Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Could I inquire, is the leader prepared to speak or could I go ahead and make some remarks?

Mr. President, I observe that the President pro tempore of the Senate is looking quite spiffy this morning in his bow tie.

At this point in my life, any ray of light and happiness is welcomed. I will take a few minutes to sort of bring up to date my feelings about what is happening in the aftermath of Katrina.

I want my colleagues to know that there are some positive developments. It is hard to know that or decipher that if one listens to the media and the negative things. I admit it is not a perfect situation, but each day a little progress is being made.

My staff and I are staying in touch with mayors, supervisors, State officials, and volunteer organizations, and we do feel we are making some headway. I again want to emphasize, though, this is an overwhelming disaster that is in many ways too much for human beings to comprehend or contend with. It is going to take time, patience, diligence, effort, and, yes, money, that we must count on from voluntary contributions and the Federal Government.

I do think we are making some progress. Right now the biggest problem is probably temporary housing. After disasters, there are always stages. There is the immediate aftermath where people are trying to get into the devastated area, trying to save lives, then trying to get basics such as water, food, generators, and gasoline. Then there is the move into the early cleanup and the need for temporary housing. We are kind of in that phase.

It is very hard to deal with the logistics of moving temporary housing, whether it is ships or trailers, into the area to be staged to move individuals. That takes time. It is very difficult. It happens after every hurricane and probably after every disaster. If we are looking for a place where we need to find a way to move fast and do a better job, emergency housing is probably one of those we should focus on.

I want to thank my colleagues again on both sides of the aisle for their letters, their calls, their expressions of concern and sympathy. Beyond that, I want to thank Senators who have taken personal action, things one would never have dreamed of, such as the Senator from Alaska, who has made a very generous offer. We needed tetanus shots. The Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Corzine, helped us get the tetanus shots we needed. I could go through the entire Chamber and name Republicans and Democrats, people from all over America, who have taken helpful actions.

At least once a week, I want to come to the floor and speak briefly about the good things. There will be plenty of time to try to find a way to make things better in the future. I do hope the Senate will not pass a series of rifleshot pieces of legislation, well intentioned and needed quickly--we need that--but I hope we will look at a broader recovery effort, something that will make sure the area does not just recover and rebuild and get the economy growing but we do it in a way that will be magnificent for the people, the area, and the country. We can learn from this for other parts of the country when disasters hit.

We have the immediate problem, we have the short-term needs, and we have the long-term needs that we need to think about a little bit. It is hard to be patient when you are flat on your back. But I do think, before we start setting up commissions to do this, a czar to do that, rebuilding authority to supervise something else, let's think those through carefully first. I am counting on my colleagues in the Senate, the committee chairmen particularly, to think about that. But also we have to make sure our leadership pulls us together and we coordinate our efforts.

I want to focus on two areas without which we could not have made it. One is the military. We know how valuable our men and women in uniform are. But we couldn't have made it without the Coast Guard, without the National Guard, without the 82nd Airborne, without General Honore, and without Thad Allen, Coast Guard Chief of Staff now in charge of recovery in Louisiana and Mississippi, without the thousands of troops who came in, restored order, and started cutting through the debris and providing help, the Seabees out of Gulfport, MS. By the time we got to the end of the first week, we had a battalion in every county in Mississippi.

They were doing their work. Nobody was directing them. They found a problem and they got it done. So let's not have any thought by Active- Duty military personnel, or anybody, that we should not think about our National Guard in terms of disaster assistance and to make sure they have the equipment to cut through and get through and deliver the supplies we need. When I flew over New Orleans 10 days ago, it was like a war zone. We had helicopters coming through with triaged patients. We had helicopters with water buckets. We had helicopters dropping food. We had helicopters picking up people. It was magnificent and marvelous.

Before this is over, I will have a long list of individual stories about the military and particular units that went beyond the call of duty.

Some people are saying the Federal Government has not done this or the Federal Government has not done that. Let me say when the National Guard and our military arrive on the scene, things change. We could not have made it without them, period. People would have died, many people would have died were it not for the Coast Guard and National Guard and our regular military. We have turned to our Navy, every one of our branches. Keesler Air Force Base has been a major staging center and helped thousands of people.

The other area I want to acknowledge, once again, is the incredible human kindness and initiative of individuals, volunteers, faith-based groups of all kinds, and charitable groups. I told the story last week about a group of men who came from Burke, FL, with a Bobcat and a front-end loader. They showed up at my yard and said: Can we help? I asked them where they were from. I think they were from a church in Burke, FL. I didn't get their names. There was too much going on. I said: Could you please clear the road in that area so we can get trucks and equipment in there? Can you help that lady get into her house because you couldn't even get in to see what was left.

They went to work. I saw them off and on all day. I never talked with them again. They just went to work. Through voluntarism, people have shown up with generators and chain saws and said: Where can I help? From all over the region--from all over America. I know personally of several churches. I will not start by denomination, but let me say groups of all faiths and denominations, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and probably Muslim, too. They all went to work.

One I am particularly aware of was Christ United Methodist in Jackson,

MS. They formed an organization, inspired, I think, by the wife of Congressman Chip Pickering. They started bringing in supplies. They got people organized from all different denominations. They sorted the gifts, they boxed them, they labeled them, and they sent out two 18- wheelers a day. Nobody told them where to go. They said: What do you need? And they sent it.

That story has been replicated over and over again. So there are heroes--individuals, first responders, military, people who just showed up and went to work, church-related groups. If it were not for the volunteers, the church-related groups, Red Cross and Salvation Army, I don't know where we would be.

Maybe that is the way it should be. This is still America. It is individual Americans who respond to every crisis and will do whatever needs to be done, will pay any price. I want the record to show there are a lot of people who have contributed so much personally. They have cried with us, they sweated with us, they bled with us, and they are doing it now on the ground in Pascagoula, MS, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Bay St. Louis and Waveland and towns in the hinterland throughout Louisiana.

I thank all those who have come to our aid. It is not over yet. Keep it coming.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I am happy to yield.

If the Senator will yield, I do appreciate his very kind remarks. I hope he will convey for me and the people of my State, and I am sure Louisiana and Alabama, too, to the military officers with whom you will be speaking, how much we appreciate what they have done. I don't know the numbers but it is thousands, maybe as many as 40,000 National Guardsmen. I flew in a Blackhawk helicopter a week or so ago-- they were from New York; and I know they are there from Nebraska and Arkansas and all over America, literally. And of course the Active-Duty personnel. But the Coast Guard is a separate story. The Coast Guard, before, during, and after the hurricane, saved thousands of lives. When it was over, they didn't quit. But there are so many other things they have done. Channels have been cleared so we can get ships in. My hometown, it is navigable into our industrial site where we have a water refinery.

The USS Comfort is providing now for our medical needs and providing a bed to sleep in for first responders and food for people who haven't had a good meal in quite some time. They came in early. I could go down the list.

Once again, we have learned that our military is not just about fighting, preserving peace, and our interests around the world. They are there in disasters, man made and natural, in a way that nobody else could be.

The attitude of our men and women and the professionalism of the officers I met with was so impressive. I flew into the command center at Gulfport, MS. The National Guard was in command there. A three-star General from Alabama was there. The Alabamians were there right after the Mississippians got there because it took 7 hours to get to the scene because you had to cut through the pine trees on Highway 49 to get there. It took them 7 hours to get less than 90 miles.

I could go on and on, but the record needs to reveal the tremendous job that has been done, how important they are, as they work with us as we transition into different needs.

I thank the Senator for his comments about my own personal situation. In life you get a lot of trials. It is very hard. But what is the hardest is to see how these people now are still suffering in heat and debris. There are so many needs, and we can't get the help there fast enough. This is the time to try men's souls, but will make you stronger and better in the end.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I inquire of my distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Mississippi, has he made other commitments at this time or would it be appropriate for me to make my remarks?

Mr. President, I wish to say what a pleasure it is to work with my partner, the senior Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran. He is always a gentleman and very thorough and capable and competent in his leadership as a legislator and as chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

I must say, I am quite pleased the chairman of the Appropriations Committee hails from my State. I thank him for his generosity personally and his comments and all he does to offer comfort on a personal basis.

I thank him for leading in this particular effort and moving this supplemental forward. We are both here, but our hearts are in Mississippi now. We are here because we want to make sure these funds are available and that they will get to the people and we will not have the important agencies that are involved run out of money in a day or two, or three.

I thank Senator Byrd for calling me last week to check on me. I called him back and talked with him yesterday. He was very kind and very generous. I want people to know we do check on each other and check on each other's wives. He has been very generous with that. I thank these two men for their leadership, and I thank the Senate for their personal concerns.

