what rate they invest and the interest rate we pay to them and at what rate we are going to subsidize this loan. So there is a cost to the taxpayer.

The other thought I hope the Senator would agree with is, this is not just to Westinghouse, which is owned by the British Government, not a British corporation. This is also to Mitsubishi Steel because we are now going to take American taxpayer dollars, the difference between what we are paying on their notes that they are investing, their cash investment here, and we are going to subsidize a Japanese company. I hope the Senator would agree we shouldn't be doing that.

Will the Senator yield?

Would the Senator agree that today this is a British- Government-owned company and that the profits from this will accrue to the benefit of the Mitsubishi Corporation and Shaw Corporation? Why in the world wouldn't those two governments be subsidizing the loan rather than this government?

The Senator from Pennsylvania didn't hear the debate about the $5 billion loan guarantee, and what that would turn into if we did the same type of thing for other American-owned corporations and invested here. As the Senator from California outlined, the difference is a $100 million investment in highways will produce 5,000 jobs; $100 million invested in small businesses will produce 5,000 jobs.

I still stand by the contention that this subsidy--and that is what it is. We need to make sure we talk about what this really is. This is a subsidy by the American taxpayer, and it is going to cost them money because we are going to loan money at lower than we are borrowing now so there is a net cost to the American taxpayers for doing this. Even if they do pay it back, we are still going to be losing the jobs.

What we have to recognize is our fiduciary responsibility. The fastest growing cost to the Federal Government is net interest. We are going to boot it up $5 billion, times about 1.5 percent, and that happens to be about $50 million a year that we are going to ask our grandkids to pay to subsidize this deal. Take $50 million. Can't we invest that $50 million in a better way? Can't we invest the true cost of this deal, about $50 million a year to the American taxpayer, in some other way to create 5,000 jobs in the future that will be here forever? We have already heard them say they have every intention of taking this technology; at the end of 10 years, it will be their technology and they will build their own plant, and there will be no benefit to Westinghouse or the British Government or Mitsubishi Steel or Shaw Corporation. There will be none because they will do as they have done on every other issue: They take the technology; once it becomes theirs, they will just duplicate it. Or if it doesn't become theirs legally, they reverse engineer it.

I am happy to.

Will the Senator yield so I can find out how much time I have?

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. I will be happy to yield time if the Senator comes up short.

Mr. President, I listened very intently to the words of the Senator from California. I am somewhat confused. If in fact the American contractor, i.e. Bechtel, working with the British-owned company, not an American company, gets this contract, it will have an effect on reducing coal utilization. But in her first statement, the Senator said if the American company consortium doesn't get it, the French or Russians will. So the argument about coal and greenhouse gases doesn't fly. They are going to go with nuclear, much like this country should be doing, except we don't have the wisdom to do that.

The fact is, we will be subsidizing the difference in the rate. Loans for nuclear powerplants are high-risk loans. There are not many commercial lenders that will lend for that, and when they do lend for it, you pay a premium. This is going to be a subsidized loan that will cost somewhere between $50 million and $100 million per year to the American taxpayer. What could we do with another $50 million or $100 million to produce jobs? I am all for producing jobs. I want Westinghouse to produce lots of nuclear plants. I believe it is safe and smart for us to use nuclear power. Every time we have seen a problem in this country, the power systems and safety systems have worked.

The debate is not whether I want nuclear power. I have been on record for nuclear power for a long time. I am not an advocate of us subsidizing the British Government, the Japanese Government, and their businesses, and having the American taxpayers pay for it.

I am happy to yield for a question.

The assumption is, if this becomes an Export-Import Bank loan, then it, in fact, will be at a rate less than what China could borrow in the international markets for the same thing. If you go out and check loans on nuclear powerplants, what you see is they are high- premium loans because there is a lot of risk. Whatever they do, if they, in fact, finance it, or if they, in fact, guarantee it and don't finance it, the rate is going to come down, so that builds the risk for the American people. I agree, they probably will pay it back. My argument is, whatever it is, if we are subsidizing it, either through the auspices of a guarantee or a loan through a reduced rate, what could we be using that same buying power for here?

So there is an economic cost. If we put $5 billion over here, it is going to cost us by not putting it somewhere else in terms of loan guarantees. The question is not whether we ought to have a vibrant nuclear power industry in this country. The question in my mind is this. I understand the global economy. You are talking about the vast majority of the major players in this not being American companies--the vast majority. Although Westinghouse employs Americans, the profits that inure to Westinghouse through a loan guarantee for subsidy go to the British, not to Americans. That government owns it through the nuclear power unit, the research fuels unit of the British Government, British Nuclear Fuels. They own it 100 percent.