A lot of Senators are not just offering concerns, they are offering help. They are sending truckloads of help. They are making personal contributions to charities. It is very heartwarming on both sides of the aisle.

I was pleased to see the House take this matter up promptly and pass it overwhelmingly. Over 400 House Members voted for it; 11 voted nay. Now we have it, and we have an agreement with the leadership on the Democratic side that we would have a time limit and that we were not going to have a long amendment process because this money is needed.

I want to emphasize to my colleague that we want to make sure this money gets to the right place, the right people, and in the right way. We will be very careful to make sure these contracts are done properly.

I was speaking to the Governor of our State a few minutes ago. They are going to be monitoring this very carefully. We have the best quality of elected officials in my State we ever had, Democrat and Republican. I believe that. We have leaders up and down the line in the State offices, and we have young, dynamic mayors who had their towns wiped out. We have old experienced mayors who can pull all the communities together, and they are doing a wonderful job. Supervisors are doing a great job too.

We will monitor this very closely. We are not asking for a handout, but we do need help. We need a ``handup.'' We want to get our people where they at least are safe and secure. Right now health concerns, for instance, are bothering me very greatly. My wife is digging through the rubble now. I said: Please don't get cut accidentally, and watch out for snakes. One of the many things that comes with hurricanes, people do not realize, is the snakes blow in, and when the water goes out, they stay. I am nervous with her digging around in our neighborhood looking for some of our things that are left.

We are going to need help from HHS to make sure we have medical attention, personnel, equipment, chemicals, and drugs to help from the Mississippi gulf coast right into New Orleans. Of course, they will have a distinctly different problem in New Orleans.

A massive effort is underway. I have had people say to me: $1 billion a day, how could that be? You ought to see what is going on and you ought to see the need.

The Coast Guard has been fantastic. They have saved lives, and they are working today. The Corps of Engineers has been working to clear the channels. The Navy has ships in the area. The Iwo Jima is in New Orleans. The Bataan and the Truman are off the coast of Mississippi. The USNS Comfort is pulling into the area so we can house personnel, people who need help if the hospitals can't help them, and to give people a place to spend a night inside and get a good meal. This has never been done before, so there is a massive effort.

Senator Cochran and I flew from Biloxi, MS, over to New Orleans, and then I came back on a helicopter last Friday. It was similar to being in a war zone. Honestly--fires burning, water rising, helicopters bringing in injured people. There were helicopters all over the place. I was very nervous, quite frankly.

The point I am trying to make is, there is a huge effort underway, a big push of supplies, equipment, people who are working to save people's lives to this very day and to give us a chance to get back up so we can help people go back to work.

It is the worst I have ever seen. For 37 years, I have dealt with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, ice storms, everything but locusts, and I am expecting them to arrive very soon. But this beats all I have ever seen, and it is going to be so hard to deal with the magnitude of the debris, let alone the human tragedies with which we are going to be dealing.

We need this help. We need this money. Some people are saying it is not going perfectly well. It never does. I have been through this every time. Every time we have trouble getting temporary housing into the area. We have trouble moving them from Georgia, pre-positioned in Mississippi, so we can get them to the people. We are having that problem now. The size and the magnitude of this disaster is so big that things are not going to happen fast enough, and there are going to be problems and slip-ups.

I do not think we should take time to be damning mistakes made last week. I want to know what the problems are today, what is the solution, and what actions we are going to take. I am very proud of that.

I want to also say, yesterday I put a list in the Congressional Record of private companies and organizations that have just gone beyond the call of duty--money, supplies. There are also hundreds of heroic acts, humanitarian acts where people went beyond the call

of duty to save lives to help other people--veterans who were rescued from the Gulfport VA Hospital, nurses who went without water themselves for 3 days to look after their patients.

I am going to put in the Record a whole list of these stories of great human efforts to help other people, sacrifices that people made, people who loaded up vans and showed up. A woman minister from Illinois loaded up a van, hitched to a pickup truck, drove herself to Mississippi, went to a church parking lot without any prearrangement and started distributing supplies. That story will be told a hundred and thousands of times over.

I want to make the point that this is a lot of money, I know it, and I am sorry we have to spend it the way we do. I prefer we not have this problem, but it is there, it is real. This is America. Americans have proven over and over again how charitable we are and how we will come to the rescue of people when they are in need and when they are hurt.

Let me say, too, about my State, I am proud of my State. We have been working and pushing. We are getting the job done. We will come back bigger, better, stronger, and we will continue to be an important part of this great country and a part of our economy.

Mr. President, I know I have used too much time of all other time that has to be yielded, but I thank my colleagues, one and all, for this opportunity to express my feelings. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, Senator Dodd, and 47 other Senators and I today submitted a resolution that would allow Senators and Senate staff to make donations of food, clothing, medical supplies, and other needed materials for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Current Senate regulations prohibit any soliciting within Senate buildings. This resolution suspends these regulations for noncash solicitations among the Senate family. It is my hope this resolution will demonstrate the generosity of Senators and staff and will help ease the suffering of the millions of people along the Gulf whose lives have been devastated by this unprecedented disaster.

But I think we can do more at this time of crisis. I believe Senators should be able to use Senate facilities to encourage all of our constituents and friends to donate to charities that are working 24 hours a day to help alleviate the suffering caused by the hurricane, and I intend to introduce legislation that will facilitate that effort.

This is a modest effort at time of great suffering. We need to do more right now and not allow inflexible rules to prevent us from helping our citizens at a time of crisis.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator, my good friend and my partner, for allowing me to have this opportunity. But to tell the truth, I just arrived a few minutes ago, and I am still a bit emotional right this minute. If she would continue to give me just a few minutes to get my papers in order, I would appreciate it.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I say to the distinguished Senator from Maryland, Ms. Mikulski, I appreciate her kind remarks, and I know how she feels, on a human and an individual basis, and I know she will be working with us to make sure that the full force of the Government is used and that where we need changes and where we need help, we will work together to put those in place.

I have learned, once again, that Mother Nature is a great equalizer. When you experience what we have experienced, which is an attack of monumental proportions, politics and partisanship, national origin and economic status, religion, all of that is put aside so that you can work together to help people who are struggling for their lives, literally.

I want to take a few minutes to talk about what is the situation there. I came back because I wanted to express my feelings in a number of areas and talk about the devastation and not try to complain--in fact, I will not complain--but tell people how they can help. We need solutions, and we need actions. After a couple days here, where I can maybe meet with Cabinet Secretaries and meet with others who make decisions, we will go back, and we will continue the effort. We are not at real cleanup yet, certainly not reconstruction. We are still dealing with devastation, search and rescue, and health and safety. And it is desperate. I want to begin by thanking my colleagues. So many of my colleagues have sent messages, have called my offices, have gotten through to me and made huge efforts to try to express their concerns. I don't want to belabor this point, but one of the calls was from Senator Kerry from Massachusetts. He said that he and Teresa had been worried about my wife Trisha and me and could they help. I said: You bet. He said: What can we do? What do you need? Where do you need it? I told him: Don't worry about distribution. You let us know when you are going to land. We will have people for pickup and distribution.

That story can be told hundreds of times over from friends or people you do not even know, Republicans, Democrats, people from Michigan, Illinois. It makes no difference. I could tell you an anecdote about every State. A lady from Illinois, pastor of a church, wanted to do something. She loaded up her own van, did not even have enough fuel to get there, but somehow or another she begged, borrowed, wound up in the disaster area handing out materials, supplies. Nobody paid for it. Nobody asked for it. She loaded up and went to the sound of the cannon, and she made a difference.

Yesterday, when I flew in a Black Hawk helicopter to Poplarville, MS, one of the areas off the Gulf Coast that one does not hear a lot about, to make sure people in rural and small towns know that help is on the way there, too, I was escorted by our delegation. We had a Mississippi Black Hawk and three New York National Guard Black Hawk helicopters. Some of the first National Guardsmen who arrived were from Michigan. You name it, I can tell a story about every State.

On Wednesday, when I was digging through the rubble of my own neighborhood, some guys walked up from Bert, FL, and said: We know a little bit about hurricanes. We know you are hurting and you need help. We have six men, a bobcat, and a front-end loader. How can we help? I said: Can you clear that road, where we could get through there because the traffic in that area is getting to be a problem. And there is a little retired schoolteacher living back over here. We have not been able to get into her house. The debris was 6 or 8 feet up against her doors. We were afraid she was in there, but she showed up later in the afternoon, and we got her into her house. I do not know those guys. They were from Bert, FL. If they are listening, if they ever hear this, I want to thank them for loading up and coming to help.

Now, I have been dealing with disasters in Mississippi and in our region for 37 years, going back when I was a staff member for a Democratic Member in the House. So I have dealt with hurricanes. I was there for Camille, and I promised the Good Lord, if he would let me live through that one, I would not stay for another one. I have not stayed for any more. I leave, and then when the wind slows down, I go back and I take down the boards and I pull the debris, with my neighbors and my friends and my family. This time we could not even pull the debris. There was too much of it. But I have seen hurricanes of all kinds, and I have seen tornadoes and the devastation from ice storms and floods. We have had everything in Mississippi but locusts, and I expect them to show up real soon. This is a disaster of biblical proportions. I want the people to understand that.

My house is irrelevant, in the bigger picture of what happened, except for one thing. This house was 150 years old. It was 12 feet above sea level. It was 8 feet off the ground. Senator McConnell slept in that house. It was nothing special, but everything in there was special. The point though is, for 150 years, this house had been able to withstand everything Mother Nature could deal her. Yes, we had the porch torn off and we had the roof replaced several times and we had other damages, but

basically it stood right there similar to a rock, and that is my hometown, Pascagoula, MS. As you go west, the damage gets worse and worse and worse: Biloxi, MS, Gulfport, MS, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Bay Saint Louis. Waveland, MS, no longer exists. You might say, well, the buildings are still standing. They were gutted. No, there is not a building standing--this little community of 7,000 people. And then there is New Orleans. A lot of people have been so emotionally touched and upset by what they have seen there, but one of the things they need to know is the hurricane hit us Monday. Their biggest disaster was Friday because the levees broke, the pumps had salt in them, and they did not work. I flew over Jefferson Parish on Friday with the President. They had water up to the roof lines of the houses standing there, and it had been rising ever since about Tuesday or Wednesday. So their worst disaster was not the hurricane; it was the aftermath.

I flew over and saw three big fires going on in New Orleans. Nobody was trying to put them out. You know why? You could not get there. Finally, the National Guard came in with helicopters and buckets and helped a little bit.

So the proportions of this are enormous. And for that reason, our response has not been perfect. A lot of criticism has been pointed at this place or that place, why was the military not there earlier, or this person or that group? It took the National Guard in my home State, going from Camp Shelby, 70 miles, to Gulfport, MS, 7 hours because they had to cut their way through a major highway. Highway 49 was covered with pine trees. They were still falling the next night when I went through there because they were kind of standing there and eventually fell right on down.

When you got on the ground, we did not know exactly where it was going to hit, and then the proportions of it exceeded what anybody expected. And even when you got there, you could not communicate with anybody, no hard lines, no cell phones operating, no blackberry messages were coming and going. It took us 2 days to get to where people were. We are still looking for people we have not been able to find. A lot of the bad things that I have tried to deal with turned out to be rumors. I had two good friends who were identified basically as missing or dead Tuesday. Well, they were there Friday. I was told I could not get to my house; the roads were closed. I advised what I was going to do to anybody who tried to stop me. When I got there, there were no blockades. I went right through there like lightening, and so did everybody else. So there are rumors about things.

Now, have mistakes been made? Is it bad? Is it still horrible? Has it not been fast enough, good enough? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. What good does that do? I met yesterday with elected officials from 33 counties in my State, mayors, supervisors, clerks, sheriffs, police chiefs. And by the way, I cannot give enough accolades for what they have done. I told them: Look, I do not want to hear about the problems of yesterday. I want to hear what your problem is today. Tell me what the solution is, and we will fix it before the sun goes down.

I want to give some idea of what is happening. The loss of life is just, one cannot even comprehend what people are dealing with. Of course, similar to everything else in life, when you have a disaster such as this, it is bad on everybody. The poor people and the people in low-lying areas, they are hit harder than anybody, and we have to make sure we help them.

I want to specifically thank a few people. It is not a long list and I am going to miss some and I will be back to get to the rest of them. The first responders saved a lot of lives, even saved property, which became irrelevant. National Guard, Coast Guard, military in general, they are working now, the Seabees, the Corps of Engineers, the Navy. For the first time in history, we are moving Navy flat-bottomed troop carriers in to house people so that emergency workers will have a place to sleep at night and get a warm meal. Once again, we saw that the military is not only for Iraq. We need the military for here.

You know when they got order in New Orleans? When the 82nd Airborne pulled in, the shooting stopped. They brought in a tough general that came off the plane cussing. Within 6 hours, things were under control. So I want to thank them all. Policemen, firemen, stories I have heard, people I have seen, emergency rescuers, ambulance, all of those first responders. Local and State officials do not get enough credit.

In my State of Mississippi, one reason why I think we are doing a little better than we have in the past or than some other areas is we have the best quality of elected officials, men and women, mayors, supervisors. Our Governor, Haley Barbour, and our Lieutenant Governor, Amy Tuck, they have all been pulling together, and they deserve a lot of credit. Federal officials, there are so many things that have happened I cannot list them all. Cabinet Secretaries and agency people, individuals, FEMA is there on the job. They are getting hammered the most, and we will have to think about whether they are set up in the right way, but there will be time for that.

Right now we want to know what can we do to help them do a better job. In my own State of Mississippi, the Mississippi Emergency Management Administration has been criticized. I was about ready to express myself in a very profound way yesterday about the fact that we do not have emergency housing arriving yet. I was told that the Mississippi Emergency Management Administration had not requested the trailers. So I got to where a MEMA official was and asked: Did you request the trailers?

Yes, 20,000, 2 or 3 days ago.

What is the problem?

He said: I do not know. I have made the request. So then the word from FEMA was: Well, we have not been told where to put them. Excuse me? The whole area is slick. Park them anywhere. There are no parking limits. We are a parking lot. That is ridiculous. So there is bureaucratic nonsense going on, but we are getting there. We have that problem resolved. We have FEMA talking to MEMA, talking to the people who have the trailers. Three hundred arrived this morning; 20,000 more are coming. We will get through that.

I want to thank the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, all the other charities, individuals, and churches. My wife, yesterday, worked all afternoon loading an 18 wheeler at Christ United Methodist Church, Jackson, MS, where Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, and Jews were all working together, all kinds of backgrounds, loading those 18 wheelers. Nobody asked to pay for it. Nobody told them where to send it. They said: We are loading them, and we are sending them to the First Baptist Church, Pascagoula, the First Presbyterian Church, Pascagoula, and to the Episcopal Church at Ocean Springs, MS. They are there this morning with things such as Clorox--never stop to think you need that--cleaning materials.

I saw the Red Cross riding around. They did not wait for people to come to them because people could not get there. The Red Cross people went into the communities and said: Here is a Styrofoam plate of warm food. Some people had not seen warm food for days. Some people had not eaten for days. And they are out there handing out water on the frontline. The Salvation Army never asks questions; they provide help. So all of those are doing a great job.

I want to do something else too. Well, before I get to that, volunteers, boy, they have been great--people showing up saying: Where do I go? That is one thing we do need is leaders. You have to have somebody who will be willing to take charge and get people coordinated. That takes a little time.

I also want to put a list in the record. It is a long list. I ask unanimous consent that this list be printed in the Record.

These are donations and assistance from private companies. I am not going to list them all now because I will exclude somebody, but Wal-Mart has been unbelievable. They donated $15 million to jump start the national relief effort. They gave $1 million to the Red Cross. Home Depot, 800 trucks staged in the area of deployment. They took food, water, flashlights, batteries, and tarps; FedEx; food retailers have been out there; automobile dealers, Nissan, Ford, Toyota; Northwest Airlines, making planes available to fly relief in; railroads, major companies, Honeywell, financial institutions, Citigroup, JPMorgan, Cingular, Verizon; oil companies, Chevron gave $5 million to the Red Cross; ExxonMobil committed $7 million to the Red Cross; American Trucking Association made a contribution and helped us resolve a technical problem we had.

Even writers such as John Grisham, the writer of the great books from Mississippi, personally donated $5 million to the effort. Pharmaceutical companies have helped us get pharmaceuticals pre- positioned, ready for the health crisis. We know it is coming. Procter & Gamble has given cash and supplies. Foreign aid, Sri Lanka has offered us money, $25,000. Well, it might as well as be $25 billion. Australia, Taiwan, countries all over the world. This is an incredible list and it is just a short list of people who are doing their part and I wanted that to be in the Record.

Most of all, I want to thank the people of my State. I cannot speak for people in other States, but I know the people in my State. I have been there with

them in Pascagoula and Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Poplarville, Jackson and points south. What an incredible spirit. We have been hammered, and they are on their knees. This very morning, as my staff called and tried to talk to county supervisors and mayors, two counties said: Look, we need MREs--that is food--and we could always use more fuel and we have some problems, but do not waste your time on us. Go help somebody else that needs it worse.