We can muddy the water on who owns it. The fact is, American taxpayers should not be on the hook for subsidizing or guaranteeing what should be subsidized or guaranteed by the Japanese and British Governments. If they think this is a great deal--and I am all for reducing our deficit with China. I voted for looking at the floating of the currency, so I am with the Senator from Pennsylvania; but I don't believe we should put our grandchildren and our children at risk when we can use the money much more wisely and our credit rating more wisely.

Mr. President, I inquire how much time remains?

Would the Senator like to yield back to me?

The fact is, there should be no risk to the American people on this deal, period. There is risk. There is a guarantee for the full faith and credit of the United States through the Export- Import Bank to finance the vast majority of a British-owned company--a British-Government-owned company, not by the taxpayer, but a British- owned company and a Japanese company and a smaller American company. So my basic position is we should not have that risk placed on our children or grandchildren.

The other issue that is important is that they have already said they are going to take the technology at the end of 10 years. I cannot believe we are saying at the end of 10 years whatever advantage we have they are going to get. We agreed in this deal that they get it. They are going to be turning around and selling nuclear powerplants to us.

We ought to be doing something different. If this is the only way we can put jobs out there, by competing on subsidies with the French and Russians, we have lost the innovative spirit of America. We need to get back to investing in hard reserve, entrepreneurship, and in small business. We will create more jobs and more industries. If we keep playing the game of government-run subsidies and guarantees to buy business--because that is what we are doing. Why did the Chinese choose this one over the others? Because it is the best economic deal. They are essentially equivalent as to what they can buy. We are buying business. When you start buying business, it marks the end of your ability to compete.

With that, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I ask our colleagues to look at this for what it is. In the long run, we don't win; we lose. Even if it costs us nothing in terms of finance charges, in the long run the technology goes to China. We need to be investing in real jobs, real science, real entrepreneurs, and small business. We can create high-paying jobs. We have done that. I hope the body will do that.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, we are about to have a vote on the Coburn- Boxer amendment. It is a very straightforward amendment that says the U.S. Export-Import Bank should not subsidize a $5 billion loan for the sale of nuclear powerplants to China. We are opposed to it. I am personally not opposed to nuclear power. I am not opposed to the Chinese having nuclear power. But I am opposed to financing a company owned by the British Government through the British Nuclear Fuels Company, which is wholly owned by the British Government, which wholly owns Westinghouse Nuclear Powerplant Division. This Export-Import Bank financing will also finance Mitsubishi Steel out of Japan.

The question that has been raised in the debate is if we don't do it, the French or Russians will. The fact is, if we have the best technology and the best quality, then we ought to earn it on the merits. The American taxpayers should not be put on the hook for financing.

The second issue is that when we buy business in this country--which is what we are doing; we are buying business by subsidizing and giving a deal to compete--what we are doing is taking away moneys and Export- Import financing that could be used elsewhere. This is by far the largest, by 250 percent, of any Export-Import Bank loan in the history of the Export-Import Bank. I don't believe our grandchildren should be on the hook for it, but I also don't believe this is the best use of that money.

I am an advocate of nuclear power both in this country and around the world. I think it can be used safely. These are great companies, but it is time we get out of the idea of buying business and out of the idea of putting our kids and our grandkids at risk for something that fully should be subsidized by the governments that are going to benefit the most from it.

I yield my time.

Mr. President, the claim is that this is micromanagement

of USAID. USAID's role is to deliver goods, health care, and support to the needy people around the world. What this amendment does is negate what they have already said they are going to ignore anyway. I will read: USAID has the authority to use program and regular operating expense funds for entertainment under the necessary expense doctrine. GAO decisions to the contrary are not binding on this Agency.

This is a small amount of money, but it should send a signal to USAID, their job is to deliver what we want as American taxpayers in terms of health care and food and medicine to people in need. The best example of that is not to spend the money on furnishings, not on live recording artists, not on gifts for other bureaucrats but on food and medicine for those people who need it. That is what this amendment is about. It is not about micromanaging. It is about sending a signal: Do what you are expected to do.

Mr. President, I will call up amendment 1086 and then I will withdraw it by unanimous consent. It is important that Members recognize what is written in the report language in this bill. I will read a portion of one sentence and talk about it: Congressionally directed projects. The committee recommends including the following congressionally directed projects. The committee has provided sufficient funding to cover the cost of these additions so as not to impact research.

That is the key question. By the misstatement of the committee itself, these projects are not essential. Yet, there is $87 million in projects to 30 States averaging less than $1 million a project. These are for biomass, biodiesel, hydrogen, solar, and other forms of energy.

It is going to pass, there is no question. I can't stop it, but I think the American people ought to go online and look at this. There are two problems. No. 1, it is not essential and we will spend $544 billion we do not have this year; No. 2, by having this many projects at such low value, we do not get our money's worth because we spend a ton of money in administrative and overhead costs for these small projects. If we are going to spend this money, it ought to be 3 or 6 projects, not the 30-some projects that are in there.

I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.