When I stood with Gene Gaezo in Biloxi, MS, which is an international city, a city of Slovenians, French, German, Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese, and Hispanics, behind him was where his house was. He had lost everything, cars, boats, trash piled up way over your head, lost his job in the gaming industry. And he said: Trent, what do I do? I said: Well, take care of yourself, feed your family, make sure everybody is safe, and then begin working on this trash. Help is on the way, do not worry. And he said: Well, you go take care of somebody who has been hurt worse than me.

Unless you have lost loved ones, you were not hurting worse than that guy was. The spirit has been indomitable. They are not blaming anybody. They are asking for help. I am proud of them. Our attitude is, hey, we have been hit before, we may feel similar to a punching bag, but we will come back. We are going to rebuild, and we will be bigger and better and stronger for it all. So I want to make sure that the American people know the spirit of the people in my area.

I know there are going to be hearings. There are a lot of questions. But, please, please, my colleagues, let's not try to fix blame right now. There will be time for that. Let's fix the problems we have to deal with now.

Do I have some ideas of what we need to do? Oh, yes. I agree with the Senator from Maryland, we should not have ever put FEMA in Homeland Security. We thought about it. Heck, we did it. Who are we going to blame for that? We did that. Maybe it was recommended, I don't know. But you make mistakes. Last time I checked, we are still human beings.

I found out something else last week: Disasters bring out the worst in bad people but the best in good people. But let's focus on the good.

We are going to need legislative help. We are going to need appropriations. I know already, for instance, we have to allow in local communities for cleanup contractors to go on private property. The law doesn't allow that except for the immediate aftermath for health and safety. There are no lines. In Biloxi, MS, and Gulfport, MS, you can't tell where the private property was and public property was. It is nothing but a mound of debris. If you lost everything you had, it will be months. You can't get the infrastructure back if you can't clean it. So we have to change that. I have lots of ideas how we can improve it for us now, but, more important, for the future, too.

What do we need? I want the American people to know. People from all over America are calling and crying, saying: How can I help? You can help. What we need right now are still basics. Food is still a problem, getting it there, getting it distributed. We have now got to the point where we need clothes. People lost everything they had. We had doctors Saturday, in my hometown, wearing the same clothes they wore Sunday the week before, because they didn't have any and they didn't have a place to get a shower or any of that.

So we need food, clothes, gas. If you can get there with some fuel, in some of those red containers, we need that. Baby supplies--I have been amazed how quickly you need diapers and baby wipes and baby formula. We could use that. Cleaning supplies. Plywood, if you have some plywood laying around, load it and bring it down. Equipment of all types--chain saws, brooms, the basic stuff.

I believe there are people in Missouri and people in Georgia, when they know that, who will load up and they will bring it to us and they will distribute it on their own.

Yes, we need money. We don't need cash, but we need you to contribute to the Red Cross and Salvation Army so they can pay the expenses. Now we are beginning to have a problem with the need for oxygen tanks. We have to find a way to get those and get them where people need them.

We need manpower. If you are in Oklahoma and you are retired at 65 and you want to help, get in your truck and drive on down. Don't ask where to go and don't worry about what to do when you get there. When you get there, look around. You will see plenty you can do. Anybody in America who wants to go there and help us, come on down. We aren't blocking anybody.

We have to be careful because we may have an impending health problem. I fear people are going to begin to have heart attacks and mental depression and emotional problems. If you cut your foot in Gulfport, MS, you could be exposed to some bad infections and bad diseases, so we have to be careful.

We do need more action. We get back down to what Senator Mikulski was saying. We need leaders, men and women in the Government and everywhere else, who can make a fast decision, be flexible when they make that decision, think innovatively when they make a decision, and use a very difficult thing--common sense. Use common sense.

Some of the people have been denied access to fuel or told you can't do that. It is insane. I am getting ready to leave my hometown on Wednesday night and I want to turn left, and the policeman says you can't turn left. I said, Why not? and the policeman says, Well, I'm not from here but I am told you can't turn left. So I went down to the next interchange, made a left turn and turned right. It didn't make any sense. No common sense. We have to do that.

I also have already reached out to some of what I think are some of the best thinkers in America and some of the people who dealt with this, and I said tell us what we can do so we can do it better, quicker, and when we build back we will be more secure and we will be able to survive maybe because of the way we build. I wanted to know how did California get Interstate 10 bridges and overpasses back in operation in 2 months when it ordinarily would take 2 years. What was it they had?

I found out the Governor had the authority to waive everything. He waived hearings, he waived environmental considerations. They awarded a contract under expedited procedure. They gave the contractor huge incentives to finish ahead of schedule and under the money and great penalties if they didn't. And guess what, a 2-year project was completed in 2 months and 2 days and the contractor made more off the incentive payment than he did off the basic price. OK. We need to replicate that.

I also think the Federal Government needs to think innovatively. If you look at the situation in Bay St. Louis, MS, or New Orleans, LA, what do we want to do to avoid this sort of problem in the future, and how can we do whatever we do better than we have done it?

We need a very aggressive, entrepreneurial proposal for the dramatic, bold rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. We want to rebuild, but we don't want to build it the way it was. We want to build it bigger and stronger, maybe a little further back, maybe with the help of some incentives we haven't had before, like tax credits. We need to help people rebuild now. They don't need a refund next year, they need money and assistance now.

These are the times that try men's souls, the worst I have ever seen. But I do believe we will persevere and, with God's help and with the help of my colleagues in this great body, and with our President--who has been there, has cried with us and sweated with us, and I have looked at him and I have watched him show his compassion, and I have seen him give orders to do a better job--we will get through this.

I thank everybody. I am going to do something unusual, too. There are exceptions, but even the news media have been helpful. The news media in my home State don't just tell the bad stories. We had a wedding for some evacuees. This young couple had to get married, so the people in Jackson, MS, gave the lady a wedding dress and a wedding cake, and they gave them a wedding.

They told us good stories and they told us many times where we needed to be and where the problems are. Yes, there is some criticism and negativism to go around, but there is a lot of positive out there, too, and I am making

sure we build on that side of this equation.

Madam President, as a member of the conference, I thank the leadership and the job they have done. The process has not been easy. It has been long and not always pretty, but we produced a bill with more jobs, safety, and opportunity for all American people. I am very proud of it.

I yield the remainder of my time to the chairman to dispense as he sees fit.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the pending business? Are we now on an amendment?

Further parliamentary inquiry: Are we in a position where we can discuss any amendment that has been offered and has been set aside? For instance, amendment No. 1389 by Senator Thune?

Mr. President, I thank the chairman, Mr. Warner, the Senator from Virginia. I wanted to begin by congratulating him and Senator Levin for the bill they have produced from the Senate Armed Services Committee. I, frankly, had my doubts that we were going to be able to get the bill up at this time in a way that would have momentum and would get through to passage. I think they have succeeded in doing that. The atmosphere is such that I believe we will pass the Defense authorization bill.

As the Senator from Virginia knows, I always made a window for him, when I had the opportunity to make that call. Sometimes it took 2 weeks. Sometimes we put it up against a recess. Sometimes we put it together with Defense appropriations. But it is of a high priority, and I would be delighted if I could see us pass this bill in an orderly fashion this week.

We did. I think the atmosphere is different now. The Senator understands and the American people understand that we are at war, and terrorism is a very serious threat. We cannot expect homeland security and our law enforcement agencies to do the job alone. This is broader than that. We have to have a defense that is prepared to do the job at home and overseas. Certainly, we have called on our National Guard and Reserve to fill in, and they are doing a wonderful job. We have to provide the additional authorization necessary to get the funds so

our men and women can continue to do the fine job they have done.

I thank the Senator for his cooperation on amendments that have been accepted and the language in the bill. I served on the Armed Services Committee for a few years--I believe 6\1/2\ years. I enjoyed it very much. I always had a real interest in this area. I am happy to be on the Intelligence Committee now. I am obviously interested in shipbuilding because of what it means to not only my hometown and my State but to our country, the Navy, and a lot of other issues you have addressed for our military.

I am worried about what we are having to expend and how we are having to expend things now because we have certain demands in Afghanistan and Iraq for the Army and the Marines. I am concerned that in 5 or 10 years, we will need to have a military that can address new and emerging threats. I think that is part of what this bill is about--to try to begin to address some of those issues. I look forward to working with the Senator.

I rise in support of Senator Thune's amendment No. 1389, which would defer Congress's consideration of closure and realignment recommendations that the President will forward to the Congress this coming fall. This is not a new position for me. I have always been opposed to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission process. I generally don't like commissions. I have spoken against them on a number of subjects on the Senate floor. I probably will again before the week is out. I think that is what we were hired to do. That is our job.

I get nervous sometimes that from Social Security, to tax policy, to detainees policy, to intelligence, we basically say: Well, we cannot do the job, so let a commission give us advice here. A commission can do it for us. Our attitude is see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, save us. But doing that difficult work is our job.

Up until recent years, we did our job and it worked. After World War II and Korea, certainly as the chairman knows, we closed bases in his State and mine. I can take you around Mississippi and show you those bases that were closed. How was it done? The Pentagon assessed their needs, recognized the fact that we were not on war footing, and we had to begin to close some of those airbases in Greenwood, MS, and in Mobile, AL, and make difficult recommendations, and Congress considered it and dealt with it. We did our job. Now we are in the fifth BRAC round, or something like that. I have opposed every one of them.

One day, I was walking up to the floor of the House of Representatives and this young Congressman from Texas named Dick Armey came up to me as a member of the Rules Committee and said, ``I got this idea and I want you to talk to me about how I get it through the Rules Committee.'' He would remember this. I told him, ``I don't agree with what you are trying to do, and I am absolutely going to vote against it. But if I were you, this is how I would do it.'' He did it, and it led to this BRAC process. Congressman Dick Armey from Texas went on to be majority leader.

I voted against BRAC every time. Some people say: Wait a minute, you are just protecting your own bases; you are troubled because of bases in your own State. Not true. Not a single base has been closed in my State in these rounds. Contrary to popular opinion, we don't have a whole lot of bases. We have been through every round, and we have been fortunate. The commissions have decided not to go forward with closing those bases. So it is not that I have a grudge or that I am angry at anybody. I don't like the process, No. 1.

No. 2, this amendment doesn't kill the process. It allows the Commission to finish their independent and important work and forward the recommendations to the President.

The amendment permits the President to submit a set of recommendations to the Congress. At that point, the Congress would hold the President's recommendations in abeyance, pending completion of several requirements that are critical to achieving a fully informed interagency perspective of our basing requirements.

Here is my problem with BRAC this time. I don't like the process, No. 1. No. 2, I think the timing could not be worse. At a time when we are in war in Iraq and, of course, have been and are still exposed in Afghanistan, a war on terror, with communities all over America having to cope with Reserve and Guard units from all of our States there on extended tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, or in the region, it has had an impact on communities. They are already stressed, and they are asking themselves, What next? Now you are going to come in and close my Air Guard unit or this hospital or you are going to do this or that. The timing could not be worse. That is the second problem.

Next is I think this particular process, the way it is set up by the Pentagon, is a lot less reassuring and messier and more unreliable than the previous BRAC rounds have been. They have made significant mistakes. At a time, also, when we are looking at overseas alignment, talking about reformation, I have serious questions about some of the Pentagon's reformation plans.

So in instance after instance, I think we are making a mistake here. It is going to have huge negative ramifications, and I think we are going to wake up later and find out, wait a minute here, we didn't evaluate the impact of the reduction of military medical services and what it means in the local communities. The local communities may not be able to absorb that additional service. Who is going to serve these military men and women? Or, wait a minute, you mean we are bringing that heavy unit back from Europe? Where are we going to put them? Where are the spouses going to live? What are the quality of life facilities? In some instances, they won't be there. This BRAC, in my opinion, is set up to be worse than all the previous rounds.

Senator Thune has done a very thoughtful job. He has allowed the process to go forward to a point where he will then put it on hold until some very important things are done.

The conditions that have to be met:

First, complete analysis and implementation of recommendations from the Overseas Basing Commission. We have been talking about this, and we are planning on doing it. We are going to have realignment of where our units are based in Europe. We are going to bring some units home, perhaps some heavy units. We are going to have to bring them somewhere. We need to know what that is and where we are going to put them.

Second, submission of the Quadrennial Defense Review by the DOD to the Congress, and that will be completed before very long--I think this coming winter. Why don't we wait until we see what the needs and the plans are for the future? It would not cause an inordinate delay for that in itself.

The next condition is that we complete deployment and implementation by the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security of the national maritime security strategy and the homeland defense and civil support directive. It would have to be held until we get a submission of a report by the DOD to Congress to assess military installation needs in view of the Overseas Basing Commission, returning troops, QDR, national maritime strategy, and the homeland defense and civil support directive.

And return of substantially all troops from Iraq. We need to weigh the impact of what is going on in Iraq, when they will be coming home, and where they are going.

So those are the factors that would have to be considered before the Congress could actually act on the present recommendations.

When the Department of Defense released its BRAC recommendations last May, it was very evident that many of the recommendations were flawed and developed in a vacuum. Their recommendations did not consider the impact on other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security or the Veterans' Administration.

The Department of Defense did not even involve the Governors of States that would be affected by recommendations concerning Air National Guard units. The Air Guard is under the Governors. I don't know how they missed that turf. More than one counsel has advised the BRAC Commission that they cannot willy-nilly go in there and say they are shutting down this Air Guard unit. The Governor is going to have some say in that.

I, along with many of my Senate colleagues, was also alarmed that DOD

used transformational options in lieu of military value as the framework for many of the recommendations. Even distinguished Chairman Warner noted in his testimony before the BRAC Commission, ``A number of the Department's recommendations'' deviate substantially from the BRAC legislative requirements in three important areas.

First, certain recommendations were justified by factors

and priorities other than the selection criteria in violation

of section 2914(f) [of the base closure law];

Two, certain recommendations were based on data that was

not certified as required by section 2903 [of the BRAC law];

Three, certain recommendations did not contain accurate

assessments of the costs and savings to be incurred by the

Department of Defense and other Federal agencies as required

by section 2913(e) [of the BRAC law].

The experience in my own State of Mississippi in looking at the installations was similar to what the great State of Virginia obviously observed and experienced: that DOD recommendations were not based in fact and analysis was faulty. For example, for Keesler Hospital at Keesler Air Force Base, the cost for admitting patients was underestimated by over $2,000 per patient. A math error decreased the military value by 20 percent, and the Department of Defense ignored the fact that local VA facilities and community hospitals have no--none--no excess capability.

Where are these military men and women going to go? It is a problem, it is a big problem for the local community and, more importantly, for the military men and women who deserve quality health care.

Let me get even more simply to the statement of what happened. In one military value critical category, for some reason they gave this category almost a zero rating. When they actually went back at our urging, they said that obviously a mistake was made, and that should have been an 11 military value points instead of a zero. It moved that installation up 44 places. Little error? Big error.

There is a lot more embedded in this than we have been able to dig out even yet. Regarding the Navy Personnel Center at Stennis Space Center, DOD mistakenly assumed that the building was a commercially leased property with no security perimeter. It is not. The personnel center is on a secure compound owned and operated by NASA and is the model of interagency cooperation. Just a little detail there. We have this huge buffer zone. It is a totally secure facility, and they missed that little point.

For Pascagoula Naval Station, DOD proposed to abandon a naval presence for 35 percent of our Nation's coastline, leaving unprotected over 30 percent of this Nation's gas and oil reserves, 60 percent of our trade sealanes, and 14 of America's largest 23 ports. But just 3 weeks ago, the Department of Defense issued a new policy stating that defense of the homeland is their new No. 1 priority.

DOD's proposal to the BRAC Commission would mean we would not have a single naval port between the east coast of Florida at Mayport, FL, to San Diego. It is all sitting there, a vast gulf with all kinds of sealanes and potential threats and future dangerous areas. But DoD says no presence at all is ok; that causes me a great deal of concern.

Even if DOD's work had been perfect, we should not be closing bases at home if we are engaged in armed conflict overseas. It is not fair to the families of our service men and women who have to endure the uncertainty of where they will live and where their children will go to school.

Closing bases right now is also detrimental to our war-fighting ability. The Overseas Basing Commission has already noted that `` . . . to launch major realignments of bases and unit configurations at a time when we are in the midst of two major conflicts takes us to the edge of our capabilities.''

The Overseas Basing Commission also expressed concern that the domestic BRAC is disconnected from the proposed closure of overseas bases, and DOD's budget is woefully inadequate to implement necessary changes. These are some of the Commission's recommendations:

. . . adequate strategic sealift, airlift, and prepositioned

equipment and stocks do not exist . . .

And--

budgetary plans for mobility assets are inadequate to meet

projected lift demand--

When forces return from overseas.

We [intend to] reposition tens of thousands of family

members to localities that have not been given adequate time

or budget to prepare for their proper reception . . .

. . . DOD estimates the implementation of [global basing

changes] to be between $9 billion and $12 billion with only

about $4 billion currently budgeted in fiscal years 2006

through 2011.

If it was just up to me, I would vote to kill this process right now. I have never liked it. I must admit, I have fought it three times in the Senate and was almost able to kill it one of those times. It is an abrogation of Congress's responsibility to oversee basing and, if necessary, to close excess bases.

DOD insisted on doing its BRAC assessment in a vacuum. We tried to follow what was going on. We could not get the answers. But we, the Congress, are obligated to the American people to take a larger perspective.

Commissioner Principi and the entire BRAC Commission are doing a good job. They are doing honorable work right now to try to fix some of the fundamental flaws in DOD's set of recommendations. I want to make it clear, it is not that I don't have confidence in the chairman and the Commission. I do. I think they are a good quality group. But even the Commission can only do so much. The Commission is bound by a set of legal constraints that did not anticipate DOD recommendations would deviate from the laws so substantially.

So if we are not willing to stop this flawed process in its tracks, let's do the next best thing. Senator Thune's amendment is a workable compromise. It gives breathing room to take a larger view to consider our basing requirements in a global fashion and across all affected agencies. The distinguished Senators from Virginia and Michigan have both said that we do need to close unneeded bases. I agree with that. I am not unrealistic. I know different times call for different things. I know we have some duplication and overlapping, and we can have more efficiencies and we can consolidate.

I do know we are trying to change our forces to deal with where the challenges may be, where our forces are more light, more mobile, and prepositioned. The problem is that many of the recommendations of the BRAC undermine the construct of lighter and more mobile and prepositioned. They do not mesh with what we are saying we should do here, and what we are saying we do should do in reformation does not fit with making our troops lighter and more mobile and prepositioned. Let's not ride a flawed process into oblivion. I urge my colleagues to support Senator Thune's amendment so that we, the Congress, can make an informed decision when we are asked to vote on the merits of closing domestic bases. I think we will feel better about it.

I realize perhaps the die is cast. I tried last year with an amendment to defer it for a couple of years. We got, I think, 44 votes or close to that. A couple votes who were absent, and we got close. In retrospect, that was the key vote. The opposition was effective, and they won the day. And we have moved forward. I don't think we can turn back that clock, but I do think we can take a pause. We can take some time to see if certain things are considered before we actually pull this trigger and make some changes that we may regret.

Mr. President, if the Senator would allow me to ask, is this a modification of the Thune amendment? Is this the Thune amendment? This sounds similar to an amendment I heard discussed earlier as maybe one that was being suggested or considered by Senator Collins. It is not clear to me.

That is an important point, I say to the Senator from Virginia. That is not my understanding of the Thune amendment. If a modification along these lines were added to the Thune amendment, I would have some reservations about that. I want to take a look at it.

Mr. President, I say to the distinguished chairman of the committee, I would want to take a good look at the different amendments that might be pending. I want to be sure I understood any modification or change to Senator Thune's amendment. The Thune amendment, as I understand it and as I described it in my remarks, is an approach which I think is good. I think what the chairman is saying about the idea that Congress would start cherry-picking at this point from this list, I have my sincere reservations about that. That would be a messy thing to do without proper consideration. I would have a lot of reservations about it. I would want to hear what the sponsors have to say. My predisposition is to be very hesitant about that.

So long my memory has faded to the point I can't remember.

I think, if we should start to cherry-pick from this list or any list at this time, it would not be very wise.

I certainly agree with that argument. I have a problem with why these communities and States have had to spend a lot of money on it. I thought that is what we were for.

Having said that, if you gave a lot of them a choice--have your base closed or delay it for 2 years--I think I know what the answer would be: Give me 2 more years to deal with the demands of this kind of choice.

There have been instances where these closures have taken place and the communities have done pretty well. The old Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, AL--talking about a State other then my own--recently won a competition to assemble airbus airplanes there. I think they are making pretty good use of it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation proposing a change to the Internal Revenue Code that has been endorsed by both the Joint Committee on Taxation and the United States Treasury Department. It is a simplification measure that has been passed by this body on three separate occasions, and I am pleased to be joined by the gentleman from Montana, Senator Baucus, the Ranking Democratic Member on the Finance Committee, in introducing this common sense legislation today. It is now time for Congress to act again and include this meritorious provision in the next appropriate tax bill reported from the Finance Committee.

Corporations and affiliated groups of corporations, for any number of good reasons, find it appropriate and many times necessary to shed some of their businesses. If the business is not being sold, the Internal Revenue Code makes it possible to reorganize without having to recognize gain on the transaction. A typical transaction is a spin-off transaction performed per the terms of section 355 of the Internal Revenue Code, where a parent corporation distributes the shares of its subsidiary(s) to its shareholders who once had shares of just the parent corporation now have shares of both the parent and the shares of just the parent corporation now have shares of its subsidiary(s) to its shareholders who once had shares of just the parent corporation now have shares of both the parent and the subsidiary. As a matter of long- standing tax policy, there is typically no tax exacted with these kinds of divisions, nor should there be. Typically the business hasn't changed what it is doing; it is simply being done under a separated ownership structure and the shareholders have ownership in two corporations instead of one, with no overall change in their holdings.

In order to be accorded tax-free treatment, section 355 requires the corporation involved in the transaction to be engaged in an ``active trade or business.'' Under the current regulations interpreting section 355 of the Internal Revenue Code, a much more rigorous test of ``active trade or business'' is imposed if a holding company seeks to spin-off a subsidiary than would be the case if the subsidiary were simply owned directly by the parent corporation. It is a distinction without substance and requires corporations, holding companies, to go through major restructurings to satisfy the requirements of section 355. There is absolutely no substantive policy rationale for such a result. The distinction is inappropriate and has been identified as such by both the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Treasury Department in 1999 and 2000. This legislation addresses that anomaly and treats both situations equally.

The cost of this provision is minimal, at about $8 million a year by the last revenue estimate from the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. This provision is a small but significant step toward simplification of the tax code, and I urge my colleagues on the Finance Committee and in this body to act on this change one more time, and hopefully for the last time.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation proposing a change to the Internal Revenue Code that has been endorsed by both the Joint Committee on Taxation and the United States Treasury Department. It is a simplification measure that has been passed by this body on three separate occasions, and I am pleased to be joined by the gentleman from Montana, Senator Baucus, the Ranking Democratic Member on the Finance Committee, in introducing this common sense legislation today. It is now time for Congress to act again and include this meritorious provision in the next appropriate tax bill reported from the Finance Committee.

Corporations and affiliated groups of corporations, for any number of good reasons, find it appropriate and many times necessary to shed some of their businesses. If the business is not being sold, the Internal Revenue Code makes it possible to reorganize without having to recognize gain on the transaction. A typical transaction is a spin-off transaction performed per the terms of section 355 of the Internal Revenue Code, where a parent corporation distributes the shares of its subsidiary(s) to its shareholders who once had shares of just the parent corporation now have shares of both the parent and the shares of just the parent corporation now have shares of its subsidiary(s) to its shareholders who once had shares of just the parent corporation now have shares of both the parent and the subsidiary. As a matter of long- standing tax policy, there is typically no tax exacted with these kinds of divisions, nor should there be. Typically the business hasn't changed what it is doing; it is simply being done under a separated ownership structure and the shareholders have ownership in two corporations instead of one, with no overall change in their holdings.

In order to be accorded tax-free treatment, section 355 requires the corporation involved in the transaction to be engaged in an ``active trade or business.'' Under the current regulations interpreting section 355 of the Internal Revenue Code, a much more rigorous test of ``active trade or business'' is imposed if a holding company seeks to spin-off a subsidiary than would be the case if the subsidiary were simply owned directly by the parent corporation. It is a distinction without substance and requires corporations, holding companies, to go through major restructurings to satisfy the requirements of section 355. There is absolutely no substantive policy rationale for such a result. The distinction is inappropriate and has been identified as such by both the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Treasury Department in 1999 and 2000. This legislation addresses that anomaly and treats both situations equally.

The cost of this provision is minimal, at about $8 million a year by the last revenue estimate from the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. This provision is a small but significant step toward simplification of the tax code, and I urge my colleagues on the Finance Committee and in this body to act on this change one more time, and hopefully for the last time.

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

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

The pending business is the amendment offered by Senators Landrieu, Domenici, Vitter, and others with regard to the offshore royalty.

Mr. President, I believe there are some negotiations going on on other issues. My intent is to speak strictly on this amendment, and then I would be glad to put a quorum back in place if there is not another Senator waiting to speak.

To me, this amendment is about energy production, but it is also about basic fairness. I am not going to argue at this point with those who are opposed to oil and gas drilling in various and sundry places. I personally think we should drill where the oil, where the gas is. I know that is a novel idea. I do believe we need a national energy policy that is broad, that will have more production of oil and gas and clean coal technology and hydropower and nuclear power and LNG plants and conservation and alternative fuels--the whole package.

I am glad we appear to be getting to the end of this debate and amendment process and hopefully will produce a bill that passes overwhelmingly and will get into conference and will come up with a bill that can be passed. We need to do it for the country.

This legislation is about national security, and it is about economic security. If we don't deal with the problems of energy needs, if we don't become less dependent on foreign imported oil, the day will come when we are going to have a problem. Just remember, those troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world, those sailors steaming in ships, those tanks, those planes, it takes fuel to run them. So it is about national security.

We are an energy-driven economy. We need this diversity. We need more production, more independence. I believe we should open more areas than we are prepared to do apparently. But the fact is, in my part of the country and the Gulf of Mexico, we have been prepared to have an energy policy. We have been prepared to have the oil and gas industries and refineries and nuclear plants and LNG plants. We are prepared to do what is necessary not just for our own people and for the financial benefit of our own but, frankly, for the whole country.

We are prepared to produce fuels and oil and gas and other fuels. We are prepared to refine it and share it with the rest of the country. We are prepared to wheel our power to other parts of the country because we have been willing to take the risks. We are willing to build utility plants.

Other parts of the country don't want to drill. They don't want coal. They don't want nuclear power. They don't want hydropower. They don't want utility plants. They want nothing. But they want to flip the switch and have the lights come on. They want to get in their SUVs and drive off into the sunset. I resent that hypocrisy, quite frankly, but that is the way it is.

All we are saying is, in our area--Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama--we have been willing to do what needs to be done, the right thing for our region, for our people, and for our country. So we have oil and gas off the coast. I haven't had a problem with it. I live on the Gulf of Mexico. When I get up in the morning and look out the window, I am looking at the gulf. I am looking at the pelicans that now are plentiful. I am sure they are coming from Louisiana. When I look at ships going and coming, I am looking at oil tankers, smaller tankers that are lightering oil from bigger tankers. I can remember sitting on my front porch and looking at a natural gas well being flared late at night. It wasn't ugly. It was really quite pretty. But there are risks that go with this.

Particularly in Louisiana, they have paid some prices for what we have done. We levied the Mississippi River, the big and mighty Mississippi River, to keep it from overflowing year after year. That has affected their wetlands because now you don't have that overflow that goes particularly west of the river that puts sediment out there. The levees send it right on out into the gulf. Now we are concerned about dead zones. We are concerned about the impact on salinity. We are concerned about the fisheries in the gulf, the shellfish and others.

We have had to oil drill. In some areas of our region, that has led to some channelization. When you are taking things from under the Earth, I think it has an effect on elevation in certain areas, wetlands areas in particular, estuaries.

You might say: Wait a minute. You get the benefit of the business. Some, yes, I don't deny that. It does create some jobs--some good- paying jobs, some dangerous jobs. It does, though, create a lot of activity for which we have to provide services--roads, harbors. Some of the big companies in the Gulf of Mexico drill off of our coast of Mississippi, but they don't do business there, not in my State. They don't really even hire that many employees. So there is some good from this, but there is some risk and some bad things.

Other parts of the country, when you drill in their States, they get 50 percent of the royalties, and we get an infinitesimal 1 percent plus some benefits within, I guess, the 6-mile limits of the State. But that money coming out of the gulf goes into the deep dark hole of the Federal Treasury. A lot of it goes into land and water conservation for other parts of the States.

Other States are saying: We don't want you to drill or produce or build utility plants in our area. And by the way, we don't want you folks down there who are doing the job and taking the risk to get any of that money. We want that money to come up to the Federal Treasury and come to our States.

Now we are accused of trying to bust the budget. No, we are trying to get a fair share. It is not big money in my State, but it would make a huge difference. When you come from a small 2.8 million-population State with a history of poverty and needs, even though we are making some progress now--we are not 50th or 49th or 48th on most lists; we are moving up the line, creating more jobs, more businesses, better education, better roads--we have other problems. We do have wetlands that are being disturbed or destroyed. We are losing some land, as they are in Louisiana. We do have some environmentally sensitive and some historic sites we need to preserve, protect, and improve. We need some help. We are prepared to do the dirty work. We are prepared to take the risks. We are prepared to do the right thing and share it with America. But we do think we should get a little bit of the return on the royalties that go right through our hands to the rest of America.

This is not a great money grab by Louisiana or Texas, Alabama. This is a way that we can get some help from things that we are producing, some benefit that will help our people and preserve the areas we live in and love. We are accused of being insensitive to the environment and to conservation. Well, this will give us a way to do something about it. Quite often, we don't do what we need to do because we cannot afford it; we do not have the money. I plead with my colleagues from all parts of the country: Look at what we are doing. Look at what problems we are coping with, and look at what we will do with this small amount of money.

By the way, the budget allowed $2 billion in this energy area for us to make some decisions on. Yes, it can be objected to on a point of order at the committee or on the floor or out of conference. But there was money allowed, and this amendment gets well within that number. I think this is a questionable budget point of order, although I don't dispute that the chairman has that authority. I want him to have that authority. Chairman Judd Gregg is doing his job. I am not mad at him. I told him I hope he will do his job and I hope he will do it for effect, but don't get mad about it. If anybody should get mad, the Senators from Louisiana and the Texans should get mad, and the Mississippians, too.

I support this amendment. I plead with my colleagues, let us have a little bit to help ourselves, and we will in turn help the country.

I yield to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. President, we have great fear that some day, one of those hurricanes will go right up the mouth of the Mississippi River and inundate New Orleans. When Hurricane Ivan was coming through the gulf last year, when it got to the hundred-mile marker, it was headed for my front porch. Then it veered to the east and missed us by about 90 miles and did a lot of damage.

What can we do about that? First of all, you have to have evacuation routes. We need more money for roads to allow the people to get out of there. The best buffer against the damage is the wetlands, the protective barrier islands, protective areas. The only reason my house hasn't been wiped out is because we have a seawall in front of my house, and we are up on a relatively high point. My house is 11 feet up off the ground, what we call an old Creole house.

It survived hurricanes for 150 years. But these estuaries, these areas outside the main area in which we live, are critical because once that high wind and water hits that area, it begins to lose its strength. If we keep losing land into the gulf, across the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane damage--even though the violence may not increase, the damage will really increase. This is just one aspect.

By the way, we have to be prepared to get people off these oil rigs and out of the Gulf of Mexico. We have to have infrastructure to do that. This will help us achieve that goal.

I yield to my colleague from Mississippi.

I thank my colleague from Mississippi for his comments and his knowledge of the issue and the procedures we are dealing with. It is a great comfort to have him here.

One final point before I yield the floor. I thank Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman for working with the Senators who are sponsoring this legislation to try to help us find a way to make this effort, to get it at a level that would be helpful to us that would not be a budget buster, that would comply with the amount of money that was allowed in the budget resolution. So I commend Senators Vitter and Landrieu, and I hope we will be able to get this provision approved.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as we debate America's energy future, it is critical that we focus on the growing challenge to America's energy security and ultimately to our way of life--posed by an overseas threat currently underway to acquire the world's limited energy resources. China's need for energy is growing rapidly, as China is now the second largest consumer of energy in the world. For all of 2005, it is forecasted that China will consume 7.2 million barrels of oil per day, and its demand could double by 2020 as its economy grows.

At the same time, China produces very little of the energy it uses, and thus is forced to import almost all energy. In its quest for oil, China has become aggressive in brokering deals in every part of the world through its national oil companies. These companies are Government controlled, and unlike private companies are willing to accept lower rates of return with no concerns

about a balance sheet. In short, our country's energy companies may soon find it difficult to compete against these Government owned energy companies in the global energy arena. These companies have access to abundant capital in national treasuries and none of the constraints of regulation faced by U.S. companies nor concerns about rates of return.

Unfortunately, we have a very recent example of this. The China National Offshore Oil Company, CNOOC, has now made public the fact that it is seriously considering making a bid for a U.S. based company, Unocal. This is after Chevron, also a U.S. based California company, has just received FTC preliminary approval for acquisition. This would pave the way for lower energy prices for American consumers. Now, here in the eleventh hour, this Chinese national energy company may offer a counterproposal which would raise troubling policy concerns regarding our National and energy security. Certainly, there would have to be serious review of this situation by numerous Federal agencies including the FTC, SEC, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of State, and many others. China in the past year has brokered deals for oil reserves in Africa, Iran, South America and Canada. Now they have their sights set on a U.S. company and its assets. We are not operating with a level playing field, and it is hard to imagine how America energy companies can continue to compete under these circumstances.

We must do something about this. If we do not act now, we will see fuel prices for consumers increase, and it will be too late to do anything about it. We must begin working today to find a way to work cooperatively with our global trading partners, including addressing conservation, energy efficiency and technology issues, rather than finding ourselves on a collision course in a quest to seek energy resources.

Mr. President, I would like to state my support for the nomination of Thomas B. Griffith to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. I believe that Mr. Griffith will serve the Federal judiciary with honor and distinction.

Mr. Griffith served as Senate Legal Counsel while I was majority leader, and I found him to be intelligent, honorable, and supremely qualified for this position on the Federal bench. As Senate Legal Counsel, he represented the Senate, its committees, Members, officers, and employees in litigation relating to their constitutional powers and privileges; advised committees about their investigatory powers and procedures; and represented the institutional interests of the Senate with honor.

He was appointed to that nonpartisan position by a unanimous resolution sponsored by the leaders on both sides of the aisle. In addition to his service to this body, Mr. Griffith has obtained extensive legal experience in private practice in civil, criminal and regulatory matters.

Mr. Griffith currently serves as assistant to the president and general counsel of Brigham Young University, a position he has held since August of 2000. As general counsel for BYU he is responsible for advising the university on all legal matters, including the management of all litigation involving the university.

Evidence of qualification can also be found in Mr. Griffith's outstanding academic record. He graduated summa cum laude from BYU, receiving high honors with distinction from its Honors Program. He later received his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law and served on the editorial and articles review board of the Virginia Law Review.

Mr. Griffith has the support of a broad, bipartisan group of attorneys and law professors, including Abner Mikva, former Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

This nominee has also served on the American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative's Advisory Board. With the CEELI, he participated in the training of judges and lawyers in Croatia, Serbia, Russia, the Czech Republic and several other countries and has actively worked to establish a regional judicial training institute in Prague. His experiences in these unique endeavors should be of particular value during his tenure on the bench.

Additionally, between 1991 and 1995, Mr. Griffith dedicated hundreds of hours in the pro bono representation. He has also represented disadvantaged students in the public school system in North Carolina during due process hearings that accompanied disciplinary actions.

The American Bar Association has stated that Mr. Griffith is qualified for this position in the Federal judiciary, and I concur.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions, for his leadership on the Judiciary Committee and his aggressive support for this fine nominee to serve in our Federal judiciary.

It is a great pleasure for me to rise today in support of the confirmation of the Honorable Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

There are a lot of people who I would like to commend and congratulate for bringing us to this point of justice for a very fine nominee to our Federal judiciary. We can be critical of how we reached this point, the so-called compromise that was developed by the 14 Senators who came together. You can give credit to the leaders in both parties in certain respects. But the fact of the matter is the Senate voted finally to give Justice Brown an up-or-down vote. I am proud of that.

I think the Senate should take some pride and credit for allowing this nominee to reach this point in the debate and in the voting process. I was pleased, yesterday, to see that 65 Senators voted to invoke cloture to bring this nomination to an up-or-down recorded vote. So a lot of people deserve credit, and I want to make sure they have it. I want to thank them for it.

I also want to ask for the forgiveness of this nominee for the way she has been treated. I do not think this has been one of the Senate's proudest hours.

I think this nominee has such an outstanding personal story to be told, and I will not repeat the history of where she was born and where she was educated and what she has been through, but she has lived the American dream, and she has lived it well. She did not just complain about her status. She worked and got an education. She applied herself. She has been given opportunities, and she has taken advantage of them.

I am proud to say I support her nomination. I think she will make an excellent judge. I really do believe most opposition to her has just been simply the fact that she is an African-American conservative woman. I do not think we should vote for or against judges because they are conservative, moderate, or liberal. I think we should vote on them based on their background, their education, their experience, their decorum. Do they have the ethics for the job? Do they have conflicts of interest?

If they meet all of those qualifications, in my opinion, they should be confirmed. That is what Presidential elections are about. They are about electing men or women to that office who will nominate people to the Federal judiciary who agree with their philosophy. When President Clinton nominated people to the Supreme Court--and I have said this before, but I repeat it again--when he nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, I knew I did not agree with her philosophy. I knew I would not agree with many of her decisions in the Supreme Court. But she was qualified by experience and by education, by every criteria that we should evaluate, and I voted for her. I voted to confirm other judges whom I did not agree with philosophically.

There have been attacks on Justice Brown that she has a philosophy of life, certain moral values, as though that is disqualifying. I do not understand that. Are we not entitled to our opinions, personal opinions, even as judges, let alone as Senators? We certainly have ours and express them routinely. I think judges have a right to have personal and private lives and to be able to give a speech in which they state positions which may not necessarily be reflected in reasoned decisions as judges. You can have an opinion, but if the law is on the other side, you have to rule that way. There was a recent decision by a Federal district judge in my own State that I don't agree with, and I know he doesn't agree with it personally. But he upheld the law in a very reasoned decision. That is what has happened with Justice Brown. She has strong beliefs based on her life experience, but she hasn't tried to impose those in an unfair way as a member of the California Supreme Court. Yet she is attacked--attacked relentlessly and, in my opinion, unfairly and inaccurately on many occasions.

For instance, she has been attacked here for a quote in her dissent in Stevenson v. Huntington Memorial Hospital in which she distinguished age discrimination from race discrimination. Based on this quote, they suggest Justice Brown doesn't believe in public policy against age discrimination. To draw this conclusion based on what Justice Brown wrote is as wrong as making the same accusation against the U.S. Supreme Court, which drew the same distinction in Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, a case Justice Brown cited.

It should be added that both Justice Brown and our Nation's highest court are correct. All of us will eventually get old, and we have parents and grandparents. But most of us will never know what it is like to be Black or Hispanic in America, to be pulled over for no reason other than your skin color, to have grandparents or parents who did not get to go to college or even sit at the same lunch counter or drink from the same water fountain.

These charges are totally out of line with other decisions that she cited and with her own life experience.

She has been attacked for opposing Social Security and Medicare as socialist programs that should be reversed. This is completely untrue. Not a single opinion of hers suggests that she opposes these programs. In fact, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee directly asked her whether she regards New Deal programs such as Social Security, labor standards, and the Securities and Exchange Commission as socialist, and she replied, unequivocally, ``no.'' Has she raised some questions about some of those programs in her private speeches or even her public speeches? Perhaps so. I think it could be done on a principled and substantive basis. But, again, that doesn't disqualify her. If you look at the reasoning she has used while a member of the California Supreme Court, you will see that she cites the law and upholds the law. What she may have said in some speech should not disqualify her.

Senators here have cited a list of interest groups who oppose Justice Brown. But consider this. She is on the Supreme Court in California, not exactly a hot bed of conservatism or moderation. She was retained by the California voters by a margin of 76 percent of the vote, the highest margin of the four California Supreme Court justices on the ballot, six points higher than Stanley Mosk, a well-known liberal jurist in the State, and higher than California's chief justice. The people believe she is a good supreme court justice, qualified, and has been rational and moderate in her views on the supreme court, or they wouldn't have voted for her with 76 percent of the vote.

She has been attacked for her dissent in a case against companies that sold cigarettes to children. The truth is, Justice Brown clearly wrote in her opinion that selling cigarettes to minors is against the law and those guilty of it should be punished.

To suggest that she did not feel this way is totally inaccurate. Yet that has been said on the floor of the Senate during the days of debate we have had.

There are some people who don't exactly share her views who have endorsed her. I read one newspaper column being very critical of her, saying she should not be confirmed. But it went on to say that she has routinely written the decisions of the court, that her decisions are interesting, almost lyrical, and very professional. Yet you maintain in the same column she is not qualified?

In fact, in a recent column, law professor Jonathan Turley, a self- described pro-choice social liberal, points out that ``Brown's legal opinions show a willingness to vote against conservative views . . . when justice demands it'' and that Democrats should confirm her.

Even though Justice Brown has expressed personal opinions against too much government regulation, she has consistently voted to uphold regulations in every walk of life. You mean to tell me that you are disqualified for the Federal judiciary if you think that there are too many government regulations? I certainly believe there are. I would hope that we would have Federal judges that would quit compounding it by writing more and more regulations of their own.

Justice Brown joined in an opinion upholding the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, and expansively interpreted the act to allow the plaintiffs to proceed with their clean water claims. Justice Brown upheld the right of plaintiffs to sue for exposure to toxic chemicals using the Government's environmental regulations. Justice Brown upheld California's very stringent consumer safety standards for identifying and labeling milk and milk products, thereby ensuring that the government has a role in protecting the safety of our children and all Californians.

Justice Brown joined in an opinion validating State labor regulations regarding overtime pay. The list goes on and on and on.

I believe Justice Brown has been very unfairly charged. She is highly qualified. Some would even maintain she has been willing to take this abuse and to step down to this court that is not superior to the one on which she now sits. She has been willing to go through this crucible to be confirmed. She should be confirmed. I am pleased to see a woman, a nominee of this caliber, with her American life story, be nominated. I believe, and I certainly hope, she will be confirmed. I think that history will prove that she will be an outstanding member of the Federal judiciary.

I ask unanimous consent to place further examples of rulings by Justice Brown in the Record.

I yield the floor.

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

I suggest the absence of a quorum.